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One can only measure success or failure by reference to what one is trying achieve. So, in practice, what have U.S. objectives been? Are these objectives still valid? If we’ve failed to advance them, what went wrong? What must we do now to have a better chance of success? Our objectives in the Middle East have not changed much over the course of the past half century or more. We have sought to 1. Gain acceptance and security for a Jewish homeland from the other states and peoples of the region; 2. Ensure the uninterrupted availability of the region’s energy supplies to sustain global and U.S. security and prosperity; 3. Preserve our ability to transit the region so as to be able to project power around the world; 4. Prevent the rise of a regional hegemon or the deployment of weapons of mass destruction that might threaten any or all of these first three objectives; 5. Maximize profitable commerce; and 6. Promote stability while enhancing respect for human rights and progress toward constitutional democracy. Let’s briefly review what’s happened with respect to each of these objectives. I will not mince words.

Israel has come to enjoy military supremacy but it remains excluded from most participation in its region’s political, economic, and cultural life. In the 67 years since the Jewish state was proclaimed, Israel has not made a single friend in the Middle East, where it continues to be regarded as an illegitimate legacy of Western imperialism engaged in racist removal of the indigenous population. International support for Israel is down to the United States and a few of the former colonial powers that originally imposed the Zionist project on the Arabs under Sykes-Picot and the related Balfour Declaration. The two-state solution has expired as a physical or political possibility. There is no longer any peace process to distract global attention from Israel’s maltreatment of its captive Arab populations. After years of deference to American diplomacy, the Palestinians are about to challenge the legality of Israel’s cruelties to them in the International Criminal Court and other venues in which Americans have no veto, are not present, or cannot protect the Jewish state from the consequences of its own behavior as we have always been able to do in the past. Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza are fueling a drive to boycott its products, disinvest in its companies, and sanction its political and cultural elite. These trends are the very opposite of what the United States has attempted to achieve for Israel.

In a stunning demonstration of his country’s most famous renewable resource — chutzpah — Israel’s Prime Minister chose this very moment to make America the main issue in his reelection campaign while simultaneously transforming Israel into a partisan issue in the United States. This is the very opposite of a sound survival strategy for Israel. Uncertainties about their country’s future are leading many Israelis to emigrate, not just to America but to Europe. This should disturb not just Israelis but Americans, if only because of the enormous investment we have made in attempts to gain a secure place for Israel in its region and the world. The Palestinians have been silent about Mr. Netanyahu’s recent political maneuvers. Evidently, they recall Napoleon’s adage that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake. This brings me to an awkward but transcendently important issue. Israel was established as a haven from anti-Semitism — Jew hatred — in Europe, a disease of nationalism and Christian culture that culminated in the Holocaust. Israel’s creation was a relief for European Jews but a disaster for the Arabs of Palestine, who were either ethnically cleansed by European Jewish settlers or subjugated, or both.  But the birth of Israel also proved tragic for Jews throughout the Middle East — the Mizrahim. In a nasty irony, the implementation of Zionism in the Holy Land led to the introduction of European-style anti-Semitism — including its classic Christian libels on Jews — to the region, dividing Arab Jews from their Muslim neighbors as never before and compelling them to join European Jews in taking refuge in Israel amidst outrage over the dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland. Now, in a further irony, Israel’s pogroms and other injustices to the Muslim and Christian Arabs over whom it rules are leading not just to a rebirth of anti-Semitism in Europe but to its globalization.

The late King `Abdullah of Saudi Arabia engineered a reversal of decades of Arab rejectionism at Beirut in 2002. He brought all Arab countries and later all 57 Muslim countries to agree to normalize relations with Israel if it did a deal — any deal — with the Palestinians that the latter could accept. Israel spurned the offer. Its working assumption seems to be that it does not need peace with its neighbors as long as it can bomb and strafe them. Proceeding on this basis is not just a bad bet, it is one that is dividing Israel from the world, including Jews outside Israel. This does not look like a story with a happy ending. It’s hard to avoid the thought that Zionism is turning out to be bad for the Jews. If so, given the American investment in it, it will also have turned out to be bad for America. The political costs to America of support for Israel are steadily rising. We must find a way to divert Israel from the largely self-engineered isolation into which it is driving itself, while repairing our own increasing international ostracism on issues related to Israel.  

Despite Mr. Netanyahu’s recent public hysteria about Iran and his efforts to demonize it, Israel has traditionally seen Iran’s rivalry with the Arabs as a strategic asset. It had a very cooperative relationship with the Shah. Neither Israelis nor Arabs have forgotten the strategic logic that produced Israel's entente with Iran. Israel is very much on Daesh’s list of targets, as is Iran. For now, however, Israel’s main concern is the possible loss of its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Many years ago, Israel actually did what it now accuses Iran of planning to do. It clandestinely developed nuclear weapons while denying to us and others that it was doing so. Unlike Iran, Israel has not adhered to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or subjected its nuclear facilities to international inspection. It has expressed no interest in proposals for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. It sees its ability to bring on nuclear Armageddon as the ultimate guarantee of its existence.

To many, Israel now seems to have acquired the obnoxious habit of biting the American hand that has fed it for so long. The Palestinians have despaired of American support for their self-determination. They are reaching out to the international community in ways that deliberately bypass the United States. Random acts of violence herald mayhem in the Holy Land. Daesh has proclaimed the objective of erasing the Sykes-Picot borders and the states within them. It has already expunged the border between Iraq and Syria. It is at work in Lebanon and has set its sights on Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Lebanon, under Saudi influence, has turned to France rather than America for support. Hezbollah has intervened militarily in Iraq and Syria, both of whose governments are close to Iran. Egypt and Turkey have distanced themselves from the United States as well as from each other. Russia is back as a regional actor and arms supplier. The Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey now separately intervene in Libya, Syria, and Iraq without reference to American policy or views. Iran is the dominant influence in Iraq, Syria, parts of Lebanon, and now Yemen. It has boots on the ground in Iraq. And now Saudi Arabia seems to be organizing a coalition that will manage its own nuclear deterrence and military balancing of Ir

To describe this as out of control is hardly adequate. What are we to do about it? Perhaps we should start by recalling the first law of holes — “when stuck in one, stop digging.” It appears that “don’t just sit there, bomb something” isn’t much of a strategy. When he was asked last summer what our strategy for dealing with Daesh was, President Obama replied, “We don’t yet have one.” He was widely derided for that. He should have been praised for making the novel suggestion that before Washington acts, it should first think through what it hopes to accomplish and how best to do it. Sunzi once observed that “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." America’s noisy but strategy-free approach to the Middle East has proven him right. Again the starting point must be what we are trying to accomplish. Strategy is "the discipline of achieving desired ends through the most efficient use of available means" [John Lewis Gaddis].Our desired ends with respect to the Middle East are not in doubt. They have been and remain to gain an accepted and therefore secure place for Israel there; to keep the region's oil and gas coming at reasonable prices; to be able to pass through the area at will; to head off challenges to these interests; to do profitable business in the markets of the Middle East; and to promote stability amidst the expansion of liberty in its countries. Judging by results, we have been doing a lot wrong. Two related problems in our overall approach need correction. They are “enablement” and the creation of “moral hazard.” Both are fall-out from  relationships of codependency.

Enablement occurs when one party to a relationship indulges or supports and thereby enables another party’s dysfunctional behavior. A familiar example from ordinary life is giving money to a drunk or a drug addict or ignoring, explaining away, or defending their subsequent self-destructive behavior.  Moral hazard is the condition that obtains when one party is emboldened to take risks it would not otherwise take because it knows another party will shoulder the consequences and bear the costs of failure. The U.S.-Israel relationship has evolved to exemplify codependency. It now embodies both enablement and moral hazard. U.S. support for Israel is unconditional.  Israel has therefore had no need to cultivate relations with others in the Middle East, to declare its borders, or to choose peace over continued expansion into formerly Arab lands. Confidence in U.S. backing enables Israel to do whatever it likes to the Palestinians and its neighbors without having to worry about the consequences. Israel is now a rich country, but the United States continues to subsidize it with cash transfers and other fiscal privileges. The Jewish state is the most powerful country in the Middle East. It can launch attacks on its neighbors, confident that it will be resupplied by the United States. Its use of U.S. weapons in ways that violate both U.S. and international law goes unrebuked. 41 American vetoes in the United Nations Security Council have exempted Israel from censure and international law. We enable it to defy the expressed will of the international community, including, ironically, our own.

We Americans are facilitating Israel's indulgence in denial and avoidance of the choices it must make if it is not to jeopardize its long-term existence as a state in the Middle East. The biggest contribution we could now make to Israel's longevity would be to ration our support for it, so as to cause it to rethink and reform its often self-destructive behavior. Such peace as Israel now enjoys with Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians is the direct result of tough love of this kind by earlier American administrations. We Americans cannot save Israel from itself, but we can avoid killing it with uncritical kindness. We should support Israel when it makes sense to do so and it needs our support on specific issues, but not otherwise. Israel is placing itself and American interests in jeopardy. We need to discuss how to reverse this dynamic.

Moral hazard has also been a major problem in our relationship with our Arab partners. Why should they play an active role in countering the threat to them they perceive from Iran, if they can get America to do this for them? Similarly, why should any Muslim country rearrange its priorities to deal with Muslim renegades like Daesh when it can count on America to act for it? If America thinks it must lead, why not let it do so? But responsible foreign and defense policies begin with self-help, not outsourcing of military risks. The United States has the power-projection and war-fighting capabilities to back a Saudi-led coalition effort against Daesh. The Saudis have the religious and political credibility, leadership credentials, and diplomatic connections to organize such an effort. We do not. Since this century began, America has administered multiple disappointments to its allies and friends in the Middle East, while empowering their and our adversaries. Unlike the Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey, Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Given our non-Muslim identity, solidarity with Israel, and recent history in the Fertile Crescent, the United States cannot hope to unite the region’s Muslims against Daesh.  Daesh is an insurgency that claims to exemplify Islam as well as a governing structure and an armed force. A coalition led by inhibited foreign forces, built on papered-over differences, and embodying hedged commitments will not defeat such an insurgency with or without boots on the ground.

When elections have yielded governments whose policies we oppose, we have not hesitated to conspire with their opponents to overthrow them. But the results of our efforts to coerce political change in the Middle East are not just failures but catastrophic failures. Our policies have nowhere produced democracy. They have instead contrived the destabilization of societies, the kindling of religious warfare, and the installation of dictatorships contemptuous of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Frankly, we have done a lot better at selling things, including armaments, to the region than we have at transplanting the ideals of the Atlantic Enlightenment there. The region’s autocrats cooperate with us to secure our protection, and they get it. When they are nonetheless overthrown, the result is not democracy or the rule of law but socio-political collapse and the emergence of  a Hobbesian state of nature in which religious and ethnic communities, families, and individuals are able to feel safe only when they are armed and have the drop on each other. Where we have engineered or attempted to engineer regime change, violent politics, partition, and ethno-religious cleansing have everywhere succeeded unjust but tranquil order. One result of our bungled interventions in Iraq and Syria is the rise of Daesh. This is yet another illustration that, in our efforts to do good in the Middle East, we have violated the principle that one should first do no harm.

Americans used to believe that we could best lead by example. We and those in the Middle East seeking nonviolent change would all be better off if America returned to that tradition and forswore ideologically motivated hectoring and intervention. No one willingly follows a wagging finger. Despite our unparalleled ability to use force against foreigners, the best way to inspire them to emulate us remains showing them that we have our act together. At the moment, we do not. In the end, to cure the dysfunction in our policies toward the Middle East, it comes down to this. We must cure the dysfunction and venality of our politics. If we cannot, we have no business trying to use an 8,000-mile-long screwdriver to fix things one-third of the way around the world. That doesn’t work well under the best of circumstances. But when the country wielding the screwdriver has very little idea what it’s doing, it really screws things up.

It's easier for Brazil to win the World Cup with a team of crybabies with no tactical nous than having US Secretary of State John Kerry and his State Department ciphers understand that the Syrian "opposition" is controlled by jihadis. But then again, they do know -- and that perfectly fits into the Empire of Chaos's not so hidden Global War on Terror (GWOT) agenda of an ever-expanding proxy war in both Syria and Iraq fueled by terror financing. So 13 years ago, Washington crushed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then the Taliban were reborn. Then came Shock and Awe. Then came "Mission Accomplished." Then al-Qaeda was introduced in Iraq. Then al-Qaeda was dead because Osama bin Laden was dead. Then came ISIL. And now there's IS. And we start all over again, not in the Hindu Kush, but in the Levant. With a new Osama. What's not to like? If anyone thinks this whole racket is part of a new live Monty Python sketch ahead of their reunion gig this month in London, that's because it is.

The Journal is apparently using the terms “opposition” and Al Qaeda interchangeably, while also lumping the exiled “Syrian National Coalition” in with the notorious terrorist franchise – a US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization. The Journal is also admitting that the Coalition is funding Al Qaeda to run “local councils.” The narrative, repeated across the Western media, is that Idlib has been irreversibly seized by the “opposition,” and destined to become the capital of Syria’s alleged “opposition.”

Only a handful of Western sources include Al Qaeda in their headlines regarding Idlib. Many headlines are referring to Jabhat al Nusra, a US State Department-listed terrorist organization, as the “Syrian opposition,” or a “Jihadi” or “Islamist” coalition. It is clear that the West is attempting to spin the fall of an entire city to Al Qaeda as a victory, rather than a threat to global peace and stability. Talk from the terrorists themselves attempts to portray a softer image, asking for “consultation” regarding the administration of the city. This comes in the wake of other recent calls by US ally, and host of the US Combat Air Operations Center for the Middle East, Qatar, who openly admitted it was supporting Al Qaeda in Syria, and sought to back it further with the precondition al Nusra scaled back its extremist rhetoric (note: not scale back its actual extremism). In Reuters’ article, “Syria’s Nusra Front may leave Qaeda to form new entity,” it would be reported that: Leaders of Syria’s Nusra Front are considering cutting their links with al Qaeda to form a new entity backed by some Gulf states trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, sources said. Sources within and close to Nusra said that Qatar, which enjoys good relations with the group, is encouraging the group to go ahead with the move, which would give Nusra a boost in funding.

Reuters admits inadvertently that al-Nusrah is already enjoying Qatari support. It is clear that al Nusra has not “severed ties to Al Qaeda” because it is Al Qaeda. What is forming before the world’s collective eyes is an attempt to sell the concept of an Al Qaeda-led opposition government, based in Idlib, behind which NATO and its Persian Gulf allies will place their support. While this scenario seems “implausible,” it should be mentioned that from the beginning of the fighting in Libya in 2011, it was pointed out by many geopolitical analysts that the so-called “freedom fighters” were in fact literally Al Qaeda, with NATO providing it  with air cover, weapons, cash, and diplomatic support. In Libya, operational momentum outpaced the public’s awareness regarding the true nature of the opposition. In Syria, the West is desperately trying to reshape the public’s awareness that the opposition is in fact Al Qaeda – before a NATO buffer zone can be created around Idlib.

Last week Syria’s First Deputy Prime Minister Faisal Mikdad reiterated that the government was ready to immediately proceed with attempts to find a political settlement with what he describes as a “worthy national opposition”. Mikdad said: “We are ready to immediately sit down at the negotiating table with the worthy national opposition, but not with the opposition connected with external forces,” the agency quotes him as saying. “We are prepared to take part in the work of four groups to seek ways out of the conflict set up at the initiative of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.” One of the most persistent points of contention between the Syrian government and the foreign-backed, foreign-based opposition groups is the opposition’s demand for the formation of a transitional government. While the Syrian government does not reject such a transitional government on an a priori basis, it insists that it has no constitutional mandate to form any government without involving the Syrian electorate.

Russia’s increased activity along the Syrian-Turkish border signifies the closing phases of the Syrian conflict. With Syrian and Kurdish forces holding the border east of the Euphrates, the Afrin-Jarabulus corridor is the only remaining conduit for supplies bound for terrorists in Syria to pass. Syrian forces have begun pushing east toward the Euphrates from Aleppo, and then will move north to the Syrian-Turkish border near Jarabulus. Approximately 90-100 km west near Afrin, Ad Dana, and Azaz, it appears Russia has begun cutting off terrorist supply lines right at the border. It is likely Syrian forces will arrive and secure this region as well. For those that have criticized Russia’s air campaign claiming conflicts can’t be won from the air without a ground component, it should be clear by now that the Syrian Arab Army is that ground component, and has dealt ISIS and Al Qaeda its most spectacular defeats in the conflict. When this corridor is closed and supplies cut off, ISIS, Nusra, and all associated NATO-backed factions will atrophy and die as the Syrian military restores order across the country. This may be why there has been a sudden “rush” by the West to move assets into the region, the impetus driving the United States to place special forces into Syrian territory itself, and for Turkey’s ambush of a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian-Turkish border.

Obviously, any nation truly interested in defeating ISIS would attack it at its very source – its supply lines. Military weaponry may have changed over the centuries, but military strategy, particularly identifying and severing an enemy’s supply lines is a tried and true method of achieving victory in any conflict. Russia, therefore, would find these convoys a natural target and would attempt to hit them as close to the Syrian-Turkish border as possible, to negate any chance the supplies would successfully reach ISIS’ hands. Russian President Vladmir Putin noted, regarding the Azaz convoy in particular, that if the convoy was legitimately carrying aid, it would have been declared, and its activities made known to all nations operating military aircraft in the region.

What all of this adds up to is a clear illustration of precisely why the Syrian conflict was never truly a “civil war.” The summation of support for militants fighting against the Syrian government and people, has come from beyond Syria’s borders. With that support being cut off and the prospect of these militants being eradicated, the true sponsors behind this conflict are moving more directly and overtly to salvage their failed conspiracy against the Syrian state. What we see emerging is what was suspected and even obvious all along – a proxy war started by, and fought for Western hegemonic ambitions in the region, intentionally feeding the forces of extremism, not fighting them.

One reason Mr. Obama has emphasized the size of the coalition lately has been to isolate Russia, which has begun its own military operations in Syria, independent of the United States and its allies, to bolster the government of President Bashar al-Assad.“We’ve got a coalition of 65 countries who’ve been active in pushing back against ISIL for quite some time,” Mr. Obama said last week. “Russia right now is a coalition of two — Iran and Russia, supporting Assad.”At a briefing this month, John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, defended the coalition when a reporter suggested Russia was doing more than many members.“It’s a coalition of the willing, which means every nation has to be willing to contribute what they can,” Mr. Kirby said. Not everyone can conduct airstrikes, he added, “but that doesn’t mean that other nations’ contributions aren’t important.”

Meanwhile, that police state run by King Playstation, also known as Jordan, has opened its airspace to Israeli drones now engaged in "monitoring" Syria. As Asia Times Online has repeatedly warned, Obama in Syria is fast becoming a remix of Reagan in 1980s Afghanistan. We all know what came out of those "freedom fighters" afterwards. In this context, Robert Ford, Obama's alleged Syria expert, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it's important for Washington to "weigh in" to affect "the internal balance of power in Syria" qualifies as a joke line, not a red line.

The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald has said that Snowden provided him “thousands” of documents, of which “dozens” are newsworthy. And Snowden himself has said he’d like to expose his trove of leaks to the global media so that each country’s reporters can decide whether “U.S. network operations against their people should be published.” So regardless of where Snowden ends up, expect more of his revelations to follow.

The Turkish president has nevertheless stressed that Ankara itself would not take part in the talks between foreign ministers in Kazakhstan next month if Syrian Kurdish groups – whom he called "terrorist organizations" – were also present. According to a security analyst and former Pentagon official speaking to RT, however, Erdogan's accusations are not that far-fetched, given the United States' history. "The evidence (mentioned by Erdogan) is quite ample, (the US) have been doing it for a number of years, including running secret CIA operations through Jordan, then through Turkey and into Syria," he said. Erdogan’s comments echo Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, who recently also blamed the West for having “no real intention to fight neither in Syria nor in Iraq,” as quoted by RT. “We don’t see any readiness on their part to play a truly useful and meaningful role in fighting IS, because it’s them who have raised terrorists and they are interested in keeping them there,” he added.

The defeat of the about 20,000 strong Libyan Brigade and other, predominantly Muslim Brotherhood linked “rebels” in 2012 would lead to the influx of Salafi / Wahhabi fighters in 2013, as outlined in a detailed report entitled “Tentative Jihad” published by the International Crisis Group. Ironically, McCain would later appear on a photo, taken in a safe house in Idlib, Syria, meeting with Ilamic State leader al-Baghdai (a.k.a. al-Bhadri or Caliph Ibrahim). Links between the AKP and the LIFG have been alleged since 2011. The email discovered in the WikiLeaks cache, however, may be the first that substantiates a direct link between a member of the AKP and Belhaj. Because Turkey has blocked access to WikiLeaks, and because the website allegedly has been subject to a sustained cyber attack, we will re-publish the email in its entirety here:

Rebel groups in recent days have made surprising gains in a new offensive to try to break through Syrian military lines encircling Aleppo, but if it fails, rebels inside the city will face a choice between enduring the siege or surrendering.

n recent interviews, rebel commanders said the flow of foreign weapons needed to break the siege had slowed. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “We are using most of our weapons in the battle for Aleppo,” said Mustafa al-Hussein, a member of Suqour al-Jabal, one of the C.I.A.-backed groups. He said the flow of weapons to the group had diminished in the past three to four months.“Now we fire them only when it is necessary and urgent,” he said.Another commander, Maj. Mousa al-Khalad of Division 13, a C.I.A.-backed rebel group operating in Idlib and Aleppo, said his group had received no missiles for two weeks.“We filed a request to get TOW missiles for the Aleppo front,” he said, but the reply was that there were none in the warehouses.Rebel leaders and military experts say that perhaps the most pressing danger is that supply routes from Turkey, which are essential to the C.I.A.-backed rebels, could be severed.“The U.S. is doing just enough to placate its allies and partners and says it is doing something, but does not seek to do what it takes to change conditions on the battlefield,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and an Assad critic.

This would be followed by a self-evident de jure annexation, which would seem almost natural. Palestinians would be left with what they currently have: enclaves that are barely connected to one another. Israel would govern them externally and enter them at will. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, if the Palestinians want to call this kind of autonomy a state, that’s their affair. This would also mark the definite end of the Oslo Accords; the Palestinian Authority would not be upgraded to a sovereign state on the entirety of the 1967 territories. Netanyahu is exploiting Abbas’ adaptability and passivity. Abbas pays no attention to the voices calling on him to shutter the Palestinian Authority and hand over the keys to Israel, who would then have to bear full responsibility for its policies. He persists in security cooperation with Israel on the grounds that they share the same enemies: Hamas and the Islamic State. Abbas and the PA also have an interest in keeping the benefits that they receive as part of a ruling class sponsored by Israel. The continued existence of a hobbled PA is also in Europe’s interests. European countries donate heavily in order to keep the PA in its current incarnation, on the premise that it is a stable factor in fighting radical Islam and prevents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from engulfing the continent’s cities.

Yet Netanyahu is using Trump even more than he is using Abbas, hence the importance of their upcoming meeting in D.C. Trump’s position on Israel-Palestine remains unclear, and his limited attention prevents him from getting into the details. He is a man of simplistic principles that can be summarized in a formula — the opposite of Barack Obama and Kerry. Trump rejected UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the international understanding of the borders of June 4, 1967 as the future border between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state. Trump also condemned Obama’s decision not to use the U.S.’s veto. Trump also denounced Kerry’s final speech on the Middle East, in which he portrayed the Netanyahu government’s annexationist policy as racist. Israel believes that continuing to rule over the Palestinians when there are equal numbers in both demographic groups will allow it to remain a Jewish and democratic state. Kerry called this an illusion, saying that the result would be “separate but unequal.” He deliberately used the term for the racist regime of separation that formerly prevailed in the U.S. According to Kerry, such a regime is in opposition to America’s democratic principles, and as such, the U.S. could not support it. Trump’s executive orders and senior appointments, however, have shown that he has a different understanding of American democracy and the rights of minorities.

Netanyahu and Trump hold similar basic positions. Netanyahu can try to nail down Trump’s agreement to a “state-minus” policy, and present it as a security necessity that will prevent the West Bank from falling into the hands of radical Islamists. As part of such an approach, Netanyahu could also secure the president’s blessing for settlement expansion in the West Bank, especially in the Jerusalem area. In play are two sets of Israeli building plans aimed at completely sealing off the area that separates Palestinian Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank: Givat HaMatos, which sits between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the larger expanse between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, also known as the E1 area. The surprising hush that has fallen over the campaign for a law that would annex Ma’ale Adumim indicates that it will be on the agenda when Netanyahu and Trump sit down together. An agreement with Trump would allow Netanyahu to tackle the expected opposition from Western European countries to the plan for a state-minus. These countries’ guiding values will be far more similar to those of the Obama administration than the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was encouraged by the U.K.’s decision to activate Article 50 in order to leave the European Union, and its overtures to Trump as a replacement; he hurried to meet Prime Minister Theresa May, who had herself just returned from D.C. The Israeli government has also drawn encouragement from the various messages coming out of Europe that continued settlement-building endangers the two-state solution. That is, indeed, the aim. Up until Kerry’s speech, that had also been the automatic response of the Obama administration. From the moment Kerry declared that the settlements were creating a racist regime, Netanyahu perceived the danger of a new international agenda. Instead of the question of a Palestinian state, attention is now on the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state

The State Department list of extended closings comprised embassies and consulates in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Libya, Djibouti, Sudan, Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius, the last four of which hadn’t been among the first wave announced Friday. Embassies and consulates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Iraq and Mauritania reopened Monday.

A further NSA document obtained by the Hindu suggests the agency selected the office of India's mission at the UN in New York and the country's Washington embassy as "location targets" where records of Internet traffic, emails, telephone and office conversations – and even official documents stored digitally – could potentially be accessed after programs had been clandestinely inserted into computers.In March 2013, the NSA collected 6.3bn pieces of information from internet networks in India and 6.2bn pieces of information from the country's telephone networks during the same period, the Hindu said.After the Guardian reported in June that Pm program allowed the NSA "to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders", both US and Indian officials claimed no content was being taken from the country's networks and that the programs were intended to aid "counter-terrorism".

A home ministry official told the newspaper the government had been "rattled" to discover the extent of the the programme's interest in India. "It's not just violation of our sovereignty, it's a complete intrusion into our decision-making process," the official said.

The Hindu argued that "the targeting of India's politics and space programme by the NSA busts the myth of close strategic partnership between India and US", pointing out that the other countries targeted in the same way as India "are generally seen as adversarial" by Washington.