PRESS ROOM

UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed – popularly known as M.B.Z. — is less well known than his infamous Saudi counterpart Mohammed bin Salman, but he may end up having far more influence on the future of the Middle East. The question is, how will he use that influence, and are his preferred policies ultimately in the interests of either the United States or the people of the region?

In this episode of the Council on Foreign Relations's podcast, "The President's inbox," Election 2020 series of The President’s Inbox, Mackenzie Eaglen and William D. Hartung join host James M. Lindsay to discuss defense spending.

Matt Hoh and another veteran explains why Congress has failed to stop the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and say the United States needs to learn from its imperialist history if anything is going to change.

Bill Hartung, who runs the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, argues that the Iran crisis should “not exploited to underwrite an across-the-board increase in tax dollars for a department that is already substantially overfunded.”

That’s because, as written by William Hartung, U.S. administrations have a well-documented penchant for overconfidence about how quickly or easily the U.S. can win wars.

The coming weeks will almost certainly see an escalation in this political struggle between Iran and the United States, inside Iraq. It will be a struggle not only for the “hearts and minds” of Iraq’s long-suffering people and for influence over its decisionmakers, but also, quite likely, for the continued unity of the country itself.

Bill, who favors cutting defense spending, estimates that perhaps $30 billion of the defense budget falls into the waste, fraud, and abuse category. That’s a lot of money in absolute terms, but just 4 percent in relative terms. Wringing inefficiencies out of the defense budget, though, is easier said than done.

For the past three years, the conventional wisdom has been that the United States and the Trump administration have been fortunate in not having to face a national security crisis. The killing of Qassim Suleimani is Trump’s first (self-inflicted) crisis, and his national security team has failed in every aspect.

Seems to me that Trump’s foreign policy is more aptly characterized, as William Hartung – of the Center for International Policy – coined it, the "P.T. Barnum strategy:" more show than substance.

Donald Trump’s decision to kill Qassim Suleimani, the most influential figure in Iran other than the Ayatollah Khamenei, will increase the terrorist threat to the United States and the global community.

U.S. policy in the [Middle East] has been incoherent for nearly two decades with the pursuit of policies that have created terrorists faster than they could be eliminated.

We should expect better. Seems to me that Trump’s foreign policy is more aptly characterized, as William Hartung – of the Center for International Policy – coined it, the "P.T. Barnum strategy:" more show than substance. It goes both ways, of course, what with Iran potentially "retaliating" against the US for their own domestic consumption, whilst carefully avoiding American casualties.