foreignpolicy--2020-11-09--In Nagorno-Karabakh, the Cycle of Ethnic Cleansing Continues

In Nagorno-Karabakh , the Cycle of Ethnic Cleansing Continues YEREVAN , Armenia—As Azerbaijani forces continue to advance in Nagorno-Karabakh , the region is facing a very real risk of massive ethnic cleansing—again .
This war began on Sept. 27 .
Already hundreds of people have been killed , waves of hatred have engulfed both societies , and international diplomats ’ efforts to stem the violence have had little effect .
It is the most dangerous moment in the region since the two sides fought their first war in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethnic cleansing that took place as a result of that first war .
Then , as the Soviet Union was collapsing , Armenians sought to take control of Nagorno-Karabakh , a majority-Armenian enclave within the borders of Azerbaijan , then a fellow Soviet republic .
Azerbaijanis resisted , and ethnic tensions spiked .
Ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan were targeted by pogroms , and hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled Azerbaijan , as did Azerbaijanis who had been living in Armenia .
In the war that ensued , Armenians managed to take control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large parts of Azerbaijani territory surrounding it that had previously had a negligible Armenian population .
More than 600,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes .
Azerbaijanis have not gotten over the impact of the war ; the plight of the displaced and the injustice of the seizure of their lands remain a gaping wound .
About 7 percent of Azerbaijan ’ s current population consists of internally displaced persons , one of the highest such rates in the world .
Many of the displaced people continue to harbor hopes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The population of the Armenian-controlled territory , meanwhile—about 150,000—is nearly 100 percent ethnic Armenian , and there are virtually no Azerbaijanis .
While the conflict is often referred to in shorthand as “ the Karabakh war , ” it is in fact the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that have become the key point of contention .
Armenians originally envisaged the seizure of these territories as a temporary measure : a security belt and a bargaining chip to return to Azerbaijan in exchange for concessions in return , such as the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that conception has changed .
Armenians more and more came see these territories as inherently theirs , as “ liberated , ” something impossible to consider giving back to Azerbaijan .
The negotiations that once held some promise for a real peace deal have stagnated in recent years , and Azerbaijanis have increasingly come to the conclusion that Armenians were never going to voluntarily allow them to return to their former homes .
This is part of the ethnic cleansing story .
All this time , Azerbaijan ’ s government has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its territory , the rights of the current Armenian population will be respected and Nagorno-Karabakh will enjoy a high level of political autonomy inside Azerbaijan .
But as its leaders are saying that out of one side of their mouths , out of the other side they are heaping hateful rhetoric on Armenians .
Government officials , media , and school textbooks have dehumanized Armenians for decades , portraying them as Azerbaijanis ’ greatest enemy .
Most recently , a staff member of one of Azerbaijan ’ s top soccer teams wrote on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all Armenians – children , women and the elderly .
We need to kill them without making a distinction .
No regrets .
No compassion.
” He was punished by the clubbut the post was widely spread among Armenians , who saw in it proof of the deep hate that ’ s been inculcated in Azerbaijan .
So Armenians have had little reason to believe the Azerbaijani government ’ s promises of a peaceful life under Azerbaijani rule .
Now that Azerbaijan has launched this offensive , with the aim of taking back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Armenians ’ worst fears have been realized .
The way that Azerbaijan has been conducting the war has only confirmed Armenians ’ fears that they now face a real threat of ethnic cleansing .
Azerbaijani forces have been indiscriminately bombarding Stepanakert , the de facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh with a population of about 55,000 , including with cluster bombs .
( Armenia also has been documented as using cluster bombs . )
They bombed a historic church .
Tens of thousands of people have already fled Nagorno-Karabakh .
Azerbaijani forces have just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history in Nagorno-Karabakh .
They now have a clear firing line onto nearby , downhill Stepanakert .
The last remaining journalists have been evacuated from Stepanakert , but as they were leaving they documented thousands more fleeing the city ahead of an expected Azerbaijani assault .
It seems likely that the entire Armenian population may flee , and that the territory will again be ethnically cleansed .
It didn ’ t have to be like this .
For centuries , Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived peacefully together in Nagorno-Karabakh .
Although the fabric of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began to fray only in the beginning of the 20th century .
The first interethnic clashes took place amid the power vacuum of the waning Russian Empire .
Later , the Soviet Union—for the first time in the region ’ s history—drew internal borders that attempted to correspond to the territory ’ s ethnic makeup .
The early Soviet nationality policies “ were underpinned by the principle that the world could and should be divided into discrete national groups , which belonged in clearly defined territories , ” as historian Jo Laycock put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this was an inexact science given the patchwork reality on the ground .
In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan , those national groups overlapped in Nagorno-Karabakh and other parts of the Caucasus .
And so the Soviet division of territory inevitably gave rise to grievances on all sides .
Late Soviet dissident nationalist intellectuals went further , writing rogue accounts of their respective groups ’ histories that completely wrote other groups out of the story .
Those histories became political consensus in both Armenia and Azerbaijan , effectively justifyinga monoethnic Nagorno-Karabakh—for both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imagine a way out of this dilemma .
But the alternative is too horrible to accept : another humanitarian catastrophe and another deep injustice , this time with Nagorno-Karabakh ’ s Armenians as the victims .
There ’ s a slim chance that the current bloodshed might sober up leaders on both sides and force them to accept the painful compromises that will eventually be needed for a real peace .
Otherwise , it seems , the cycle of ethnic cleansing may never end .

YEREVAN, Armenia—As Azerbaijani forces continue to advance in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region is facing a very real risk of massive ethnic cleansing—again.
This war began on Sept. 27. Already hundreds of people have been killed, waves of hatred have engulfed both societies, and international diplomats’ efforts to stem the violence have had little effect. It is the most dangerous moment in the region since the two sides fought their first war in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The roots of the current fighting lie the ethnic cleansing that took place as a result of that first war. Then, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Armenians sought to take control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-Armenian enclave within the borders of Azerbaijan, then a fellow Soviet republic. Azerbaijanis resisted, and ethnic tensions spiked. Ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan were targeted by pogroms, and hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled Azerbaijan, as did Azerbaijanis who had been living in Armenia. In the war that ensued, Armenians managed to take control not only of Nagorno-Karabakh, but of large parts of Azerbaijani territory surrounding it that had previously had a negligible Armenian population. More than 600,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes.
Azerbaijanis have not gotten over the impact of the war; the plight of the displaced and the injustice of the seizure of their lands remain a gaping wound. About 7 percent of Azerbaijan’s current population consists of internally displaced persons, one of the highest such rates in the world. Many of the displaced people continue to harbor hopes of returning to their homes and land. The population of the Armenian-controlled territory, meanwhile—about 150,000—is nearly 100 percent ethnic Armenian, and there are virtually no Azerbaijanis.
While the conflict is often referred to in shorthand as “the Karabakh war,” it is in fact the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that have become the key point of contention.
Armenians originally envisaged the seizure of these territories as a temporary measure: a security belt and a bargaining chip to return to Azerbaijan in exchange for concessions in return, such as the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh itself as Armenian.
Over time, however, that conception has changed. Armenians more and more came see these territories as inherently theirs, as “liberated,” something impossible to consider giving back to Azerbaijan. The negotiations that once held some promise for a real peace deal have stagnated in recent years, and Azerbaijanis have increasingly come to the conclusion that Armenians were never going to voluntarily allow them to return to their former homes.
This is part of the ethnic cleansing story.
All this time, Azerbaijan’s government has been promising that when it retakes control of its territory, the rights of the current Armenian population will be respected and Nagorno-Karabakh will enjoy a high level of political autonomy inside Azerbaijan.
But as its leaders are saying that out of one side of their mouths, out of the other side they are heaping hateful rhetoric on Armenians. Government officials, media, and school textbooks have dehumanized Armenians for decades, portraying them as Azerbaijanis’ greatest enemy.
Most recently, a staff member of one of Azerbaijan’s top soccer teams wrote on social media, “We must kill all Armenians – children, women and the elderly. We need to kill them without making a distinction. No regrets. No compassion.” He was punished by the clubbut the post was widely spread among Armenians, who saw in it proof of the deep hate that’s been inculcated in Azerbaijan.
So Armenians have had little reason to believe the Azerbaijani government’s promises of a peaceful life under Azerbaijani rule.
Now that Azerbaijan has launched this offensive, with the aim of taking back at least some of its lost territories, Armenians’ worst fears have been realized. The way that Azerbaijan has been conducting the war has only confirmed Armenians’ fears that they now face a real threat of ethnic cleansing.
Azerbaijani forces have been indiscriminately bombarding Stepanakert, the de facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh with a population of about 55,000, including with cluster bombs. (Armenia also has been documented as using cluster bombs.) They bombed a historic church. Tens of thousands of people have already fled Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani forces have just retaken Shusha, the center of Azerbaijani history in Nagorno-Karabakh. They now have a clear firing line onto nearby, downhill Stepanakert. The last remaining journalists have been evacuated from Stepanakert, but as they were leaving they documented thousands more fleeing the city ahead of an expected Azerbaijani assault. It seems likely that the entire Armenian population may flee, and that the territory will again be ethnically cleansed.
It didn’t have to be like this.
For centuries, Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived peacefully together in Nagorno-Karabakh. Although the fabric of coexistence now seems irreparably torn, it began to fray only in the beginning of the 20th century. The first interethnic clashes took place amid the power vacuum of the waning Russian Empire. Later, the Soviet Union—for the first time in the region’s history—drew internal borders that attempted to correspond to the territory’s ethnic makeup. The early Soviet nationality policies “were underpinned by the principle that the world could and should be divided into discrete national groups, which belonged in clearly defined territories,” as historian Jo Laycock put it recently. In the Caucasus, this was an inexact science given the patchwork reality on the ground. In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, those national groups overlapped in Nagorno-Karabakh and other parts of the Caucasus. And so the Soviet division of territory inevitably gave rise to grievances on all sides. Late Soviet dissident nationalist intellectuals went further, writing rogue accounts of their respective groups’ histories that completely wrote other groups out of the story. Those histories became political consensus in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, effectively justifyinga monoethnic Nagorno-Karabakh—for both groups.
It is difficult today to imagine a way out of this dilemma. But the alternative is too horrible to accept: another humanitarian catastrophe and another deep injustice, this time with Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians as the victims. There’s a slim chance that the current bloodshed might sober up leaders on both sides and force them to accept the painful compromises that will eventually be needed for a real peace. Otherwise, it seems, the cycle of ethnic cleansing may never end.
This reporting was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center


foreignpolicy--2020-11-09--The Trump of the Tropics After Trump

The Trump of the Tropics After Trump

The Trump of the Tropics After Trump This article is part of Election 2020 : America Votes , FP ’ s round-the-clock coverage of the U.S. election results as they come in , with short dispatches from correspondents and analysts around the world .
The America Votes page is free for all readers .
No U.S. presidential election in living memory has been so closely watched in Brazil as this one .
Through social media meltdowns and televised debates , countless Brazilians came away from the coverage bewildered at the complexity of the U.S. electoral system and more appreciative of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which allows the Electoral Courts to reveal results within hours of polling stations closing .
In the United States , the slow process of counting votes , incumbent President Donald Trump ’ s premature declaration of victory , his threats to take the decision to the Supreme Court , and rising case counts in the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to encapsulate what has been a disastrous year for the United States ’ reputation in the world .
“ Who is the banana republic now ?
” the Colombian magazine Publimetro provocatively asked on its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to concede defeat .
Even more than the spectacle , Brazilians were rapt by the electoral contest because its outcome is likely to have significant consequences for domestic politics in Latin America ’ s largest country .
That is because President Jair Bolsonaro ’ s political persona has been so closely modeled on Trump .
Now , a victory by Joe Biden has robbed the Brazilian president of his main assets .
His No .
1 ally is gone , as is his direct access to the White House .
Since becoming president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s slipstream , not paying much of a price for his government ’ s systematic attacks on multilateralism and its climate change denialism .
But now , his calculations will have to change , especially with his domestic critics already starting to focus on the lessons Biden ’ s campaign offered for presidential hopefuls planning to challenge the so-called “ Trump of the Tropics.
” Bolsonaro ’ s decision not to congratulate Biden until Trump has conceded represents the dilemma the Brazilian president will face in the coming years : how to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new U.S. president and preserve an important economic and political partnership ( since last year , Brazil has been a major non-NATO ally ) without betraying Trumpism , which is an important ingredient of the Brazilian president ’ s overall political narrative and which helped him mobilize his most radical followers .
For Brazil ’ s president , there is no easy way out .
Pro-Bolsonaro WhatsApp groups are already teeming with conspiracy theories about how the Democrats stole the election .
If Bolsonaro decides to establish a pragmatic working relationship with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ backlash from his most loyal followers .
Yet decrying an illegitimate globalist takeover of the White House is likely to cause a fierce reaction from economic elites , who are growing tired of the uncertainty created by Bolsonaro ’ s radical foreign policy .
Already having lashed out at numerous key economic partners such as Argentina , China , and the European Union , cheered on by ardent anti-globalist Bolsonaro fans , offending the U.S. president-elect may be a step too far for Brazil ’ s president .

No U.S. presidential election in living memory has been so closely watched in Brazil as this one. Through social media meltdowns and televised debates, countless Brazilians came away from the coverage bewildered at the complexity of the U.S. electoral system and more appreciative of Brazil’s electronic voting system, which allows the Electoral Courts to reveal results within hours of polling stations closing. In the United States, the slow process of counting votes, incumbent President Donald Trump’s premature declaration of victory, his threats to take the decision to the Supreme Court, and rising case counts in the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to encapsulate what has been a disastrous year for the United States’ reputation in the world. “ Who is the banana republic now? ” the Colombian magazine Publimetro provocatively asked on its cover, amid Trump’s refusal to concede defeat.
No U.S. presidential election in living memory has been so closely watched in Brazil as this one. Through social media meltdowns and televised debates, countless Brazilians came away from the coverage bewildered at the complexity of the U.S. electoral system and more appreciative of Brazil’s electronic voting system, which allows the Electoral Courts to reveal results within hours of polling stations closing. In the United States, the slow process of counting votes, incumbent President Donald Trump’s premature declaration of victory, his threats to take the decision to the Supreme Court, and rising case counts in the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to encapsulate what has been a disastrous year for the United States’ reputation in the world. “Who is the banana republic now?” the Colombian magazine Publimetro provocatively asked on its cover, amid Trump’s refusal to concede defeat.
Even more than the spectacle, Brazilians were rapt by the electoral contest because its outcome is likely to have significant consequences for domestic politics in Latin America’s largest country. That is because President Jair Bolsonaro’s political persona has been so closely modeled on Trump. Now, a victory by Joe Biden has robbed the Brazilian president of his main assets. His No. 1 ally is gone, as is his direct access to the White House. Since becoming president, Bolsonaro has largely operated in Trump’s slipstream, not paying much of a price for his government’s systematic attacks on multilateralism and its climate change denialism. But now, his calculations will have to change, especially with his domestic critics already starting to focus on the lessons Biden’s campaign offered for presidential hopefuls planning to challenge the so-called “Trump of the Tropics.”
Bolsonaro’s decision not to congratulate Biden until Trump has conceded represents the dilemma the Brazilian president will face in the coming years: how to establish a productive working relationship with the new U.S. president and preserve an important economic and political partnership (since last year, Brazil has been a major non-NATO ally) without betraying Trumpism, which is an important ingredient of the Brazilian president’s overall political narrative and which helped him mobilize his most radical followers.
For Brazil’s president, there is no easy way out. Pro-Bolsonaro WhatsApp groups are already teeming with conspiracy theories about how the Democrats stole the election. If Bolsonaro decides to establish a pragmatic working relationship with the Biden administration, he will risk a backlash from his most loyal followers. Yet decrying an illegitimate globalist takeover of the White House is likely to cause a fierce reaction from economic elites, who are growing tired of the uncertainty created by Bolsonaro’s radical foreign policy. Already having lashed out at numerous key economic partners such as Argentina, China, and the European Union, cheered on by ardent anti-globalist Bolsonaro fans, offending the U.S. president-elect may be a step too far for Brazil’s president.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-09--France’s Muslims Could Learn from the African American Muslim Experience

France ’ s Muslims Could Learn from the African American Muslim Experience The despicable beheading of a school teacher in France by an extremist Muslim on Oct. 16—and attacks at churches in Nice and Lyon later in October—point to a troubling cultural dynamic in Europe .
Some Muslims are bringing one-dimensional , old-world thinking to the pluralistic environments in the West , resulting in intolerance and extremist violence .
Some Muslim leaders around the globe claim this violence is a reaction to Islamophobia .
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to deflect attention from the crimes by saying France @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Islamophobia disease.
” More recently , former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad tweeted that “ Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past , ” alluding to French colonialism .
On the other side , commentators such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali have argued that this dynamic of violence is inherent to Islam , while many academics have claimed that Muslims ’ religious values inhibit their integration in Europe .
By this flawed logic , violent conflict would appear inevitable when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the West .
But all of these views ignore that , for almost 50 years , a balanced practice of Islam has existed in the West , in peaceful harmony with a Christian majority , while standing firmly against extremism .
And it developed right here in the United States , among African American Muslims .
As native-born African American Muslims—steeped in the Islamic faith , but also with experience working in the U.S. military or the intelligence community—we believe that Muslims in France and other Western nations could learn from us .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignored our legacy .
However , we have lived out a blueprint for overcoming adversity and discrimination in the West while building a balanced Muslim identity and fighting against extremism .
When most people think of historic and influential Muslim American leaders they automatically think of Malcolm X , who was killed in 1965 .
But arguably the Muslim American with the greatest religious influence of the 20th century was a different African American who died of natural causes only 12 years ago : Imam Warith Deen Mohammed ( also known as W.D @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a Muslim reformer , leader , and pioneer who taught a universal Islam that fitted American life and stayed true to the religion ’ s beliefs , even if it diverged from some of the thinking of old-world Islam .
The key to this development of Islam in the United States among African Americans was that it developed organically and internally .
Unlike in much of Europe and the rest of the world , where Middle Eastern or Turkish-funded mosques and imams are prevalent , this movement of African American Muslims have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign thinkers or immigrants wedded to the old world .
While the NOI did not espouse violence , it supported Black militancy and an ideology of Black supremacy that countered the integrationist strategy of the civil rights movement at the time .
For decades , the NOI taught that the United States was evil and that Muslims should have no part of its future .
A tremendous shift happened in 1975 when W.D .
Mohammed , Elijah Muhammad ’ s son , was selected to lead the group after his father ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spelling of his surname in 1989 . )
W.D .
Mohammed quickly dismantled the Black-supremacy ideology of the movement ’ s followers , eliminated the group ’ s centralized hierarchy , and began teaching a universal understanding of Islam , based on the Quran and the life example of the Prophet Mohammed .
The group for a time became known as the World Community of al-Islam in the West .
Perhaps even bolder given the environment at the time , he encouraged his association of African American Muslims to recognize the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people to their 300-plus mosques in the country , embrace citizenship and the flag , and serve in the government , including the military .
W.D .
Mohammed pioneered interfaith engagement , including a strong collaboration with the Catholic Focolare movement .
He urged his association to become leaders in U.S. civic life and build upon their citizenship .
Because of this transformation , many African American Muslims in the 1970s , ’ 80s , and ‘ 90s excelled in government and politics , law enforcement , the military , and sports while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American .
Through a certain lens , this approach was an organic and indigenous example of successful counterradicalization .
It produced an organically developed Islam suited for the pluralistic United States .
This should not be surprising .
These African American Muslims were mostly converts , many of whom had Christian parents and siblings .
Despite coming from experiences of segregation and racism , they were still American at their core .
As W.D .
Mohammed pointed out , there was no conflict between one ’ s identity as a Muslim and American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as its founding documents , reflected Islamic principles .
By contrast , immigrant-based Muslim communities during this period often had a different approach to Islam .
The bulk of Muslim immigrants to the United States arrived after the mid-1960s , thus benefiting greatly from the civil rights movement .
Islam was associated more with their countries of origin , seemingly in conflict with the culture of their new environment .
Many of the large immigrant Muslim organizations criticized W.D .
Mohammed for his openness to the United States ; some saw Muslims serving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Many debated whether it was even religiously permissible for Muslims to vote in U.S. elections .
Mosques set up by immigrant communities often kept themselves rather isolated , setting up suburban mosques .
Interfaith dialogue and partnerships were not common .
As one of us witnessed , a well-known immigrant imam who is now active in interfaith affairs once shared quite openly that , before 9/11 , the door of his mosque was figuratively shut .
After the attacks , immigrant Muslims began to open up to civic engagement and interfaith dialogue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but his influence is still felt by the adult children of those immigrant Muslims who criticized his approach decades earlier .
As one of us has chronicled in a new book on his legacy , he created an independent school of Muslim thought that respects classical Islamic tradition but allows for an American Islam to take shape without foreign interference .
Yet while immigrant Muslim communities have made great strides in civic engagement since 9/11 , many continue to have a myopic view of Muslim issues .
There are still motherland politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argue that Muslim Americans are similar to other diaspora groups such as Jews , Cubans , or Poles .
But in reality Muslim communities as voters are more akin to Christian communities .
They are extremely diverse , with political concerns driven by the particulars of each community ’ s ethnic background , culture , geography , and historical experience .
The community , in recent years , has not viewed Islamic identity as a separate ethnicity that needed aggressive advocacy in the political sphere .
Our numbers were too few and we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our non-Muslim neighbors of every ethnicity .
Our tradition was about drawing upon Islam to help us to contribute to the pluralistic communities of the United States and especially to improve the lot of other African Americans .
Consider Muhammad Ali—the world ’ s best-known Muslim American .
Rising from humble beginnings in Louisville , Kentucky , he became not just a symbol of Islam in the United States , but a symbol of uniquely American transformation , success , and exceptionalism .
And in the words of Ali ’ s eulogist at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question as to whether you could be a Muslim and an American to rest .
Let us hope that the question is interred with his remains.
” Few understand that his journey as an American hero followed the arc of the NOI transition to the association of W.D .
Mohammed .
Ali often attended his speeches in the 1970s when he first led the movement , providing a bit of “ star power ” to his leadership .
Ali visited the community ’ s Islamic schools , and in 2003 , even with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he took the stage as a special guest at one of W.D .
Mohammed ’ s annual Islamic conventions .
The Muslim African American tradition does not get the attention in the media or in policy circles that it deserves .
That is unfortunate , because in today ’ s troubling times , what is needed more than identity politics is balance and wisdom .
As the currently tense and fractious social and political environment in many Western nations appears to worsen along racial and ethnic lines , this African American Muslim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s government—and its Muslim communities—would do well to learn from it .
The best model for Muslim life in the West comes from the West .

Talib Shareef, Yaya J. Fanusie and Muhammad Fraser-Rahim

The despicable beheading of a school teacher in France by an extremist Muslim on Oct. 16—and an attack at a church in Nice later in October—point to a troubling cultural dynamic in Europe. Some Muslims are bringing one-dimensional, old-world thinking to the pluralistic environments in the West , resulting in intolerance and extremist violence.
The despicable beheading of a school teacher in France by an extremist Muslim on Oct. 16—and an attack at a church in Nice later in October—point to a troubling cultural dynamic in Europe. Some Muslims are bringing one-dimensional, old-world thinking to the pluralistic environments in the West, resulting in intolerance and extremist violence.
Some Muslim leaders around the globe claim this violence is a reaction to Islamophobia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to deflect attention from the crimes by saying France and European societies were suffering from an “Islamophobia disease.” More recently, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad tweeted that “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past,” alluding to French colonialism.
On the other side, commentators such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali have argued that this dynamic of violence is inherent to Islam, while many academics have claimed that Muslims’ religious values inhibit their integration in Europe. By this flawed logic, violent conflict would appear inevitable when Muslims try to establish their faith in the West. But all of these views ignore that, for almost 50 years, a balanced practice of Islam has existed in the West, in peaceful harmony with a Christian majority, while standing firmly against extremism. And it developed right here in the United States, among African American Muslims.
As native-born African American Muslims—steeped in the Islamic faith, but also with experience working in the U.S. military or the intelligence community—we believe that Muslims in France and other Western nations could learn from us.
Much of the world—Muslim and non-Muslim alike—has ignored our legacy. However, we have lived out a blueprint for overcoming adversity and discrimination in the West while building a balanced Muslim identity and fighting against extremism. When most people think of historic and influential Muslim American leaders they automatically think of Malcolm X, who was killed in 1965. But arguably the Muslim American with the greatest religious influence of the 20th century was a different African American who died of natural causes only 12 years ago: Imam Warith Deen Mohammed (also known as W.D. Mohammed).
W.D. Mohammed was a Muslim reformer, leader, and pioneer who taught a universal Islam that fitted American life and stayed true to the religion’s beliefs, even if it diverged from some of the thinking of old-world Islam. The key to this development of Islam in the United States among African Americans was that it developed organically and internally. Unlike in much of Europe and the rest of the world, where Middle Eastern or Turkish-funded mosques and imams are prevalent, this movement of African American Muslims have not been guided by imported teachings from foreign thinkers or immigrants wedded to the old world.
The roots of W.D. Mohammed’s movement are instructive. In the mid-20th century, the most visible Muslim group in the United States was the Nation of Islam (NOI), even though many of its tenets were not really Islamic. The NOI in reality was an Islamic hybrid movement, mainly addressing the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic burdens on African Americans arising out of the Jim Crow experience. But it still represented the first nationally recognized association of Muslims in the American mainstream, especially as Malcolm X gained prominence as the spokesman for NOI leader Elijah Muhammad.
While the NOI did not espouse violence, it supported Black militancy and an ideology of Black supremacy that countered the integrationist strategy of the civil rights movement at the time. For decades, the NOI taught that the United States was evil and that Muslims should have no part of its future.
A tremendous shift happened in 1975 when W.D. Mohammed, Elijah Muhammad’s son, was selected to lead the group after his father’s death. (W.D. changed the spelling of his surname in 1989.)
W.D. Mohammed quickly dismantled the Black-supremacy ideology of the movement’s followers, eliminated the group’s centralized hierarchy, and began teaching a universal understanding of Islam, based on the Quran and the life example of the Prophet Mohammed. The group for a time became known as the World Community of al-Islam in the West.
Perhaps even bolder given the environment at the time, he encouraged his association of African American Muslims to recognize the United States’ progress on race, welcome all people to their 300-plus mosques in the country, embrace citizenship and the flag, and serve in the government, including the military. W.D. Mohammed pioneered interfaith engagement, including a strong collaboration with the Catholic Focolare movement. He urged his association to become leaders in U.S. civic life and build upon their citizenship. Because of this transformation, many African American Muslims in the 1970s, ’80s, and ‘90s excelled in government and politics, law enforcement, the military, and sports while proudly embracing their identity as Muslim and American.
Through a certain lens, this approach was an organic and indigenous example of successful counterradicalization. It produced an organically developed Islam suited for the pluralistic United States. This should not be surprising. These African American Muslims were mostly converts, many of whom had Christian parents and siblings. Despite coming from experiences of segregation and racism, they were still American at their core. As W.D. Mohammed pointed out, there was no conflict between one’s identity as a Muslim and American; the good in America, such as its founding documents, reflected Islamic principles.
By contrast, immigrant-based Muslim communities during this period often had a different approach to Islam. The bulk of Muslim immigrants to the United States arrived after the mid-1960s, thus benefiting greatly from the civil rights movement. Islam was associated more with their countries of origin, seemingly in conflict with the culture of their new environment. Many of the large immigrant Muslim organizations criticized W.D. Mohammed for his openness to the United States; some saw Muslims serving in the U.S. military as almost blasphemous. Many debated whether it was even religiously permissible for Muslims to vote in U.S. elections.
Mosques set up by immigrant communities often kept themselves rather isolated, setting up suburban mosques. Interfaith dialogue and partnerships were not common. As one of us witnessed, a well-known immigrant imam who is now active in interfaith affairs once shared quite openly that, before 9/11, the door of his mosque was figuratively shut. After the attacks, immigrant Muslims began to open up to civic engagement and interfaith dialogue.
W.D. Mohammed died in 2008, but his influence is still felt by the adult children of those immigrant Muslims who criticized his approach decades earlier. As one of us has chronicled in a new book on his legacy, he created an independent school of Muslim thought that respects classical Islamic tradition but allows for an American Islam to take shape without foreign interference.
Yet while immigrant Muslim communities have made great strides in civic engagement since 9/11, many continue to have a myopic view of Muslim issues. There are still motherland politics influencing how Muslims approach policy. Some argue that Muslim Americans are similar to other diaspora groups such as Jews, Cubans, or Poles. But in reality Muslim communities as voters are more akin to Christian communities. They are extremely diverse, with political concerns driven by the particulars of each community’s ethnic background, culture, geography, and historical experience.
In the wake of yet another series of violent attacks perpetrated by Muslims in France, the model W.D. Mohammed established is more relevant than ever. Protecting Muslims from Islamophobia is important; protection from religious discrimination is foundational to a free society. And seeking representation of one’s co-religionists in politics is fine. But the African American Muslim tradition was never about pushing something exclusively for Muslims; it was about improving conditions for all Black people.
The community, in recent years, has not viewed Islamic identity as a separate ethnicity that needed aggressive advocacy in the political sphere. Our numbers were too few and we were intricately connected to the lives of our non-Muslim neighbors of every ethnicity.
Our tradition was about drawing upon Islam to help us to contribute to the pluralistic communities of the United States and especially to improve the lot of other African Americans. Consider Muhammad Ali—the world’s best-known Muslim American. Rising from humble beginnings in Louisville, Kentucky, he became not just a symbol of Islam in the United States, but a symbol of uniquely American transformation, success, and exceptionalism. And in the words of Ali’s eulogist at his funeral, “Ali put the question as to whether you could be a Muslim and an American to rest. Let us hope that the question is interred with his remains.”
Few understand that his journey as an American hero followed the arc of the NOI transition to the association of W.D. Mohammed. Ali often attended his speeches in the 1970s when he first led the movement, providing a bit of “star power” to his leadership. Ali visited the community’s Islamic schools, and in 2003, even with his mobility hindered by Parkinson’s, he took the stage as a special guest at one of W.D. Mohammed’s annual Islamic conventions.
The Muslim African American tradition does not get the attention in the media or in policy circles that it deserves. That is unfortunate, because in today’s troubling times, what is needed more than identity politics is balance and wisdom.
As the currently tense and fractious social and political environment in many Western nations appears to worsen along racial and ethnic lines, this African American Muslim tradition can offer guidance, and France’s government—and its Muslim communities—would do well to learn from it. The best model for Muslim life in the West comes from the West.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-09--Trump Fires His Embattled Pentagon Chief by Tweet

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he fired long-embattled Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a tweet on Monday , just two days after news networks called the U.S. election against the incumbent commander in chief , another move that current and former officials worry could upset an already tumultuous transition to a new administration .
The move comes amid lingering tensions between Esper and Trump .
The Department of Defense chief ’ s decision to publicly oppose using active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests against racial injustice in June and his endorsement of renaming military bases that honor Confederate generals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push Esper out earlier .
Top aides and senior Republican lawmakers helped convince him to keep Esper in place so the administration did not look to be in chaos ahead of the elections , current and former officials said .
Trump tweeted that Christopher Miller , a former Defense Department official recently confirmed as director of the National Counterterrorism Center , would take over as acting secretary of defense .
Under federal vacancies law , the president can appoint another Senate-confirmed official in place of Esper , who some officials in the Pentagon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remain in place after Trump leaves office to ensure a smooth transfer of power .
“ Chris will do a GREAT job !
Mark Esper has been terminated .
I would like to thank him for his service , ” Trump tweeted .
The move marks another Trump firing by tweet , after he removed his embattled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by surprise two years ago while the top diplomat was traveling in Africa .
Veteran Pentagon officials reacted to the sudden news with a mixture of shock and anger .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s absolutely crazy , ” said Jim Townsend , a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who spent decades working in the Pentagon .
“ There ’ s no practical reason to do this , except for personal vengeance.
” A defense official said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows informed Esper of his termination before Trump tweeted the news .
Townsend said Esper ’ s firing adds a new layer of uncertainty to what the final months of Trump ’ s presidency will look like , even as the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ What it shows us is we don ’ t know what ’ s going to happen over the next two months when he begins his transition out of office.
” A Pentagon spokesman referred questions about Esper ’ s termination to the White House .
A White House official said that Miller is eligible to serve in the acting role because he is Senate-confirmed .
The plan comes as officials inside the Pentagon and other agencies have anticipated a spate of potential high-profile firings in the wake of a possible Trump defeat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already come to pass .
The president is also considering sacking his CIA chief , Gina Haspel , who reportedly fell afoul of the president after she opposed declassifying unverified Russian intelligence alleging Democrats tried to create a scandal about Trump ’ s ties to Russia ahead of the 2016 elections .
On Friday evening , the White House also forced the resignation of the deputy head of the top U.S. foreign aid agency , U.S. Agency for International Development Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick .
Officials familiar with the matter said that she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of USAID , John Barsa , could take her deputy job and remain de facto head of the agency to get around time limits for officials serving in interim , acting capacities set by federal vacancy laws .
It was not immediately clear if Capitol Hill got a heads-up before the decision , and top Democrats in Congress were quick to slam Trump ’ s move .
“ Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith , a Democrat .
“ President Trump ’ s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish , it ’ s also reckless .
It has long been clear that President Trump cares about loyalty above all else , often at the expense of competence , and during a period of presidential transition competence in government is of the utmost importance.
” Some experts said firing officials out of spite , even at the tail end of an administration , could cause blowback .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ as seamless a transition as possible .
Don ’ t do things that make the system more chaotic , ” said Mark Jacobson , the assistant dean for Washington programs at Syracuse University who was a Defense Department official during the transition between Presidents Bill Clinton ’ s and George W. Bush ’ s administrations .
“ Our enemies are going to take note of that , they know that now is a particularly vulnerable time.
” All of that could have a compounding effect on a possible Biden administration ’ s flexibility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy after Inauguration Day .
“ You don ’ t want to box them into a corner , ” Jacobson added .
Townsend said that Trump officials may also be reluctant to aid in a smooth transition to the next administration , for fear of incurring the White House ’ s wrath .
“ At a time like this , to have [ Esper ’ s ] firing happen , it makes the atmosphere even more uneasy .
If you are a Trump political appointee and you want to do a good transition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in your reins and become very conservative because you ’ re afraid he could do that to you , ” he said .
“ It just makes everyone walk on eggshells.
” As Esper has fallen out of Trump ’ s good graces , loyalists to the president sitting in high-ranking Defense Department roles have attempted to assert themselves over Pentagon policy .
“ They can just do whatever they want , ” the former senior Trump official said .
In an exit interview with Military Times , Esper—whom Trump himself had mockingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for upholding the White House line—fatefully mused that he could be replaced by someone much more amenable to the president ’ s whims , or worse .
“ I could have a fight over anything , and I could make it a big fight , and I could live with that —why ?
” Esper said .
“ Who ’ s going to come in behind me ?
It ’ s going to be a real ‘ yes man.
’ And then God help us .
”

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he fired long-embattled Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a tweet on Monday, just two days after news networks called the U.S. election against the incumbent commander in chief, another move that current and former officials worry could upset an already tumultuous transition to a new administration.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he fired long-embattled Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a tweet on Monday, just two days after news networks called the U.S. election against the incumbent commander in chief, another move that current and former officials worry could upset an already tumultuous transition to a new administration.
The move comes amid lingering tensions between Esper and Trump. The Department of Defense chief’s decision to publicly oppose using active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests against racial injustice in June and his endorsement of renaming military bases that honor Confederate generals angered Trump and nearly led him to push Esper out earlier. Top aides and senior Republican lawmakers helped convince him to keep Esper in place so the administration did not look to be in chaos ahead of the elections, current and former officials said.
Trump tweeted that Christopher Miller, a former Defense Department official recently confirmed as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, would take over as acting secretary of defense. Under federal vacancies law, the president can appoint another Senate-confirmed official in place of Esper, who some officials in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill had hoped would remain in place after Trump leaves office to ensure a smooth transfer of power.
“Chris will do a GREAT job! Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service,” Trump tweeted. The move marks another Trump firing by tweet, after he removed his embattled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by surprise two years ago while the top diplomat was traveling in Africa.
Veteran Pentagon officials reacted to the sudden news with a mixture of shock and anger.
“It’s unprecedented, it’s absolutely crazy,” said Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who spent decades working in the Pentagon. “There’s no practical reason to do this, except for personal vengeance.” A defense official said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows informed Esper of his termination before Trump tweeted the news.
Townsend said Esper’s firing adds a new layer of uncertainty to what the final months of Trump’s presidency will look like, even as the president refuses to concede his electoral loss: “What it shows us is we don’t know what’s going to happen over the next two months when he begins his transition out of office.”
A Pentagon spokesman referred questions about Esper’s termination to the White House. A White House official said that Miller is eligible to serve in the acting role because he is Senate-confirmed.
The plan comes as officials inside the Pentagon and other agencies have anticipated a spate of potential high-profile firings in the wake of a possible Trump defeat in the November election—some of which have already come to pass. The president is also considering sacking his CIA chief, Gina Haspel, who reportedly fell afoul of the president after she opposed declassifying unverified Russian intelligence alleging Democrats tried to create a scandal about Trump’s ties to Russia ahead of the 2016 elections.
On Friday evening, the White House also forced the resignation of the deputy head of the top U.S. foreign aid agency, U.S. Agency for International Development Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick. Officials familiar with the matter said that she was fired so that the acting head of USAID, John Barsa, could take her deputy job and remain de facto head of the agency to get around time limits for officials serving in interim, acting capacities set by federal vacancy laws.
It was not immediately clear if Capitol Hill got a heads-up before the decision, and top Democrats in Congress were quick to slam Trump’s move. “Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater risk,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat. “President Trump’s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless. It has long been clear that President Trump cares about loyalty above all else, often at the expense of competence, and during a period of presidential transition competence in government is of the utmost importance.”
Some experts said firing officials out of spite, even at the tail end of an administration, could cause blowback.
“You’re trying to have as seamless a transition as possible. Don’t do things that make the system more chaotic,” said Mark Jacobson, the assistant dean for Washington programs at Syracuse University who was a Defense Department official during the transition between Presidents Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s administrations. “Our enemies are going to take note of that, they know that now is a particularly vulnerable time.”
All of that could have a compounding effect on a possible Biden administration’s flexibility to set its own course on Pentagon policy after Inauguration Day. “You don’t want to box them into a corner,” Jacobson added.
Townsend said that Trump officials may also be reluctant to aid in a smooth transition to the next administration, for fear of incurring the White House’s wrath.
“At a time like this, to have [Esper’s] firing happen, it makes the atmosphere even more uneasy. If you are a Trump political appointee and you want to do a good transition, you’re going to pull in your reins and become very conservative because you’re afraid he could do that to you,” he said. “It just makes everyone walk on eggshells.”
As Esper has fallen out of Trump’s good graces, loyalists to the president sitting in high-ranking Defense Department roles have attempted to assert themselves over Pentagon policy.
“They can just do whatever they want,” the former senior Trump official said.
In an exit interview with Military Times, Esper—whom Trump himself had mockingly called “Yesper” for his reputation for upholding the White House line—fatefully mused that he could be replaced by someone much more amenable to the president’s whims, or worse.
“I could have a fight over anything, and I could make it a big fight, and I could live with that —why?” Esper said. “Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”


foreignpolicy--2020-11-09--A Divided Washington Is (Sort of) United on China

A Divided Washington Is ( Sort of ) United on China Even when Joe Biden takes office , Washington will likely remain paralyzed .
The 117th U.S. Congress is unlikely to pass major legislation dealing with the slew of crises it faces , including massive unemployment , a raging pandemic , and catastrophic climate change .
Only one issue might bring together a Democratic-led House and an odds-on Republican-controlled Senate : China .
The two parties might be divided on almost everything else , but their legislative agendas for China have a lot in common .
Both propose increasing support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. supply chains .
Neither is shy about challenging Chinese actions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong .
China will be one of the very few areas likely to see real legislative movement .
Science and technology research is one of the most promising areas for bipartisan cooperation .
The Made in China 2025 initiative helped wake American policymakers up to China ’ s technology ambitions , but COVID-19 more than anything else focused lawmakers ’ attention on China .
Members of Congress have proposed a number of bills all aimed at preserving America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Endless Frontier Act appropriates $ 100 billion to establish a technology directorate within the National Science Foundation .
Senate Democrats ’ America LEADS Act proposes $ 300 billion in new federal R & D spending over the next four years .
The Republican China Task Force report recommends doubling federal funding for basic research , quantum computing , and artificial intelligence ( AI ) initiatives .
“ It ’ s nice to see science and technology coming to the front , ” said Jennifer Wickre , a senior Republican policy advisor for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Technology .
The disagreement is around how to spend this vast flow of new money .
Both parties support applied research in a few key sectors—semiconductors , telecommunications , quantum computing , and AI are all on the table .
Republicans , however , prefer that the government mostly stick to basic research .
“ There ’ s a philosophical belief [ among Republicans ] that the role of the U.S. government is on the basic research side , ” Wickre said .
“ China is clearly spending more money on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beat China , not to become China.
” China ’ s flood of spending on applied research has driven Republicans to adopt a greater degree of ideological flexibility on the issue , but the core philosophical tenets remain .
Supply chain vulnerabilities similarly garner differing solutions to a shared problem diagnosis .
The Republican report proposes new tax incentives to address the issue , while the Democrats ’ America LEADS Act proposes increased funding for the Commerce Department .
But no matter the differences in method , the COVID-19 pandemic brought home a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem .
“ Once people faced the reality where we literally couldn ’ t get staples for our daily life , that changed people ’ s thinking , ” said Brendan Shields , the Republican staff director for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one of the leaders of the China Task Force .
“ They suddenly realized : There are these various swords of Damocles hanging over us.
” The willingness to fund such legislation , of course , might change in the Biden administration .
With a Democrat in the White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ rediscover its concern over debt and deficits , ” Ted Cruz admitted to Axios ’ s Jonathan Swan in a recent interview .
Such a philosophical shift would end hopes for massive outlays on R & D or supply chain resilience .
“ Will the GOP stay committed to spending money on this ?
” a Senate Democratic aide asked .
“ If they lose the presidency , they could find their true religion again on balanced budgets.
” Space for bipartisan legislative action does not end with R & D @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parties support passing more concrete measures to deal with human rights crises in Hong Kong and Xinjiang .
The America LEADS Act authorizes a special visa program for Uighurs and victims of political persecution in Hong Kong , and Republican Sen. Ben Sasse introduced similar legislation of his own in late May .
Congressional Republicans have also voiced support for reasserting U.S. engagement with international organizations , long a key pillar of the Democratic Party ’ s foreign-policy agenda .
“ At U.N. headquarters , four of the specialized agencies are led by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.K. and the U.S. combined direct the same number , ” Shields said .
“ Not everyone in the [ Republican ] Party would say , ‘ Yes , let ’ s get more involved in the U.N. system.
’ But we see these hundreds of challenges there , and if we don ’ t get involved , we could lose our leadership in these international organizations.
” While the Senate has demonstrated remarkable bipartisanship on human rights and semiconductors , among other things , work in the House across the aisle all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Task Force , which was initially a bipartisan effort , fell victim to partnership over COVID-19 , with House leadership reluctant to let Trump off the hook on his coronavirus response once he started to blame China .
Last week ’ s election and the possibility of at least two more years of bitterly divided government likely won ’ t do much to alter the Chinese Communist Party perception that America is in decline .
But while partisanship will continue to take its toll on U.S. politics , Americans ’ worries about China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rare bipartisan initiative .
Otherwise , Congress will be ceding the battlefield to China without a fight .

Even when Joe Biden takes office, Washington will likely remain paralyzed. The 117th U.S. Congress is unlikely to pass major legislation dealing with the slew of crises it faces, including massive unemployment, a raging pandemic, and catastrophic climate change. Only one issue might bring together a Democratic-led House and an odds-on Republican-controlled Senate: China.
Even when Joe Biden takes office, Washington will likely remain paralyzed. The 117th U.S. Congress is unlikely to pass major legislation dealing with the slew of crises it faces, including massive unemployment, a raging pandemic, and catastrophic climate change. Only one issue might bring together a Democratic-led House and an odds-on Republican-controlled Senate: China.
The two parties might be divided on almost everything else, but their legislative agendas for China have a lot in common. Both propose increasing support for research and development and securing vulnerable U.S. supply chains. Neither is shy about challenging Chinese actions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. China will be one of the very few areas likely to see real legislative movement.
Science and technology research is one of the most promising areas for bipartisan cooperation. The Made in China 2025 initiative helped wake American policymakers up to China’s technology ambitions, but COVID-19 more than anything else focused lawmakers’ attention on China. Members of Congress have proposed a number of bills all aimed at preserving America’s technological edge. The bipartisan Endless Frontier Act appropriates $100 billion to establish a technology directorate within the National Science Foundation. Senate Democrats’ America LEADS Act proposes $300 billion in new federal R&D spending over the next four years. The Republican China Task Force report recommends doubling federal funding for basic research, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. “It’s nice to see science and technology coming to the front,” said Jennifer Wickre, a senior Republican policy advisor for the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
The disagreement is around how to spend this vast flow of new money. Both parties support applied research in a few key sectors—semiconductors, telecommunications, quantum computing, and AI are all on the table. Republicans, however, prefer that the government mostly stick to basic research. “There’s a philosophical belief [among Republicans] that the role of the U.S. government is on the basic research side,” Wickre said. “China is clearly spending more money on the applied side. But we want to beat China, not to become China.” China’s flood of spending on applied research has driven Republicans to adopt a greater degree of ideological flexibility on the issue, but the core philosophical tenets remain.
Supply chain vulnerabilities similarly garner differing solutions to a shared problem diagnosis. The Republican report proposes new tax incentives to address the issue, while the Democrats’ America LEADS Act proposes increased funding for the Commerce Department. But no matter the differences in method, the COVID-19 pandemic brought home a shared sense of importance in tackling the problem. “Once people faced the reality where we literally couldn’t get staples for our daily life, that changed people’s thinking,” said Brendan Shields, the Republican staff director for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one of the leaders of the China Task Force. “They suddenly realized: There are these various swords of Damocles hanging over us.”
The willingness to fund such legislation, of course, might change in the Biden administration. With a Democrat in the White House, the Republican Party is liable to “rediscover its concern over debt and deficits,” Ted Cruz admitted to Axios’s Jonathan Swan in a recent interview. Such a philosophical shift would end hopes for massive outlays on R&D or supply chain resilience. “Will the GOP stay committed to spending money on this?” a Senate Democratic aide asked. “If they lose the presidency, they could find their true religion again on balanced budgets.”
Space for bipartisan legislative action does not end with R&D and supply chains. Members of both parties support passing more concrete measures to deal with human rights crises in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. The America LEADS Act authorizes a special visa program for Uighurs and victims of political persecution in Hong Kong, and Republican Sen. Ben Sasse introduced similar legislation of his own in late May. Congressional Republicans have also voiced support for reasserting U.S. engagement with international organizations, long a key pillar of the Democratic Party’s foreign-policy agenda. “At U.N. headquarters, four of the specialized agencies are led by Chinese nationals, while France, the U.K. and the U.S. combined direct the same number,” Shields said. “Not everyone in the [Republican] Party would say, ‘Yes, let’s get more involved in the U.N. system.’ But we see these hundreds of challenges there, and if we don’t get involved, we could lose our leadership in these international organizations.”
While the Senate has demonstrated remarkable bipartisanship on human rights and semiconductors, among other things, work in the House across the aisle all but stopped in 2020. The China Task Force, which was initially a bipartisan effort, fell victim to partisanship over COVID-19, with House leadership reluctant to let Trump off the hook on his coronavirus response once he started to blame China.
Last week’s election and the possibility of at least two more years of bitterly divided government likely won’t do much to alter the Chinese Communist Party perception that America is in decline. But while partisanship will continue to take its toll on U.S. politics, Americans’ worries about China could be enough to push through a rare bipartisan initiative. Otherwise, Congress will be ceding the battlefield to China without a fight.


Representation, Now Taxation

This article is part of Election 2020 : America Votes , FP ’ s round-the-clock coverage of the U.S. election results as they come in , with short dispatches from correspondents and analysts around the world .
The America Votes page is free for all readers .
Taxation was one of the most polarizing topics of the recent U.S. electoral campaign .
The incumbent , President Donald Trump , promised to extend beyond 2025 the tax cuts he approved in 2017 .
Challenger Joe Biden , now the president-elect , instead put forth plans to hike taxes for both corporations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education , health care , and other social programs .
Although his proposal is far less ambitious than what his rivals to the left , Sens .
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren , suggested during their own presidential nomination campaigns , it would represent a first step to address inequality and restore fairness to an unjust tax system .
However , without a Democratic majority in the Senate , Biden ’ s tax plan is unlikely to see the light of day .
Since the 1980s , the American economy has gone through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the top 1 percent income earners controlled around 10 percent of national pretax income , while the bottom half ’ s share was around 20 percent .
Today , those figures are reversed .
Globalization , skills-biased technological progress , and political cronyism are the usual suspects .
But what is peculiar to the U.S. system among other Western democracies is the lack of progressivity of its tax system : The system fails to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes .
In turn , taxation becomes an amplifier—instead of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of studies by the University of California , Berkeley , economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman , while the individual income tax is formally progressive—its graduated tax rate goes from 0 percent for the lowest earners to 37 percent for the highest—the very rich manage to avoid paying this kind of tax almost entirely .
The bulk of their earnings come from dividends , which are not only taxed at a rate of just 20 percent but are also exempt from Social Security payroll taxes , which are levied on labor earnings only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ injustice comes from the U.S. system of consumption taxes .
In the United States , sales and excise taxes exempt most services , which tend to be consumed more by the rich than by the members of the working class .
Country club memberships and lawyer fees , for example , are not subject to any sales tax , whereas purchases of food , clothes , and home appliances are .
As a result , the average tax rate , instead of increasing along with income , is flat .
The flattening of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new phenomenon .
Public opinion started to turn against tax progressivity in the 1970s , owing to the threat of capital flight , the emergence of an aggressive tax-dodging industry , and the intensification of global tax competition .
Since then , average tax rates have declined for everyone , including the poor .
But the rich have benefited the most—and massively so .
The top marginal federal income tax rate has fallen from 70 percent to 37 percent .
The corporate tax rate has declined from about 50 percent to around 20 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bequests have proved to be highly ineffective , owing to exemptions and deductions .
( Not just in the United States : “ Inheritance , ” as the Guardian put it on Nov. 9 , “ not work , has become the main route to middle-class home ownership.
” ) Biden ’ s electoral platform envisaged the restoration of some degree of progressivity .
He proposed hiking the top marginal rate on income above $ 400,000 to 39.6 percent from 37 percent , while increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eliminate tax breaks for capital gains and dividends , and he has released plans to subject incomes above $ 400,000 to payroll taxes .
But a split Congress will hardly pass any of those measures .
If Biden is constrained in his ability to use fiscal policy to tame income disparities , then it will be up to corporations to mitigate inequality by closing the salary gap between the top and bottom earners within their companies .
They ’ ve been resistant to doing anything of the kind , but with U.S. society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corporate America may yet start to feel responsibility to bring some fairness to the system—or else face even less amenable political circumstances later on .

Taxation was one of the most polarizing topics of the recent U.S. electoral campaign. The incumbent, President Donald Trump, promised to extend beyond 2025 the tax cuts he approved in 2017. Challenger Joe Biden, now the president-elect, instead put forth plans to hike taxes for both corporations and high-income individuals in order to fund education, health care, and other social programs. Although his proposal is far less ambitious than what his rivals to the left, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, suggested during their own presidential nomination campaigns, it would represent a first step to address inequality and restore fairness to an unjust tax system. However, without a Democratic majority in the Senate, Biden’s tax plan is unlikely to see the light of day.
Taxation was one of the most polarizing topics of the recent U.S. electoral campaign. The incumbent, President Donald Trump, promised to extend beyond 2025 the tax cuts he approved in 2017. Challenger Joe Biden, now the president-elect, instead put forth plans to hike taxes for both corporations and high-income individuals in order to fund education, health care, and other social programs. Although his proposal is far less ambitious than what his rivals to the left, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, suggested during their own presidential nomination campaigns, it would represent a first step to address inequality and restore fairness to an unjust tax system. However, without a Democratic majority in the Senate, Biden’s tax plan is unlikely to see the light of day.
Since the 1980s, the American economy has gone through a radical metamorphosis. In 1980, the top 1 percent income earners controlled around 10 percent of national pretax income, while the bottom half’s share was around 20 percent. Today, those figures are reversed. Globalization, skills-biased technological progress, and political cronyism are the usual suspects. But what is peculiar to the U.S. system among other Western democracies is the lack of progressivity of its tax system: The system fails to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes. In turn, taxation becomes an amplifier—instead of a leveler—of inequalities.
According to a number of studies by the University of California, Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, while the individual income tax is formally progressive—its graduated tax rate goes from 0 percent for the lowest earners to 37 percent for the highest—the very rich manage to avoid paying this kind of tax almost entirely. The bulk of their earnings come from dividends, which are not only taxed at a rate of just 20 percent but are also exempt from Social Security payroll taxes, which are levied on labor earnings only.
The other major source of tax injustice comes from the U.S. system of consumption taxes. In the United States, sales and excise taxes exempt most services, which tend to be consumed more by the rich than by the members of the working class. Country club memberships and lawyer fees, for example, are not subject to any sales tax, whereas purchases of food, clothes, and home appliances are. As a result, the average tax rate, instead of increasing along with income, is flat.
The flattening of the U.S. tax system is a relatively new phenomenon. Public opinion started to turn against tax progressivity in the 1970s, owing to the threat of capital flight, the emergence of an aggressive tax-dodging industry, and the intensification of global tax competition. Since then, average tax rates have declined for everyone, including the poor. But the rich have benefited the most—and massively so. The top marginal federal income tax rate has fallen from 70 percent to 37 percent. The corporate tax rate has declined from about 50 percent to around 20 percent. And estate taxes on large bequests have proved to be highly ineffective, owing to exemptions and deductions. (Not just in the United States: “Inheritance,” as the Guardian put it on Nov. 9, “not work, has become the main route to middle-class home ownership.”)
Biden’s electoral platform envisaged the restoration of some degree of progressivity. He proposed hiking the top marginal rate on income above $400,000 to 39.6 percent from 37 percent, while increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent. He also wants to eliminate tax breaks for capital gains and dividends, and he has released plans to subject incomes above $400,000 to payroll taxes. But a split Congress will hardly pass any of those measures.
If Biden is constrained in his ability to use fiscal policy to tame income disparities, then it will be up to corporations to mitigate inequality by closing the salary gap between the top and bottom earners within their companies. They’ve been resistant to doing anything of the kind, but with U.S. society emerging so fractured from this election, corporate America may yet start to feel responsibility to bring some fairness to the system—or else face even less amenable political circumstances later on.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-09--Biden’s Victory Is No Balm for American Exceptionalism

Biden ’ s Victory Is No Balm for American Exceptionalism As it became clear last Wednesday that Democratic nominee Joe Biden was going to pick up enough electoral votes to gain the U.S. presidency , his supporters started relaxing into statements of triumph on cable news and social media .
Such expressions often took the form of a comparison : In managing to vote President Donald Trump out , the United States was observed to be not like other countries that could not get rid of their own strongmen .
It was no Belarus , Zimbabwe , or Azerbaijan ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , had defeated Trump .
The rush on the part of those who spent the last years curled up into a stress ball to immediately declare the United States unlike those other unfortunate—or “ shithole , ” as Trump would call them—countries is understandable .
The 2016 election punctured ( at least on the left ) the belief in American exceptionalism .
A stream of op-eds compared Trump to any and every dictator or would-be autocrat around the world as a cautionary tale , from the more obvious choices such as Vladimir Putin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Xi Jinping , Jair Bolsonaro , or Hugo Chávez to figures that are less well-known in the United States , such as the king of Thailand or Hungary ’ s Viktor Orban .
Any time Trump violated an established political norm , such as amassing troops on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial this June or calling on his attorney general to arrest his political opponents , you could count on somebody to pipe up and protest that while such behavior might be expected in another country such as Egypt or China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States .
No wonder then that some Biden supporters now want to quickly disassociate their country from such unflattering comparisons .
America is not like those countries , they want to believe , because its institutions have withstood the attacks of Trump , it has pushed the populist wave back , and life there can now go back to normal .
( And too bad about those other places . )
As Trump whines about a supposedly fraudulent election and tries to rally his supporters , that judgement may be premature .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ stage , there ’ s little reason to think that the thesis of American exceptionalism holds up .
If there is a contrast to be made between the United States and other countries suffering from their own dictators or aspiring autocrats , it is not a particularly flattering one for the United States or to the anti-Trump opposition .
If the United States is indeed exceptional , it is only in the sense of how easy the opposition has it in the last four years—and still came close to losing .
To begin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never had serious international support .
For all the hand-wringing about Russian meddling , Democrats should imagine how their narrow margins would have fared if they really had to factor in support for Trump from major international players .
Everyone is familiar with the more traditional patron-client relationship wherein an autocrat is kept in power due to support from a great power ( e.g.
, Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus ) .
Easier to overlook , however , is the fact that many of the current batch of populist and quasi-authoritarian leaders in Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the international community in the name of liberalism and good governance .
Both the United States and the European Union put their thumbs on the scale in numerous ways for leaders such as Erdogan , Putin , and Orban just as they were beginning to consolidate their power .
The opposition in those contexts was essentially gaslit by the international community : They were assured that what they worried was revanchist populism was actually democratization , or that what they saw as creeping authoritarianism was the sign of a reform-minded , efficient leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have heard these arguments from his supporters .
They should imagine how they would feel if the international community kept echoing the same arguments , giving them an extra veneer of plausibility for the undecided voters .
That ’ s the situation the opposition in many other countries around the globe faced , especially those that were dealing with the batch of strongmen who hatched in the first decade of this century .
Moreover , the United States and the EU never stopped giving these leaders sweetheart deals , even after what they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump also did not know how to reach far beyond his base .
Democrats had every right to be worried about Trump ’ s authoritarian tendencies and the damage he was doing to American political institutions .
But let ’ s face it : Just as Trump is not good at anything except polishing his own brand , he was not a particularly successful would-be autocrat either .
Others in his cohort know exactly when to pause playing to the base and manufacture ( or take advantage of ) national crises in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radical opposition ’ s hand into rhetorically supporting them .
Tried and tested tactics include starting wars that allow the leader to cast any opposition to him as support for the enemy and producing a “ rally around the flag ” effect .
Trump never really tried any of this , and he also completely wasted the political opportunity handed to him by the COVID-19 pandemic .
Had he shown even some leadership in that regard , he could have shielded himself from criticism at least long enough to survive the elections .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ own defeat in this way and others .
He lacks the concentration of Putin , the grit of Erdogan , or the ruthlessness of Rodrigo Duterte .
It was not the strength of American institutions or Americans ’ greater love of democracy compared to other places that ousted Trump .
Democrats simply got lucky : They faced the most incompetent , least internationally supported version of the strongman threat .
They should remember that the next time they are tempted to dismiss another country as a “ tinpot dictatorship ” or “ banana @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exist in those places as well , but it becomes exponentially harder to dislodge Trump-like leaders from power the longer they stay in it .
How many more of these Trump years could you handle ?
In many places , the opposition has been holding it together for much longer than four years , while facing greater obstacles : prison , exile , or death .
They have also won bigger victories than the Democrats despite those odds , only to have those victories snatched away , time and time again .
Yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from their example , because the next time , Americans may not get so lucky either .

As it became clear last Wednesday that Democratic nominee Joe Biden was going to pick up enough electoral votes to gain the U.S. presidency, his supporters started relaxing into statements of triumph on cable news and social media. Such expressions often took the form of a comparison: In managing to vote President Donald Trump out, the United States was observed to be not like other countries that could not get rid of their own strongmen. It was no Belarus, Zimbabwe, or Azerbaijan; the ballot box, not the streets, had defeated Trump.
As it became clear last Wednesday that Democratic nominee Joe Biden was going to pick up enough electoral votes to gain the U.S. presidency, his supporters started relaxing into statements of triumph on cable news and social media. Such expressions often took the form of a comparison: In managing to vote President Donald Trump out, the United States was observed to be not like other countries that could not get rid of their own strongmen. It was no Belarus, Zimbabwe, or Azerbaijan; the ballot box, not the streets, had defeated Trump.
The rush on the part of those who spent the last years curled up into a stress ball to immediately declare the United States unlike those other unfortunate—or “shithole,” as Trump would call them—countries is understandable. The 2016 election punctured (at least on the left) the belief in American exceptionalism. A stream of op-eds compared Trump to any and every dictator or would-be autocrat around the world as a cautionary tale, from the more obvious choices such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro, or Hugo Chávez to figures that are less well-known in the United States, such as the king of Thailand or Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Any time Trump violated an established political norm, such as amassing troops on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial this June or calling on his attorney general to arrest his political opponents, you could count on somebody to pipe up and protest that while such behavior might be expected in another country such as Egypt or China, it was simply unacceptable in the United States. No wonder then that some Biden supporters now want to quickly disassociate their country from such unflattering comparisons. America is not like those countries, they want to believe, because its institutions have withstood the attacks of Trump, it has pushed the populist wave back, and life there can now go back to normal. (And too bad about those other places.)
As Trump whines about a supposedly fraudulent election and tries to rally his supporters, that judgement may be premature. And even if he shuffles off the stage, there’s little reason to think that the thesis of American exceptionalism holds up. If there is a contrast to be made between the United States and other countries suffering from their own dictators or aspiring autocrats, it is not a particularly flattering one for the United States or to the anti-Trump opposition. If the United States is indeed exceptional, it is only in the sense of how easy the opposition has it in the last four years—and still came close to losing.
To begin with, unlike many autocrats, Trump never had serious international support. For all the hand-wringing about Russian meddling, Democrats should imagine how their narrow margins would have fared if they really had to factor in support for Trump from major international players. Everyone is familiar with the more traditional patron-client relationship wherein an autocrat is kept in power due to support from a great power (e.g., Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus).
Easier to overlook, however, is the fact that many of the current batch of populist and quasi-authoritarian leaders in Trump’s cohort were initially supported by the international community in the name of liberalism and good governance. Both the United States and the European Union put their thumbs on the scale in numerous ways for leaders such as Erdogan, Putin, and Orban just as they were beginning to consolidate their power.
The opposition in those contexts was essentially gaslit by the international community: They were assured that what they worried was revanchist populism was actually democratization, or that what they saw as creeping authoritarianism was the sign of a reform-minded, efficient leader fighting corruption. Trump’s opponents have heard these arguments from his supporters. They should imagine how they would feel if the international community kept echoing the same arguments, giving them an extra veneer of plausibility for the undecided voters. That’s the situation the opposition in many other countries around the globe faced, especially those that were dealing with the batch of strongmen who hatched in the first decade of this century. Moreover, the United States and the EU never stopped giving these leaders sweetheart deals, even after what they were was evident for all to see.
Trump also did not know how to reach far beyond his base. Democrats had every right to be worried about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and the damage he was doing to American political institutions. But let’s face it: Just as Trump is not good at anything except polishing his own brand, he was not a particularly successful would-be autocrat either. Others in his cohort know exactly when to pause playing to the base and manufacture (or take advantage of) national crises in ways that force all but the most radical opposition’s hand into rhetorically supporting them. Tried and tested tactics include starting wars that allow the leader to cast any opposition to him as support for the enemy and producing a “rally around the flag” effect.
Trump never really tried any of this, and he also completely wasted the political opportunity handed to him by the COVID-19 pandemic. Had he shown even some leadership in that regard, he could have shielded himself from criticism at least long enough to survive the elections. Trump is the principal architect of his own defeat in this way and others. He lacks the concentration of Putin, the grit of Erdogan, or the ruthlessness of Rodrigo Duterte.
It was not the strength of American institutions or Americans’ greater love of democracy compared to other places that ousted Trump. Democrats simply got lucky: They faced the most incompetent, least internationally supported version of the strongman threat.
They should remember that the next time they are tempted to dismiss another country as a “tinpot dictatorship” or “banana republic.” People who care about democracy exist in those places as well, but it becomes exponentially harder to dislodge Trump-like leaders from power the longer they stay in it. How many more of these Trump years could you handle? In many places, the opposition has been holding it together for much longer than four years, while facing greater obstacles: prison, exile, or death. They have also won bigger victories than the Democrats despite those odds, only to have those victories snatched away, time and time again. Yet they keep going. Americans should learn from their example, because the next time, Americans may not get so lucky either.