* The US at the Crossroads

* The Israel-Gaza Conflict

* Ukraine’s Prospects of Victory

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

* The U.S. in 2024: 10 Vital Questions

In the United States every presidential year is a consequential one and 2024 is no different. In fact, this time around, the competing visions for the country could not be more disparate. The NPR has posed 10 vital questions for the year ahead:

1. Will the perceptions of the economy improve?

In poll after poll, it is the top issue for voters, and they are in a foul mood about it, although inflation is steadily receding.

2. Does abortion retain its importance?

This is the first presidential election since the US Supreme Court quashed this constitutional right.

3. How do the situations in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza affect the presidential chances?

Perceptions of how Biden is handling foreign policy have hurt his presidency.

4. Will younger voters rally to Biden’s side despite their misgivings or not?

Israel’s war with Hamas, the continuing war in Ukraine (with no end in sight), voting rights and student loans have all been areas of frustration for younger voters.

5. In the Republican primaries, can Nikki Haley or Ron De Santis actually give Trump competition or does Trump wrap up the primary quickly?

They’ve been decided underdogs. It’s time to see whether one of them actually has the goods when voters decide.

6. Do Trump trials wind up mattering – if not for Republican primary voters, for persuadable ones in the general election of November 3?

Most Republicans may think he’s being persecuted, but Independents and Democrats think he definitely did many things wrong.

7. Do third-party candidates gain real traction and become the 2024 wildcard?

Trump did not get above 47 % percent of the popular vote in either 2016 or 2020. A third-party candidate(s) that pulls votes from Biden could help clear a path back to the White House for Trump.

In any case, it is not the popular vote that will clinch the presidential election, but the majority in the Electoral College, where the swing or battleground states will play a crucial role.

8. How will attrition among election officials affect vote counting in states?

This is hard to say. A lot of institutional knowledge in election administration has been lost because of threats from the right after Trump’s 2020 election lies.

9. Do democratic institutions hold again?

The reason Trump’s vile attempts to stay in power undemocratically did not work is because institutions – like election officials across the country, Congress and the courts did their jobs. But they’ve been targeted relentlessly in a three-year campaign by Trump and his allies.

10. Which ends up mattering more – frustrations with how Biden is doing his job (and his advanced age), or the extremely negative views of Trump?

This may be the most critical question of the presidential election.

Most voters say Biden is too old, and they give him low approval ratings, but they also really don’t like Trump (who is just three years younger).

Democrats are intending to spend millions of dollars to wipe away voters’ “brain fog” and remind them of Trump’s actions and views, many of which have become increasingly autocratic/dictatorial on the campaign trail.

Which will win out in the end?

(Domenico Montanaro/Dec. 19)

Biden’s Approval Ratings

President Biden’s average approval rating right now is 39 % percent.

It’s not just a bad place for an incumbent heading into a re-election year. It’s the lowest of any president since Truman (23 % percent). At a comparable time, Obama and Trump both had 45 % percent), and George W. Bush even had 63 % percent).

U.S. Policy in the Israel-Gaza Conflict

The question facing the Biden administration is what can it realistically do in the year before the upcoming U.S. presidential elections given the constraints posed by American politics and those it is likely to encounter in Israel, among the Palestinians, and throughout the Arab world.

Aaron David Miller, who is a former State Department Middle East analyst and has served as a negotiator, and Daniel C. Kurtzer, former US Ambassador to both Israel and Egypt and currently a professor at Princeton University, are well placed to make suggestions about what actions the Biden administration could take in the near term to help overcome some early obstacles to a two-state solution:

1. Biden should continue to press Israel to quickly end its intense ground and air campaign – which is certain to keep causing substantial civilian casualties – in favour of more focused and targeted operations.
2. His administration must push hard for an increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance that enters Gaza, including by ensuring that the recently opened Karem Shalom border crossing remains open.
3. Pressing for the resumption of negotiations to release Hamas’s remaining Israeli hostages.
4. The administration must press Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to clamp down on violence by extremist settlers and Palestinian militants in the West Bank respectively.
5. The United States needs to ensure that Israel respects US guidelines on Gaza, including no reduction of Gaza’s territory, no forces relocations of Gazans, and Palestinian governance.

US officials should make clear, both in their public statements and in theirprivate contacts with Israelis and others, that Gaza and the West Bank must remain one integral unit and that the PA will eventually resume its governance of Gaza.

6. The U.S. will also need to be proactive in trying to ensure that conflict along the Israeli-Lebanese border does not erupt into a full-scale war with Hezbollah.

At least 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north of Israel.

If the 2006 UN Security Council resolution mandating Hezbollah’s withdrawal north of the Litani River is not enforced, Israel may deploy its military to contain Hezbollah, which could prompt a full-blown war with a terrorist organization far more potent than Hamas.

To blunt this risk, the United States need to maintain the deterrent military forces it dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean Sea in October 2023.

Hezbollah has in fact begun withdrawing its special Radwan forces from southern Lebanon over the weekend, amid fears over a surprise Israel Defence Forces (IDF) attack and escalation of the conflict in Israel’s northern border (The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 25).

7. The Biden administration must make sure that all regional players understand that a two-state solution is the United States preferred outcome.

It must define a pathway toward that outcome that clarifies what steps each side must take to create the right environment for eventual negotiations.

US leaders must tell the Israeli people that it is time for them to face the fundamental choice the country has avoided since 1967: Will Israel occupy Palestinian territory indefinitely, or can it live alongside a Palestinian state?

The United States must send the message to the Palestinians that the time is now ripe for them, too, to make a choice: will they remain under occupation or reform their governance?

US leaders must work closely with key Arab countries such as Egypt, the Gulf states, and Jordan to support these shifts. Saudi Arabia, given its interest in normalization with Israel, will have an especially important role to play.

The Leadership Question

Then there is the crucial question whether any of this can succeed with the current Israeli and Palestinian leadership.

The discerning writers and practitioners of foreign policy Miller and Kurtzer are of the opinion that there is not a chance.

Both Netanyahu and Abbas must go.

This is key for Biden adopting a determined stance – in words and deeds – that seriously advances the prospect of a two-state solution (Foreign Affairs, Dec. 22).

Western Help is Crucial if Ukraine is to Win in 2024

Ukraine cannot win Vladimir Putin’s aggressive and brutal war in 2024 without the kind of air power and long-range firing equipment that the country’s international partners have so far failed to provide.

This is the valued assessment of Richard D. Hooker, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council. He previously served as the Dean of the NATO Defence College and as Senior Assistant to the US President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia with the National Security Council.

Western aid has undoubtedly played a major role in keeping Ukraine in the fight.

However, conscious policy decisions have denied Ukraine some key capabilities essential for battlefield success.

Despite urgent appeals, the United States has withheld F-16 aircraft and pressured allies to do the same, forcing Ukraine to contest the air domain with drones and older defence systems while denying its ground forces the air defence and close air support vital in high intensity conflicts.

Reasons for the Hesitancy

The West’s cautious approach to supporting Ukraine seems to be driven by three key concerns.

1. Some Western policymakers fear that providing Ukraine with the weapons and capabilities to win will cross a “red line” and provoke Putin to risk nuclear war.
2. There is alarm that a decisive Russian defeat in Ukraine would lead to Putin’s overthrow, with chaos likely to follow.
3. The belief that Russia must be preserved as a major player and crucial element in the international system, something defeat in Ukraine could call into question.

The possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons has been dismissed by many experts.

Putin’s famed “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine, essentially nuclear saber-rattling to preclude Western intervention, has proven successful due to timidity on the part of US and European leaders, but Putin’s threats and even actions do not constitute actual intent.

For eight decades, nuclear deterrence has proven to be stable and durable.

Worries over the potential instability of a post-Putin Russia are unconvincing.

If Putin is overthrown due to failure in Ukraine, his successors are unlikely to adopt the same course and attempt to renew aggression.

Any successor(s) would be faced with a shattered military, a damaged economy, and a disillusioned and despondent population.

Russian elites are more likely to seek escape from Western sanctions and reintegration into the international system.

And even in an autocratic society, the Russian people will have a voice in the new Russia, After suffering terrible losses and economic deprivation, they will also want change.

The argument is favour of preserving Russia as a key element of the international system is the most idiosyncratic and bizarre.

Putin does not want a stable international system and is unlikely to ever operate as a responsible player within it.

Defeat in Ukraine and regime change would undoubtedly lead to a diminution of Russian power in the short and mid-term.

However, the core of the Russian state with its nuclear weapons and vast energy, agricultural, and mineral resources would remain viable and intact and would have clear incentives to act in accordance with international norms and rules.

Putin: Beginning of the End?

Putin has signaled that he is open to a ceasefire in Ukraine. This indicates that Russia is under great pressure – militarily, economically and diplomatically. However, it could also be one of his typical ploys.

Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (2009-2013), US Admiral James Stavridis predicted that Putin thinks he is Stalin, but he will end up like Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Imperial Russia (Newsweek, Dec. 24).

To save himself : “He needs to negotiate a conclusion to his misadventure in Ukraine that allows him to declare victory and hold onto Crimea and a land bridge to Russia or the odds against him will inexorably go up. In that sense he’s already lost the war.

Tailpiece: A Viral Dance Frustrates Iran’s Mullahs

Across Iran, people are gyrating their hips, swirling their arms in the air and chanting “Oh, oh, oh, oh!”

It all started when a 70-year-old market stall owner nicknamed Booghy began grooving in public in violence of Iranian Sharia law.

The song-and-dance have since turned into a collective act of civil disobedience (NYT, Dec. 24).

Autocratic and corrupt leaders have always had a healthy fear of public ridicule – and “Prachanda – the Paper Tiger” is no exception. Perhaps it is time to resurrect one of Nepal’s most famous comedians. He would be the perfect nemesis for all the dons currently holding complete sway.

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.

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