Israel Losing US Support

Many posts have discussed relations between the US and Israel

 Franklin Foer at The Atlantic:

Just over a decade ago, support for Israel was one of the last remaining bipartisan reflexes in American politics. The harshest thing most mainstream Democrats said about the country was that Netanyahu’s government was obstructing a two-state agreement with Palestinians. But in the years since the October 7 Hamas-led massacre of Israelis and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, that consensus, which was already losing ground among the Democratic rank and file, gave way. Two years ago, 19 senators in the Democratic caucus voted to block arms sales to Israel; this April, 40 out of 47 did—including most of the presidential aspirants within the caucus. Now, the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world is an avowed anti-Zionist who campaigned on the promise that he would arrest Netanyahu; a Columbia University activist who joined an October 8, 2023, rally celebrating the Hamas attacks will almost certainly be elected to the next Congress. Leading liberal senators, including Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, have made criticism of Israel a central part of their message.

...

Bigots would have found a pretext to hate Israel, no matter what. Anti-Israel extremism was flourishing in the American university before October 7, which is why a succession of suspiciously well-organized protests against Israel erupted the day after the worst pogrom since the Holocaust. But Israel will come to regret how much American political support it has sacrificed on Netanyahu’s watch—and not just on the left. Political independents have come to sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis; 60 percent of American adults have an unfavorable view of Netanyahu’s country; a majority of Republicans under the age of 45 oppose renewing Obama’s military-aid package; support among young evangelicals, once the pro-Israel bastion of the electorate, is cratering. Netanyahu’s legacy is Israel’s isolation. Perhaps that wasn’t preventable. His failure is that he never tried to avoid this fate.

Pew:

Gallup:

 

Israel Lobbying

Many posts have analyzed how foreign governments try to influence American politics and policy.  And many posts have discussed relations between the US and Israel

Jacob Wendler at POLITICO:

Israel is shifting away from its traditional strategy of relying on American-led groups like AIPAC to advance its interests in the U.S., and is instead increasingly hiring foreign agents to ramp up its influence efforts, per a new paper from foreign policy think tank the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

— Israel has spent over $1 billion on public diplomacy efforts since 2023 — including more than $100 million on efforts to influence the U.S. disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, per the new report from Nick Cleveland-Stout, a research associate in the Quincy Institute’s Democratizing Foreign Policy program. The country is now on track to be the biggest FARA spender this year.

— Seventeen new firms registered under FARA to work for Israeli interests in 2024 and 2025, including former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale’s firm Clock Tower X, which holds the largest contract at $46.5 million, per the report. Clock Tower X has disclosed attempts to seed pro-Israel framing into LLM training data via a network of websites designed to influence AI chatbots like ChatGPT.

— Israel has also spent millions to court social media influencers and fund mass texting campaigns aimed at swaying public opinion, per FARA filings reviewed by the Quincy Institute. The country paid $161,000 to influencer Yoav Davis, who oversees the Instagram account @jews_of_ny with nearly 200,000 followers. It also paid firm Bridges Partners $900,000 to pay more than a dozen influencers — none of whom have registered as foreign agents.

— Israel’s U.S. influence efforts are largely funneled through French company Havas Media, which has subcontracted seven different firms under FARA since 2024, including Democratic PR shop SKDK and Bridges Partners. Many of the subcontractors specialize in reaching critical groups whose support for the country is waning, including young Americans, Evangelicals and conservatives. In September 2025, Havas inked a $3.2 million contract with Christian marketing firm Show Faith by Works to undertake a controversial “geofencing” campaign aimed at targeting American churchgoers with pro-Israel ads.

— Israel and its backers in the U.S. have escalated their efforts to repair the country’s reputation in the U.S. amid intensifying criticism from members of Congress and Vice President JD Vance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also expected to visit Washington next week to meet with President Donald Trump, Netanyahu’s office announced today.

— “Israel’s new tactics are transforming America’s influence landscape, but they have so far proved insufficient to counter the erosion in public support that is being driven by Israel’s deeply unpopular policies,” Cleveland-Stout writes in the paper.

Financial Cost of the Iran War

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.  The Iran War has been a disaster.

Edward Wong and Aruni Soni at NYT:

For U.S. taxpayers and consumers, the cost of the war is at least $132 billion, according to Moody’s Analytics. That factors in military spending, rising energy and commodity prices and interest rates, said Mark Zandi, the company’s chief economist.

A top Pentagon official told Congress last month that the cost had risen to around $29 billion for the military. That estimate did not include the price of repairing about a dozen U.S. bases in the region damaged by Iranian attacks.

The costs of repair and maintenance, as well as keeping carrier strike groups at sea, also need to be factored in. “It costs a lot of money to just keep everyone and all this apparatus deployed there,” said Linda Bilmes, a public finance expert and senior lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. She added that the replacement costs of the enormous number of munitions that the U.S. military has expended will be much higher than the original purchasing costs.

Iran also severely damaged other U.S. assets in the region, including a valuable military radar jet on a tarmac in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Embassy compound in Riyadh.

Surrender

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military

"There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!... IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. 'MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).'” - President Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/H2HKkBVkww

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026

Despite the brilliant performance of the US military in the war against Iran, Trump signed a memorandum of understanding that amounts to a surrender ... by the United States.

Mike Nelson at The Dispatch:

Finally, and shamefully, the agreement puts a final nail in the coffin of the Iranian people’s hopes that the United States would support their cries for freedom. “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.” A conflict that started with the hopeful protests of a people pushing back against almost five decades of oppression ends with the country meant to be the beacon of freedom agreeing to turn a blind eye to the slaughter of 30,000 Iranians, or the inevitable continued crackdowns, executions, and repression. No matter how he wishes to run from it now, we should never forget the president’s undeniably clear messages to the Iranian people when he thought this would be easy—“help is on the way,” “the hour of your liberation is at hand.” Vance, already having shown his callous disregard for the deaths of Ukrainians, adds the Iranian people to the mix in his attempt to carry his boss’s water, “if the Iranian people want to rise up, great. That's their business. That's between them and their government.”

The conflict ends with a seeming disregard for the disposition of uranium we said we were fighting to secure, for the arsenal of missiles we said we were seeking to destroy, and for the oppressed Iranians we promised we were going to help. The war ends with nothing of value to show for it. We will have killed thousands of Iranians, destroyed hundreds of missile launchers and air defense systems, but to what end? For the privilege of achieving nothing quantifiable, we have provided Iran with proof of a strategic deterrent it can exercise at any time, provided the regime with access to a massive cash influx, rebuilt its relationship with proxies that was damaged after October 7, damaged our alliances and relationships, spent billions of dollars, expended a large percentage of our critically short precision munitions, and lost 13 American lives, to say nothing of the hundreds of wounded. As with so many of his missteps or failures, President Trump will likely try to categorize this as a win, shift the way it is remembered with the passage of time, blame someone else, or just hope it fades from memory as he moves on to what he deems truly important business, like ballrooms and reflecting pools. But this will likely be the largest and costliest error of his presidency, and one for which he deserves permanent shame.

Constraints on Presidential War Power

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

Matt Glassman:

My view, as discussed last week, is that presidential warmaking is an almost wholly political issue, rather than a legal one. No court is going to stop a war.

That said, I think may people hear "wholly political" and just assume that the president has a free hand to do whatever he/she wants. I completely disagree. In fact, presidents are incredibly constrained by politics when it comes to war.

Take Trump and Iran. What are some of the major political constraints:

1. Military capacity
2. Cooperation of allies
3. Reaction of foreign adversaries
4. Reaction of markets
5. Congressional opinion
6. American public opinion
7. Partisan/base opinion

The first two---military capacity and ally cooperation---are straightforward; they are essentially supply-side constraints. Presidents can only go to war with the military Congress provides. Ditto with allies; absent the ability to use airspace and foreign bases, some operations become impossible. And it's always better to have a coalition of nations fighting the war than going it alone.

The third and fourth items on the list---foreign and market reactions---are constraints because they create immediate negative feedback, political and economic. Trump can't just nuke Tehran because that could easily trigger an escalation to global war, and WW3 with China is a bad outcome. Similarly, now that Iran has closed the strait and oil prices are spiking, the economic costs of the war may soon exceed the benefits, encouraging the president to seek a diplomatic off-ramp.

The final three items---opinions in Congress, the public, and the president's party---are the most purely political. These matter because the president has goals other than the objectives of the war, and negative opinions about the war will inevitably spill over to future political goals, whether they are policy, electoral, or egoist.

Gutting the Diplomatlic Corps

Many posts have discussed federal employment and bureaucracy.

Abigail Williams at NBC

The State Department declined to provide exact numbers. According to the American Foreign Service Association, around 2,000 U.S. diplomats have left the Foreign Service over the last year, either through layoffs or forced retirements, taking with them decades of institutional knowledge, experience in crisis response and highly specialized language skills paid for by the U.S. government.

Their departure from a workforce that was estimated to be more than 13,000 in 2024 leaves the U.S. at a critical disadvantage, current and former State Department officials say, at a time when the nation is facing an escalating number of foreign policy crises.

...

The leadership vacuum is large. The ambassadorship in Moldova is still vacant, along with more than half of ambassadorships around the globe, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where a worsening Ebola outbreak began. There is no ambassador to Ukraine, and seasoned diplomat Julie Davis, who has been leading the embassy in Kyiv while simultaneously serving as ambassador to Cyprus, is stepping down next month to join others in retirement.

...

In the Middle East, where the U.S. continues to navigate a war with Iran and the fallout with regional allies, half of the U.S. missions, including four Persian Gulf countries, are without formal U.S. ambassadors. Pakistan and Qatar, where officials have taken on critical mediating roles in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, are without ambassadors.

The absences contributed to the frantic effort to evacuate thousands of Americans who became stranded, and withdraw personnel when Iran began retaliating across the region in March, current and former diplomats say.

Not good pic.twitter.com/yvodGttLpV

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) June 4, 2026

The Fallen in the Iran War

Previous posts have discussed Memorial Day.  The United States is in another war, and more Americans have died.

At CBS, Kerry Breen reports on service members who have died in the Iran War.

The first six were members of a U.S. Army Reserve unit based in Des Moines, Iowa, who were killed in a strike in Kuwait on March 1. They were identified as:

• Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida;
• Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska;
• Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota;
• Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa;
• Maj. Jeffrey R. O'Brien, 45, of Waukee, Iowa;
• Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California.

Another service member who was injured in an attack at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March 1 died from his injuries seven days later, the Pentagon said. He was identified as Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Kentucky.

Six service members were killed in a crash of a U.S. refueling aircraft over Iraq on March 12. Three of the six were members of the Ohio Air National Guard assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, and the other three were assigned to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, the Defense Department said. They were identified as:

• Maj. John A. Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama;
• Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington;
• Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky;
• Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana;
• Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio;
• Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio.

The Vatican and the US Government

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

 Matthew Choi and Dan Merica at WP:

For decades, the Vatican has been a unique partner in U.S. foreign policy. From mediating negotiations with hostile countries like Cuba to coordinating global efforts on combating hunger, the Vatican regularly taps into its singular status as both church and state to help U.S. objectives abroad. The relationship hasn’t always been seamless — past popes have spoken out about American policy — but the alignment on human rights usually overcame any disagreements.

Which makes the latest row between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV all the more extraordinary. The president has ferociously criticized the pope this week, saying the pontiff should stay out of politics. He accused Leo of “endangering a lot of Catholics” for his criticisms of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, saying the pope would permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Vice President JD Vance has also said the pope should “be careful” in opining on theology when critiquing U.S. foreign policy.

Leo denied that he or the church have ever promoted nuclear weapons and that “should anyone want to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, they should do so with the truth.”

The back and forth has led to the lowest point in U.S.-Vatican relations since the two states established formal diplomatic relations in 1984, Vatican officials told our colleague Anthony Faiola. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is Catholic, met with the pope in Vatican City today in what Rubio described as a preplanned meeting that wasn’t driven by the latest rift between the two leaders. But the tension is certain to loom in the background. Anthony and Stefano Pitrelli have more on Rubio’s visit here.

“It’s extraordinary,” Margaret Susan Thompson, a professor of history and political science at Syracuse University, told us of the administration’s rhetoric toward the pope. “To have [Vance] speak out and say, in effect, the pope should mind his own business, and the pope should learn Catholic doctrine, and other members of the administration saying things like, the pope should read the Bible — these are kind of odd statements.”

Blockade

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

 Mark Nevitt at Just Security:

CENTCOM has clarified that the U.S. blockade targets Iranian ports along the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman — not the Strait itself. That distinction matters legally, but the blockade remains an act of war. Further, CENTCOM stated that “forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.” CENTCOM’s clarification appears to supersede President Trump’s earlier social media post announcing a blockade of the Strait itself. The blockade announced in specific terms by CENTCOM ratchets up pressure on Iran while creating enormous operational risks.

For a blockade to be legally valid, it must meet certain criteria.

First, the blockade can be established only by the government of a belligerent State. Blockade is not a peacetime operation. By establishing the blockade, the United States is exercising a belligerent right under the laws of war, effectively ending the ceasefire.

Second, it is customary for the State establishing the blockade to notify all affected States of its imposition. The form of the notification is not material, so long as it is effective. CENTCOM has announced the blockade via social media and has stated that “[a]dditional information will be provided to commercial mariners through a formal notice before the start of the blockade.”

Third, to be valid, the blockade must be effective. This means that blockading forces must exert force to render ingress or egress of the blockaded area dangerous. While the Commander’s Handbook on Naval Warfare states that “effectiveness does not require every possible avenue of approach to the blockaded area be covered,” an ineffective blockade is an illegal blockade under the law of naval warfare and the San Remo Manual. This will be challenging. This blockade is a massive undertaking for the U.S. Navy, which appears to be operating without naval partners. After all, the Iranian coastline stretches roughly the coastal distance from Boston to Savannah —about 1,100 miles.

At the time President Trump’s version of the blockade had been announced (not the modified CENTCOM version), Admiral James Stavridis, former head of European Command, estimated that an effective blockade would require two full aircraft carrier strike groups as well as a dozen destroyers. That would represent a substantial commitment of naval firepower, and even then, effectiveness would not be guaranteed — a threshold that matters legally, not just operationally. It’s fair to assume the scope of the blockade announced by CENTCOM will also require a very substantial force. These operational realities bear directly on whether the blockade can satisfy the legal effectiveness requirement under the law of naval warfare — a threshold that, if not met, renders the blockade itself unlawful.

Further complicating matters, warships may have to position themselves along the Iranian coastline. If so, that will require several ships to navigate the Strait of Hormuz itself, a risky proposition made even riskier with the ceasefire ending and unaccounted-for mines lurking about.

Fourth, a blockade must be applied impartially to the vessels and aircraft of all States.

Finally, the blockade must not bar access to or departure from neutral ports and coasts. This requirement may become salient if the blockade has the practical effect of restricting neutral access to regional ports.

Polarized Views of Foreign Policy

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization.

From Gallup: 

US and Israel

Many posts have discussed relations between the US and Israel

Ben Kamisar at NBC:

American voters’ feelings on Israel and the Palestinian territories have shifted dramatically in recent years, in a sea change that is transforming the Democratic Party and shaping its primaries.

A new NBC News poll underscores the depths of the shift. More registered voters view Israel negatively than positively, a change from a few years ago. The change has been especially pronounced among independents and Democrats, fueling divided congressional primaries in 2026 and potentially shaping the party’s 2028 presidential contest.

 Ron Brownstein at Bloomberg:

Some conflict was inevitable between a US Democratic Party (and an American Jewish community) grounded in the left and an Israeli electorate that has mostly moved right since the 1990s. But Netanyahu has systematically widened that divide by consistently and almost exclusively cultivating the American right. “Netanyahu decided 20 years ago that evangelical Christians, conservative Jews and the Republicans were his natural constituency, and he’s given up. He doesn’t care about the rest,” says Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former top State Department adviser on the Middle East.

To win his first election as prime minister in 1996, Netanyahu recruited Arthur Finkelstein, a legendary strategist among the Republican far right. Once in office, Netanyahu commissioned a study by a group of US neoconservatives that urged both “a clean break” from the Palestinian peace process and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Netanyahu clashed so vehemently with Democratic President Bill Clinton over his push for a two-state peace agreement that Clinton famously left his first meeting with the Israeli leader angrily declaring “who’s the f---ing superpower here?”

Hegseth Endorses War Crime

 María Teresita Armstrong-Matta at Raw Story:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's offhand remark that the U.S. would show "no quarter, no mercy for our enemies," in Iran. In military context, "no quarter" means killing enemy combatants without allowing surrender.

This alarmed legal experts, who warned the statement could constitute a war crime. Even just saying it could count as a violation of international law and U.S. military code, they added.

Wall Street Journal national security reporter Alex Ward flagged the comment as violating international humanitarian law under the Geneva Convention.

Claremont McKenna College professor Jack Pitney cited the Defense Department's own Law of War Manual, which explicitly forbids declaring no quarter will be given. International Crisis Group senior adviser Brian Finucane, a former U.S. government war crimes lawyer, stated that even declaring no quarter constitutes a war crime punishable by up to life imprisonment under the DoD Manual for Military Commissions.

Stanford law professor Tom Dannenbaum confirmed declaring no quarter is prohibited under international humanitarian law and itself amounts to a war crime.


Watch the video below.

It violates international law. \

It violates the DOD manual on the law of war.

It violates US Code.

At Just Security,  Daniel Mauer offers the Secretary of Defense some hypothetical legal advice:

. War Crime liability under 18 U.S.C. 2441:

a. The U.S. War Crimes statute makes it a federal offense to commit a “war crime,” subject to being “fined … or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.”

b. The statute defines “war crime” by incorporating those offenses described as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions or its additional protocols and acts specifically “prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV.”

c. As stated above, Article 23(d) in that Annex is unambiguous: “it is especially forbidden . . . [t]o declare that no quarter will be given.”

d. In describing ongoing and future combat operations in the current international armed conflict between the United States and Iran, your statement “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” likely violates Art. 23(d) of the Annex to Hague IV and thereby violates 18 U.S.C. § 2441. This interpretation is reinforced when your remarks are considered alongside your previous public comments about the Rules of Engagement, “maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” and the laws of armed conflict noted above in para. 2.b.

e. An intention to merely cause panic and terror within the Iranian armed forces is not a defense because Article 23(d) prohibits the “declar[ation] that no quarter will be given.” It is a speech offense; under normal principles of criminal law, a command to unlawfully kill another person, even if never performed, is still prohibited (“Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal” – see 18 U.S.C. § 2). Whether the order is ever consummated by your subordinates is immaterial to your criminal exposure under 18 U.S.C. § 2441.

f. Any U.S. servicemember who interprets your comments as an order and who subsequently commands, directs, orders, or gives “no quarter” to Iranian forces will be exposed to criminal liability under Article 118, UCMJ, for murder (a premeditated killing of another with no legal justification or excuse). Such an order is “patently” or “manifestly” unlawful; therefore, a servicemember accused of murder for ordering or giving “no quarter” cannot raise an “obedience to orders” defense in their court-martial. Alternatively, servicemembers would also be exposed to prosecution in U.S. district court for violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2441.

Iran and the Shadow of Previous Wars

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

 Natalie Jackson at National Journal:

Afghanistan was retaliation for 9/11, and was therefore extremely popular. Americans’ desire to avenge the attacks translated to more than 90 percent support for military action. More than 6 in 10 supported a long-term war. Eighteen months later when we went into Iraq, sentiment was still fairly unified and supportive of going after foreign enemies—two-thirds of voters supported military intervention to take out Saddam Hussein, including a majority of Democrats.

It also helped that the international order supported both wars in the beginning. The world was fairly easily convinced—incorrectly, as it turned out—that Iraq was making nuclear weapons. That fear was accompanied by humanitarian concerns and Iraq's alleged terrorist ties.

Both wars ultimately became unpopular and untenable. The eventual wind-down in Afghanistan was chaotic and unpopular, and in mid-2021 more than 6 in 10 Americans said it hadn’t even been worth fighting. In 2019, 62 percent of Americans and 59 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said the Iraq war had not been worth fighting. There were two big wins: taking Saddam Hussein out of power and killing Osama bin Laden. But for most, there was little point in continuing the wars after those wins.

Americans have become increasingly isolationist in the last 15 years. Donald Trump campaigned on that isolationism, only to turn toward military action and regime change once he returned to office. That the administration is working closely with Israel also colors the reaction to attacking Iran. The American public has grown substantially less favorable toward Israel over the last few years.

We’ve been involved in periodic conflicts with Iran since the late Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979, particularly in trying to keep the ultra-religious regime that chants “death to America” from getting nuclear weapons. But without a huge provocation from Iran, a preemptive strike was always going to be unpopular. Combine that with the recent history of U.S. wars in the region, and you see that public reactions go far deeper than partisanship.

Airstrikes

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

Zachary Basu at Axios: 

No president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump.He's attacked seven nations, three of which — Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela — had never been targeted by U.S. military strikes. He authorized more individual air strikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.
...
The big picture: Trump's strikes are historically distinctive not just in number but in kind.President Bush's post-9/11 campaigns and President Obama's drone wars were massive in scale — but concentrated in inherited or congressionally authorized theaters. Alongside traditional counterterrorism efforts, Trump has opened new fronts — a Christmas Day strike in Nigeria, drug boats sunk in the Caribbean, Nicolás Maduro snatched from Caracas. His preferred model is consistent: no boots on the ground, no lengthy entanglements, overwhelming force applied quickly and framed as essential to defending American interests.

 

War, Israel, and Public Opinion

WP:

The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, as President Donald Trump vowed to eliminate Tehran’s missiles and nuclear program and fuel a change in government. “I want a safe nation, and that’s what we’re going to have,” Trump told The Washington Post after announcing the start of “major combat operations.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the joint attack would last “as long as needed,” unleashing a conflict that threatens to engulf the region. As explosions rocked Tehran and other cities, Iran pledged a “crushing” retaliation, lobbing missiles toward Israel and targeting U.S. military bases in the Gulf.

In the past, the public might have had a predisposition to approve joint military action with Israel.  A new Gallup survey rasies doubts.


Benedict Vigers at Gallup:

Forty-one percent of Americans now say they sympathize more with the Palestinians in the Middle East situation, while 36% sympathize more with the Israelis. The five-percentage-point difference is not statistically significant, but it contrasts with a clear lead for the Israelis only a year ago (46% vs. 33%) and larger leads over the prior 24 years.

From 2001 to 2025, Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies, with the gap averaging 43 points between 2001 and 2018. However, public opinion began narrowing in 2019, several years before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. The cumulative effect of gradual changes in U.S. attitudes since then has led to the Israelis no longer being viewed more sympathetically.

For the first time on record, as many independents hold a very or mostly favorable view of the Palestinian Territories as they do of Israel (both 41%). Over the past year, independents’ favorability toward Israel has declined six points, while their favorability toward the Palestinian Territories has risen by 10. Looking at a longer time frame, however, the shift is more pronounced on the Israel side. Since February 2023 — the last measurement before the Oct. 7 attacks — independents’ favorability toward Israel has dropped 26 points, compared with a 12-point increase in their favorability toward the Palestinian Territories.

Among Democrats, the Palestinian Territories have held an edge in favorability since 2025. This year, 48% of Democrats view the Palestinian Territories favorably, compared with 34% for Israel, broadly in line with last year. Republicans remain the most pro-Israel partisan group, with 69% holding a favorable view, though that figure has fallen 15 points from 2025 to its lowest level in over two decades. Meanwhile, a steady 18% of Republicans view the Palestinian Territories favorably, recovering from a record low of 5% in 2024.

 

CMC Connects: Presidential Power in 2026

Hard Power

Executive Orders

Personnel

• Net reduction of 242,260 employees
• Political and ideological considerations
• SCOTUS case on the FTC

Pardons

Use of Force

CRS counts 469 foreign interventions between 1798 and 2022

Since January 20, 2025:

• Venezuela: boat bombings and capture of Maduro):
• Iran: Airstrikes on nuclear facilities 
• Yemen: Air strikes against Houthi militants
• Counterterrorism Strikes in Iraq, Nigeria, and Somalia.

Domestic use of National Guard, CBP, and ICE

Investigation and Prosecution

• James Comey: charges of making false statements to Congress and obstruction related to his 2020 testimony. The indictment was  dismissed.
• John Bolton: indictment for alleged unauthorized retention and transmission of classified information.
• Letitia James New York Attorney General indicted in October 2025 on bank fraud and false statements charges.  Case dismissed. 
•  Jerome H. Powell said DOJ as opened a criminal investigation into Powell; prosecutors are looking at cost overruns.

Threats: Regulatory Action and Funding

• Universities and funding
• Law firms representing Trump adversaries:  contracts
• Media companies and FCC license threats

Soft Power:  "Power to Persuade"

Support from congressional Republicans and One Big Beautiful Bill

Public approval is down

Goodbye, CIA World Factbook

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute."   -- George Orwell, 1984

A number of posts have discussed presidential documents, official data, and government websites.  The Trump administration has killed off or limited access to many such resources, including now the CIA World Factbook. 

 David A. Graham at The Atlantic:

Memories are now the only place the World Factbook resides. In a post online yesterday, the agency noted that the site “has sunset,” though it provided no explanation for why. (The agency did not immediately reply to my inquiry about why, nor has it replied to other outlets.) The Associated Press noted that the move “follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.”

The demise of the World Factbook is part of a broad war on information being waged by the Trump administration. This is different from the administration’s assault on truth, in which the president and the White House lie prolifically or deny reality. This is something more fundamental: It’s a series of steps that by design or in effect block access to data, and in doing so erode the concept of a shared frame for all Americans. “Though the World Factbook is gone, in the spirit of its global reach and legacy, we hope you will stay curious about the world and find ways to explore it … in person or virtually,” the CIA wrote in the valedictory post. Left unsaid: You’re on your own to figure it out now.

If the World Factbook was indeed shut down because it didn’t meet Ratcliffe’s standard for core CIA functions, that reflects the Trump administration’s impoverished view of the government’s role. The World Factbook was a public service that helped Americans and others around the globe be informed, created a positive association with a shadowy agency, and spread U.S. soft power by providing a useful service free to all. I’ve been unable to determine how much it cost the government to maintain, but there’s no reason to think it would be substantive.

 

A Year and a Week of Trump

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 My article in La Tercera (original English):

The first year of President Trump's second term was full of action. He got Congress to pack much of his domestic agenda into what he called "One Big Beautiful Bill." The legislation cut taxes, with the benefits flowing mainly to the wealthiest Americans. It partly offset the tax reductions by cutting programs for the poor.

Trump assigned billionaire Elon Musk to cut "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the government. The effort failed. The young staffers who worked for Musk did not know what they were doing. They disrupted government operations and fired experienced employees without finding much waste. Their actions led to lawsuits and required expensive remedial measures. In the end, Musk cost American taxpayers more money than he saved. By the end of 2025, the federal government's debt had risen to $38 trillion.

On the positive side, the economy grew, and inflation remained modest, continuing trends that had begun during the Biden administration. Additionally, Trump's tariffs did not lead to the immediate price spikes that many had feared. Nevertheless, economists warned that tariffs could drive up prices in 2026.


Trump's record on foreign policy was also mixed. His administration helped broker a cease-fire in Gaza and carried out a military strike that set back Iran's nuclear program. The abduction of Nicolas Maduro possibly opened long-term opportunities for American oil companies, but it was not clear how the Venezuelan people would fare.


During his 2024 reelection campaign, Trump repeatedly promised that he would end the war in Ukraine in the first 24 hours of his term. But despite his courtship of Vladimir Putin, the war dragged on. He was no more successful in his quest to gain ownership of Greenland.


All in all, it was a year to remember, though not necessarily for the reasons that Trump wanted.

Since I wrote that piece, things have gotten worse for Trump.  Tricia Escobedo at CNN:

President Donald Trump showed his first signs of retreat since surging federal immigration agents in Minnesota late last year — replacing the leader of the crackdown on the ground and signaling a new willingness to cooperate with the state’s Democratic elected officials. Top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino and some of his agents are expected to leave Minneapolis today and return to their respective sectors, according to three sources, sidelining a key player in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The move comes after Trump announced he was dispatching White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis in the wake of the fatal shooting of US citizen Alex Pretti. The White House has said Homan is expected to manage ICE operations in the city.

Invading Greenland Would Be Illegal

Many posts have discussed foreign policy, war powers and the US military.

Alberto J. Mora at Just Security:

Unfortunately for Trump’s imperial ambitions – but fortunately for the rule of law, the U.S. national interest, and international stability – Trump’s ability to execute any act of military aggression against Greenland is constrained by an additional statute: 22 U.S.C. 1928f. This statute – which was not applicable to Venezuela because it is not a NATO member — was adopted by Congress pursuant to Section 1250A of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and was designed to prohibit the president from materially altering the U.S. government’s relationship with NATO and the North Atlantic Treaty (the diplomatic instrument that gave rise to NATO) without prior congressional approval.

In addition to its consultation and notification requirements, the statute – which is titled “Limitation on Withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” – contains two principal provisions: first, as the title implies, a broad prohibition against withdrawal from NATO or taking other analogous steps that would materially damage the U.S. relationship with the organization and, second (and critically), a limitation on the use of appropriated funds such that the president would be precluded from using such funds to implement the actions prohibited by the statute.

...

The applicability of this statute stems from Greenland’s status as an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark and Denmark’s status as a member of NATO. As Mike Schmitt has explained, “[i]t is clear that Greenland falls within the geographical coverage of Article 5.”

While the administration will undoubtedly claim that, because it has no intent to formally “withdraw” from the North Atlantic Treaty, the statute is not applicable to the current situation, this assertion would be false. A U.S. attempt to seize Greenland militarily would constitute an attack on Denmark and, through the operation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an attack on each of the other 30 NATO members (excluding of course the U.S.). Not only would this attack instantaneously breach, either directly or constructively, each of the four prohibitions in clause (a) of Sec. 1928f (meaning it would invariably constitute or lead to the suspension, termination, denunciation, and withdrawal of the U.S. from the Treaty), it would necessarily also lead to the destruction of the organization in its current form as the U.S. wages war on our former allies.

Because these consequences are inevitable, any order by President Trump to launch an attack on Greenland necessarily triggers the automatic cutoff of authorized or appropriated funds that would be required to execute the assault. In addition, because the administration has clearly not only engaged in “deliberation” about taking military action against Denmark and NATO, but, indeed, has reportedly already ordered that military planning be initiated, the consultation and notification requirements of Sec.1928f have already been triggered.

Not Rallying Around the Flag

Many posts have discussed foreign policy, war powers and the US military. This weekend, the US snatched Maduro.

Bart Jansen at USA Today:

One in three Americans approve of the U.S. military strike to remove Nicolás Maduro from the presidency of Venezuela to face federal drug-trafficking charges, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Jan. 5.

In contrast, 72% of respondents worried about the United States becoming too involved in the South American country.

The two-day poll found a sharp partisan divide over the raid that President Donald Trump ordered, with his approval rating at 42%. The results found 65% of Republicans back the military operation, compared to 11% of Democrats and 23% of independents.