In a separate passage, one in which Mr. Trump clearly was following a script rather than freelancing, he said: “We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks.”
.. On their face, these statements suggest:
— An end to the effort to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for the effort to throw out Mr. Assad is nothing if not an effort to topple a regime.
.. — A warmer relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a strongman who has demonstrated an unmistakable ferocity in his own fight against Islamic extremism
.. — A policy toward Iran that doubtless will be hostile and include an attempt to dissolve the Obama-negotiated deal on nuclear arms, but one that won’t include regime change in Tehran as an explicit goal.
.. Aaron David Miller, a longtime U.S. Middle East envoy and now vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says this Trump approach will be “transactional.” By that he means it will use whatever means are necessary to transact the specific deal on the table, whether that deal is ending the Islamic State threat or retreating from the Iranian nuclear agreement without provoking a war.
.. The Trump formula also suggests an approach unburdened by the need for consistency or adherence to any ideological framework. One problem with that approach, though, is that it is full of inherent contradictions and potential unintended consequences.
.. So teaming up with Russia and tolerating Mr. Assad in Syria to defeat Islamic State could have the unintended consequence of further empowering Iran—much as the war to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq had the unintended consequence of clearing the path for expanded Iranian influence in the region.
.. That won’t please America’s Persian Gulf allies, who abhor Iran’s leadership, and surely isn’t the goal of Mr. Mattis and incoming national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, whose antipathy toward Iran’s clerical regime is well documented.
.. “If you end the Iran deal you’re going to end up with a lot of awkwardness and unpleasantness with Mr. Putin,” says Mr. Miller.
Making Sense of Mike Flynn
Some people seem to sift through information with high sensitivity, but low specificity—spotting connections that others can’t, and perhaps some that aren’t even there.
Then there’s the legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
.. But critics allege that some of his work—particularly stories written without the fact-checking apparatus of The New Yorker, like his biography of JFK, or his investigation of the killing of Osama bin Laden—shows excessive credulousness.
.. Stanley McChrystal, then Flynn’s boss, harnessed his remarkable capacity for drawing connections while working to contain it, Priest reported:
He “boxed him in,” someone who had worked with both men told me last week, by encouraging Flynn to keep his outbursts in check and surrounding him with subordinates who would challenge the unsubstantiated theories he tended to indulge.
.. McChrystal saw the extraordinary value in Flynn’s sensitivity, recognizing that Flynn might spot things others would miss, so long as he was embedded in a system that could supplement it with specificity, knocking down suppositions and leaving only the solid claims standing. But, as The New York Times wrote, once Flynn found himself in command of the Defense Intelligence Agency, his sensitivity was no longer balanced by specificity—there was no one to steer him away from false positives:
.. His critics tell a different story, describing a man who brooked little dissent, and indulged in conspiratorial thinking
.. Jason Criss Howk, who worked with him in Afghanistan, called him as an “eager listener who quickly saw flaws in plans and questioned ideas that were weak.”
.. Sarah Chayes, who also worked with Flynn in Afghanistan, described him to the Timesas “a very talented information gatherer” whose “thinking process is not sufficiently analytical to test some streams against others and make sense of it, or draw consistent conclusions.”
.. But the question isn’t whether Flynn is the right choice, but whether Trump will scope and define his job in the right way—enabling him to succeed. At JSOC, he reported to a commander who apparently demanded that he discipline his outbursts and empowered his subordinates to rigorously test his ideas. He performed brilliantly. At the DIA, by contrast, he ran his own show, and reportedly demanded that his subordinates validate his ideas. He was promptly forced out.
.. One way to read Flynn’s record is as a reminder that our greatest assets are often also our greatest flaws—and it’s the circumstances in which we’re placed that enable success, or trigger failure.
In Trump’s America, ‘pizzagate’ could be the new normal
.. some prominent activists have been exploring ways to influence the incoming administration. The most obvious target has been Ivanka Trump and her husband, because they are seen as the least conservative members of the president-elect’s family.
.. He wanted to lynch me.
“Rope, Tree, Journalist,” the man wrote. “Some assembly required.” To this slogan, made popular by T-shirts Donald Trump supporters wore at his rallies, my would-be hangman added his offer: “I will assemble for you.”
.. Lately, the owner and staff at Comet — and those of other businesses on the block — have been getting death threats, spurred by radio host Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist with close ties to the president-elect.
.. Jones has been whipping up a bogus and bizarre accusation that Comet is a front for a Hillary Clinton-affiliated pedophilia ring, and the resulting calls and messages threaten a “public lynching” of this nonexistent ring. “I pray someone comes to Comet pizza with automatic weapons and kills everyone inside,” wrote one. “I just may cut your throat. . . . I truly hope someone blows your brains all over Comet pizza.”
.. The notion that Clinton and her aides are involved in pedophilia has been furthered by none other than Michael Flynn, the man Trump tapped to be his national security adviser.
.. This would appear to be the new normal: Not only disagreeing with your opponent but accusing her of running a pedophilia ring, provoking such fury that somebody takes it upon himself to start shooting. Not only chafing when criticized in the press but stoking anti-media hysteria that leads some supporters to threaten to kill journalists.
.. Trump is not directly responsible for every violent word or action of his followers. But he foments violence.
.. He boasted that “I bring rage out” in people, and his violent rallies proved it. Since the election, Trump has falsely accused the media of inciting violence. At his speech in Ohio last week he denounced the “dishonest” media no fewer than six times.
.. when Trump refers to journalists as “the lowest form of life,” “scum” and the enemy, “it is no wonder that some members of our staff [at The Post] and at other news organizations received vile insults and threats of personal harm so worrisome that extra security was required.”
Flynn’s Dangerous Goal of Regime Change
Although regime change in Iran is the central goal of the global war on terror, Flynn and Ledeen do not advocate military action. Instead they believe that the task can be accomplished politically, by lending support to the internal Iranian opposition. The Soviet Union was brought down internally, after all, so why not Iran?