Cyreenik Says
The Middle East seems to be finally moving on towards peace. Two events this month highlight that trend. One is that three Gulf nations, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and soon Kuwait, are formally recognizing Israel as a nation and normalizing relations with it. The other is that Afghanistan's formal government and the Taliban are opening peace talks. These are big opening steps in having Middle East countries treating each other the same way other countries around the world treat each other.
This 18 Sep 20 WSJ article, Trump Says Kuwait, Other Countries Ready to Join Middle East Deal by Gordon Lubold, talks about the Israel deals.
This 12 Sep 20 WSJ article, Afghanistan and Taliban Begin First-Ever Direct Peace Talks by Sune Engel Rasumssen in London and Ehsanullah Amiri in Kabul, talks about the Afghanistan-Taliban negotiations.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last week. Rather than give the replacement selection process a couple months to evolve the Trump administration and the Senate Republicans are working furiously to get a replacement confirmed in a month, so it happens before the November elections. What this is indicating is that Trump and the Senate Republicans don't think they will survive the election. It's pretty simple, and very political.
This is a first in my lifetime. President Trump has now repeatedly said he won't live with the election results because the voting process is too messed up. If he tries to stay in office when the vote goes against him then he is transforming into a classic dictator. All this talk is another example of Trump transforming from the effective, innovative, business-oriented leader he was during his first two years in office into something really strange and populist during the last part of his term. It is a frightening transformation, and just as frightening, a whole lot of American voters don't see a problem with this transformation.
This 24 Sep 20 WSJ article, President Again Declines to Say He Will Accept Election Result, Questions Reliability of Ballots by Alex Leary and Lindsay Wise, talks about his statement.
From the article, "Pressed on the question, the president said, “Get rid of the ballots and…we’ll have a very peaceful—there won’t be a transfer. Frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”"
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