Share this page!

Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Twitter logo
Aug 1 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Small thread, excellent broader point. US Domestic politics always trumps (sic) international relations in modern day America and it has become deeply destructive and toxic pathology.
Because of the Ukraine War and it’s entirely predictable impacts on European energy markets, the Euro has been trashed. It is now at its lowest levels vs USD since launch in 2002, lower than the low point of the 2014-17 Euro Crisis. And will probably go lower.
Current US Foreign Policy in:
- North Korea
- Iran
- Ethiopia and the HoA
- China,Taiwan & the South China Sea
- Afghanistan
- Central & South America
- Israel
- Syria
- The Sahel and Sub Saharan Africa
- & Europe/Ukraine
… is failing
If the U.S. is still leading this world in some manner, then it is doing so disastrously badly.

Domestically it hasn’t yet even been able to address #ClimateChsnge - greatest threat the world faces collectively.
If someone can point me to a durable foreign policy victory of the Biden, Trump or Obama administrations please do so. I can’t think of any. They didn’t even deliver the Trans Pacific Partnership - it delivered itself, without the US - and the US still haven’t joined.
Maybe we could point to one.

Trump’s Abraham Accords.

But these were arguably purchased at the cost of destabilising the Horn of Africa.
John Kerry, seemingly the only competent US diplomat in a generation had two paper victories the JCPOA (later trashed by Trump) and last year’s apparent meeting of minds with China at #COP26. But this is still being born, and definitely not yet durable.
It seems to me that by any objective assessment, the so-called “leading nation of the free world” is currently an empire with no clothes.
P.S. Just thought of another example which Americans might cite of a.recent success. The Colombian peace process.

But IMO helping a little fixing a country that you destroyed and exploited for decades doesn’t count.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Alastair Thompson

Alastair Thompson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @althecat

Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Aug 3
Two US cable TV hot takes on last nights Taiwan Crisis sparked by incoherent and unintelligible Biden Administration/Democratic Party actions - 1st MSNBC - What Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip Means.
And 2nd @CNN - which has a Retired Admiral on board to lend credence to its report. As well as politics reporter @abbydphillip who has a crack at producing a credible political explanation.
The issue with her “it’s all about midterms” and being “tough on China” explanation is that it’s very bad politics.

One of the main reasons Trump had genuine political support was his opposition to starting wars.

The politics of this do not help the Democrats in the mid terms.
Read 10 tweets
Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Aug 3
The dominant narratives at present seems to be that @SpeakerPelosi is the one exercising poor judgment in this crisis. But she ought not be underestimated.

The chorus of accusations that she’s doing this for personal financial gain are absurd and premature.
Retired Rear Admiral John Kirby is the “Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in The White House”

While his remarks here are seeking to reassure, there is an eerie similarity between them and remarks made in the lead up to the Ukraine War.
Namely:
- trust us we are not seeking war
- but we know what they China are going to do next - more bad stuff
- but be reassured we are going to keep on doing what we always do to keep the world safe.
Read 14 tweets
Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Aug 2
So are there any news stories yet about this 70 billion Pound contract to privatize/outsource the net-zero transition planning and implementation effort of the UK Govt. to two guys in Penzance yet?

HT @JolyonMaugham
To put this in perspective this is:
- nearly twice the size of the annual UK Defence budget.
- 70% of the annual GDP of Ethiopia, Africa’s 2nd most populous nation with 115 million people
- 1045 £s per person in the UK
There was one bidder, the evaluation of bids ran from June 3rd to July 14th and the contract was announced a week after @BorisJohnson resigned.

Which presumably means @RishiSunak signed it off.
Read 6 tweets
Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Aug 2
Looks like TPLF will attend talks. @reda_getachew discusses visit of the UN/US/EU envoys + Canada/UK/Italy ambs. to Mekelle. Says they were told to go back to Addis and pressure the Govt to agree to their unacceptable pre-conditions for talks. We shall see what happens next.
It seems likely to me that a message will be delivered to Addis by the ferenji, some minor concessions will be made and TPLF will be forced to back down on the unacceptable items - I.E. return of Welkaite, which will not be happening any time soon.
As usual lots of bravado and bluff, but the reality now is that the TPLF is not just being pressured to end this war by the AU, the forces arrayed against their belligerence now consist of the three main parties who previously facilitated it - and defended them diplomatically.
Read 5 tweets
Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Aug 1
“We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by, whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs..a llot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us.”

- Israel is claiming this ^^ as an antisemitic attack.
middleeastmonitor.com/20220801-israe…
The remarks were made by a member of a UN inquiry team looking into the Gaza war of May 2021 in which 250 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed - and a lot of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed.
Tactically speaking that the challenge was made by Israel’s newly appointed interim PM Yair Lapid is far from surprising. And nor is the response of Western Powers.
Read 12 tweets
Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Jul 29
Update thread on the Nth. Ethiopian conflict peace negotiations. US, UN and EU representatives are currently all in Addis Ababa .

GoE. Amb. @RedwanHussien said yesterday: “Government is ready to talks anytime anywhere … talks should begin without preconditions.”
@RedwanHussien The thread linked above takes a look at the international and Govt. of Ethiopian position on proposed peace talks. To better understand the current TPLF position the most recent two TPLF Tigrai TV propaganda bulletins now follow. The first from July 26th.
This ^^ bulletin published Tuesday 26/7 begins with a briefing from TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael - in which he states the latest demand of the TPLF, i.e. that services - electricity and communications - must be restored before peace talks can commence.
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(