| | | | |  | | By Matt Berg, Miles J. Herszenhorn, Joe Gould and Eric Bazail-Eimil | |  Iranian protesters attend a demonstration to condemn the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in Tehran, Iran, on July 31, 2024. | Vahid Salemi/AP | With help from Phelim Kine, Nahal Toosi and Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Matt | Email Eric Several top Democrats on Capitol Hill are worried that the assassination of top Hamas political leader ISMAIL HANIYEH — a key player in cease-fire talks in Gaza — will complicate the negotiations. Chaos was ignited this morning when Hamas and Iran’s foreign ministry announced that Haniyeh had been killed in Tehran; fingers immediately pointed at Israel, and top officials issued an order to strike Israel directly. Concerns about escalation in the region have risen to new heights in recent days after Israel said it killed a top Hezbollah commander following a deadly weekend attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Senate Armed Services Chair JACK REED (D-R.I.). questioned whether Israel — whose leaders have at times appeared lukewarm about a cease-fire that doesn’t leave Hamas destroyed — is intentionally trying to undercut the talks given that Haniyeh was one of the negotiators. The concern is whether the attacks are “going to cause an escalation because in downtown Beirut they took somebody out, and in downtown Tehran they took someone out,” Reed told NatSec Daily. “The question is what effect will it have on negotiations. I don’t think it will help it, I think it will set it back. That might be part of the logic of the attack on him, too.” Sen. BEN CARDIN (D-Md.) told a small group of reporters that “every time you have this tit-for-tat or something happening, it makes it more challenging to get to that step” in negotiations. And Sen. PETER WELCH (D-Vt.) blamed Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU for apparently going forward with the assassination without informing the White House. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN suggested this morning that the U.S. was not involved in the strike — and didn’t even know about it beforehand. “It’s reinforcing the Netanyahu approach, which is to do everything his way without consultation with the U.S., yet expecting the U.S. to back him up with every decision he makes,” Welch told NatSec Daily. Israel has not confirmed whether they were behind the attack. Welch added: “I’m very concerned that this is a real setback for already very difficult cease-fire negotiations.” Negotiations will likely continue, though they could be delayed, said NATHAN BROWN, a George Washington University professor who previously served as an advisor for the committee drafting the Palestinian constitution. But the assassination will make intermediaries and hosts of Hamas feel “a bit like the rug is being pulled out from under them,” he added. Qatari Prime Minister MOHAMMED BIN ABDULRAHMAN AL THANI also appeared to cast doubt on the future of negotiations: “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Al Thani, one of the main negotiation mediators, wrote on X. Other Democrats said they understood the decision to strike the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, even as they acknowledged it could complicate any deal that’s on the table to stop the fighting and return hostages to Israel. Sen. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-Hawaii) concurred: “Israel has a right to defend itself and — and — we need a cease-fire,” he told NatSec Daily. Lawmakers scrambled today to make sense of the events. Senators were supposed to receive a general update from Central Command head Gen. ERIK KURILLA this morning, but it was canceled without explanation, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to discuss private plans. The Biden administration still appears to be betting big on the cease-fire talks paving the way to peace in the region, even as the prospect of negotiations faltering rises. But Israeli officials aren’t counting on talks to guarantee their country’s safety, experts told NatSec Daily. “Israel is saying by these strikes: We’d prefer to wind all this down diplomatically but if we cannot achieve our goals that way, we will escalate as we would prevail — and that you know we would,” said JAMES JEFFREY, who most recently served as special representative for Syria engagement in the Trump administration and has been U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Turkey and Albania.
| | | | Live briefings, policy trackers, and procedural, industry, and people intelligence from POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy this election cycle. Secure your seat. | | | | | | | | ISRAELI DETENTION REPORT: A U.N. human rights office report today said Palestinians in Israeli detention over the past nine months have faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks and other forms of torture and mistreatment, The Associated Press’ JAMEY KEATEN reports. More than 9,400 “security detainees” are being held in Israeli prisons as of June, according to the report, some denied access to lawyers and other legal rights. The report is partly based on interviews with former detainees, including men, women, children, journalists and human rights advocates. It’s one of the most extensive reports about the Israeli detention of Palestinians, and it could be used by International Criminal Court prosecutors who have been looking into crimes committed related to the war in Gaza. DOWNING DRONES: Ukraine’s military said it repelled one of Russia’s largest drone attacks since the war began, downing 89 drones aimed at Kyiv overnight, Reuters’ ANASTASIIA MALENKO and TOM BALMFORTH report. A “significant” number of the drones were decoys that didn’t carry explosives, which are intended to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses, Ukrainian spy agency spokesperson ANDRIY YUSOV said in televised remarks. It’s the seventh drone attack against Kyiv this month, according to Ukraine’s military. VENEZUELA STANDOFF CONTINUES: A non-profit invited by the government of President NICOLÁS MADURO to verify the country’s election decried Sunday’s vote as “undemocratic,” as opposition protests rage in the South American country. In a lengthy statement, the Carter Center said that “Venezuela's electoral process did not meet international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages and violated numerous provisions of its own national laws.” The Center added that it was unable to verify the officially announced results and decried “the electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station” as “a serious breach of electoral principles.” It’s a major blow to Maduro and his allies, who extolled the Carter Center in the weeks ahead of the election. Protests have continued in major Venezuelan cities, and the opposition has managed to obtain many of the paper voting records from precincts, publishing its own version of the results online that show opposition candidate EDMUNDO GONZÁLEZ trouncing Maduro by a two-to-one margin. Meanwhile, Colombian President GUSTAVO PETRO, a friend of Caracas who could help nudge Maduro to let go of power, joined calls today for Venezuela to release all the results of the election and respect the outcome. His public statement follows a call yesterday between Biden and Brazilian President LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA that saw the leaders discuss the crisis. BURMA BUYS MORE TIME: Myanmar extended its emergency rule for another six months as its central government struggles to hold onto power, per Reuters. State-run media said the military extended emergency powers for another six months to give the junta time to organize voter lists for future elections. But the announcement comes as the junta faces an increasingly intense insurgency that is gaining momentum and challenging the country’s military leadership. The country’s leader MIN AUNG HLAING has promised elections will occur in 2025, but the votes have previously been delayed as the junta blames violence. IT’S WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at mberg@politico.com and ebazail@politico.com, and follow us on X at @mattberg33 and @ebazaileimil. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @PhelimKine, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @magmill95, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco, @reporterjoe, @JGedeon1 and @mherszenhorn.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: Bringing every domain closer, no matter the distance.
Today’s battlespace has no room for miscommunication. At Lockheed Martin, we’re building the strongest communication network possible, no matter where the battle lines are drawn. Defense tech you can count on when every second counts. Learn more. | | | | | SETTING THE RECORD: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ office is seeking to educate major foreign policy players about her record, as media scrutiny grows about Harris’ geopolitical worldview and her impact on the Biden administration’s diplomatic statecraft. The White House shared a ten-page document with think tanks and foreign policy groups that walks through Harris’ engagements in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East, and her work on artificial intelligence, space and the rights of women and girls. The explainer, obtained by NatSec Daily, is not a campaign document or memo and does not articulate direct contrasts between Harris and former President DONALD TRUMP. The Vice President’s office confirmed they compiled and shared the document. The document comes as news outlets and the Trump campaign dig deeper into Harris’ standing on the world stage. NBC News spoke to a dozen current and former administration officials who said “Harris has kept her views closely held during Situation Room meetings and policy debates,” leaving them to “decipher Harris’ positions based on questions she asks on specific topics.” And The Wall Street Journal’s JAMES AREDDY and CHUN HAN WONG write that Harris’ foreign policy record only provides “hints” of how she would engage with China if elected president.
| | OUT FOR BLOOD: A major blood donation non-profit was the target of a cyberattack, impacting its ability to provide hospitals in the Southeast with needed blood for medical procedures, CNN’s SEAN LYNGAAS reports. OneBlood, which supplies blood to hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas, was hit with a ransomware attack that has reduced its ability to ship blood to hospitals. The nonprofit has been forced to manually label blood donations and is operating “at a significantly reduced capacity,” a spokesperson said. They’ve also asked hospitals to activate critical blood shortage protocols for the time being. TARGETING IRAN’S DRONES: The U.S. sanctioned five people and seven entities based in Iran and China that have helped procure critical parts for Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs, State Department spokesperson MATTHEW MILLER said in a statement today. They helped Iran’s defense ministry and its subordinates obtain electronics and other items sought by Iran’s ballistic missile program for guidance, navigation and control purposes, State said.
| | | |   | | | | | MENTAL HEALTH FOR TROOPS: Military suicide rates were highest among ordnance disposal techs, infantry and missileers, according to a new congressionally mandated DOD report first seen by our friends at Morning Defense (for Pros!). Sen. ANGUS KING (I-Maine) championed a fiscal 2023 NDAA provision to require an annual breakdown of suicides by job specialty. The goal is to aid troops at higher risk and identify underlying cultural issues affecting their mental health. “What we have now is another series of data points that give us a pathway to where resources should be concentrated and what the issues are,” King told MD. Suicide totals were highest for infantry soldiers at 758, with aircraft specialists at 379 and law enforcement at 294 as the next highest. The report covers nearly 6,000 suicides among officers and enlisted personnel between 2011 to 2022 and more than 200 military occupational specialties. SEOUL’S INSIDER: A civilian in Seoul’s military intelligence agency was arrested for allegedly leaking military secrets, which South Korean media said was given to a Chinese national and may have been sent to North Korea, The Associated Press’ HYUNG-JIN KIM reports. If Pyongyang did receive the intel, it could set back Seoul’s intelligence gathering operations and endanger spies abroad: The civilian allegedly handed over “thousands of confidential documents including those on the intelligence command’s list of agents operating in foreign countries with disguised names and jobs,” as well as their real names and ages, the outlet writes. IRAQ STRIKE: American forces carried out their first airstrike in Iraq in months on Tuesday night, targeting unspecified “combatants” in a town south of Baghdad, The Washington Post’s DAN LAMOTHE reported.
| | | | DID YOU MISS IT? On Tuesday, POLITICO and McKinsey convened three conversations in D.C. with policymakers and space experts, including NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The discussions also featured a panel of experts, an interview with Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) and an executive conversation with McKinsey's Ryan Brukardt.
The conversations focused on the next great innovation frontier – the space industry, including deeper discussion around which sectors of the global economy see their growth arc in space and what the role of government leaders is in expanding and regulating the growing number of orbital ideas. CATCH UP AND WATCH HIGHLIGHTS HERE | | | | | | | | PUSHING FOR PEACE: Dozens of House Democrats urged the Biden administration today to strengthen its support for the implementation of Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. In a letter to Biden and Blinken, the group asked the White House to appoint a U.S. special envoy to Colombia’s peace talks, saying that then-President BARACK OBAMA tapped BERNIE ARONSON to help with successful peace negotiations. The lawmakers also ask for the reversal of the Trump administration’s designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, “because Trump’s punishment of Cuba was allegedly for Cuba’s support of Colombia’s peace process.” Rep. GREG CASAR (D-Texas), one of the lawmakers leading the letter, told NatSec Daily that the Biden administration has been “very receptive” to the issue of appointing a special envoy in staff-to-staff conversations. “That's the kind of relationship, the new kind of paradigm, we want to set in Latin America,” Casar added, “where instead of United States policies contributing to violence or displacement, the United States is instead a partner in promoting stability.”
| | GEORGIA ASSISTANCE DRIES UP: The State Department announced today that it is pausing aid to Georgia in the wake of the government’s decision to pursue its controversial “foreign agent” law, our own CSONGOR KÖRÖMI reports. In a statement, Blinken said Georgia’s “anti-democratic actions and false statements are incompatible with membership norms in the EU and NATO” and as a result, the U.S. would pause $95 million in humanitarian assistance. Assistance to “programs and activities that benefit the people of Georgia by strengthening democracy, rule of law, independent media and economic development” will continue. The announcement comes as Tbilisi finds itself increasingly isolated after it rammed through a bill requiring non-governmental organizations and other groups that receive foreign financial support to disclose their ties. The legislation, which sparked major protests, was modeled after a Russian law that critics said gutted civil society. BIDEN TARGETS FENTANYL SUPPLY CHAINS: Biden signed a national security memorandum today aimed to disrupt international supply chains that funnel synthetic opioids including fentanyl onto U.S. city streets, our own PHELIM KINE writes in. The memorandum will “close key loopholes” that facilitate that trade and will include more severe penalties for drug traffickers and classifying “fentanyl-related substances” as schedule one drugs that lack any accepted medical use, a senior administration official told reporters in an embargoed press briefing Tuesday. Administration efforts to curb Chinese imports of precursor chemicals that Mexican cartels process into fentanyl have had mixed results. Despite U.S. pressure on China to curb illicit financing for fentanyl producers, shut down precursor chemical producers and shutter online marketing sites for precursor chemicals, “there continues to be a significant supply of precursor chemicals out of the PRC,” said the official. That failure will top the agenda of meetings with a visiting delegation of Chinese officials on U.S.-China counternarcotics cooperation that lands in Washington today, the administration official said. WHERE IS WHELAN? A lawyer for PAUL WHELAN, an American businessman jailed by the Kremlin on espionage charges, doesn’t know where Whelan is and has put in a request with Russian authorities to find out, Reuters reports.
| | — Austria has nominated its finance minister, MAGNUS BRUNNER, to be a European Commissioner. — MORLEY GREENE has been tapped as vice president of aeronautics legislative affairs in Lockheed Martin Government Affairs. Green most recently served as the director of aeronautics legislative affairs, and he has held numerous positions on Capitol Hill. — Biden nominated KRISTI ZULEIKA LANE SCOTT to be the National Security Agency’s Inspector General. He also named ANGELA KERWIN as the next U.S. ambassador to Brunei.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: Clear insight means stronger foresight.
When threats come from anywhere, you have to be able to communicate everywhere. Lockheed Martin’s cross-domain connectivity is key to keeping every mission on track. Learn more. | | | | | — BASSEM MROUE, The Associated Press: Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ international face, was marked for death by Israel over the Oct. 7 attack — RISHI IYENGAR, Foreign Policy: The dragon warrior — Government Accountability Office: Ukraine: State and USAID should improve processes for ensuring partners can perform required work
| | — Henry L. Stimson Center, 9 a.m.: Great powers and the Myanmar crisis. — Center for Strategic and International Studies, 10 a.m.: Nuclear threats and the role of allies — Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10:30 a.m.: Competing for influence around the globe: Is the U.S. winning? — Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 11 a.m.: Countering the Islamic State’s gendered violence and minority persecution. Thanks to our editor, Rosie Perper, who prefers escalation over diplomacy with us. Thanks to our producer, Gregory Svirnovskiy, who should be the next star in The Diplomat. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
