In this mailing: David Brown: The West's Big-Ticket Power Grabs Malcolm Lowe: America's Loyal Syrian Kurdish Allies Evade Annihilation Gatestone's important work is only made possible through the support of our readers. As a non-profit organization, the funds we raise now will determine what we will be able to do in 2019. Please make a U.S. tax-deductible contribution today -- the last day that every donation will be tripled by an anonymous donor, so that your gift will be worth so much more. The West's Big-Ticket Power Grabs Why Should People Respect the Social Contract when Politicians Do Not? by David Brown  •  December 31, 2018 at 5:00 am          The assertiveness of supra-national organisations with a focus on global policy-making is direct threat to the sovereignty of the nation state, and a dilution of the power of the individuals within it. Most alarmingly, as MEP Marcel de Graaff neatly surmised from the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration: "Criticism of migration will become a criminal offense." At what point have we left all pretext of democracy and moved into the sphere of dictatorship, manifest at a supranational level? "It's very simple: the globalist political elite doesn't respect nation-states, nor does it give a damn about the views of ordinary people. Indeed, it despises them so much that it would much rather make their views illegal than listen to what they have to say." — James Delingpole, Breitbart, December 9, 2018. French President Emmanuel Macron's recent dismissal of nationalism as "selfish" and a "betrayal of patriotism" is at odds with strengthening populist movements sweeping across Italy, Germany and Spain. Pictured: Macron shares a laugh with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the European Council leaders' summit on June 28, 2018 in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) It is a strange time to be a citizen in a Western democracy. Our society is based on exchange -- we transact in the free market, we share ideas online, and most significantly we give up some of our natural liberty in exchange for a civil society and a vote. But increasingly, the freedoms supposed to be protected by civil society are being eroded away. At the level of the individual, our freedom of speech is under attack. Criticism of migration is apparently about to become "hate speech" and a prosecutable offence. When the authority of the nation state is ceded to a supra-national body, such as the United Nations, our power as citizens is diluted. Based on the contractual theory of society and the works of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau from the 17th and 18th century, real power is supposed to sit with the people; in order to retain moral character, government must thus rest on the consent of the governed, or the volonté générale ("general will"): Continue Reading Article America's Loyal Syrian Kurdish Allies Evade Annihilation While US forces in Iraq face expulsion by Malcolm Lowe  •  December 31, 2018 at 4:00 am          It would be strategic wisdom to maintain the small US presence in Syria while reducing the US profile in Iraq in order to forestall a looming demand by the Iraqi parliament for a total US withdrawal. Now it is probably too late because the Syrian Kurds have decided to abandon the US before the US abandons them. Trump was doubtless informed about events in Iraq on a running basis by McGurk over recent months, but his statements at the US base were as nonchalant about the facts in Iraq as about the situation in Syria. What he does not imagine at all is that the day may be close when the Iraqi parliament votes by a large majority to ask him to remove US forces from the country -- and he will have to comply. The consequences of these December days will delay regime change in Iran. If a perception arises in Iran that the regime can expel the US from Iraq as well as Syria, while expanding its influence to dominate Syria from end to end, some Iranians will give the regime another chance and others will be significantly more discouraged from challenging its power. Thus a single obstinate insistence to prefer a personal instinct to all better-informed advice may bring US policy tumbling down throughout the Middle East. Pictured: President Donald Trump and Melania Trump speak with US military officers during a visit to Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq, on December 26, 2018. (Image source: The White House) In April 2018, we warned that President Trump's decision to withdraw US forces from Syria would be a repetition of President Obama's worst mistake, the precipitate withdrawal from Iraq that facilitated the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State (ISIS). We perceived that the immediate consequence of abandoning Syria would be a Turkish-led campaign to annihilate America's Syrian Kurdish allies, who heroically bore the brunt of defeating the ISIS in Syria and capturing its capital, Raqqa. Continue Reading Article