US Army Colonel Derek Harvey has been handed the job of running Middle East policy for the Trump administration, Steven A. Cook writes in Salon. He says Harvey has more mainstream views on Islam than national security advisor Michael Flynn, “but he still has strange baggage.” Cook points to what he claims is Harvey’s insistence on using phrases like “radical Islamic extremism” and “militant Islam,” his shifting stance on Saudi Arabia, and his views on Turkey. He adds, “Harvey seems to like Sisi, lauding the Egyptian leader for his public stance opposing extremism — something the American right gives Sisi too much credit for and the American left too little,” but Cook is of the opinion that “Egypt is not the regional force for stability it once was, even if, like Harvey, one sees the world almost entirely in terms of the fight against Islamist extremism.” He believes Harvey’s underlying ideas about how to achieve US foreign policy goals are either “confused, uninformed or burdened with unhelpful ideology.”

And speaking of national security advisor Michael Flynn: The latest parlor game of liberal media outlets in the US is to interpret Donald Trump’s apparent silence as indicating that Flynn is soon to be thrown under the bus for talking with Russia before Trump took office. Case in point: The Washington Post’s “As Flynn falls under growing pressure over Russia contacts, Trump remains silent.”