The US Supreme Court narrowed the scope of lower court rulings blocking the travel restrictions project of the President, imposed on six Muslim countries by his decree.
The legal battle continues, the court will hear arguments on the legality of the President’s decree in the next term, i.e. in October.
Although Trump insists that the revised order of March the 6th, which replaced the order that he signed on the 27th of January, barely a week after taking office, is “watered down, politically correct”, his opponents still find it to be a mean-spirited, intolerant and un-American “Muslim ban”.
Still, after the Supreme Court’s decision, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Libyan, Iranian or Somalian travellers are banned from entry for 90 days and refugees entering the US even for 120 days.
The upholding of the ban comes at a time when the Middle East is increasingly turbulent, with the Gulf crisis worsening, as accusations fly in all directions. Just today it appears that the UAE may be implicated in a failed assassination attempt against the then Saudi crown-prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. Pressure is mounting. Which side will the US take? Its fleet is still in Qatar.
In the Levant the IS is retreating and it seems to be the beginning of its very end. Retreat and destruction also means return of the fighters. Those who neither die, nor serve prison sentences, will return home. For some home will be the US.
Major capitals in Europe have continuously been struck by attacks, even recently and newly London. It may very well continue, as Islamist propaganda continues to spread through the web and through potential underground organisations.
Given the chaos in the Gulf, the probable return of fighters to their homes and the continued terrorist attacks by sleeper cells or sympathisers, perhaps Trump’s decree may not be too bad in containing damages and risks? After all, isolation makes control easier …
