• Russian military reports US-led coalition 'acts secretively in Syria,' Americans often absent from hotline
• US sharply cuts air operations in Syria out of fear of Russian missiles

China: Beware of Donny Big Hands!

This week on China Watch with Peter Lee: Blood and Embarrassment at Mar a Lago, as President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, plus the Last Days of the Dalai Lama and much more!

• Neocon nest threatens Trump administration
• If Trump lets neocons infiltrate his Foreign Policy Team they will undermine his entire agenda

One person with firsthand knowledge of internal White House dynamics, who asked not to be identified given how tense the situation had become, insisted that no immediate changes were likely. Mr. Trump is notoriously fickle in his decision-making process, and he dislikes confrontation. But by openly criticizing Mr. Bannon, he has created an environment that makes it hard for the swaggering and self-assured chief strategist to remain in place without appearing undermined.

Allies of Mr. Trump say that he has become increasingly impatient with the infighting — and the overwhelming attention it is receiving. In a lengthy conversation with Mr. Bannon this week, the president repeated his admonition that the chief strategist and his adversaries needed to "knock off" their back-and-forth sniping.

[...]

Mr. Bannon appears to now recognize the danger and has kept a low profile inside the White House while Mr. Kushner has been away with his family. He has told friends and associates, using his trademark military vernacular, that he understands he cannot throw bombs every day and needs to pick his battles carefully.

Mr. Bannon told several associates over the weekend that he believed that things had cooled off with Mr. Kushner. But the president's comments suggest the truce is uneasy and may not last.

Mr. Bannon's allies have already begun discussing a post-White House future for him. On Friday, his main political patron, Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of Robert Mercer, a major Trump donor, holed up in her office at Cambridge Analytica in New York, discussing possibilities for Mr. Bannon should he leave, according to two people briefed on the meeting. Mr. Bannon served on the data-mining firm's board until last summer.

[...]

The split between the hard-nosed Mr. Bannon and the far more reserved and soft-spoken Mr. Kushner reflects much more than a personality clash between two senior aides. For starters, Mr. Kushner is not the only one who has told the president he has misgivings about Mr. Bannon's style. The president's chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs and a longtime Democrat, has also aligned himself against Mr. Bannon, whose strongest ally in the White House is Reince Priebus, the chief of staff and former Republican Party chairman.

Mr. Kushner; Mr. Cohn; Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter; and Dina Powell, a former Goldman Sachs executive who is now a deputy national security adviser, have come to represent to many on the right a slow and dangerous creep of liberalism into the administration.