National

China is becoming the most formidable rival America has faced, and the risk of confrontation with Russia, North Korea or Iran still looms. Authoritarians are rising, the chaotic Afghanistan exit revealed the limits of U.S. power, and the pandemic, climate change and other critical challenges continue to pose grave threats.

World

The State Department has issued a health alert about the possibility of counterfeit pills at pharmacies in Mexico, including some containing fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Driving the news: "Exercise caution when purchasing medication in Mexico," the State Department travel alert, which was posted Friday, said.

"Counterfeit pills are readily advertised on social media and can be purchased at small, non-chain pharmacies in Mexico along the border and in tourist areas," the alert said. 

The big picture: The State Department has "do not travel" alerts in place for six Mexican states and "reconsider travel" recommendations for seven others. 

The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a warning to residents earlier this month to avoid traveling to Mexico. 

The warning came after four Americans were kidnapped and three other women went missing in February after crossing the border.

Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has denounced the travel warnings, Axios' Rebecca Falconer reports. 

"Mexico is safer than the United States," he said at a press conference earlier this month.

Go deeper... Texas authorities urge travelers to avoid Mexico

 containing fentanyl and methamphetamine. 

Texas authorities urge travelers to avoid Mexico

U.S. State Department warns about counterfeit pills in Mexico

"Exercise caution when purchasing medication in Mexico," the State Department warning said.

The exterior of the State Department on March 14 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Mexico

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

Tel Aviv

Axios from Tel Aviv

President Biden spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and expressed his concerns over the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul plan, a senior U.S. official told reporters. 

Why it matters: It is the first time Biden and Netanyahu have discussed the Israeli government’s controversial plan to weaken the country's Supreme Court. 

What they're saying: A senior U.S. official said in a briefing with reporters that during the call Biden expressed concerns “and said as a friend of Israel, that he hopes a broad consensus can be found around the judicial reform." 

“The call was frank and candid … they both have a lot of experience in legislation and they exchanged ideas on this issue," the U.S. official said.

In a readout after the call, the White House said that Biden "also underscored his belief that democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the U.S.-Israel relationship, that democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances, and that fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support."

"The president offered support for efforts underway to forge a compromise on proposed judicial reforms consistent with those core principles," the statement added. 

The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said that on the judicial plan, "Netanyahu told President Biden that Israel was and will be a strong and vibrant democracy."

Catch up quick: The judicial overhaul plan, presented by the most right-wing government in Israel's history, has created an unprecedented constitutional crisis in the country, with growing fears that the confrontation between the government and the opposition will escalate into violence and chaos.

Netanyahu last week rejected Isaac Herzog's proposal for compromise on constitutional and judicial reforms that the Israeli president had hoped would replace the overhaul plan. 

Biden told the New York Times earlier this year that any fundamental changes in Israel’s judicial system should be based on a consensus to get legitimacy from the public and be sustainable.

"The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary," Biden said.

The big picture: During the 30-minute call, Netanyahu also briefed Biden about the shooting attack against Israeli civilians in the occupied West Bank town of Hawara earlier on Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office said. 

“Netanyahu told Biden that Israel will continue to take action in any place against terrorists and the terror architects," the Prime Minister’s Office said. 

The two leaders also discussed Iran and efforts to broaden the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with several Arab countries, the Prime Minister's Office added. Netanyahu thanked Biden for his commitment to Israel’s security.

Go deeper: Blinken's civics lesson for Netanyahu

Editor's note: This story has. been updated with additional details throughout. 

Biden expresses concern over Israel's judicial overhaul in call with Bibi

It is the first time the two leaders have discussed the controversial plan to weaken Israel's Supreme Court.

Biden and Netanyahu in March 2010. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO via Getty Images

Netanyahu and Biden in March 2010. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO via Getty Images

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the occupied port city of Mariupol this weekend, marking his first trip to Ukrainian territory that Russia annexed in September.

Why it matters: Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance last year as it endured a devastating and sustained siege by Russian forces.

State of play: Putin flew into Mariupol for the unscheduled trip via helicopter and then drove around several parts of the city, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Sunday, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Putin's trip extended from late Saturday into Sunday, Peskov said, state news agency TASS reported.

The big picture: The visit comes just days after International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes charges and ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow this week.

"The criminal always returns to the crime scene," Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted Sunday in response to the visit, adding that, "the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city & graves."

International Criminal Court (ICC) issued

Putin makes surprise visit to Ukrainian city of Mariupol

Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance last year as it endured a devastating siege by Russian forces.

Vladimir Putin speaks with Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin as they look at reconstruction illustrations while he visits Mariupol on March 18. Photo: Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Russia

Ukraine

Axios World

Two decades after the U.S. invaded Iraq, 61% of Americans do not believe the U.S. made the right decision according to a new Axios/Ipsos poll.

Why it matters: The chaos and destruction that followed the invasion have made a generation of Americans and their leaders more skeptical of the use of military force overseas, in particular in the Middle East. The invasion toppled a brutal dictator but sparked 20 years of instability in Iraq, and damaged America's standing in the world.

Flashback: On March 17, 2003, George W. Bush issued an ultimatum that the U.S. would take military action if Saddam Hussein did not leave Iraq within 48 hours. On March 19, bombs began to fall on Baghdad. On March 20, the ground invasion commenced.

The invasion was extremely controversial overseas, but highly popular in the U.S. A Pew poll in Feb. 2003 found that 66% of Americans approved of military action in Iraq and only 26% disapproved. 

However, the Bush administration had justified the invasion on the grounds that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which were never found. 57% of Americans at the time also believed, falsely, that Saddam had played a role in the 9/11 attacks, per Pew.

Timeline: U.S. forces took Baghdad in early April. Bush's now-infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech came on May 1, 2003, just five weeks into the war. 

U.S. forces then spent eight years battling a determined insurgency. An estimated 200,000 Iraqis were killed along with nearly 5,000 U.S. troops. The war cost the U.S. an estimated $2 trillion.

By 2005, American public opinion had generally turned against the war, according to Pew, though most Republicans continued to support it. Around the world, and in particular, among European allies, attitudes toward the U.S. turned sharply negative in the years after the invasion.

Barack Obama made his opposition to the Iraq War a central tenet of his 2008 presidential campaign and promised to pull out within 16 months. Obama did withdraw the remaining U.S. forces in 2011 but was forced to send troops back three years later after ISIS conquered huge regions of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Donald Trump criticized the war repeatedly during his 2016 campaign, falsely claiming he'd opposed it from the beginning and challenging rivals like Jeb Bush and later Hillary Clinton for supporting it.

The legacy of the war had significant effects on the foreign policies of both administrations. 

When Obama was considering a military response to the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons in Syria, for example, "you felt the ghost of Iraq that whole week," Ben Rhodes, one of Obama's top foreign policy advisers, said this week on the "Pod Save the World" podcast. 

Both presidents were generally more reluctant to put American "boots on the ground" in conflict zones than their immediate predecessors, Bush and Bill Clinton.

That more cautious approach to the use of military force overseas appeared to be mirrored in U.S. public opinion. However, a 2022 survey from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that most Americans would support military intervention in certain scenarios, such as if Russia invaded a NATO ally.

State of play: Just 31% of Americans think the Iraq War made America safer, while 36% think the U.S. was right to invade, according to the Axios/Ipsos poll published this week. 

There is a clear partisan divide, however, with 58% of Republicans believing the U.S. was right to invade compared to 26% of Democrats. 

Younger Americans, in particular, do not think the U.S. was right to invade Iraq, though majorities in every age group hold that view.

Methodology: The Axios/Ipsos Poll was conducted March 10-13, 2023, by Ipsos on their online survey panels in English. The poll is based on a sample of 1,018 general population adults age 18 or older, weighted on age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and location to be nationally representative.

The margin of sampling error is ±3.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults.

reluctant to put American "boots on the ground"

20 years on, most Americans say Iraq invasion was the wrong decision

The war has shaped a generation of U.S. foreign policy.

George W. Bush informs Americans in televised remarks on March 19, 2003 that the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq had begun. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Sunday's world stories

U.S. State Department warns about counterfeit pills in Mexico

Biden expresses concern over Israel's judicial overhaul in call with Bibi

Putin makes surprise visit to Ukrainian city of Mariupol

20 years on, most Americans say Iraq invasion was the wrong decision