RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14606/iran-drown-fish

A tougher profile, attacks on tankers and other soft targets, gesticulations by Hezbollah and Hamas, and more hostages are one aspect of the scheme that Tehran is currently working on. The other is a desperate attempt at appearing ready to enter into “constructive talks”. That yarn is marketed by Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is still retained to play Foreign Minister in Western forums and TV studios.

In New York, Zarif added the promise of addressing another demand, that the so-called “nuke deal” be rehashed to make limits on Iran’s nuclear program permanent rather than limited to 10, 15 or 25 years. That could be done, at least in part, by Tehran signing the Additional Protocols of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), something that the Islamic Republic had promised to do during Obama’s presidency but didn’t.

Trump’s sanctions, which cost the US nothing, are placing the Islamic Republic under a degree of pressure it has never known. This is why Khamenei, his huffing-and-puffing notwithstanding, is ready to do what he is told, provided he can save a minimum of face. His chief aim at present is to survive the rough patch created for him by Trump. That could be done if he is allowed to sell even a million barrels of oil a day to finance his pet projects and surrogates at home and abroad. Will Trump be tempted to declare victory and let the Islamic Republic off the hook at a time it is reeling under pressure?

The US and its closest allies will have to decide whether to let the Islamic Republic off the hook yet again, and, as always, in exchange for partial and largely cosmetic concessions.

Is the Islamic Republic collecting fresh “assets” with which to enter into a possible dialogue with the American “Great Satan”? The pattern of news related to Iran in the past few weeks may make “yes” a plausible answer. Tehran has already carried out a series of attacks on oil tankers in Fujairah and close to the Iranian Jask Peninsula. Its surrogates in Iraq have fired a number of rockets at targets connected with the US presence in that country. Tehran’s Yemeni surrogates, the Houthi militia, have fired a number of missiles to raise the tension without affecting the overall military situation. Last week the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized two British-flagged oil tankers, releasing one after a demonstration of force coupled with a stern warning.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14360/standoff-between-civilizations

Not all people who worry about a replacement of civilizations are necessarily violent or even incorrect. They appear to be frightened folk, sent over the edge by matters they may feel beyond control. In Europe and the United States, they have witnessed wave upon wave of attacks by individuals and groups openly espousing violence in the name of religion. They seem to fear that their own governments are doing too little to protect them and their families from future attacks.

“What unites these groups ideologically is a belief that Europe is facing a ‘great replacement’ by Muslim and African immigrants. And they want something done about it.” — Marion MacGregor, “The push from Europe’s young new right”, Infomigrants.net; May 5, 2018.

Political correctness, often an extreme form of denial of reality, has made it increasingly hard for even the most reasonable and careful of thinkers to say anything critical about Islam…efforts to block fair criticism of aspects of Islam can become unjust forms of censorship.

The number of deaths is not always a guide to the impact of a tragedy. One of the most recent tragedies had a high, but far from record-making, toll of fatalities. First, and as a basis for comparison, it is worth noting that the November 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris slaughtered 90 people in the Bataclan Theatre and more elsewhere in the city, for a total of 130 deaths. The Islamist truck attack on a single stretch of road in Nice on 14 July 2016 took no fewer than 86 lives. On Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019, around 253 innocent people, including many children, were slaughtered during radical Muslim attacks on churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka, the largest death toll since the nearly 3,000 on September 11, 2001.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14601/boris-johnson-world-stage

Mr Johnson’s determination to help Britain reclaim its status as a leading world power after the drift of the May years is reflected in the stature of his appointments, especially regarding Britain’s engagement with the outside world.

In one of Mrs May’s last acts as prime minister, Britain declined an offer of American military support to protect British shipping in the Gulf, resulting in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard hijacking a British-registered oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and holding it captive in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Thus, with politicians of this calibre occupying key positions in the new British government, Mr Johnson now has a golden opportunity to revive Britain’s standing on the world stage, one where the close relationship between Washington and London will be one of the pillars of Britain’s dynamic new approach.

The appointment of Boris Johnson as Britain’s new prime minister offers the serious prospect of a radical improvement in the bilateral ties between Washington and London following the froideur [chill] that came to define the transatlantic relationship under the outgoing prime minister, Theresa May.

While, in public, Mrs May offered loyal pledges of support to Donald Trump, and professed to enjoy a warm personal relationship with the American president, the reality was that the personal chemistry between the two leaders was often awkward, with Mrs May often failing to grasp Mr Trump’s radical approach to global affairs.

The differences between the two are best summed up by Mrs May’s failure to heed Mr Trump’s advice on handling the challenging Brexit negotiations with the European Union. Mr Trump suggested London needed to play hardball with Brussels, even suggesting at one point that the UK should sue the EU as part of its negotiating strategy to demonstrate that it meant business.