RUTHFULLY YOURS

As the world turns, we are watching some rather amazing things in year 8 of “hope and change”:

First, kids are killed in Aleppo and those lives don’t seem to matter to anyone, especially anyone at the Obama White House;

Two, Russian planes are taking off from Iranian bases;

Third, Cuban dissidents are in jail rather than doing the wave at a baseball game; and,

Fourth, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif is starting off his tour of Latin America with a stop in Havana. (By the way, Raul Castro will greet this visitor at the airport. Unlike President Obama, who was greeted by a low-level Cuban official, the Iranian visitor will get to shake hands with Raul.)

Is this how we were supposed to be respected around the world? Or is this the smart foreign policy that we were promised?

Let’s take a look:

Iran’s foreign minister kicked off a Latin American tour Sunday in Havana, saying the Iran nuclear deal has “removed obstacles” for closer ties between his country and the region.

Foreign Minister Javad Zarif will visit Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia and Venezuela, reported the Tasnim News Agency.

Zarif said he plans to sign oil, energy and maritime transport agreements during his tour.

But the visit is raising concerns with a key Republican lawmaker.

“The timing of Zarif’s trip is significant as Iran could use many of these rogue regimes to circumvent remaining sanctions, undermine U.S. interests, and expand the drug trafficking network that helps finance its illicit activities,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) in a statement.

Attackers stormed the heavily-barricaded American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, firing at students in an hourslong overnight siege that left 12 people dead and 30 wounded by Thursday morning.

The assault began during evening classes on Wednesday, when a truck bomb exploded outside the fortified wall of the campus, opening the way for two assailants to enter as panicked students and staff fled and hid, Afghan officials and witnesses said.

Seven students, three policemen and two security guards were killed in the nine-hour siege, police spokesman Basir Mujahideen said. Thirty students were wounded, he added.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assault, but the university has long been at high risk of attack from Taliban militants because of its association with foreigners.

Elite Afghan troops led the clearing operation and exchanged gunfire with the militants as they attempted to secure the campus. Foreign troops with the U.S.-led military coalition were at the scene to advise and assist Afghan forces.

“These advisers are not taking a combat role, but advising their Afghan counterparts,” said U.S. Army Col. Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Afghan security forces rush to respond to an attack on the campus of the American University in Kabul on Wednesday. ENLARGE
Afghan security forces rush to respond to an attack on the campus of the American University in Kabul on Wednesday. Photo: RAHMAT GUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ahmad Mukhtar was in the courtyard talking to friends when he heard gunshots followed by a large explosion.

“The explosion lit up the whole university,” said Mr. Mukhtar, a local reporter and part-time student at the university. “We rushed in all directions. Some jumped over the wall—I did, too.”

Mr. Mujahid, the police spokesman, said there were about 700 students inside the campus at the time of the attack. Most of them were at the prestigious school for after-work classes.

The English-language university first opened in 2006 with U.S. funding, and is the country’s top institution for higher education, attracting many young Afghans. Foreign professors teach there.CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON—Four ships from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps harassed a U.S. destroyer near the Persian Gulf in what the U.S. Navy called an “unsafe and unprofessional” interaction.

The USS Nitze, an Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer, was transiting international waters near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday when the four Iranian vessels approached at high speed and failed to respond to 12 separate radio communications, according to Cdr. William Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

The USS Nitze blew its whistle in five short blasts on three occasions—signaling the Iranian vessels were on a dangerous course—and fired off 10 flares in the direction of the approaching ships before altering course to avoid a potential collision, Cmdr. Urban said.

As two of the Iranian vessels came within 300 yards of the destroyer, the quartet finally slowed speed and motored away from the U.S. ship, according to Cmdr. Urban, who characterized the interaction as a dangerous, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation. The USS Nitze was transiting the waters with the USS Mason, another guided-missile destroyer.

The incident was one of many interactions between Iranian and American ships in and around the Persian Gulf in recent months. But it was one of few the U.S. Navy has deemed unsafe or unprofessional. CONTINUE AT SITE

Crackdown, which has snagged associates of imam Fethullah Gulen and others, is designed to remake country’s higher education in president’s image.

KONYA, Turkey—On the humid afternoon after July’s bloody coup attempt, signs of a rift that is redefining this nation’s academia played out in two cities 400 miles apart.

In Istanbul, Nil Mutluer grabbed her 3-year-old daughter and raced with a suitcase toward Turkey’s coast. The former sociology-department chair at the city’s Nisantasi University narrowly escaped the nation’s looming dragnet.

“Authorities had already begun questioning colleagues at the airports,” said Dr. Mutluer, 42, a Western-leaning liberal who took a ferry to Greece en route to an academic post in Berlin.

That afternoon in Konya, once known as the Citadel of Islam, some local professors cheered the coup’s failure as a chance to remake Turkish academia. “Elitist professors are looking at the world with Western glasses—they’re not really thinking about what the Turkish people want and need,” said Assistant Professor Sedat Gumus, 33, a U.S.-educated lecturer at Konya’s Necmettin Erbakan University, named after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political mentor.
For Sedat Gumus, an associate professor at Necmettin Erbakan University in Konya, the failed coup provides an opportunity to intensify the revamping of Turkish academia.
For Sedat Gumus, an associate professor at Necmettin Erbakan University in Konya, the failed coup provides an opportunity to intensify the revamping of Turkish academia. Photo: Ivor Prickett for The Wall Street Journal

“The current situation might be a golden opportunity for Turkey to write a new constitution,” he said, “and with it reform the higher-education system.”

Turkey’s crackdown after the July 15 putsch has been swift and expansive, sweeping through the military, judiciary and higher education. The government declared a state of emergency and said it has detained more than 40,000 people as it hunts for suspected affiliates of the man officials accuse as the mastermind, Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish imam. Mr. Gulen, who counts millions of supporters in part because of his network’s investments in education, has denied any role. CONTINUE AT SITE

North Korea often stages military provocations to distract from its political setbacks, so many predicted that it would try something after last week’s high-profile defection of senior diplomat Thae Yong-ho. But Wednesday’s launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine was more than a diversion—it was also an operational success, representing a clear advance in Kim Jong Un’s weapons arsenal.

The KN-11 missile flew some 300 miles off North Korea’s east coast, toward Japan, before falling into the sea, say U.S. and South Korean officials. That’s the longest flight by far since Pyongyang started testing its submarine launch systems in 2014. Two sub-launched missiles failed earlier this year when they blew up in midair after about 18 miles.

Pyongyang has devoted considerable resources to its nuclear and missile programs and is progressing on both fronts. Analysts in South Korea who, like their U.S. counterparts, have often underestimated North Korean capabilities, believe Pyongyang could deploy operational sub-launched missiles by 2020.

The North’s Gorae submarine, based on old Yugoslavian designs, may be relatively unsophisticated and noisy. But it could threaten South Korea, Japan and tens of thousands of U.S. troops simply by deploying around North Korea’s coast with the KN-11. The missile has an estimated top range of 550 miles.

Wednesday’s achievement follows another recent milestone for Pyongyang’s missile program. In June it successfully launched for the first time a medium-range Musudan missile from a road-mobile carrier.

The missile also reached the highest altitude the North has achieved. This is especially worrisome because the intercontinental ballistic missile Pyongyang is developing—with an estimated 10,000-mile range that could reach half the continental U.S.—uses Musudan-type engines in its initial boost phase. CONTINUE AT SITE