RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21488/china-iran-middle-east-war

Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the “atomic ayatollahs,” in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.

Tehran almost certainly has [a nuclear bomb] by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a “one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test” of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.

Diplomats from Russia, Iran, and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.

There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.

If Waltz is as good as his word — that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world’s next confrontation will be historic.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told ABC News’s Martha Raddatz on March 16th.

Waltz’s demand was in fact more comprehensive. He said that Iran must also hand over, among other things, missiles and uranium enrichment capability.

China helped Iran possess both. Beijing has set the stage for the next war in the Middle East.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21485/eu-undermining-iran-efforts

It is high time for Europe — while posing as the pinnacle of virtue — to stop hiding behind US and Israeli actions. The EU needs to cut off trade, impose severe sanctions, and isolate Iran completely. Anything less is complicity.

Even as Iran deepens its military alliance with Russia by supplying drones and missiles that are used to create scorched earth in Ukraine’s cities, the EU has refused to sever its financial connections to Tehran. Iranian-made Shahed drones have devastated Ukrainian infrastructure, yet European businesses are still trading with the very country producing them. This is not just hypocrisy — it is an active betrayal of Europe’s own security interests.

The EU would do well to take the following steps immediately: Sever all economic ties with Iran. No more trade, no more investment, no more financial engagement. Every euro that flows into Iran is a euro that strengthens a regime that threatens European, as well as global, stability. Impose the harshest possible sanctions. Target Iran’s energy sector, its financial institutions, and its military industries. The EU needs to make it clear that Iran’s actions will face an unbearable economic cost. Trigger the snapback sanctions.

If European leaders are too weak to act themselves, at least support those who are preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, devouring the region and “revolutionizing” the West. The EU needs to openly declare its backing of any Israeli military operation against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The European Union has spent years enriching Iran by choosing economic gain over security, morality, and strategic interests.

While the Iranian regime continues to fuel war, repression and terrorism, the EU has clung to its trade partnerships and business deals, while refusing to take meaningful action against a regime that actively threatens the continent’s stability as well as that of the globe.

The EU is not being naive — it is making a calculated choice to prioritize money over principles, over the safety of its own citizens, and over the security of its allies. This really needs to end. Iran is supplying weapons that kill Ukrainians, is on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons and has been taking Europeans hostage with no consequences. The EU nevertheless continues to do business with Iran. The EU provides the regime with the economic resources it needs to expand its influence and finance its nuclear program, military operations and terror proxies.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21486/bangladesh-islamist-terror-hub

“Politics steadily worsens in Bangladesh. The economy is in free fall, law and order is in a cul-de-sac. The rule of law is under organised assault, with detained politicians, cultural activists and journalists unable to come by bail in court…. Bangladesh’s crisis is existential. All the values instrumen­tal to its emergence 50-plus years ago are systematically being jettisoned by a regime that lacks constitutional legitimacy.” — Syed Badrul Ahsan, veteran Bangladeshi journalist and commentator, December 6, 2024.

Some of the major groups, which were previously banned but, under Bangladesh’s new leadership of Muhammad Yunus, now encouraged, include: Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tawhidi Janata, Hefazat-e-Islam, at-e-Islami, and the Ansarullah Bangla Team.

Since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August 2024, the government under Yunus has freed convicted Islamic terrorists, downplayed mass violence against minorities (mainly Hindus), and let jihadist mobs take over the streets.

More than 2,200 cases of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh were reported for 2024 alone.

These radical Islamic organizations share the same main goal: a global Islamic Caliphate. If this Islamic takeover succeeds in Bangladesh, the country will become another Islamic terror state — like Afghanistan under the Taliban and Syria under its new terrorist leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa.

On March 7, thousands of members of Bangladesh’s banned Islamist militant group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, defying police barricades, marched through the streets of Dhaka to demand that the country’s secular democracy be replaced by an Islamic caliphate. Demonstrators chanting “Khilafat, Khilafat” – a direct call for Islamic rule — gathered for the “March for Khilafat” procession outside the Baitul Mukarram Mosque after Friday prayers. The mob at the march turned violent — complete with stone-throwers who clashed with police. The police, in turn, fired back with tear gas and stun grenades.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been banned in Bangladesh since 2009 for posing a threat to national security, organized this rally in defiance of a government ban on public gatherings.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yren8mxp8o?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Protests have erupted in Turkey after authorities detained the mayor of Istanbul, just days before he was due to be selected as a presidential candidate.

Ekrem Imamoglu, from the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), is seen as one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strongest political rivals.

Prosecutors accused him of corruption and aiding a terrorist group, calling him a “criminal organisation leader suspect”.

Police detained 100 people – including other politicians, journalists and businessmen – as part of the investigation, and the Istanbul governor’s office has imposed four days of restrictions in the city.

Imamoglu said online “the will of the people cannot be silenced”.

Protesters have taken to the streets and university campuses, and in underground stations, with crowds chanting anti-government slogans. It is a display of public anger not seen in years.

There were reports of clashes between protesters and police in Turkey’s largest city. Footage from Reuters news agency shows police using pepper spray to disperse crowds outside Istanbul University.

Thousands of people rallied in the cold in front of the city hall, shouting: “Erdogan, dictator!” and “Imamoglu, you are not alone!”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21483/germany-domination-europe

By giving himself the right to spend an extra €500 billion over 12 years on infrastructure and climate change, and additional to that, spend “whatever it takes” for the German military — €40 billion more per year being the best available estimate — [Friedrich] Merz [the likely next chancellor] is assuming considerable power, the likes of which no German chancellor has had since 1945.

As the allocation of these resources is formulated in broad and vague terms, the chancellor will have immense power in the allocation of funds. In addition, the German military will be financed to the tune of €120 billion per year, giving it the potential to become the strongest force in Europe — France spends roughly €55 billion a year. Here again, the power of Germany and its chancellor is growing considerably.

It certainly seems as if Das Rheingold is emerging from the deep.

In the opera Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner, the Rhine Gold is a magical treasure guarded by the Rhine Maidens (Rheinmädchen). This gold can be forged into a ring that gives its holder unlimited power. By arrogating to himself the power to put Germany into debt in a way that no chancellor has done since 1945, Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor, will be taking on an unrivalled power: that of dominating Europe.

Germany has just announced the creation of a special “infrastructure fund” (Sondervermögen) of €500 billion ($545 billion) to be spent over a maximum of 12 years, and €40 billion in additional military spending per year, bringing the annual German defense budget up to 3%. The infrastructure fund, which will not be subject to the strict constitutional rules limiting government budget deficits and debt, is intended to meet urgent needs, overriding the budgetary constraints imposed by the “debt brake” (Schuldenbremse) enshrined in 2009 by then Chancellor Angela Merkel in the constitution.

The main reason given is the need to rearm Germany in the face of Russia’s war economy and its 1.2 million mobilized soldiers. In concrete terms, German public debt will rise from 60% of GDP to at least 80%.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21466/iran-mullahs-never-change

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a normal state, or even a conventional dictatorship. It is an ideological entity that derives its very identity from opposition to the United States, Israel and the West.

From the moment the Islamic Republic was born out of the 1979 revolution, its core identity was forged in opposition to the United States and Israel. These were not just foreign policy stances but central tenets of the regime’s existence. The regime refers to the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan,” righteously positioning itself as the force of divine justice against these supposed embodiments of evil.

For the Iranian mullahs, hostility toward America and Israel is not just rhetoric; it is the fundamental pillar of their legitimacy. If the regime were to abandon its enmity toward the U.S. and Israel, it would lose the entire justification upon which it has built its power.

Every negotiation with Iran has followed the same pattern: the Iranian regime makes promises, secures financial and political gains, and then, once it has strengthened its position, resumes its belligerent actions.

The Islamic Republic views nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of its survival… Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has explicitly stated that Gaddafi’s fate proves why Iran should never surrender its nuclear weapons.

As with North Korea, negotiations may temporarily slow Iran’s nuclear weapons development; they can never stop it. The regime will agree to talks only when it needs to buy time — whether to rebuild its economy under the cover of diplomacy, to lull the West into complacency, or to wait out an unfavorable political climate, such as a Trump. Always, the regime’s goal remains the same: acquiring nuclear weapons to solidify its regional dominance and deter any attempt to remove the regime from power.

Regrettably, the only way to neutralize the Iranian threat is through strength. The regime in Tehran understands only force. Until the West recognizes this reality, it will continue to be bamboozled while the Iranian regime buys time to advance its ambitions unchecked.

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/middle-east/the-syrian-blood-on-obamas-hands/

Syria is presently controlled by al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Christians and other religious minorities are being massacred in Syria by the same Islamist group that overthrew President Bashar al-Assad three months ago. More than 1000 people have been killed since last Thursday. The killings have targeted Alawites, Christians and other minorities in Syria’s coastal regions.[1]

On December 8, 2024, the Assad regime in Syria collapsed during a major offensive by Sunni Islamist militants. The Assad family, members of the minority Alawite sect, ruled Syria for over half a century. The capture of Damascus, the capital, in December marked the end of Assad’s rule. Bashar al-Assad fled the capital aboard a plane to Russia, where he joined his family, already in exile, and was granted asylum by the Kremlin.

This was the end of a long campaign by the West to overthrow the Assad regime which culminated in HTS delivering the coup de grace.

In 2011, the US and European Union called for President Assad to resign following the crackdown on Arab Spring protesters during the events that led to  Syria’s civil war. By 2022, around 580,000 people were dead, of whom at least 306,000 were non-combatants. On November 15, 2023, France issued an arrest warrant for Assad for the use of chemical weapons against civilians. Assad dsnied the allegations and accused his accusers, notably the US, of attempting to effect regime change.

The Arab Spring, just to refresh memory, were anti-government protests and army uprisings — promoted by the Obama administration, it should be noted — that in the early 2010s spread across the Middle East and North Africa. Over that period the US did much more than any religious extremist group ‘to permanently enshrine Sharia as the constitutional law of the land throughout the Muslim world.’[2] In Egypt, for example, the Arab Spring empowered Muslim extremists to initiate a bloody persecution that drove hundreds of thousands of Christian Copts to flee the nation. Egyptian political scholar Samuel Tadros writes: ‘The Copts can only wonder today whether, after 2,000 years, the time has come for them to pack their belongings and leave, as Egypt looks less hospitable to them than ever’.[3]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/greenland-elections-upset-denmark-independence/

Nuuk, Greenland — The center-right Demokraatit Party won the most votes in Greenland’s parliamentary elections, a surprise result as the territory went to the polls in the shadow of President Trump’s stated goal of taking control of the island one way or another .

Both Demokraatit – the Democrats – and the second place party, Naleraq – “Point of Orientation” – favor independence from Denmark but differ on the pace of change.

Four of the five main parties in the race sought independence, but disagreed on when and how.

Naleraq is the most aggressively pro-independence, while Demokraatit favors a more moderate pace of change.

Demokraatit’s upset victory over parties that have governed the territory for years indicates that many in Greenland care just as much about health care, education, cultural heritage and other social policies.

“I think this is a historic result in Greenland’s political history,” Demokraatit party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen said at the election party after the results.