RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/open_skies_the_cassette_deck_of_treaties.html

In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed to the Kremlin that the U.S. and the USSR each be permitted to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the other’s territory and collect data on each other’s military forces and activities to enhance confidence that neither was planning a surprise attack. Moscow refused, calling it a license for American spying. Intensification of the Cold War made the issue dormant until President George H.W. Bush revived it in 1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The “Open Skies Treaty” was signed and ratified in 2002 and now has 34 members.  According to the Arms Control Association, “All of a state-party’s territory can be overflown. No territory can be declared off-limits by the host nation.” In addition, “Observation aircraft used to fly the missions must be equipped with sensors that enable the observing party to identify significant military equipment, such as artillery, fighter aircraft, and armored combat vehicles.”

President Donald Trump has notified the parties that the U.S. is withdrawing from Open Skies, effective in six months. He did not irrevocably slam the door on the treaty but, as he did with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, the “Iran deal”), he made clear that the U.S. would not remain a party to a treaty that does not serve American interests. “Russia didn’t adhere to the treaty. So, until they adhere, we will pull out,” he told reporters.

Amid the customary shrieking — by European countries and Democrats — that accompanies the President’s efforts to align American security policy with American interests, three things should be understood:

The Russians were cheating in their overflights of the United States
The Russians were cheating the United States in our overflights of Russian territory
Satellite technology today can easily replace airplane surveillance

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-chinese-challenge-to-the-u-s-israel-relationship-11589576485?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and warned that further Israeli economic linkage with China will hurt relations with the U.S. Coming from an administration far warmer toward Israel than any in the past, that message packs a punch.

Mr. Pompeo is making clear that the world has entered a new era in its relations with China. While some pushback against hostile Chinese actions occurred in the Obama years, it has intensified in the Trump period and gained bipartisan support. Pushback is now U.S. policy, expected to continue no matter who wins November’s presidential election. Israel remains focused on Iran and other regional concerns, but it can’t ignore the world’s new great strategic challenge.

At issue in Israel are commercial activities of Chinese companies, but the first two major U.S.-Israel clashes over China were about military contracts. In the late 1990s, U.S. officials objected to a planned sale to China of the Israeli-made Phalcon airborne radar system. Israel bowed to U.S. pressure in 2000, canceled the sale, refunded China nearly $200 million, and paid it more than $150 million on top in damages.

The second clash, which occurred during George W. Bush’s presidency and involved Israel’s Harpy antiradar missile, had far-reaching consequences. In 2005 the director general of Israel’s Defense Ministry was fired after losing the trust of U.S. defense officials. The Knesset enacted new export-control legislation and Israel’s Defense Ministry concluded an information-sharing agreement with the Pentagon. Most important, in 2005 Israel terminated altogether its defense trade with China.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/493067-america-needs-an-iran-consensus

The current debate over whether the United States should ease sanctions against Iran in light of the latter’s struggles with COVID-19 reflects a broader reality: More than four decades after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, we still lack a consensus about the nature of the regime in Tehran and how to deal with it.

For Iran, we need something akin to the “Cold War consensus” of decades ago, when our two political parties agreed that America’s biggest global challenge was Soviet-led communism and that Washington should defend itself and its allies by “containing” the Soviets.

Such an “Iran consensus” is long overdue. Ever since the revolution of 1979 ousted the U.S.-backed Shah and ushered in a terror-sponsoring, hegemony-seeking, nuclear weapons-aspiring, anti-Western theocracy, Washington has pursued a confused, disjointed, meandering approach toward the Islamic Republic.

To nurture an Iran consensus, especially at a time of bitter partisanship in Washington, the man elected president in November should consider appointing a bipartisan commission of foreign policy elders – former secretaries of state, national security advisors, and so on – to consider the nature of Iran’s regime, clearly delineate the challenges it poses, and outline an approach around which the country can broadly rally.

That’s because, as our policies of the last four decades make clear, we lack agreement on even the most basic issues relating to Iran. Those include:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/planning_for_peace_in_afghanistan.html

In the face of a standoff between Ashraf Ghani and Abdurrashid Dostum — each of whom is determined to be considered the duly elected president of Afghanistan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Kabul to provide one last push toward a single government that could negotiate with the Taliban.  It didn’t happen. Pompeo announced his disappointment and a cut of $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan for 2021, but fell short of throwing in the towel. “We’re hopeful, frankly, they’ll get their act together,” he said. “And we won’t have to [cut the aid], but we are prepared to do that if they can’t.”

Mr. Pompeo is taking the next step in setting conditions for the United States to end its presence in Afghanistan. The only people who thought the U.S.-Taliban “peace plan” announced earlier this year was supposed to bring peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government were the people who think a “peace plan” will do it for Israelis and Palestinians. In neither case is a negotiated “peace” an achievable objective, because “peace” is not a negotiable property. Nowhere in history do people give up deeply held convictions for quiet — or even for money. At least not for long.

So, what is the American objective in Afghanistan? It is to get the United States out of the middle of the Afghan civil war.  

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/sanctions_in_a_time_of_pandemic.html

The Islamic Republic of Iran is fighting the Wuhan virus with its usual obfuscation, lies, denials, and accusations. Calling the virus a concerted effort by the U.S. and Israel to infect Iran, the government has demanded an end to Western sanctions – and money, lots of money — because, it says, American sanctions are preventing medical supplies from entering the country.

The first claim is nonsense and the second claim is nonsense.  

Sanctions are aimed at reducing the amount of money Iranian government officials and entities have to engage in nuclear weapons development and the sponsorship of terrorism. With limited resources, they are supposed to weigh malign behavior on the one hand, and the needs of the Iranian people on the other. Thus far, the Iranian government has chosen the first hand. Because sanctions are not aimed at the general Iranian public, there is, and has always been, a medical exemption — an existing EU importation mechanism was augmented in February with a Swiss channel.

The website Iran International was reported to have seen documents indicating that in mid-January, “Fardavar Azma (an) Iranian company, which is the exclusive representative of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, announced its readiness to import coronavirus test kits.” In early February, agents representing South Korean companies said they were prepared to “import test kits from South Korea.”