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FOREIGN POLICY

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US Lack of Resolve Incentivizing China on Taiwan by Lawrence Franklin

By on January 3rd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20273/us-lack-of-resolve

Bluntly put, the nations of the Free World have allowed global commerce to be held hostage by the revolutionary group of theocrat terrorists in Iran and their tribal terrorist tool in Yemen.

The primary problem seems to be that so far at least, there has been no attempt to hold the ringleader, Iran, accountable economically, militarily, hold-on-power or any way. This, incidentally, is the same Iranian regime that has lately escalated its enrichment of uranium to near-nuclear weapons capability, and has now moved a warship to the Red Sea.

That is why the Iranian regime has proxies: so that they will do the dirty work and take the hits — while the Iranians tuck into dinner.

You can be sure that Communist China’s leaders are closely evaluating the inadequate US responses to more than 100 attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq — just since October.

America’s role as guarantor of global freedom of navigation and defender of “Law of the Sea” treaties is taking a hit. The Biden administration continues to dither rather than to act decisively in liquidating the capability of Iran’s proxy, the Yemeni Houthis, who have been effectively blocking passage of commercial ships in and out of the Red Sea, decimating traffic through the Suez Canal. The December 31 counterattack by US naval helicopter gunships, which sank three Houthi attack boats, was a good start but did not solve the problem.

The US military’s Central Command reported that, since November 19, the Houthis have attacked 23 ships. This Iran-backed assault has caused several of the world’s largest shipping companies to suspend voyages through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, a route that normally enables the passage of 30% of the world’s container traffic, 9.2 billion barrels of oil a day, and 4% of the shipping of natural gas.

The shipping giants that are pausing normal operations as a result of Houthi attacks may also be illustrating serious failing confidence in US pledges to protect freedom of navigation in the region. Ships are being forced to haul cargo in a detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, a route that lengthens their voyage by about 6,000 nautical miles.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Houthis’ patron, closed out 2023 by launching its seventh drone attack on December 24 on a Japanese-owned freighter in the Indian Ocean.

Bluntly put, the nations of the Free World have allowed global commerce to be held hostage by the revolutionary group of theocrat terrorists in Iran and their tribal terrorist tool in Yemen.

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Biden Panders to His Far-Left Base, Hangs Up On Netanyahu Robert Spencer

By on December 30th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2023/12/30/biden-panders-to-his-far-left-base-hangs-up-on-netanyahu-n4925110

As 2024 fast approaches, Old Joe Biden is facing some serious obstacles to keep on pretending to be president until he is older than nearly three-quarters of our presidents were when they died. One of the most serious of these is that his far-left base, having been thoroughly miseducated to hate America and all that it stands for, also hates one of its staunchest allies, Israel, and is outraged that the Biden regime appears to be standing by the Jewish state. But Rashida Tlaib and her pals need not be concerned: in a bid to keep these Marxists in line and pulling the Biden lever, Old Joe just made a big push to keep their support.

The Daily Caller reported Saturday that the addled and aging corruptocrat “reportedly hung up on Prime Minister Netanyahu after a heated phone call about the Palestinian tax revenue dispute.” News of this latest embarrassment comes from “two U.S. and Israeli officials and a source with knowledge of the issue.” No one seems to be saying that Old Joe, in the fog of his galloping dementia, mistook Netanyahu for an annoyingly persistent telemarketer, so apparently the hang-up was entirely intentional.

The dispute revolves around the fact that “amid the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli government has refused to release some tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority that it says would go to the terrorist group Hamas.”

It’s understandable that such hesitation would anger Old Joe. After all, the Biden regime has never hesitated to shovel money to the Palestinians, without any regard for the possibility that it could end up in the hands of Hamas. The alleged president demonstrated, for anyone who was paying attention, which side he is really on when he went over to Israel in late October and met with Netanyahu. He took the opportunity to announce that he was giving $100 million to Gaza, which meant, regardless of his warnings that Hamas better not grab the money, that it would end up in Hamas’ coffers. There was no entity in Gaza that was not controlled by Hamas and that could both receive this money and keep it out of the hands of the terror group.

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Upcoming U.S. Presidential Election Could Fuel Global Instability in 2024 By Fred Fleitz

By on December 29th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/29/upcoming-u-s-presidential-election-could-fuel-global-instability-in-2024/

A failed, last-minute visit to Mexico by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week perfectly reflected the Biden Administration’s dismal foreign policy record in 2023 and what may lie ahead in 2024.

Blinken and Mayorkas traveled to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss how to stem the surge in illegal migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico. But instead of offering constructive proposals to address this crisis, López Obrador mocked Blinken and Mayorkas by dismissing the border crisis as a U.S. problem, called for opening border crossings, and urged the U.S. to strengthen its ties with Cuba and Venezuela.

This latest Biden Administration foreign policy debacle reflected how world leaders increasingly view Joe Biden as a weak and indecisive leader with an incompetent foreign policy. This debacle also reflected the incompetence of Biden’s foreign policy team because López Obrador was allowed to ambush Blinken and Mayorkas. A competent state department would have ensured this visit was a scripted affair, with differences between each country resolved privately and in advance during lower-level meetings.

Blinken and Mayorkas traveling to Mexico without knowing what López Obrador would offer was a rookie mistake one would expect during the first few months of a new U.S. administration, not from one that has been in office for almost three years.

The outcome of the Blinken/Mayorkas Mexico trip and Biden’s refusal to implement serious measures to stem the flow of illegal migrants crossing the U.S. southern border will have major security implications for the United States in 2024. Given a growing perception that Biden may be a one-term president who will be succeeded in January 2025 by a new president who will take aggressive action to close the border, the United States will likely see the largest surge of illegal immigration in history in 2024 as migrants from around the world rush to Mexico to take advantage of Biden’s weak border security policies.

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Three Things the Biden Administration Must Do Now to Stop Iran’s Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

By on December 23rd, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20241/stop-irans-mullahs

If the Biden administration thought that by rescuing Iran’s economy, which had hit bottom, and removing the Houthis from the list of Foreign Terror Organizations would make both Iran into an ally, the generosity appears to have backfired.

If the Iranian regime is allowed to advance to nuclear weapons capability, it will be on course finally to drive the US out of the region; threaten its oil-rich neighbors; destabilize Europe; deploy military assets in Venezuela and Cuba, and, at last, come for the “Great Satan,” the United States.

It must be made unmistakably clear to Iran that the United States will not allow Iran’s current regime, a designated state sponsor of terrorism, to arm itself with nuclear weapons and emerge as yet another global nuclear threat in the Middle East, Europe and South America.

The Biden administration’s policies of placating the ruling mullahs of Iran and their proxy, Yemen’s Houthis, have clearly failed. If the Biden administration thought that by rescuing Iran’s economy, which had hit bottom, and removing the Houthis from the list of Foreign Terror Organizations would make both Iran into an ally, the generosity appears to have backfired. Iran’s regime financed and helped plan the invasion of the invasion of Israel by Hamas, which is another Iranian proxy. Iran has been arming the Houthis to target US and its allies in the region, and disrupt the shipping in the Red Sea, and Iran’s militias in Syria and Iraq have fired on US troops more than 100 times just since October 17.

It is only the warships that the Biden administration helpfully placed in the Eastern Mediterranean that have most likely deterred yet another Iranian proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, from further escalating their attacks on Israel’s north. The Iranian regime has become disruptive to the highest level since the Iran-Iraq war, and unfortunately, due to what seems a hugely misguided security paralysis in Washington D.C, shows no signs of letting up.

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Does Biden Want Israel to Lose the War? by Robert Williams

By on December 22nd, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20244/biden-israel-lose-war

Have any demands been made on Hamas’s patrons, Iran and Qatar, to tell their Hamas beneficiaries to stop? Have any demands been made on them to do anything? Why is only the victim of the October 7 invasion being asked to make concessions, and not the aggressor?

“I will not replace Hamastan with Fatahstan…. According to a poll that was carried out a few days ago, 82% of the Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria justifies the horrific massacre of Oct. 7.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Unfortunately, the October 7 massacre proved beyond a doubt that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority actually mean it when they say that they want to annihilate Israel. According to a November 14 poll by the Arab World for Research and Development, 75% of the Palestinians polled support the October 7 massacre and 74.7% support the creation of a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea”… This is what the Biden administration wants to reward with a Palestinian state?

Trade tangible land in Israel for intangible promises from Lebanon — protected by a military that might wilt at the first shot?

Perhaps Biden could please reconsider?US President Joe Biden has gone out of his way — and it is enormously appreciated! — to stand by America’s ally Israel, defending itself from being further attacked by Hamas and other Iranian proxy groups in the region. The Biden administration has sent warships to the region, materiel to counter the more than 9,500 rockets and missiles fired at Israel since October 7, aimed at the cities of a country roughly the size of New Jersey. It is bewildering that he has come under so much unjust criticism for supporting a country that is basically also fighting for the US and the Free World against a terrorist group, Hamas, that apparently sees nothing wrong with burning babies alive, beheading them, raping and torturing men, women and children and then murdering them.

Sadly however, by reportedly demanding that Israel reduce its efforts to confront the Iran-backed terrorist group by January 1, Biden, presumably to help his reelection campaign, is seriously undermining Israel’s efforts.

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The Biden Administration, Palestinians and Inconvenient Truths by Bassam Tawil

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20240/palestinians-inconvenient-truths

The results of the poll also showed that, unlike the Biden administration, most Palestinians do not trust the Palestinian Authority and prefer Hamas’s terrorism to a peaceful settlement with Israel.

The PA might say that it is ready to change, but this will be in order to deceive the Biden administration and the rest of the international community into continuing to pour billions of dollars on Abbas and his cohorts…

Despite whatever commitments might be signed in blood, in the eyes of Palestinian leaders, they are just Western fantasies. After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995 , then PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat assured his people — in Arabic — that Oslo was no more binding than the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, when the Islamic prophet Mohammad agreed not to attack for ten years, then, with his opponents safely neutralized, he assembled an army and attacked after two years.

[S]upport for Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction has dropped significantly. The same is true for trust in the Palestinian Authority as a whole, as demand for its dissolution has risen to nearly 60%, the highest percentage ever recorded in PSR polls. Demand for Abbas’s resignation has increased to around 90%… 63% are now in favor of “armed struggle”.

According to the poll, most Palestinians justify Hamas’s October 7 massacre, including murder, decapitation, rape and burning people alive. These are the same people that the Biden administration wants to give a state next to Israel.

If new presidential elections were held today with only two candidates, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 78% of the vote as opposed to 16% for Abbas. The poll also showed that 54% of Palestinians think that Hamas is the most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people today….

It is enough for Biden administration officials to look at the results of the poll of PSR and talk to ordinary Palestinians to understand that the White House’s policies, such as promoting the creation of an Iran-sponsored Palestinian terror state, are not wanted by anyone but Iran and them.

As US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was in the Middle East last week trying to restrain Israel in its war against the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and to “revamp” the Palestinian Authority (PA), a public opinion poll again illustrated how the Biden administration continues to intentionally ignore the reality of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The results of the poll also showed that, unlike the Biden administration, most Palestinians do not trust the PA and prefer Hamas’s terrorism to a peaceful settlement with Israel.

Sullivan was reportedly in the Middle East for two reasons: to pressure Israel to scale down its military operations against Hamas, and to discuss the possibility of having the Palestinian Authority govern the Gaza Strip the day after the current war ends.

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The Biden Admin is Pushing for an Israel-Hezbollah Deal by Daniel Greenfield

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20239/israel-hezbollah-deal

If there was one lesson to be learned from Oct 7, it’s don’t negotiate with terrorists. But that’s the one lesson no one seems to be willing to learn, as David Wurmser notes at the Center for Security Policy:

“A U.S. plan, spearheaded by the diplomatic efforts of the U.S., and led by Amos Hochstein (who negotiated the Lebanon Maritime Agreement) and the French government, is emerging to diffuse tension along Israel’s northern border. The U.S. and France appear to propose a plan with three elements. Hizballah withdraws its forces northward. Israel concedes all the disputed areas along the border. And finally, the area between Israel and Hizballah will be filled by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).”

The LAF, despite the money we spend on them, just does whatever Hezbollah tells them.

A deal in which Israel concedes more territory to Lebanon in exchange for a proposed Hezbollah withdrawal is less than worthless. Hezbollah can move back whenever it chooses and Israel will be denied the ability to reclaim the territory. The same brilliant minds that thought Hamas could be moderated with money also promised that Hezbollah could be moderated with money by ceding maritime territory to be used for energy harvesting to Lebanon. The insane thing is that these same people are now pushing this.

Islamic terror groups don’t moderate. They take whatever you give them and use it to go ahead and kill you.

And yet here we are. Israel is trying to pressure Lebanon to push back Hezbollah so that tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced by Hezbollah attacks can go home. (Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been displaced in total. The media is obviously not covering this.)

Israel is proposing a military solution. The Biden administration and France are proposing a land-for-truce deal that would weaken Israel’s ability to respond to future attacks from Hezbollah.

It’s as if Oct 7 never happened.

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Diplomatic option toward Iran is self-destructive Yoram Ettinger

By on December 20th, 2023

http://bit.ly/3tp5fB4

*The US State Department’s diplomatic option has facilitated the transformation of Iran from “the American policeman of the Gulf” to “the largest anti-American venomous octopus in the world,” stretching its rogue arms from the Persian Gulf through Africa to Latin America and the US-Mexico border, which it perceives as the soft underbelly of the US.

*The diplomatic option – including a frail US response to sustained Iranian attacks on US installations in the Persian Gulf region – has aggravated Middle East instability, threatening the survival of every pro-US Arab regime, and is inducing anti-US global Islamic terrorism.  This is severely eroding US posture of deterrence, benefitting Russia, China and mostly Iran, while undermining US national and homeland security. 

*The diplomatic option has suspended most economic sanctions – without Congressional consent – surging Iran’s oil export from 500,000 barrels per day to 2-3 million barrels per day, increasing Iran’s national income by some $100bn, mostly dedicated to bolster Iran’s anti-US rogue operations, increasingly in Latin America, the US’ backyard.

*The diplomatic option has consistently overlooked the decisive power of the Ayatollahs’ imperialistic ideology, and its determination to export the anti-US Islamic Shiite Revolution. Consequently, the State Department has deluded itself into believing that an astounding financial and diplomatic bonanza would induce Iran’s Ayatollahs to accept peaceful coexistence with their pro-US Arab Sunni neighbors, become good-faith negotiators, and abandon their 1,400-year-old religious, fanatic vision, which is enshrined in their Constitution, K-12 school curriculum, Friday mosque sermons and official media.

*However, as expected, the mega-billion-dollar bonanza yielded by the diplomatic option (e.g., the 2015 JCPOA and the current suspension of economic sanctions) has bolstered its global terroristic network, advancing its vision to topple all pro-US Sunni regimes, and bring the “infidel” West to submission, especially the “The Great American Satan,” while egregiously oppressing and suppressing Iranian women and religious and ethnic minorities.  
*The State Department’s diplomatic option was initiated in 1978/1979, stabbing in the back the pro-US Shah of Iran, and contending that Ayatollah Khomeini was anti-Communist and therefore potentially pro-Western and a stabilizing element geopolitically, “…holding a Gandhi-like position… preoccupied with tractors, not tanks….”

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Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China The Chinese leader’s message in San Francisco got the attention of U.S. officials because it was delivered at a meeting that was intended to reduce tensions.

By on December 20th, 2023

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/xi-warned-biden-summit-beijing-will-reunify-taiwan-china-rcna130087

By Kristen Welker, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Andrea Mitchell

Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former U.S. officials.

Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said.

The Chinese leader also referenced public predictions by U.S. military leaders who say that Xi plans to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027, telling Biden that they were wrong because he has not set a time frame, according to the two current and one former official briefed on the meeting. 

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The Curious Case of the Biden Administration and Hamas by Bassam Tawil

By on December 18th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20224/biden-administration-hamas

Hamas is currently fighting to keep on ruling Gaza and the opportunity to regroup, rearm and destroy Israel — which is why it is pleading for a ceasefire. Hamas’s eyes are now set on the Biden administration and the United Nations, which they hope will prevent Israel from stopping the Hamas reign of abuse.

Did anyone call for a ceasefire when the US was routing ISIS in Syria and Iraq, or demanded that the US end its military campaign by a certain date?

The Hamas official… is saying that Palestinian terrorism pays — even the US administration is turning against Israel.

The grotesque irony, of course, is that — no matter how careful Israel is to avoid civilian casualties — the more the West blames Israel for civilian deaths, and the more Hamas will place civilians in the line of fire in order to keep the international community blaming Israel.

The Biden administration should be telling Hamas, not Israel, to minimize the number of civilian casualties. The real cause of these casualties, besides Hamas, is therefore actually the Biden administration, the United Nations and the international community: they incentivize Hamas to place their own people in harm’s way to be killed — the more the better — so that everyone can then accuse Israel. The act of blaming Israel for the casualties that were orchestrated by Hamas is, in fact, what is causing them. Hamas can only be looking around and saying to themselves, “Hey, it’s working! So let’s keep on doing it!”

If Israel were engaged in “indiscriminate bombing,” it would not have asked Palestinian civilians to move to safe zones. If this were a war against the Palestinian population, Israel would have bombed the Gaza Strip only from the air, without risking the lives of its soldiers.

The message Biden is sending to the terrorists is: Hold on, we are with you and we want to remove Netanyahu and his government from power.

[T]he mounting pressure by the Biden administration on Israel to end the war is a sign that the US does not want to see Hamas destroyed. Hamas is undoubtedly hoping to be rewarded for their October 7 carnage with an independent, Iran-backed Islamist Palestinian state right next to their “mark,” Israel.

Is it appropriate for a foreign leader to demand that the Israeli prime minister replace his democratically-elected coalition partners while Israel is in the midst of a war, or even if it were not? Has Biden ever demanded from any Arab leader, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to make changes in his cabinet?

The Biden administration also doubtless understands that the war on Hamas cannot be conducted with a stop-watch or a certain timeline. The war to destroy Hamas and remove its threat to Israel could take additional weeks or months. As with routing ISIS or Al-Qaeda, the timing should not be a consideration at all. The Biden administration might please stop meddling in the war effort.

Instead of issuing deadlines for ending the war, the Biden administration should be voicing full support for Israel’s war on Iran’s terrorist proxies. Israel is fighting to defeat terrorism and preserve freedom for all of us in the free world. Israel is sacrificing its heroic citizens so that we will not have to. Instead of hampering Israel, we should be thanking it and doing all we can to help.

Hamas already recently broke two ceasefires in two months; there is no reason to think they would not break a third, fourth and fifth. As they keep openly admitting, their chief goal is to murder Jews and wipe Israel off the map. How is it, one wonders, that Hamas has the right to pursue its declared aim of destroying Israel while Israel is not entitled to battle those who seek its destruction?

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