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FOREIGN POLICY

Biden Administration’s Terrorist Pier in Gaza: The Trojan Horse For Terrorists to Take Over the Region by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20520/gaza-pier-qatar

Placing Qatar — rather than, say, the United Arab Emirates — in charge of the Gaza pier entrenches a terrorist-sponsoring Trojan Horse at Hamas’s beck and call. Qatar will use the pier to supply Hamas with more money and more powerful weapons. The port will also undoubtedly be used to smuggle Islamist jihadis from all around the world into the Gaza Strip to launch more massacres against Israelis.

Qatar has a long history of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist offshoots, but also Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah and the Al Nusra Front.

If Qatar really wants an end to the Israel-Hamas war, all it has to do is order its Hamas puppets immediately and unconditionally to release all the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas terrorists October 7 and held hostage in the Gaza Strip. Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, who are based in Doha, would not be able to refuse. Qatar is their lifeline.

The Qataris, however, are evidently in no rush to pressure Hamas: Qatar is clearly facing no pressure from the Biden administration. On the contrary, the Biden administration just agreed to extended Qatar’s ability to host America’s Al-Udeid Air Base, the headquarters of CENTCOM, for another ten years – for nothing in return.

“Congress must weigh in and cancel the 10-year extension of the military base in Qatar… The U.S. should seize assets tied to individuals and entities in Qatar for supporting terrorist groups, especially those tied to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism…. It’s time to put Doha on notice that they are jeopardizing their relationship with the U.S. by providing material support to designated terrorist groups. Qatar is clearly acting like a state sponsor of terror and should not be allowed to use the U.S. banking system to bypass existing, though not enforced, sanctions on funding Iran and its terrorist proxies.” — Former US intelligence officer Michael Pregent, The Hill, January 22, 2024.

The US should definitely start withdrawing from Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Thanks to the Biden administration — which is also pressuring Israel not to eliminate the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah — Qatar and its Hamas pawns are having the last laugh. In light of the Biden administration’s decision to turn itself into an ally of terrorists and their supporters, such as Hamas and Qatar – instead of strengthening US relations with Israel and its allies in the Gulf who are fighting terrorism — it is a very long last laugh, indeed.

Biden Administration’s Jitterbug with Iran’s Regime When Crime Does Pay – Spectacularly by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20515/biden-administration-jitterbug-iran

The recent decision to shower Iran, the “leading state sponsor of global terrorism,” with yet another $10 billion in sanctions waivers, “freeing up $10 billion elsewhere to spend on terrorism, missiles, nuclear weapons and the repression of Iranian women,” defies logic and morality.

Despite galactic evidence of Iran’s atrocities — such as, since October 2023, more than 165 attacks by its proxies on American assets, which include the murder of three US service members; its support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis; its brutal crackdown on dissent at home, and its massively destabilizing actions across the Middle East — the Biden administration continues to court Iran and further enrich its regime, which thrives on chaos and bloodshed, especially against the country throwing the money at them.

“The FBI believes Iran is capable of a variety of attack options against US targets, to include cyber operations intended to sabotage public and private infrastructure …. [I]t’s clear the Iranians are determined to carry out attacks in the United States….” — Robert Wells, assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division at the FBI, March 20, 2024.

“The mullahs give up nothing but get a windfall nonetheless… For [Senate Majority leader Chuck] Schumer, apparently, regime change in Israel is the national-security priority — not stopping billions of dollars to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.” — Former National Security Council official Richard Goldberg, New York Post, March 14, 2024.

Former US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s assertion that the Biden administration’s actions has already enriched Iran by “closer to $60 billion” is nothing short of chilling. This staggering sum undoubtedly enabled Iran to further enrich its uranium to near weapons-grade level; to help Hamas attack Israel, and to torment its own people.

It is high time for the Biden administration to send a clear and unequivocal message to Iran, China, Russia and North Korea that the days of impunity are over.

Blinken’s Rafah blunder: Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/blinkens-rafah-blunder/

In a press conference on Thursday in Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated his opposition to an Israeli ground operation in Rafah, saying that such a move would be a “mistake.”

An invasion into the southern Gaza city, he stated, was “unnecessary” to achieving the goal of defeating Hamas. This attitude, which the Biden administration has been expressing with increasing fervor, runs counter to Israeli assessments.

It has become the key bone of contention between Washington and Jerusalem since the start of the Oct. 7 war, spurred by a massacre of Jews that hadn’t been seen since the Holocaust.

Other disagreements—surrounding the use of Israeli force, civilian Palestinian casualties and plans for “the day after”—have been mild in comparison. Or at least they’ve been treated by Israel as arguments that can be addressed through a presentation of the facts.

This hasn’t been simply a tactical ploy to avert discord. On the contrary, the justice of destroying the genocidal terrorist organization that controls territory along Israel’s southern border and vows to repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7 “again and again and again” is irrefutable.

Anyone disputing Israel’s duty to eradicate Hamas—for the survival of the Jewish state, as well as for the benefit of the region and the world—is on the wrong side of history. Period.

Furthermore, Israel has the data to support the extreme measures it employs to avoid non-combatant deaths in Gaza. It has proof of the huge quantities of humanitarian aid entering the Strip. It also has evidence of its efforts to prevent Hamas from stealing the goods.

America In Retreat: A Record 11 Embassies Evacuated Under Biden

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/03/21/american-in-retreat-a-record-11-embassies-have-been-evacuated-under-biden/

With the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Haiti last week, President Joe Biden extended his historic lead for fleeing embassies – a dubious distinction once held by Barack Obama.

That’s according to the Daily Signal, which dug into the records and found that as the world has slipped into chaos over the past three years, the U.S. has been forced to withdraw from embassy after embassy.

“Since Biden took office in January 2021, his State Department has partially or fully evacuated 11 U.S. embassies via what are known as authorized or ordered departure directives,” writes Tony Kinnett. The number is actually 14 if you count the fact that this is the fourth time Biden has ordered Americans to bolt from the U.S. embassy in Haiti.

Biden is now well ahead of Obama, who ran from eight embassies over his eight years in office (which included those in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and South Sudan). During Donald Trump’s term, only three embassies were evacuated, Kinnett reports.

The Biden embassy evacuation timeline:

Burma, March 2021
Chad, April 2021
Afghanistan, July 2021
Ethiopia, November 2021
Ukraine, February 2022
Belarus, February 2022
Russia, February 2022
Nigeria, October 2022
Sudan, April 2023
Niger, August 2023
Haiti, November 2021, December 2022, July 2023, March 2024

Biden Regime Actively Seeking to Overthrow Israeli Government to Save Hamas by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20490/biden-regime-actively-seeking-to-overthrow

One Israeli expert frequently consulted by American officials says, “I have been asked by a serious administration figure what it is that will force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse. They were interested in the mechanics, what can we demand which will collapse his coalition.”

[O]ur intelligence apparatus is rotted through with Islamic terror supporters and sympathizers.

The 2024 ODNI treats Netanyahu like a leader to be overthrown and suggests that this would be a good outcome. It’s a hostile act from a hostile administration that is doing everything it can to save Islamic terrorists.

Since Oct 7, the Biden administration pivoted from backing Israel’s effort to remove Hamas, to backing the effort by Hamas allies from Dearborn to Qatar to overthrow the Israeli government in order to save Hamas.

One Israeli expert frequently consulted by American officials says, “I have been asked by a serious administration figure what it is that will force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse. They were interested in the mechanics, what can we demand which will collapse his coalition.”

“What can we demand which will collapse his coalition” is revealing as hell. The Obama administration was infamous for trying to use pressure on Israel to create splits inside its coalition government. Biden’s people are trying to do the same thing.

The report comes from Noga Tarnopolsky and calling her biased and hostile is an understatement, but this stuff is now showing up in intelligence reports.

The 2024 ODNI claims that, “Netanyahu’s viability as leader as well as his governing coalition of far-right and ultraorthodox parties that pursued hardline policies on Palestinian and security issues may be in jeopardy. Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections. A different, more moderate government is a possibility.”

Kamala Harris explains it all out for you on Gaza Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/kamala_harris_explains_it_all_out_for_you_on_gaza.html

Foreign policy ace Kamala Harris is back in the saddle, explaining to all us rube voters what Gaza is all about.

Kamala Harris on the war in Gaza: “This subject is one that, sadly I say, has — there’s an appetite a lot of people have for it to be binary, as though it’s one thing or the other, when in fact many things are true at the same time.”

Which is one heck of a word salad.

Obviously, she’s feeling the heat from the Hamas-cheering leftists of academia who are seen as vital to Democrats in their re-election bid, and the other heat from the pro-Israel wing of the Democrat party, which is an increasingly smaller segment but just as important to winning independents. So, if I am deciphering the garble correctly, she would like us to know that many things can be true at the same time.

That ought to get them all onboard the Democrat train.

It’s wretched, though.

This is supposed to be America’s foreign policy leader speaking and she obviously doesn’t know a thing about what she’s talking about. She doesn’t know which side she’s on and she lacks the capacity to form even an opinion on it, not being “a good study” as critics on the inside have alleged in the past.

So, here she is, presenting us with another word salad — on a deadly serious issue — and sending a message to our enemies and Israel’s enemies, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

You thought Joe’s senility was a problem creating a lot of foreign policy failures? Try the stupid person’s take on it, driven by electoral politics alone, and it only gets worse.

Munich Redux Why, exactly, would the Mullahs change their behavior? by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/munich-redux/

Lost in the spectacle of the high decibel State of the Union speech, and the quadrennial carnival of a presidential election, there was some dangerous news last week that was mostly ignored. Iran, for 46 years a sworn enemy of the U.S. whose citizens it has murdered and interests thwarted with impunity, now possesses all the components for quickly assembling several nuclear bombs.

This development could mark the return of the 1939 diplomatic disaster of England’s and France’s abandonment of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany, which lit the fuse of the most destructive war in history.

Often considered a mere foreign policy cliché for feckless diplomacy, Munich’s lessons are much more complex, widespread, and consequential than a parable about “a timorous, bumbling, and naïve old gentleman, waving an umbrella as a signal of cringing subservience to a bully,” as historian Telford Taylor described the caricature of England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Rather, Munich is the premier historical paradigm for illusory ideals about foreign policy and diplomatic engagement that rationalize ideological prejudices, partisan interests, and received institutional wisdom––in our times, all at the cost of the exorbitant risk of a global conflict with nuclear-armed autocratic enemies.

And that threat has just intensified with the news about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Wall Street Journal last week reported “troubling news” from Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency: “The Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to [Iran’s] production and inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and uranium ore concentrate.”

Moreover, the Journal continues, the “Institute for Science and International Security, which has followed Iran’s program for years, says Iran can enrich enough uranium for 13 nuclear weapons, seven in the first month of a breakout. ‘Iran is able to produce more weapon-grade uranium (WGU) and at a faster rate since the IAEA’s last report in November 2023,’ it finds.”

Why the US is Losing the War to the Houthis by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20463/losing-war-to-houthis

What is the Biden administration doing wrong? Apart from scale, it’s trying to target Houthi drones and missiles, and some air bases…. This is the same approach that failed in Iraq….

When rockets are targeted, the terrorists run away and regroup, but when the terrorists are targeted, they have to keep running, so they don’t have the time and space to regroup.

That is what the proposed hostage deal and the various calls for a ‘ceasefire’ are really about.

Biden is unwilling to target the Houthis and so they keep attacking.

Given a choice between alienating the country and his party’s terror supporters, he chose a middle ground of “show” strikes… that will avoid offending terror supporters but also will not end the Houthi attacks.

This strategy serves no one except Biden who has sacrificed the nation’s prestige, a major international waterway and the lives of two U.S. Navy SEALs to win an election.

After President Joe Biden came home from his Caribbean vacation, the Deputy Defense Secretary came back from hers and the Secretary of Defense was on the verge of being released from the hospital, airstrikes were finally authorized against the Houthi Jihadis attacking ships in the Red Sea.

Biden said that the air strikes sent “a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes.”

Biden’s settlement delusions Contrary to the administration’s claims, history proves that the settlements are neither illegal nor an impediment to peace. Eric Levine

https://www.jns.org/bidens-settlement-delusions/

Last week, the Biden administration reversed the “Pompeo Doctrine,” which recognized that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are not “per se inconsistent with international law.”

Biden’s record of being wrong on every single important foreign policy issue of the last 50 years remains unblemished. His decision is wrong as a matter of law and fact. It is also bad politics and undermines Israeli and American national security.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken summed up the administration’s position by saying, “It’s been longstanding U.S. policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace. … They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion. And in our judgment, this only weakens—it doesn’t strengthen—Israel’s security.”

History disproves Blinken’s claim that “settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace.” In fact, Israel has always been willing to remove settlements to achieve peace.

The 1978 Israel-Egypt peace treaty required that Israel dismantle its settlements in the Sinai. Prime Minister Menachem Begin did so, deploying the IDF to physically remove those settlers who refused to leave. Clearly, the settlements were not a barrier to peace.

In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the evacuation of all Israelis from Gaza and turned it over to the Palestinians. Like Begin before him, Sharon sent the IDF to remove the settlers who would not leave. There were no Jews in Gaza for 18 years. Only after the Oct. 7 massacre did Israelis return to exercise their legitimate and legal right to self-defense.

Biden Administration Not Stopping Iran, Russia, China, the Houthis by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20440/biden-not-stopping-iran-houthis

What is essential to remember is that the Houthis and other proxies of Iran are in all likelihood deeply apprehensive about the prospect of their senior leadership being targeted. By refraining from targeting Houthi leaders, the United States has inadvertently emboldened the group and allowed them to act with impunity.

In recent months, the Red Sea has become a battleground for attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis of Yemen, with the Biden administration facing mounting criticism for its failure to quell the escalating violence. As the Houthi group continues to build its weapons stockpile in Yemen, supported by the Iranian regime, the urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. It is critical that the United States reevaluate its military strategy to effectively address this growing threat.

The current approach, adopted by the Biden administration, is characterized by a reluctance to directly target Houthi leadership. The administration has opted instead to focus solely on destroying weapons and equipment.

This approach, however, has proven ineffective in deterring the Houthis from launching further attacks. What is essential to remember is that the Houthis and other proxies of Iran are in all likelihood deeply apprehensive about the prospect of their senior leadership being targeted. By refraining from targeting Houthi leaders, the United States has inadvertently emboldened the group and allowed them to act with impunity.

A former US military official, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, pointed out that the current campaign against the Houthis is similar to previous failed endeavors:

“The US campaign against the Houthis appears to bear the hallmarks of many of these highly circumscribed, scrubbed campaigns of the past where we seek to avoid causing them actual pain.”

The Trump administration’s targeted killing of Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for instance, resulted in cessation of Iranian harassment of the US as long Trump was in office. If one wants to induce meaningful change in the behavior of the Houthis, unfortunately decisive blows will be necessary.

Sadly, the reliance on cosmetic strikes to destroy Houthi drones and missiles is both financially unsustainable and strategically futile. Continuously expending resources on missiles, worth multi-millions dollars each, to counter far less expensive Houthi weaponry is not a dazzling long-term solution. The Biden administration would be better served targeting Houthi weapons depots and missile launchers to disrupt their military capabilities in a significant way.

Merely intensifying attacks on Houthi infrastructure, however, will not suffice. Without substantially degrading Houthi military capabilities, the recently redesignated terrorist group will continue to pose a significant threat. Therefore, it is imperative to adopt a multifaceted approach that also targets the source of the problem – Iran’s regime.