RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273716/us-prepares-confront-possible-iranian-attacks-joseph-klein

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a scheduled meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in order to go to Baghdad on a sudden unannounced visit. His purpose was to warn Iraq’s leaders about a “very specific” threat of Iranian attacks which, he said, “were imminent.” Secretary Pompeo told reporters after his meetings that he wanted assurances that Iraq is “able to adequately protect Americans in their country.” Secretary Pompeo’s warning followed the deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East. The Pentagon has also sent nuclear-capable B-52s to the region.

There are approximately 5,200 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, who the Iranian regime has declared are legitimate targets. The regime has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is a vital navigation route for the shipments of global oil. Israel had also reportedly passed on intelligence to the United States within the last couple of weeks of an Iranian plan to attack either U.S. or U.S.-allied interests in the Gulf.

The Trump administration decided, along with the ratcheting up of its sanctions against Iran, that a strong military presence in the region is the best deterrence. The administration is positioning the United States to be fully prepared to protect the interests of the U.S. and its allies in the region against any aggression the Iranians may decide to launch themselves or through their proxies. Secretary Pompeo’s visit to Iraq was meant to convey personally the need for Iraq to do its part in preventing the Iran-backed militias in the country from attacking U.S. forces stationed in Iraq.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mike-pompeo-blasts-jeremy-corbyn-for-standing-by-nicolas-maduro/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday expressed outrage at British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s support of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

“It is disgusting to see leaders, in not only the United Kingdom, but the United States as well, who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro,” Pompeo said at a joint press conference with U.K. foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt in London. “It is not in either of our country’s best interests for those leaders to continue to advocate on their behalf.”

The U.S. has levied heavy sanctions against Maduro’s regime and recognizes National Assembly president Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful president. The country has been in upheaval since Guaidó and other opposition leaders encouraged crowds of citizens to take to the streets of Caracas, the capital, in an effort to oust Maduro that fizzled out last week as most of the military remained loyal to the government. Meanwhile, Venezuela has continued to face a mushrooming humanitarian crisis as its economy collapses, with food scarce and crime rampant.

Nevertheless, Corbyn hardened his stance against “outside interference” in the conflict after Pompeo’s comments Wednesday.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14181/limiting-nuclear-arms

Nearly 40 years ago, critics of President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” policy used the same template of criticism. This brush-off existed not because Reagan was putting forward unworkable or unrealistic ideas. The real root of the criticism was, and still is, frustration over the fact that their bumper-sticker ideas (such as a “nuclear freeze” or “Global Zero”) have never been accepted by top U.S. national-security officials or approved by Congress.

Reagan did not oppose arms control; he opposed “bad” and unverified arms control that gave huge advantages to Soviet Union, and opened what he famously described as a “window of vulnerability.”

The secret is that the push for a nuclear freeze or “Global Zero” — in 1981 as in 2019 — was not then, and is not now, about strategic stability or eliminating Russian or Chinese nuclear coercion. It is, rather, an effort to curtail U.S. military power.

Such a tethered America cannot be the leader of the Free World, after having jettisoned the twin fantasies of China’s “peaceful rise” or a “reset” with Russia. In a world in which enemies of liberty are on the march, the presence and judicious use of American power is critical.

It comes as no surprise that U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported plan to forge a new nuclear-arms deal with Russia and China — when New START expires in 2021 — is being attacked by American advocates of unilateral disarmament.

Take Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, for example. Echoing Russian complaints, Kimball wrote recently:

“[T]his new grand-deal gambit does not represent a serious attempt to halt and reverse a global arms race. It is more likely that Trump and [National Security Adviser John] Bolton are scheming to walk away from New START by setting conditions they know to be too difficult to achieve.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-blunt-ambassador-to-berlin-11557182423

There can’t be much doubt which American ambassador has the toughest assignment these days: Richard Grenell. Representing Donald Trump in Berlin is about as demanding a job as the world of diplomacy contains. There are compensations: The view from his office—of the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate—is one of the most stunning in Europe. More important, no other ambassador can be so assured of his chance to make an impact. Repairing the U.S.-German relationship could reinvigorate the entire Atlantic alliance and enable a new era of international peacebuilding. If the relationship founders in mistrust, the dream of building a world around shared trans-Atlantic values will fade.

The task isn’t hopeless. The German political elite are increasingly concerned about the disarray in Europe, the economic threat from China and the hostile machinations of the Kremlin, and they know that Germany badly needs a serious partnership with the U.S. Nonetheless, the gap in interests, ideas and style between Angela Merkel’s Germany and Mr. Trump’s America is so wide that many on both sides believe it cannot be bridged.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14178/venezuela-monroe-doctrine

“It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord.” — President James Monroe, 1823.

“The destinies of our nations will not be dictated by foreign powers; they will be shaped by the people who call this hemisphere home. Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.” — National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, Miami, Florida April 17, 2019.

“The movement for freedom in Venezuela reveals that the twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere…” — President Donald Trump, Feb. 19, 2019, Florida International University.

At the same time, it is probably a good idea to keep an eye on the Ukraine, where Putin has been offering around fast-tracked Russian passports, as he did prior to his invasions of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and Crimea in 2014. It is probably advisable for the US to help the Ukrainians reinforce their defenses there, especially around the city of Mariupol.

It might also help to explain to the American people what is at stake for the Western Hemisphere in Venezuela….

In his speech to Bay of Pigs veterans in Miami, Florida on April 17, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton explained the Trump administration’s measures against Venezuela, which he said should serve as a warning to Russia and others offering military assistance to the regime of the dictator Nicolás Maduro:

“This incredible region [Latin America] must remain free from internal despotism and external domination… The destinies of our nations will not be dictated by foreign powers; they will be shaped by the people who call this hemisphere home. Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.”

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/the-chinese-tortoise-and-the-american-hare/

Historian Andrew Roberts reports that Winston Churchill said just after Pearl Harbor that “in the event of war, the Japanese would ‘fold up like the Italians,’ because they were ‘the wops of the Far East.’” The West chronically underestimates Asians, as the Russians found out at Port Arthur, the Americans at Pearl Harbor and the Yalu River, the British at Singapore, and so forth.

A case in point is the present tariff war. The U.S. assumed that tariffs on Chinese imports would force China to make fundamental concessions to American trade demands. On January 6, President Donald Trump said, “China’s not doing very well now. It puts us in a very strong position. We are doing very well.” Since then China’s CSI 300 stock index has gained 37% during 2019 to date, double the gain in U.S. stock markets. China’s economic growth has accelerated while America’s has slowed. The tariff war may have hurt the U.S. economy more than China’s. With an internal market of 1.4 billion people, China can replace lost foreign business by increasing internal demand. Ten years ago exports made up 36% of China’s gross domestic product versus only 18% today. World trade is shrinking, but the impact on China is manageable.

I support President Trump. I applaud him for calling attention to China’s challenge to America’s strategic position. But I have warned from the outset that the tools he has employed won’t get the results he wants.

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/26/7175477

President Trump effectively “unsigned” an international arms sales agreement Friday, moving to withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty. The agreement sets global standards for regulating transfers of conventional arms, from rifles to tanks and airplanes.The treaty, known as the ATT, has been in effect since late 2014. The U.S. signed on to the agreement in 2013 but has not ratified the treaty.The U.S. withdrawal had been expected. Trump made it official at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Indianapolis, pulling out a pen onstage and signing a paper that he said would take back the Obama administration’s signature on behalf of the U.S.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/04/26/china-iran-nuclear-weapons-u-s-sanctions/

President Trump, true to his tough-guy form, this week announced the withdrawal of sanctions waivers on countries that don’t cease purchasing oil from the terrorist state of Iran by the beginning of May. China will almost certainly defy the U.S. and refuse to cut off Iranian crude imports, at least not cut them off completely.

Importing just under 30 million tons last year, China is Iran’s biggest petroleum customer, and Beijing has formally protested the Trump Administration move and argued that its commercial relationship with Tehran is justified.

Obviously, China isn’t interested in letting anything take it off track from its objective of permanent global economic dominance. Less obvious, however, is Iran’s sinister role in the rise of China at the expense of superpower America.

Speaking to the Wilson Center last fall, Henry Kissinger, sounding very much like his old, detente-designing, Nixon Administration self, expounded on his strategic views of the U.S. and China, over 45 years after engineering the opening to the long-isolated Communist regime.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-goal-for-irans-oil-exports-zero-11555972882

President Trump wants to exert “maximum pressure” on Iran, which is why he is giving the sanctions screws another firm twist. Any country that imports Iranian oil will soon face U.S. penalties—with no exceptions. Last year seven nations and Taiwan were granted waivers through May 2, giving them time to adjust supply lines. These waivers won’t be extended, the State Department said Monday, helping to push the benchmark oil price to $74 a barrel, a nearly six-month high.

Italy, Greece and Taiwan have already ended their Iranian oil imports. That leaves five countries at risk of U.S. sanctions: China, India, Turkey, Japan and South Korea. Two are close allies, and no doubt their leaders will protest this stiff medicine. But the Trump Administration has given them enough warning, not to mention a six-month waiver. That’s plenty of time to make other arrangements.

By all accounts, Iran’s economy is in trouble. “To date, we estimate that our sanctions have denied the regime well north of $10 billion,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday. “The regime would have used that money to support terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and continue its missile development” and “it would have perpetuated the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.”

Mr. Pompeo reiterated the White House goal “to deprive the outlaw regime of the funds it has used to destabilize the Middle East for four decades, and incentivize Iran to behave like a normal country.” To that end, the U.S. intends to drive Iranian oil exports to zero.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-takes-aim-at-caracas-and-havana-11555972251

As Washington and Moscow face off over Venezuela, the Caribbean has become a focal point for global politics for the first time since the Cold War.

The U.S. and its allies have recognized Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela and demanded that Nicolás Maduro step aside, doubling down on sanctions against the dictator and his allies in Havana. Mr. Guaidó has called on Venezuelans to turn out on May 1 for what he hopes will be the largest demonstration in the country’s history. Yet Mr. Maduro is standing his ground, backed financially by China and Russia, and receiving military and security assistance from Cuba and Russia.

For the Trump administration, all roads in the Western Hemisphere lead to Caracas. Left to accelerate, the breakdown of governance and civilized life in Venezuela can only create more refugees, enrich arms smugglers and drug cartels, allow forces like Hezbollah to insinuate themselves more deeply in the region. On the other hand, a return to some kind of stability under a pro-business government would initiate an economic recovery that would help the people of Venezuela and their neighbors alike, and deprive the terror cartels of much of their arms and funding. Crucially, if Venezuelan oil production recovers, it would help stabilize world energy markets and significantly increase American leverage with both Russia and Iran.