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FOREIGN POLICY

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Punishing Syrian Chemical Weapons Use Shoshana Bryen

By on March 7th, 2018

The primary goals of American foreign policy are to make our citizens, friends and allies secure and to make our adversaries think twice. There are moments in history when well-timed, well-placed military action will have the effect of causing fear — and moments that, if allowed to pass by, ensure the opposite. President Barack Obama’s failure to uphold the international conventions against chemical weapons worked against American interests in what is perhaps the ugliest battlefield of the 21st century. President Donald Trump’s decision to attack the Syria’s Al-Shayrat Military Airbase from which the Assad regime launched chemical attacks in 2017 was a welcome reversal, though with limited results.

The illegitimacy of chemical weapons use is one of the few points of international consensus in war fighting. The first treaty against it is more than 115 years old – the Hague Declaration of 1899, which was followed by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

But the Bashar Assad regime in Syria — with the active support of Russia — has again been using chlorine barrel bombs against the 400,000 hostage civilians of Ghouta. Having failed to pass a Security Council resolution to sanction Syria (Russia and China vetoed), the United Nations Security Council succeeded in passing a unanimous resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. Less than 24 hours later, there were new reports of chemical raids killing hundreds.

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Haley Says UN Job is About Having ‘Absolutely No Patience for Bullying’ By Bridget Johnson

By on March 6th, 2018

WASHINGTON — UN Ambassador Nikki Haley told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference that “standing up for your friends is critical” and the administration is looking at tying foreign aid to voting with the U.S. at the United Nations.

Haley told the crowd that she was raised with “absolutely no patience for bullying” as she grew up in the only Indian family in small South Carolina town. “That didn’t mean every day was great,” she said. “My family were immigrants. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari.”

“You don’t pick on someone just because they look differently than you, you don’t pick on someone just because they think differently than you, or because you can,” she added.

Haley said that upon arriving at the United Nations she learned that Israel “gets bullied because the countries that don’t like Israel are used to getting away with it — just like that little girl in South Carolina, that doesn’t sit well with me.”

As examples of the administration countering UN bullying, Haley cited the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO for “attempting to change ancient history” by recognizing Hebron in the West Bank as a Palestinian world heritage site in need of protection.

Haley said when she started attending a monthly UN session on the Middle East and found it to be “an Israel-bashing session it was actually shocking.”

“I can’t say that we’ve solved the problem but I can say that several other countries have followed our lead,” she said. “What used to be a monthly Israel bashing session now has more balance.”

On moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, Haley declared, “Like most Americans, I knew what the capital of Israel was.”

“America did not make Jerusalem Israel’s capital,” she said, but simply recognized reality “denied for too long.”CONTINUE AT SITE

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The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First Does the necessity of self-defense leave ‘no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation’? John Bolton

By on March 1st, 2018

The Winter Olympics’ closing ceremonies also concluded North Korea’s propaganda effort to divert attention from its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. And although President Trump announced more economic sanctions against Pyongyang last week, he also bluntly presaged “Phase Two” of U.S. action against the Kim regime, which “may be a very rough thing.”

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in January that Pyongyang was within “a handful of months” of being able to deliver nuclear warheads to the U.S. How long must America wait before it acts to eliminate that threat?

Pre-emption opponents argue that action is not justified because Pyongyang does not constitute an “imminent threat.” They are wrong. The threat is imminent, and the case against pre-emption rests on the misinterpretation of a standard that derives from prenuclear, pre-ballistic-missile times. Given the gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea, we should not wait until the very last minute. That would risk striking after the North has deliverable nuclear weapons, a much more dangerous situation.

In assessing the timing of pre-emptive attacks, the classic formulation is Daniel Webster’s test of “necessity.” British forces in 1837 invaded U.S. territory to destroy the steamboat Caroline, which Canadian rebels had used to transport weapons into Ontario.

Webster asserted that Britain failed to show that “the necessity of self-defense was instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.” Pre-emption opponents would argue that Britain should have waited until the Caroline reached Canada before attacking.

Would an American strike today against North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program violate Webster’s necessity test? Clearly not. Necessity in the nuclear and ballistic-missile age is simply different than in the age of steam. What was once remote is now, as a practical matter, near; what was previously time-consuming to deliver can now arrive in minutes; and the level of destructiveness of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is infinitely greater than that of the steamship Caroline’s weapons cargo. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Democrats and the Dossier The House asks Obama officials what they knew and when.

By on February 28th, 2018

The public deserves a full airing of 2016 election shenanigans, including whether there was any untoward behavior by high-ranking office holders. Toward that end the House Intelligence Committee wants to find out who knew what and when about the infamous Steele dossier.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes on Feb. 20 sent a letter to 11 current and former officials requesting information about their awareness and handling of the dossier produced by Christopher Steele. The former British spy was hired to compile his claims of Donald Trump-Russia collusion by Fusion GPS, the oppo-research firm hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC). The House Intel letter went to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, among others.

The debate over the dossier has so far focused on Mr. Steele’s delivery of that campaign document to the FBI, and the bureau’s use of it to obtain an order to surveil a U.S. citizen—Trump adviser Carter Page. But Fusion almost certainly also delivered the dossier to its clients at the Clinton campaign and DNC. Mrs. Clinton maintained close ties to the State Department, and Obama officials were rooting for her election. How wide was the awareness of the dossier at the highest levels of government, and was that information misused?

The House Intel letter asks when the officials became aware of the information in the dossier; how it was presented to them; who did the presenting; when they learned it had been funded by a political entity or the Clinton campaign or DNC; and what actions they took on the basis of the information, including outreach to law enforcement or media.

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The Real Russian Disaster By Victor Davis Hanson

By on February 28th, 2018

The Russian-reset steamroller: spreading hysteria, playing the media, exposing the FBI

Donald Trump has said a lot of silly stuff about Russia, from joking about Vladimir Putin helping to find Hillary’s deleted emails, to naïve musings about the extent of Russian interference into Western democratic elections. But far more important than what he has said is what Trump has done. That same caveat applies to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Start with two givens: Vladimir Putin is neither stupid nor content to watch an aging, shrinking, corrupt, and dysfunctional — but still large and nuclear — Russia recede to second- or third-power status. From 2009 to 2015, in one of the most remarkable and Machiavellian efforts in recent strategic history, Putin almost single-handedly parlayed a deserved losing hand into a winning one. He pulled this off by flattering, manipulating, threatening, and outsmarting an inept and politically obsessed Obama administration.

Under the Obama presidency and the tenures of Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Russia made astounding strategic gains — given its intrinsic economic, social, and military weaknesses. The Obama reaction was usually incoherent (Putin was caricatured as a “bored kid in the back of the classroom” or as captive of a macho shtick). After each aggressive Russian act, the administration lectured that “it is not in Russia’s interest to . . . ” — as if Obama knew better than a thuggish Putin what was best for autocratic Russia.

A review of Russian inroads, presented in no particular order, is one of the more depressing chapters in post-war U.S. diplomatic history.

Just watching the film clip of Hillary Clinton presenting the red, plastic Jacuzzi button to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva remains painful, more so than even George W. Bush’s simplistic, reassuring commentary after he looked into Putin’s eyes. Under the Obama-Clinton reset protocols, Russia was freed from even the mild sanctions installed by the Bush administration, imposed for its 2008 Ossetian aggressions. As thanks, in early 2014, Russia outright annexed Crimea. It used its newfound American partnership as an excuse to bully Europe on matters of energy and policy, confident that under American reset, it would face little NATO pushback.

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Hard-Line Supporter of Israel Offers to Pay for U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem By Gardiner Harris and Isabel Kershner

By on February 24th, 2018

WASHINGTON — Sheldon G. Adelson, one of the most hawkish supporters of Israel among American Jews, has offered to help fund the construction of a new American Embassy in Jerusalem, according to the State Department, which on Friday said it was reviewing whether it could legally accept the donation.

The total price tag to build the new embassy to replace the current one in Tel Aviv is estimated at around $500 million, according to one former State Department official. While private donors have previously paid for renovations to American ambassadors’ overseas residences, Mr. Adelson’s contribution would be likely to far surpass those gifts — and could further strain American diplomacy in the Middle East.

Before the embassy is built, the Trump administration plans to open a temporary one in Jerusalem. On Friday, it said that it was accelerating the projected opening in time to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel on May 14.

Even some of Mr. Adelson’s allies expressed concern that if the administration accepts his offer for the permanent embassy, it could be seen as a well-heeled financial contributor effectively privatizing — and politicizing — American foreign policy.

Mr. Adelson, who has been a vocal supporter of the contentious plan to move the embassy, is not merely a philanthropist; he is one of the most prominent players in Israeli-American relations. He is a conservative force in American politics, a donor to President Trump, a longtime patron of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the owner of Israel’s largest-circulation daily newspaper.

“I’m concerned that people will think that this is being done because of a group of people — evangelicals and Jews — who care about it and not because it’s the U.S. government that cares about it,” said Morton A. Klein, who runs the Zionist Organization of America, a nonprofit group that is funded partly by Mr. Adelson. “It should be crystal-clear that this is the U.S. government making the decision to move it.”

Through a representative, Mr. Adelson declined to comment on Friday. His offer of a donation was first reported by The Associated Press.

Steve Goldstein, the under secretary for public diplomacy, said State Department lawyers began looking several weeks ago at whether it was legal to accept a private donation to build an embassy, a process that continues. He said the department was not currently negotiating with any private citizen for a donation, and that a new embassy building would take seven to 10 years to construct.

It was not clear whether private donors had ever helped with the financial costs to build an American embassy. Patrick Kennedy, who last year retired from the State Department, where he served as under secretary for management, said donors in the past had contributed millions of dollars to refurbish the palatial United States ambassadors’ residences in London, Paris, Rome and Tokyo.

“As long as a donor passes an ethics and background check, we’ll take their money if they’re willing to give it. There’s no problem there,” Mr. Kennedy said in an interview on Friday.

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Netanyahu vs. the Left’s Deep State The deep state is waging war on Trump and Netanyahu. Daniel Greenfield

By on February 22nd, 2018

In a year and a few months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have spent more time at the helm of the Israeli government than any other man. The other man is David Ben-Gurion, the Socialist leader who repressed Zionist nationalist movements in Israel by fiat, by law and, as in the Altalena, by murder.

That factoid may not matter much to most people, even most Israelis, but it matters a great deal to the remnants of Ben-Gurion’s regime, the leftists who don’t win elections, but do control the government. Until ’77, Israel’s Prime Ministers came from the Labor Party. The last Labor Prime Minister left office in 2001. It’s not just that Netanyahu is eclipsing Ben-Gurion, but that Labor has become irrelevant.

But of course the Labor Party isn’t irrelevant. Its candidates may be a joke. Its base of support consists of Tel Aviv hipsters who never actually leave their leftist bubble except to visit Paris, New York or Berlin. Their burning social issue is how much more Daddy has to pay to get them a place in their trendy neighborhood. Not even Obama’s best people could help them get much mileage out of that one.

After the ’15 election, Haaretz, the paper of record for the Israeli anti-Israel left, had wailed, “Leftist, secular Tel Aviv went to sleep last night cautiously optimistic only to wake up this morning in a state of utter and absolute devastation.” Leftist secular Tel Aviv has been devastated for nearly two decades.

But Labor’s deep state still runs much of Israel the way it did when Ben-Gurion was still alive. It doesn’t just have the media and academia, the non-profits and the elites, the way most national ‘lefts’ do. It also controls the old machinery of government that it spent generations running and robbing.

Ben-Gurion’s tenancy may be a factoid to most, but it’s a sore insult to Labor. And its deep state is working overtime to force Netanyahu out of office using fake scandals, fake news and fake police.

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The Latest Round Of Big Military Moves In The Middle East Shoshana Bryen

By on February 17th, 2018

There are lessons to be learned from Iran firing a drone into Israeli air space and Israel’s destruction of about half of Syria’s air defense capabilities in response:

Iran is testing not only its capabilities abroad, but the reactions of its enemies and its security on the home front
Israel is testing as well
Russia’s appears unwilling to take on any more military activity than absolutely necessary and is unwilling to confront Iran.
The US will stand by Israel, but may not be willing to push Iran out of Syria.

Iran

Iran’s goal is to operate militarily across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – north of its adversaries Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. To this end, Iran “helped” move not only ISIS fighters, but tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs, from its westward path. Iran controls militias of more than 80,000 fighters in Syria. Israeli sources say there are 3,000 members of Iran’s IRGC commanding 9,000 Hizb’allah, and 10,000 “violent Shia militias recruited from across the Mideast, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” The rest are Syrian.

Iran’s problem right now is at home. The government was surprised and more than a little bit worried about the rolling demonstrations across the country in January. The protests were broad-based, widespread and deliberately provocative. The image of an elderly Iranian woman climbing on a wall (with some difficulty) to remove and wave her hijab couldn’t have made the mullahs feel secure. And when a government has to look over its shoulder at its restive population, its room to maneuver abroad is constrained.

It was necessary, then, for the mullahs to have a victory, so they claimed one.

Just in time for the 39th-anniversary celebration of the Iranian revolution, Iran showed a variety of homemade, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, claiming the missiles can hit Israel from Iranian territory. As for the drone – Iran denied its existence and simply cheered its Syrian ally’s air defenses, claiming that Israel had lost its military edge in the region. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi told Russian TV, “Reports of downing an Iranian drone flying over Israel and also Iran’s involvement in attacking an Israeli jet are so ridiculous… Iran only provides military advice to Syria.”

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US keen on Russia distancing itself from Iran’s Syrian ambitions David Goldman

By on February 15th, 2018

Washington would like Moscow to inform its Iranian partners they cannot count on Russian support if they use Syria as a base to threaten Israel.

The Pentagon released a video, on February 13, of a Russian T-72 tank being destroyed by an American drone attack in Syria, the most recent in a series of wrist-slaps intended to persuade Moscow to distance itself from Iran’s ambitions in Syria.

This follows an engagement with a force reportedly composed of Russian nationals working as “contractors” for the Assad government – an engagement in which American special forces killed 200 combatants and injured many others. The Russian contractors and a Russian-built tank reportedly attacked Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armed and advised by the US, and a Pentagon spokesman said that the US acted in self-defense.

Russia is not the target. On the contrary, US Defense Secretary James Mattis went out of his way last week to emphasize that Washington does not seek a confrontation with Russia, telling the Al-Monitor news site: “There were elements in this very complex battlespace that the Russians do not have control of. You can’t ask Russia to de-conflict something they don’t control.”

Russia has kept an official distance from irregular forces, giving the United States maneuvering room to attack them without directly compromising Russian interests. Washington’s objective is not to overthrow the Assad regime or to eject Russia from Syria, but rather to raise the cost of Russia’s support for Iran to the point that Moscow will allow the US and its allies to push Iranian forces out of Syria.

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Mattis: Israel Doesn’t ‘Have to Wait Until Their Citizens are Dying Under Attack’ to Strike Iran Targets By Bridget Johnson

By on February 13th, 2018

Defense Secretary James Mattis said Israel exercised its “absolute right to defend itself” in shooting down an Iranian drone that entered the Jewish State’s airspace from Syria.

The UAV entry into Israeli airspace sparked a response from the Israeli Defense Forces that included striking a dozen Iranian targets in Syria just over an hour later.

The drone was reportedly a copy of an American model, the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel UAV, with an 85-foot wingspan that was captured by Iran in December 2011. IDF Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the drone “was detected long before crossing Israeli territory.” It was in Israeli airspace for about a minute and a half before being shot down by an Israeli Air Force Apache attack helicopter.

That was at 4:25 a.m. At 5:34 a.m., IAF jets launched an assault against Iranian targets in Syria including three aerial defense batteries. Iran fired anti-aircraft missiles at the Israeli jet, striking one. Two pilots ejected and landed in Israeli territory; one suffered serious injuries.

At 8:45 a.m., the IDF launched a “large-scale attack” against “the Syrian aerial defense array and additional Iranian targets in Syria.” Sirens sounded in northern Israel because of the missiles fired at Israeli jets, and the attack was over just before 9 a.m.

En route to Rome on Sunday for an anti-ISIS conference, Mattis said the U.S. had no involvement in the operation “on a military basis.”

“It is interesting that everywhere we find trouble in the Middle East, you find the same thing behind it. Whether it be in Yemen or Beirut, or in Syria, in Iraq, you always find Iran engaged,” he added. CONTINUE AT SITE

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