RUTHFULLY YOURS

On Sunday, A U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down a Syrian Su-22 attack jet while it was on a bombing run against U.S.-backed anti-regime forces. It was the first U.S. aerial kill involving manned aircraft since 1999, when Serbian piloted MiG-29s faced off against USAF F-15s and F-16s and drew the short end of the stick.

F/A-18E is the U.S. Navy’s workhorse. It is an advanced, versatile multi-role fighter bomber which is capable of performing a variety of missions from executing bombing runs to establishing air superiority. The Su-22, codenamed Fitter by the West, is primarily an attack aircraft which can be fitted with guided and unguided bombs as well as air-to-ground 240-millimeter rockets.

The Navy has not stated what ordnance was used to shoot down the Su-22 but the F/A-18E is armed with an internal M61A2 Vulcan nose-mounted, 20-millimeter rotary cannon. It can also be equipped with a variety of air-to-air missiles including the AIM-9 Sidewinder, the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the AIM-7 Sparrow. Any of these weapon systems could have been used to shoot down the Su-22.

The incident began when forces loyal to the Assad regime attacked the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in Ja’Din wounding an unknown number of SDF fighters. The SDF is currently working with Coalition forces seeking to defeat ISIS.

According to Central Command, “Coalition aircraft conducted a show of force and stopped the initial pro-regime advance toward the SDF-controlled town.” Coalition commanders than contacted their Russian counterparts in an effort to de-escalate the situation and prevent further confrontation. But the Syrians continued their assault prompting a more robust American response. The older Su-22 never had a chance against a skilled U.S. Navy pilot seated in one of the world’s most advanced combat platforms. The Syrian pilot, who is still missing, also probably never knew what hit him.

Under the Trump administration, the United States has adopted a more robust approach toward Syria as compared to the pusillanimous policies pursued by Obama. The administration’s main goal is to defeat ISIS. Part of this strategy involves partnering with friendly anti-regime forces, Kurd as well as Arab, who view both ISIS and Assad as enemies. As a result, the alliance has at times put the U.S. in direct conflict with pro-Assad forces operating against the America’s regional friends.

Reprinted from Hoover.org.

In April, President Trump took three actions to radically reset the course of American foreign policy. In response to Syrian president Bashar al Assad’s use of sarin gas, Trump had the air-field from which the attack originated bombed. To counter North Korea’s threats and continuing testing of intercontinental missiles, he ordered the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its accompanying strike group to deploy closer to the Korean peninsula. And he gave military commanders leeway to drop the largest non-nuclear bomb in our arsenal, the Massive Ordnance Air Burst, colloquially known as the “Mother of All Bombs,” on an ISIS tunnel-and-caves complex on the Afghan border, killing about 100 jihadists.

These bold moves alerted the world that the days of America “leading from behind” are at an end. And they have achieved something important for every foreign policy no matter its ideological compass: restoring our country’s damaged prestige.

Whether we call it “credibility” or “deterrence,” prestige involves the old concept of “honor” that Thucydides recognized as one of three major causes of conflict, the other two being “fear” and “interest.” The subsequent 2,400 years of military philosophy have not improved on the Athenian historian’s catalogue. “Fear” and “interest” are more familiar to us, for we too make national security and interests our foreign policy goals. But “honor” often strikes us a concept from a bygone age, one we rational moderns have progressed beyond. But as the classical military historian Donald Kagan has written, “Arguments about morality and ideology involve what Thucydides called honor, and nations from antiquity to our own world cannot ignore it.”

Prestige is like honor in that it refers to the perception other countries have of a nation’s worth or value, and the respect it is due. This estimation of worthiness determines other states’ behavior. If a nation consistently rewards friends, punishes enemies, and matches its words to its deeds, enemies and rivals will honor it as a faithful ally and a fearsome foe. This perception of resolve and loyalty in turn acts a force multiplier, inasmuch as when enemies believe that a country will use its military power, often it won’t have to; the fear of a country’s willingness to act decisively can deter aggression. As Virgil writes in the Aeneid, “They have power because they seem to have power.” Likewise, if a rival or an enemy perceives that a country is unwilling to use its power to defend its interests and security, it will seek opportunities to achieve its aims at a country’s expense, inciting others to do the same.

A people’s morale, their confidence and zeal in countering threats and attacks, is part of prestige. When a nation believes in its way of life, honors in action its principles and values, and is proud of its achievements, its citizens are more apt to defend their prestige against those who would challenge or attempt to destroy them. As Napoleon said, morale is three times more important than physical factors in winning a battle. The willingness to fight, the confidence in victory, and the assurance that your side morally deserves to win are more crucial than superiority in material resources. Countering aggression by defending prestige requires morale to overcome the fear of unforeseen consequences, the cost in lives and resources, or the risk of an escalation into full-blown war.

History provides a large catalogue of conflicts precipitated by an aggressor who disdained a rival’s prestige and judged that its people had lost their morale. The two decades between the world wars is a record of incremental aggression by the Axis powers that was left unpunished by the more powerful Allies. The infamous Munich Conference of 1938, of course, remains the supreme example of appeasement that damaged the already weakened prestige of England and France and led to the catastrophe of World War II.

An American warplane shot down a Syrian government jet on Sunday, the Pentagon said, marking the first time in Syria’s civil war that a U.S. pilot has struck a regime plane and signaling an increased willingness by the Trump administration to directly challenge President Bashar al-Assad and his allies.

On Sunday, the U.S. military said it had shot down the Syrian SU-22 after regime forces twice attacked members of American-backed Syrian fighters leading the assault on Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the Islamic State terror group.

With the strike, the U.S. military made it clear it is now willing to target Syrian regime jets to protect the coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters working with U.S. special-operation forces to push Islamic State, also known as ISIS, from Raqqa.

The U.S. military said the confrontation began Sunday afternoon when Syrian forces attacked the Syrian Democratic Forces near Raqqa, forcing the U.S.-backed fighters to retreat as they evacuated their injured. Coalition aircraft flew low over the regime forces in a “show of force” that stopped them from advancing, the military said.

The U.S., which has no direct contact with the Syrian regime, then said it used an established deconfliction line with the Russians, who fly their own airstrikes in Syria in support of Mr. Assad, to try to bring the fight to a halt. About two hours after the initial Syrian attack, a regime SU-22 jet dropped bombs on U.S.-backed forces in the same area.

Citing “collective self-defense of coalition partnered forces,” the U.S. military said an American F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down the regime jet. Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said there were no U.S. forces in the “immediate vicinity” of the Syrian regime attack. CONTINUE AT SITE

When Rodman gave a copy of Trump’s ‘The Art of the Deal’ as a gift in Pyongyang, the implication was clear: it’s time for Trump and Kim to talk.

The man certainly knows how to feed a narrative. Erstwhile basketball great, sometime “Celebrity Apprentice,” and apparent Kim Jong Un buddy Dennis Rodman on Thursday gave North Korean Sports Minister Kim Il Guk a copy of President Trump’s The Art of the Deal—suggesting a negotiated settlement could be had. And in the process, Rodman fed speculation that he had traveled to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as an emissary of the world’s most powerful figure.

Sometimes diplomacy needs a cross-dressing, pierced, tattooed weirdo who has five NBA championship rings and a place in the league’s Hall of Fame.

Such as this moment, when there’s war talk on the Korean peninsula. Beijing, to avoid a calamity, wants to restart negotiations with Pyongyang as do Moscow, Seoul, and Washington. Although all the participants hope to talk, they have not found the means to do so.

Enter a catalyst, Dennis Rodman, whose nickname, The Worm, does not begin to describe how unusual he is.

Or how reprehensible he can be. His four previous trips to North Korea, during which he repeatedly praised despot Kim Jong Un and sang “Happy Birthday” to him, were notorious. If Americans could be jailed for partying with young dictators, Rodman would be serving consecutive life terms.

Rodman entered North Korea on Tuesday, and now the narrative, for good cause, is different. As The Washington Post asked in a headline that day, “Was He Sent by Trump?”

The suggestion is by no means outrageous. After all, The Worm is the only person in the world who can call both President Donald John Trump and Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un a friend. No American has had more contact with the Kimster, who is even more unavailable to world leaders than his reclusive father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il.

And Rodman on his way to Pyongyang talked like an envoy. At the Beijing Capital Airport on Tuesday, asked whether Trump knew about the trip, the Hall of Famer told reporters “I’m pretty sure he’s happy at the fact I’m over here trying to accomplish something we both need.”

“I will discuss my mission upon my return to the U.S.A.,” Rodman said. He also mentioned he was attempting to accomplish something “pretty positive.”

And what would that be? Rodman announced he was “just trying to open a door.” That was uncharacteristically modest, and he was in fact thinking of grander goals. As The Worm said in a video posted on the site of PotCoin, which sponsored his trip, “It’s all about peace.”

Trump administration officials have repeatedly stated Rodman’s trip had no official sanction, and the denials sounded genuine. Despite everything, Washington would never authorize anyone so unpredictable and unconventional.

When it comes to the Palestinians, the Trump administration goes the way its predecessors have. On June 13, 2017, State Secretary Rex Tillerson reassured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Palestinian Authority “have changed that policy and their intent is to cease the payments to the families of those who have committed murder or violence against others.”

Tillerson apparently took Mahmoud Abbas at his word. He should know better.
The Palestinian leadership’s “intentions” have been declared in public by Palestinian Authority (PA) Yasser Arafat on June 6, 2001, on Radio Palestine. “War is a dream; peace is a nightmare,” he announced. Arafat is gone, but in the effort to avoid the “nightmare” of peace, Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian leadership adopted his motto and never stopped funding its jihadist propaganda for terrorism against Israel.

In 2003, Palestinian President Abbas, who then served as Arafat’s prime minister, justified PA’s Treasury payments to members of the terrorist designated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – who committed mass-murder attacks on Israelis and groomed children to become suicide bombers – was an effort to “de-radicalize” the terrorists. It was “an attempt to wean the terrorist from committing further homicide bombings,” Abbas said. But then, as today, the PA did not pay to stop terrorism; it has been paying the salaries of terrorists and rewarding their families. The Palestinian’s “de-radicalization” excuse, was later adopted by the Saudis and the other Gulf States to host al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters. The Palestinians should also be credited for “innovations” such as suicide bombing, stabbing, and car-ramming. And terrorism proved as a good industry for the Palestinians. The more terror, the more funds they were given supposedly to incentivize them for “peace.”

On July 17, 2003, after the European Union was criticized for funding Palestinian terrorism, then External Relations Commissioner, Christopher Patten, wrote in the Financial Times “[the EU has worked throughout the bloodstained months of the intifada to keep a Palestinian administration alive and to drive a process of reform within it.” Similar claims have become routine over the years, and the money kept flowing. Patten claimed, “At every step, the EU’s help was made conditional on reforms that would make a viable Palestinian state a reality one day and in the short term make the Palestinian territories a better, safer neighbor for Israel.” By the time Patten made this statement, he had received from the Israeli government volumes of captured Palestinian documents providing clear evidence that EU funds granted to the PA were being used to pay for the upkeep of terrorists, homicide bombers, weapons, bomb manufacturing plants, as well vacations, travel, scholarships and medical treatments to members the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and other Palestinian terror groups, and bonuses to the Palestinian leadership and their families, including Arafat and Abbas.

If for no other reason, the U.S. the EU, the UN, the World Bank, other international and even Christian charities should have stopped funding the PA for its ongoing human, civil and religious rights violations against their own people. Some of this abuse has been carried out through the introduction of the Islamic culture that encourages martyrdom in the name of Allah. To fool the West, the Palestinians have always said, in English, they are peace-loving people.
On June 14, a day after Tillerson assured the Senate the PA promised to change its spots, the head of the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Qaraqe challenged the Secretary’s statement: “There is no end to the payments. We reject ending the subsidies to the prisoners and families of martyrs. We will not apologize for it,” he said and went on to denounce the American and Israelis

President Trump arrived in the Arabian desert hoping to realign the politics of the Middle East in the aftermath of a failed Obama policy. For eight years Obama tilted in the direction of Iran believing that the influence of the Shia could balance Sunni dominance. The so-called nuclear deal with Iran was a geopolitical manifestation of this policy perspective. To put it simply, the policy didn’t work. In fact, it led to the wide spread belief that the U.S. tacitly endorsed the Shia Crescent or the imperial Iranian design.

President Trump hinted that this has to be corrected. With his May 21, 2017 speech, there is no doubt the U.S. will push back on previous policy and offer Saudi Arabia and other regional Sunni partners a reliable counter-weight to Iranian ambitions.

In previous documents produced by the London Center for Policy Research a Gulf States Red Sea Treaty Organization was proposed. Mr. Trump has called it an Arab NATO. As the president noted in his speech the nations in the region have a primary responsibility to attack terrorism and the state sponsors of terrorism. He noted perspicaciously that the U.S. would not invest major troop deployments for this mission, but the U.S. will engage with its allies in logistical support, sophisticated arms, special forces when necessary and intelligence on enemy movements and strategy.

More than anything else, the president offered assurance that the U.S. stands behind its allies. When, during the Obama presidency, President al Sisi noted that “I love America, but America doesn’t love me,” he meant the U.S. was an unreliable ally that makes promises, but doesn’t follow through. Specifically, he made reference to the Apache helicopters promised to Egypt but undelivered.

While presidential visits of this kind are invariably accompanied by hyperbole, this mission was indeed historic since it has already instilled in Saudi Arabia and Egypt confidence building measures missing from erstwhile diplomatic conversations.

Some critics contend this Middle East gambit was designed to offset the political troubles dogging the Trump team in DC. However, the trip was arranged well before the press powder keg exploded. From the outset of his presidency, Mr. Trump vowed to reset the global war against terrorism. He also wanted to alter a perception he is intolerant of Islam.

Clearly there is a lot of work to be accomplished between announcements and an actual defense condominium. At this stage, inflated expectations have to face the bright light of regional realism. After all, there was a Middle East defense pact (CENTO) organized by President Eisenhower that lacked muscle and influence and, eventually, evanesced. There is also the Russian alliance with Iran and Hezbollah that could put a monkey wrench in Sunni planning.

A Sunni pact has as its target the Iranian influence in the Levant. But there are other goals as well. It is the Trump administration belief that Russia can be peeled from the alliance with Hezbollah and Iran. After all, why should Russian policy be determined, in large part, by Iranian imperial ambitions? Should this gambit be successful, Iran will be isolated and far more amenable to negotiation.