RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-to-lose-friends-and-influence-over-people-saudi-arabia-obama-biden

Americans have a reputation, with others and in their own national literature, for being careless and breaking things. Often this is because they are so admirably creative, dynamic, and unattached to the past. But for the last two decades, the epicenter of American carelessness has been the Middle East, an area of the world that seems to encourage fantasies among all Westerners, yet where real-world margins for error are small. The result has been a series of disasters for the peoples of the region and for American prestige. This week brought what looks like another unforced error in policymaking, fed by hubris, fantasy, airy talk, and a refusal to acknowledge reality.

On Tuesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby announced that President Joe Biden will be reevaluating America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia after OPEC+ announced the previous week that it would cut oil production. Kirby’s announcement followed a statement by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., claiming that Saudi Arabia is helping to “underwrite Putin’s war” through OPEC+. “As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Menendez said, “I will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine.”

As a Saudi who loves the United States, and believes deeply that our two countries need each other, the only word that comes to mind regarding the contemporary “reevaluation” of our relations is: obscene.

It was the Obama administration that decided to give Vladimir Putin a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean, which it sold to the American people as a way to “deescalate” the civil war in Syria. As the United States romanced Putin, offering him Crimea and warm water ports in Syria in exchange for pulling Iran’s irons out of the fire over the past decade, U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Israel have had no choice but to cope. Last month, while Russian-operated Iranian drones and missiles were pounding Kyiv, Riyadh used its diplomatic leverage to obtain the release of American and British POWs from Putin.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/biden_deflects_to_saudi_arabia.html

Deflection. That’s when someone tries to turn aside responsibility and shift it to someone/something else. Today’s example is the rampage by the White House and Democrats against Saudi Arabia, accusing it of cutting oil production because it is in bed with Russia against American interests in Ukraine.

CNN correspondent Manu Raju tweeted on Wednesday [Rep.] “Ro Khanna and [Sen.] Dan Blumenthal are calling for bill in lame-duck halting arm sales for a year. Calls for NOPEC legislation. And Durbin this AM: ‘I don’t see any reason to arm them now if they believe their future is linked to Vladimir Putin in any way.’”

National Security spokesman John Kirby tried deflection as he announced the White House’s displeasure: “The Saudi Foreign Ministry can try to spin or deflect…  (but) The Saudis conveyed to us… their intention to reduce oil production, which they knew would increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions… They could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting… we are reevaluating our relationship with Saudi Arabia… continue to look for signs about where they stand in combatting Russian aggression.”

The reason the White House wanted the cuts to wait until the next OPEC meeting may have something to do with America’s mid-term election. Why the Saudis would care about that is unclear. The fact is that countries make economic and security decisions based on their own interests and their peoples’ interests.

America’s European allies certainly do — just last week, Reuters reported that the EU remains the  biggest market for Russian oil, according to the IAEA. India and China are increasing their purchases from Russia, according to the CEO of Gazprom Neft. And, while demanding that Saudi Arabia produce more, the Biden administration is considering reinstating a ban on exports of crude oil as gasoline prices rise in the U.S. Reducing oil exports to our allies would only make others look elsewhere, including to Russia, as winter approaches and their stocks remain low.

The actual cause of the Saudi decision to cut production in the face of Biden administration begging for an increase is Biden administration policy.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/09/ukraine-and-the-malevolent-legacy-of-the-obama-biden-administration/

During the current Ukrainian war, the media has created a mythology that the Left was tough on Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And thus, now it simply continues its hard-nosed efforts in Ukraine. 

But nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from Biden’s original panic of evacuating American diplomatic personnel from Kyiv, offering a ride out of Ukraine for the Zelenskyy government that would have effectively collapsed his nation’s resistance, and hesitation in selling Ukraine offensive weapons, there is also a prior legacy that had done a great deal of harm.

Indeed, many of America’s current difficulties in Ukraine originate from the Obama-Biden Administration’s former disastrous policies toward Russia birthed between 2009-2016. 

Remembering the Reset Disaster

Remember the initial premise of Russian “Reset”—the idea and the term were first used by Vice President Joe Biden (“It’s time to press the reset button”)—was based on the myth that the “cowboy” George W. Bush had been too tough on Putin after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. To Biden and Obama, Bush had unduly sanctioned Vladimir Putin following his opportunistic absorption of South Ossetia in 2008 and attack on Georgia. And thus, the Russian dictator would easily then be wowed by Obama’s legendary charisma and charm from needless hostility to accommodation.

Accordingly, the reformist hope-and-change Obama Administration would rebuild a friendly relationship with Russia. Thereby they would win strategic help from Russia with Obama’s new ambitious agendas for Iran and Syria in remaking a more “equitable” Middle East. Translated that meant “balancing” the region. Thus, by weakening our former overdog allies in the Gulf and Israel while empowering our former underdog terrorist-sponsoring enemies in Tehran and Damascus, Obama sought to create strategic tension.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-puts-rogue-regimes-ahead-of-american-families/

President Joe Biden is draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep gas prices low solely because he wants to mitigate voter wrath against the Democrats. This comes as OPEC cuts back production by 2 million barrels a day. That will drive up costs, drive up the repurchase cost for the petroleum reserve and increase our national debt, which has now shot above $31 trillion with interest rates rising and debt service payments rising.

Biden has created this mess in large part because he is subservient to rogue regimes and puts their needs ahead of Americans. The outcome will be an emboldened China and a national security headache for the United States.

One of the reasons OPEC is going to cut production is because the majority of the Arab nations involved in OPEC are furious with Biden trying to cut a deal with Iran. Biden stopped considering the Houthi terrorists, funded by Iran, to be terrorists, and the Houthi then escalated attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In advancing Iran’s interests at the peace table, Biden risks further destabilization in the Middle East in large part because no one really believes Iran will stop until it has a nuclear weapon. Iran is no friend of most of its Middle Eastern neighbors and wants to be the dominant power in the Middle East over and against Saudi Arabia. This has alienated him from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others as China and Russia seek to ingratiate themselves with our longtime allies.

https://spectator.org/all-the-presidents-disconnects/

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates states regarding then Vice President Joe Biden in his book Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War released in 2014.

Nothing much has changed since this statement of Robert Gates, who served as Director of Central Intelligence under President George H.W. Bush, and later as Secretary of Defense under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline in June of last year has positioned the U.S. from a net exporter of energy to tapping the caverns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The mullahs of Iran have recently taken to brutal suppression of what began as women protesting, enraged by the death of Mahsa Amini for violating hijab rules. In a strategic disconnect, President Biden has missed an opportunity to address the Iranian people forcefully, to express support for their desire for human rights and regime change. Instead, the White House is seeking another agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear aspirations. To believe that adventurist Iran will not cheat and continue to develop enriched fissile material is a willing suspension of disbelief, to use the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18968/us-presidents-refuse-to-protect-the-us-from-north

The U.S. has the power to stop North Korean missile tests but has chosen not to do so. This is true not only of the Biden administration but also its predecessors. The U.S. has continually decided to adopt feeble options.

Chinese banks have been laundering the North’s proceeds of criminal and prohibited activity for decades. The Trump administration in June 2017 designated, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, China’s Bank of Dandong to be of “primary money laundering concern.” The designation meant the bank could no longer clear dollar transactions through the U.S. banking system.

If the designation was meant as a signal, Beijing ignored it. And the Chinese had assessed the situation correctly. Trump’s administration in 2018 decided not to enforce money-laundering laws against two of the “Big Four” Chinese banks, Agricultural Bank of China and China Construction Bank, which were handling suspicious transactions involving North Korea. Such a designation would have put these banks out of business everywhere outside China, and Beijing, as a practical matter, would have had to stop money-laundering for North Korea.

As a result of inaction, President Trump gave Chinese institutions free passes to violate American statutes. The administration’s decision, an abrogation of its responsibilities to uphold the law, was deeply prejudicial to its efforts to disarm the Kim regime.

The Biden administration has continued Trump’s lax posture.

The administration has the goods on the North Koreans and the Chinese but has continually failed to act. “This failure is a choice. The money Kim Jong Un obtains by fraud, computer hacking, and ransomware and which he uses to build bombs to threaten us is being laundered through our banks. We’re giving Xi Jinping and Kim de facto immunity to keep right on doing it.” — Joshua Stanton, sanctions expert, to Gatestone Institute, October, 2022

North Korea’s accelerated testing of missiles is a reminder that Kim Jong Un is quickly developing the power to destroy American cities. Perhaps the only things his technicians cannot do is miniaturize a nuclear device and shield it from heat upon reentry to the atmosphere. These are, however, capabilities his military, perhaps with China’s help, will develop soon.

Americans might wonder how one of the most destitute regimes on earth can build weapons capable of killing most every American. They may also wonder why Washington has done almost nothing to stop the North Koreans from selling their weapons to Iran, among others.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/how-biden-failed-to-stop-opec-from-cutting-oil-production/

Near the top of President Biden’s to-do list for the past few months has been to keep gas prices down. On Wednesday, this was dealt a likely fatal blow by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which, led by Saudi Arabia, agreed to cut its overall production by two million barrels per day.

In actuality, the cut will mean a reduction of more like one million barrels per day if it’s taken into account that OPEC has been underproducing compared to its previously stated production goals. Still, this is a significant cut, and the effects on oil markets are already being felt.

The Biden administration has been scrounging around for ways to get more oil onto the market and lower prices, from releasing tens of millions of barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to chastising the oil producers themselves. In July, Biden went to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to smooth over America’s rocky relationship with Riyadh and get the Saudis to pump more oil (it seems neither succeeded).

Most egregiously, though, the administration is contemplating offering Venezuela sanctions relief as part of a deal to restart talks with the local opposition and — the real reason — to allow Chevron to produce oil in the country again. This is particularly troubling given that the regime in Caracas has no intention of giving up power and restarting “talks” is a useless gesture. Such a deal would project weakness at a time when projecting strength should be a top priority, as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on and China threatens Taiwan.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18963/russia-iran-alliance

“I am absolutely sincere in this regard when I say that Iran got much more than it could expect [from the Biden administration]….. [The Iranian leaders] are fighting for [their] national interest like lions. They fight for every comma, every word, and as a rule, quite successfully.” — Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s chief negotiator for the US in the nuclear talks, The New York Post, March 12, 2022.

Russia, of course, is freely trading with Iran, in spite of sanctions against both countries.

Russia and the ruling mullahs of Iran are also ratcheting up their military cooperation in plain sight. The Iranian regime continues to provide Russia with military drones, which have inflicted significant damage on Ukraine — the first time Iranian weapons have been deployed on European soil….

“[N]ow we’re going to pay them hundreds of billions of dollars, and they’re going to have nuclear weapons within a short period of time. Honestly, they can’t be stupid; they must hate our country….” — Former President Donald J. Trump, iranintl.com September 4, 2022.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s weak, or absent, leadership, Russia and the regime of Iran’s mullahs have become closer, more emboldened and more empowered than ever.

The two bedfellows, the authoritarian regimes of Russia and Iran, are, thanks to the Biden administration, running the Iran nuclear talks, while the US waits out in the hall. Russia’s chief negotiator, Mikhail Ulyanov, earlier this year praised his Iranian “colleagues”:

“I am absolutely sincere in this regard when I say that Iran got much more than it could expect [from the Biden administration]. Our Chinese friends were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators.”