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FOREIGN POLICY

Robert Malley: Appeaser Extraordinaire The long disturbing record of Biden’s Special Envoy for Iran. John Perazzo

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/robert-malley-appeaser-extraordinaire-john-perazzo/

During his first few days as President, Joe Biden named Robert Malley as his U.S. Special Envoy for Iran. Malley has a long history of antipathy toward Israel, as well as a profoundly deep reserve of patience with Iran and other enemies of the Jewish state. Most notably, he helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 — known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — and he subsequently opposed the Trump Administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions against Tehran. From the start of his tenure with the Biden Administration, Malley called for the U.S. to return to the JCPOA as swiftly as possible, and to fully dismantle the sanctions that Trump had reimposed on Iran.   

Talks between the Biden Administration and Iran began formally in Vienna in April 2021, but were paused shortly before Iran’s presidential elections in June. Then, in late November, Tehran dispatched to Vienna a new negotiating team whose diplomats made more demands and offered fewer concessions than had their predecessors. By December 3, the talks had stalled. Six days later, Malley, conveying the Biden Administration’s desperate desire to strike some sort of agreement, stated that U.S. negotiators would be willing to sit down with their Iranian counterparts “at any time and any place” – preferably “face-to-face.” America, said Malley, was “prepared to get back into the deal as soon as possible – as soon as Iran is.” “Then,” he added, “we would lift all of the sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA.”

But as of today, no deal with Iran seems to be on the horizon. As recently as March 27, Malley admitted to having little faith that the JCPOA could be revived anytime soon. “I can’t be confident it is imminent,” he lamented, noting how hard it is to bridge the gap.”

Americans can only hope and pray that Malley and his cohorts are not successful at reviving the JCPOA – or anything even remotely resembling it.

Biden Sends Nearly $1 Billion to Afghanistan Since Taliban Takeover by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18400/biden-afghanistan-aid

After Biden’s retreat, the Taliban have consolidated control over Afghanistan. And over all the hungry children, the girls deprived of an education, and all the other sob stories that kept a river of private charity and taxpayer money flowing into a hellhole in which nothing ever got better.

That’s on top of the $782 million in “humanitarian aid” allocated to Afghanistan last year since the Taliban took over. This year, Biden signed an executive order allocating $3.5 billion of the Afghan assets held in the Federal Reserve for the same purpose. But even not counting those funds, Biden has dedicated $986 million to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over.

That’s nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money and nearly $4.5 billion in total funds.

The Biden administration keeps insisting that the money won’t go to the Taliban. That’s as plausible as its previous claims that the Afghan government wouldn’t collapse, that if it did we would be ready, and that all Americans would be evacuated before Kabul fell to the enemy.

There’s no one with less credibility on Afghanistan than a member of the Biden administration.

The Taliban have been hungry to get their hands on foreign aid, but, likely guided by their Qatari backers, they’ve also been clever about it. They proposed a joint body with the international community to dispense aid. When that didn’t work, they went back to their usual strategy of pressuring NGOs to hire Taliban members to determine where the aid should go and who should distribute it. But that’s just a matter of cutting out the middleman for more direct control.

Since the NGOs rely heavily on local labor, all the Taliban have to do is intimidate Afghan employees into following their orders. And for a terror group that practices mutilation and beheading, that’s not hard. Does anyone really believe that an Afghan with a wife and children living under Taliban rule is going to follow our aid guidelines rather than those of the gunmen

The Taliban, like the Houthis in Yemen and other Islamic terror groups who both cause and profit from famines, have already been distributing and taking credit for humanitarian aid.

Portions of the nearly $1 billion in foreign aid stolen from the paychecks of American workers and the mouths of their children will be used to finance a new Jihad against Western nations.

A generation after 9/11, Americans are once again funding the terrorists who are out to kill them.

Over two decades, the United States and its international partners poured billions in humanitarian aid into Afghanistan. Much of that aid went into the pockets of the Taliban.

US pressuring Israel – reality testing Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinge

https://bit.ly/3J98u1i

According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, reality testing is the ability to see a situation for what it really is, rather than what one hopes or fears it might be.

The Ben Gurion doctrine

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, pressures Israel to refrain from sharing with the co-equal US Congress its own concerns about the adverse impact of the US policy toward Iran on the national security of the US and Israel.

Secretary Blinken is, also, pressuring Israel to refrain from acting unilaterally, in order to avert the regional and global wrath of a nuclear Iran.

In addition, the chief architect of President Biden’s foreign and national security policy is pressuring Israel to freeze Jewish construction – while encouraging Arab construction – in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem, re-divide Jerusalem and to withdraw to the pre-1967 ceasefire lines, which were defined as “The Auschwitz Lines” by Abba Eban, Israel’s former Foreign Minister, who was a leading Dove.

Israel’s Prime Minister is advised to follow in the footsteps of Israel’s Founding Fathers – from Prime Minister David Ben Gurion through Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir – who considered the defiance of US pressure to make reckless concessions as a central factor in their national security policy. While it triggered short term confrontations, it produced strategic long term US respect for Israel. The US appreciates principle-driven allies, who do not sacrifice their national security and cradle of history on the altar of diplomatic and economic convenience, even when it entails defiance of US pressure.

Will the U.S. Lead or Continue to ‘Lose Ground’? by Pete Hoekstra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18398/us-lead-lose-ground

Today, Russia in Ukraine is the focus, but the aspirations of China and Iran must not be ignored.

The US must — in the best interests of the United States — immediately deliver the weapons Ukraine needs to forestall future predators such as China, Iran and North Korea. What happens in Ukraine does not stay in Ukraine.

The longer the US shilly-shallies, the longer urgently needed weapons fail to reach Ukraine, the more it invites other predators.

Ukraine must have — now – not only the weapons it needs to combat Russia’s carnage, weapons to “close the skies,” …such as S-300s and S-400s and Migs that the Ukrainians could pull over the border; it must also have heavy weapons — planes, tanks and long-range anti-ship munitions — that Zelenskyy is requesting to repel Russia’s assault to sever Ukraine from the Black Sea, and landlocking the country to suffocate all means of commerce.

One wonders, as Kasparov suggests, if the Biden administration secretly wants Putin, “the devil you know,” to win.

“Everything I hear from other NATO members is that the U.S. has become the obstacle, and an explanation is required. Allowing Mr. Putin to keep an inch of Ukrainian soil after bombing civilians should be unimaginable. Conceding large areas of eastern Ukraine to the invader in exchange for a cease-fire would only give Mr. Putin time to consolidate and rearm for next time—and there will always be a next time.” – Garry Kasparov, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2022

Kazakhstan, too, had an inspirational leader, Serikzhan Bilash, willing to fight for freedom. Many in the media and the Biden administration have completely ignored him and the struggle of the people of Kazakstan.

Another rising voice of freedom is that of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the opposition in Belarus, who is fighting to keep her country on the side of freedom. She, along with Zelenskyy, and Bilash represent the dreams and aspirations of thousands, likely millions, of people within their homelands. They are risking everything for the ideals that America and the West claim to hold dear.

[S]upporting those leaders who are out front should be easy. Why is America not supporting them further? Why are Russia’s generals and military leaders not being threatened? Why are America’s attempts at sanctioning Russian energy and all of Russia’s oligarchs, their families and their businesses so incomplete and half-hearted?

There is no diplomatic way out of this war.

The U.S. not only needs to recognize the power of these defiant leaders, but do more—much, much more — to help them. That is what is in the strategic interests of the United States.

The world is seeing Vladimir Putin’s clear plan to reestablish the Russian Empire. It also is hearing rumblings from Asia about restoration of a Chinese dynasty, and in the Middle East, a return to when Persia — now an extremely different Iran — dominated the region.

For any of these empires to expand, they need to take control of other states or groups of people. Those states can either be overrun and annexed, or they can be controlled and remain smaller, more manageable political units. Today, Russia in Ukraine is the focus, but the aspirations of China and Iran must not be ignored.

Putin Won’t Go, Russia Won’t Collapse–So What Will Biden Do About Ukraine? By David P. Goldman

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2022/04/03/putin-wont-go-russia-wont-collapse-so-what-will-biden-do-about-ukraine-n1586600

Another seance with the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu explains Putin’s objectives in Ukraine: Russia will ruin and depopulate Ukraine, the way Richelieu reduced large parts of Germany to cannibalism during the Thirty Years War. Shortly after I conjured the spirit of Europe’s greatest (and nastiest) strategist, the Telegram channel of Russia’s most fanatic nationalist, Aleksandr Dugin, featured the item below:

NATO says the military phase of the conflict in Ukraine is far from over. Of course, no one will let Zelensky make peace.

Ukraine is not a subject, but an object, where the Zelensky regime is not an actor, but a tool.
“Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the intentions of the enemy and use the period of the military phase of the operation to continue the methodical destruction of the military infrastructure of Ukraine, and taking into account NATO’s course of prolonging the conflict, it is advisable to consider moving on to the destruction of industrial facilities in the territories of Ukraine that lie outside our interests, especially paying attention to those objects that Ukraine, for obvious reasons, will not be able to restore. Later, such a convenient opportunity to complete the deindustrialization of Ukraine may not present itself.

An “opportunity to complete the deindustrialization of Ukraine.” Putin isn’t defeated or baffled or confused. He’s turning the crank on the meatgrinder. One doesn’t have to read too far into these lines to conclude that Putin hoped that Zelensky would cut a deal on his terms once Russia invaded, but when Zelensky refused to cut a deal, Putin moved to Option B, which is to erase most of Ukraine from the face of the earth. That’s not as difficult as it sounds. Putin will keep the bits he wants in the Southeast (Donetsk and Luhansk), leave the West to factory farming, and pound the rest to rubble with artillery and air power.

New Iran Nuclear Deal Could Allow Iranian Terrorists Into US Removal of sanctions on IRGC will permit terror-tied Iranians to enter the country :Adam Kredo

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/new-iran-nuclear-deal-could-allow-iranian-terrorists-into-us/

The Biden administration’s new nuclear accord with Iran is likely to include a loophole that will “allow Iranian nationals linked to terrorism to enter and stay in the United States,” according to a new Republican-authored policy analysis circulating on Capitol Hill and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

With negotiations over a revamped nuclear deal inching closer to completion, the Biden administration is considering a concession that will remove Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the U.S.-designated terrorist list.

The removal of this designation remains one of the final sticking points in diplomatic talks surrounding a new accord. Delisting the IRGC will “open the gates for Iranian terrorists to enter the United States” and make it harder for law enforcement agencies to target IRGC affiliates operating in the United States, according to a new assessment of policy implications authored by the Republican Study Committee (RSC), Congress’s largest Republican caucus and a principal opponent of a new accord.

“Removing the IRGC from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list is a non-nuclear related concession to Iran which would reward terrorist blackmail, allow Iranian nationals linked to terrorism to enter and stay in the United States, weaken law enforcement’s ability to go after those providing support or resources to the IRGC, and make it harder to hold those outside U.S. soil criminally accountable for helping the IRGC,” according to the policy analysis, which was distributed on Friday to 160 congressional offices and obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon.

The Biden administration’s bid to remove sanctions on the IRGC is fueling opposition to the deal from Democratic and Republican foreign policy leaders, who worry this concession will embolden Iran’s global terrorism and spy operations. Bipartisan legislation introduced in the House on Thursday and first reported by the Free Beacon seeks to force the Biden administration into disclosing how sanctions relief for Iran will boost the IRGC’s capabilities.

A HEARTBEAT AWAY FROM THE PRESIDENCY

Kamala Harris in Jamaica”

“We also recognize just as it’s been in the United States, for Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue, that is economic in the way of its impact, has been the pandemic,” Harris said. “So to that end, we are announcing today also that we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential to what, I believe, is necessary to strengthen not only the issue of public health but also the economy.”

HUH???

Emboldened Enemies and Disappointed Allies: America’s Decaying Status in the Middle East The image of the United States in the Middle East eroded enough over the past year to embolden its enemies and demoralize its allies.  By Hicham Tohme

https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/29/emboldened-enemies-and-disappointed-allies-americas-decaying-status-in-the-middle-east/

On March 12, Iran launched 12 missiles, targeting Erbil in northern Iraq. The missiles landed near the U.S. consulate there and most reports indicated that the strike’s impact was restricted to material damages, with only one civilian injured by the attack. According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, their target was an Israeli Mossad operational center, which they described as “the Zionists’ strategic center of plotting and evil.”

This brazen and aggressive action on behalf of Iran against neighboring Iraq is far from a rare occurrence. This was the first time in recent years, however, that Iran openly acknowledged its responsibility for such an attack. The wording of the IRGC’s statement, along with the timing of this dangerous escalation in the region can only be understood in light of global developments, particularly given the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin also framed as a military action against evil, neo-Nazism in this case.

Simply put, as Iran’s current hawkish leadership witnessed the feckless Western response to Putin’s military adventurism, it felt emboldened to test the waters and target the American consulate or an Israeli operational center in Erbil. Either possible target was probably good enough to make the point that Iran is capable of inflicting enough hurt on Western interests in the Middle East and that it anticipated no serious retaliation, another parallel with Russian expectations when they invaded Ukraine. In fact, no retaliation followed and Iran’s aggression against its neighbor went unpunished.

As it happens, I was on a trip to Lebanon when the events in question took place. Wanting to hear people’s opinions on Iran’s actions, I was not very surprised to witness a general consensus concerning rationalizations of Iran’s deed.

Arabs: Biden Administration Harming US interests by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18376/arabs-biden-us-interests

“In 1979 Iranian students established their own group, which over time turned into an extremist military organization under the name of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The group seized control of the US Embassy in Tehran. Two years later the Iranian Revolutionary Guard…. struck buildings in Lebanon that housed American… soldiers, killing of 307 individuals, including 241 Americans…. In 1996, terrorists linked to Iran and the Revolutionary Guards, and their Hezbollah proxy attacked a residential complex in Al-Khobar, eastern Saudi Arabia, killing and wounding many American experts and other innocent people. Since 1990, Iran has turned into an incubator for Al-Qaeda and ISIS.” — Mohammed Al-Saed, Saudi writer, Okaz, March 24, 2022.

“The events of September 11 [2001] came on top of those crimes, which were committed by Osama bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri, all of whom had the support of Iran. In the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran fueled the horrific killings and bombings that affected the US Army through different cells that were driven by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Thousands of American soldiers were killed.” — Mohammed Al-Saed, Okaz, March 24, 2022.

“[T]he Democratic administration headed by Barack Obama is not happy with what Trump did….” — Mohammed Al-Saed, Okaz, March 24, 2022.

“The Houthis bomb Jeddah, Biden rewards Iran….The Biden administration knows that Iran finances the Houthi group and supplies it with missiles.” — Sawsan Al-Sha’er, Bahraini journalist, Al-Watan, March 22, 2022.

“[T]here is no American policy in Syria other than placing Syria entirely in the hands of Iran.” — Nadim Koteich, Lebanese TV presenter and journalist, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 22, 2022.

The Houthi militia rejects any settlement to the civil war in Yemen and seeks to assist Iran in establishing a foothold in the Arab region. “This is what the US administrations could never comprehend… It encouraged Iran to turn Yemen into a base for Iranian missiles and drones. — Kheirallah Kheirallah, veteran Lebanese journalist, Al-Arab, March 28, 2022.

The crisis between the Biden administration and the Arab countries, especially the Gulf states, is so deep that it could take years, if not decades, to repair the damage caused to America’s interests in the Middle East.

Many Arabs are continuing to express deep disappointment with the policies of the Biden administration in the Middle East, especially regarding Iran’s role in destabilizing security and stability in Arab countries that once trusted the US as a reliable and trustworthy ally.

These Arabs say that President Joe Biden is following in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama, who preferred to reach a nuclear deal with Iran at the expense of Washington’s Arab friends and allies in the Middle East.

Is the US Pretending That Iran’s IRGC, “Mother of All Terrorist Groups”, Is Not a Terrorist Group? The Biden Administration’s Never-ending Appeasement of the Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18375/us-irgc-terrorist-group

“It [the IRGC] is also a chief supporter and enabler of other FTOs and insurgent groups in the region. These organizations include, but are not limited to: Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthi insurgency. The IRGC’s actions have led to decades of instability and conflict across the Middle East and the group is responsible for countless deaths, including more than 600 U.S. troops during the occupation of Iraq.” — Letter from 80 Republicans to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Fox News, March 23, 2022.

“In Havlish, et al. v. bin Laden, et al., Judge Daniels held that the Islamic Republic of Iran, its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Iran’s agencies and instrumentalities, including, among others, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (‘IRGC’), the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (‘MOIS’), and Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah, all materially aided and supported al Qaeda before and after 9/11.” — PR Newswire, December 23, 2011.

One of the IRGC’s elite branches, the Quds Force, deploys its proxies and militia groups to attack the interests and assets of the US and its allies in the Middle East, as well as the soft underbelly of the US, Latin America. The Quds Force exerts significant influence, direct or indirect, through a conglomerate of more than 40 militia groups….

“The Iranian Al-Quds Force packs weapons, ammunition and missile technology to Hezbollah in suitcases and puts them on Mahan Air flights…. these planes fly directly to the airport in Lebanon or Damascus and from there the weapons are transferred on the ground to Hezbollah.” — Amb. Danny Danon, then Israeli Ambassador to the UN, from a 2016 letter to UN Security Council members.

The IRGC “continues transferring weapons and drones to terrorist proxies.

The mission of Jihad for the IRGC is unmistakably clear in Iran’s Constitution. Its Preamble states: “the Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad… the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are to be organized in conformity with this goal, and they will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of (Shiite) jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s (Shiite) law throughout the world in the hope that this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others.” [Emphasis added.]

“These assessments, combined with the IRGC’s lengthy history of killing hundreds of Americans… make it clear: The IRGC is a terrorist organization and should remain labeled as such…. The pursuit of an ill-conceived ‘deal’ should not compel American leaders to acquiesce to the demands of a terrorist regime to deny the truth. American lives are at stake, and this is a time to project strength, not weakness.” — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, joint statement, Axios, March 22, 2022.

To appease the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration in January 2021 first suspended some of the anti-terrorism sanctions on Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis that the Trump administration had imposed. Soon after, the Biden administration revoked the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group. Since then, the Houthis have been attacking their neighbors, as recently as this week.