RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-fecklessness-fed-putin-ukraine-troops-border-russia-energy-gas-poland-western-europe-germany-france-invasion-biden-11641832674?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

America’s current crisis with Russia over Ukraine is a logical outcome of the Biden administration’s failed European policy and misguided focus on consensus. This standoff, which may culminate in January with concessions to Moscow, is the product of five basic problems.

First and most glaring, the administration has treated diplomacy with Western Europe as an end in itself. America’s current fetish for agreement with Berlin and Paris, rather than transactional diplomacy, means that on issue after issue the Germans and French can insist on their own policy views in exchange for consensus. For countries that don’t view Russia’s military buildup with sufficient alarm, consensus means words rather than action. The European Union has failed to draft sanctions on Russia even as the crisis enters its third month. The Germans are reportedly blocking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from selling lethal aid to Ukraine. And Germany was insistent on completing Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will effectively isolate Ukraine.

Moscow can be sure that the U.S. won’t act on its own militarily to help Ukraine, because the Biden administration has promised it won’t. Credible uncertainty about the likelihood of U.S. action would have been a genuine deterrent to Moscow’s escalation of this crisis. If Ukraine is a vital American interest, Washington must leave the Russians guessing whether America will commit its own forces, especially since European diplomacy has borne so little fruit.

Second, American deterrence has collapsed in the wake of the Afghanistan fiasco, which demoralized our friends and energized our adversaries. There is no reason Russia should believe that Mr. Biden’s administration credibly threatens military action. Afghanistan cheapened every promise the U.S. has made, including those to NATO and the European states in Russia’s shadow.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-adversaries-size-up-biden-worldview-russia-china-south-asia-sanctions-xi-democracy-taiwan-hong-kong-asean-india-11641846956?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Last week Russian troops fanned out across Kazakhstan; the Myanmar junta sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison; and China transferred a senior official from Xinjiang to lead the People’s Liberation Army’s garrison in Hong Kong. Two things are clear. First, America’s geopolitical adversaries aren’t impressed by the Biden administration. Second, the administration’s attempts to make a priority of human rights and democracy have so far failed to reverse or even to slow the retreat of democracy around the world.

The Biden administration’s political fragility at home is partly to blame. But adversaries are watching more than American domestic politics; they see incoherence in American policy. The administration has signaled that balancing China in the Indo-Pacific, the promotion of democracy and climate policy are its overriding foreign-policy priorities. Our adversaries—and some of our friends—think that these goals can’t be pursued successfully at the same time. They conclude that American policy focused on incompatible objectives will ultimately fail.

Take Asia. There is no way to counter China’s regional ambitions without solidifying the American position in Southeast Asia. Yet here President Biden’s prime geopolitical goal of balancing China runs counter to his goal of democracy promotion. So far, there aren’t many signs that the administration is handling this tension effectively.

Case in point: As work on what looks like an important Chinese naval base in Cambodia continues, the U.S. is busy slapping sanctions on Cambodia’s armed forces and politicians. American sanctions of this type typically irritate their targets without producing the desired changes in behavior. Cambodian Premier Hun Sen seems unmoved by American sanctions and lectures. He is using his country’s one-year presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, to undercut America’s policy of isolating the junta in Myanmar.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18085/predicting-2022-china-year-of-the-tiger

For too long, American government and business leaders have sat quietly and allowed China and the Chinese Communist Party to run roughshod over our nation and our values.

As Americans see the large number of container ships waiting off the West Coast to unload cargo, they realize that much of the material on those ships comes from China. The reasonable question they are increasingly asking is why is America doing business with a country that our own government says practices genocide and steals U.S. intellectual property and jobs?

More and more of Americans’ anger is being targeted towards the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has attempted to deflect blame and make baseless accusations against America and the West.

US President Joe Biden right before Christmas signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, approved by a voice vote in the Senate and by a 428 -1 margin in the House. This law will prevent the importation of goods and products produced in Xinjiang unless it can be proved they were not made with forced labor.

American politicians will not be the only target of the American public. The public also will target American companies that worship at the altar of sales and profits from China. They will demand that companies respond to the CCP’s genocide in Xinjiang, political repression in Hong Kong, and threats against Taiwan.

American politicians typically lag behind where the American people are. America’s politicians will therefore need to go big against China or in November of 2022, their constituents will send them home.

According to the Chinese calendar, 2022 is the Year of the Tiger. 2022 is the year where America finally goes big against China. China will also go big against the U.S. and Taiwan. Here are the developments that will push America to confront China’s malign and dangerous behavior and, in an upcoming article, those that will push China to go big.

Most likely, 2022 will finally be the wake-up call Americans need. For too long, American government and business leaders have sat quietly and allowed China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to run roughshod over our nation and our values. In 2001, politicians such as President George W. Bush welcomed China into the World Trade Organization and promised that not only would it benefit global trade, but strengthen China’s adherence to the rule of law and that China would “introduce certain civil reforms.” At this point, it is clear that things have not turned out quite that way.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18095/iran-biden-nuclear-deal

No amount of appeasement and no deal is going to change the core pillars of the Iranian mullahs’ revolutionary principles, which include anti-Americanism, antisemitism, supporting terror groups, and brutally repressing their own population. The theocratic establishment uses international and regional agreements, such as its election last April to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, to advance its revolutionary ideals.

The Biden administration might begin to understand, nearly four decades after the establishment of the mullahs’ regime, that, as Henry Kissinger remarked, “The exercise of diplomacy without the threat of force is without effect.”

The Biden administration’s Iran policy appears to be quite simple: keep negotiating with the ruling mullahs and offering concessions to revive the 2015 nuclear deal and eliminate the Iranian regime’s threat.

The nuclear deal reached in 2015, however, had already proved that it did not eliminate the Iranian regime’s threats. After the agreement, access to the considerable funds freed up by the deal had the reverse effect: it allowed Tehran to pour ever greater sums into the coffers of groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis. Nations such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were largely ignored by the Western powers, despite their clear concerns over the direct threat that enriching these groups presented.

US President Joe Biden previously suggested that Iran, in the aftermath of the 2015 nuclear deal, had ceased being a “bad regional actor”, writing:

“… I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.”

This is an easy view for someone thousands of miles away from the Middle East, but for those living there, dealing with Hezbollah’s weapons caches and Syrian militias wreaking death and devastation, Iran, through its proxy networks, has become more malign than ever.

https://bit.ly/3t1cSv1

US’ underlying assumptions on Iran

Driven by a genuine desire to rid the Middle East and the globe of terrorism and wars – and reflecting a long track record and ingrained worldview – Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Special Emissary Rob Malley and CIA Director William Burns are determined to reach a credible agreement with Iran’s Ayatollahs. They are resolute to induce the Iranian leopard to change spots, not merely tactics.

Convinced that Iran’s rogue conduct is not driven by an inherent, fanatic, megalomaniacal vision, Secretary Blinken is bent on limiting US policy toward Iran to diplomacy, while ruling out the military option and regime-change.

Adhering to multilateral foreign and national security policy – rather than a unilateral, independent US policy – Blinken shapes his policy toward Iran by according a significant role to vacillating Europe and the pro-Iran UN, as well as greater alignment with Russia and China.

Confident that a generous diplomatic and economic package will make the Ayatollahs regime amenable to credible negotiation, peaceful coexistence and departure from their 1,400-year-old religiously fanatic, imperialistic vision, the Biden team is resolved to take lightly the rogue track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs since the 1978/79 revolution, which overthrew the pro-US Shah, catapulted the rogue Ayatollahs to power, and transformed Iran into “The Islamic Republic,” which considers the US “The Great Satan.”

Consumed by his view of the Ayatollahs as credible partners in negotiation, Blinken has decided to accord his assessment of the Ayatollahs’ future conduct more weight than the Ayatollahs’ past conduct.

Trusting that Iran’s Ayatollahs prefer to be preoccupied with “butter” rather than “guns,” Blinken’s policy on Iran is focused on diplomatic negotiation, not military confrontation

Iran threatening the US from Latin America

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18091/iran-nuclear-blackmail

“If the Iranians think the world does not seriously intend to stop them, they will race towards the bomb. We must make it clear that the world will not allow this to happen. There needs to be a credible military threat on the table.” — Yair Lapid, Israeli Foreign Minister, interview with the author, December, 2021.

Mr Lapid’s calls have been echoed by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan who, following talks with Mr Bennett in Jerusalem, called for world powers to adopt a “common strategy” for dealing with Iran.

Mr Lapid’s concerns about Iran’s approach to the Vienna talks are supported by Western security officials closely monitoring the negotiations, who state that, far from taking a constructive approach to the negotiations, the Iranians are simply playing for time.

In the meantime Iran has sought to string out the negotiations in Vienna by concentrating on relatively minor issues, such as whether UN inspectors can have surveillance cameras operating at key sites. Iran’s obstructive conduct, moreover, is being backed by Russia and China, which were also signatories to the 2015 deal but now want to embarrass the Biden administration by ensuring the current round of talks end in failure.

The hardline approach being adopted by Tehran certainly makes the prospect of military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities more likely in 2022, with US military officials confidently asserting that, if military option is required, it would be possible to target Iran’s entire nuclear programme.

The big question that remains, though, is whether, if the talks do fail, Mr Biden will have the resolve to initiate military action, or will instead seek to hit Iran with more — ineffective — sanctions.

In the meantime, Tehran continues to work on its controversial uranium enrichment activities so that, unless urgent action is taken soon, the world could soon find itself having to confront a nuclear-armed Iran.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s observation that Iran is engaging in “nuclear blackmail” with Western negotiators provides a damning indictment of the current state of play regarding the negotiations being held in Vienna on Tehran’s nuclear activities.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18041/china-south-pacific-takeover

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is accelerating its campaign to isolate Taiwan from the existing international order by offering bribes in some of these poor islands to leadership figures to break with Taipei. Presently, only 15 nations have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and four of them are in the South Pacific: the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu.

Some of these states once had diplomatic links with Taiwan but were seemingly wooed away by Beijing’s offer of financial loans, investment, and corrupt practices. These at times included direct interference in these islands’ domestic political affairs, threatening the efficacy of their governmental institutions.

The intensity of Chinese Communist Party’s drive to inherit the US mantle of Pacific superiority — acquired by the US at great sacrifice in World War II — clearly shows that Beijing’s ambitions extend beyond reuniting Taiwan with the Chinese “Motherland.”

China’s aggressive and persistent diplomatic offensive to win over the entire constellation of the South Pacific’s once pro-Western mini-states in the South Pacific suggests once more a determined desire to emerge as the dominant global superpower in the Pacific region — supplanting the United States and its free and independent allies — along with annexing the rest of the world.

When will the West — public officials and private corporations — stop financing China’s hostile takeover?

This October, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) convened, via video link, the first foreign ministerial conference with nearly 20 Pacific Island states. On December 3, the Chinese quickly followed up this initiative by establishing “The China-Pacific Island Countries Reserve of Emergency Supplies.”

China’s diplomatic offensive in the South Pacific suggests yet another effort to replace the US as the world’s primary superpower and install its authoritarian values instead.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18084/confront-iran-mullahs

While the mullahs are using religion to justify their mission of taking over the region, they are more likely attempting to take control of all the oil in the region; they appear to be advancing their hegemonic ambitions to this end.

Iran has for decades been encircling the Middle East — in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq — by building a squeeze maneuver known as the “Shia Crescent; ” it has been trying to unseat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen, and it long ago attached itself to South America’s most oil-rich country, Venezuela.

Please now imagine how much more destabilizing the Iranian regime would be if it had nuclear weapons, how much easier it would be for the regime to fulfill its constitutional mission of “extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world.”

Biden’s legacy now looks as if will add up to surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban; allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons; permitting China to take over Taiwan; enabling Russia to blackmail Europe with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; failing to deter Russia from seizing Ukraine; harming the poorest Americans by forcing them pay more for everything by shutting off American oil and instead enriching Russia by buying it there at inflated prices; effectively cutting pay to the military and threatening to punish people who work by raising their taxes, all while paying millions of other people not to work; and to top it off, crippling the US military by diverting it from its core mission: winning wars.

If… any real response to Iran’s threats will have to wait until 2024, will that be too late to stop at least one of these imminent catastrophes?

The Iranian regime has made it clear that its mission is to take over the region and create a single community under its version of Islamic leadership. The Islamic Republic’s constitution states:

“The Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad. In particular, in the development of international relations, the Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community (in accordance with the Qur’anic verse: This, your community, is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me).”

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/12/31/u-s-brings-a-pea-shooter-to-a-gunfight-with-china-n1545733

Many of my conservative friends are spinning their wheels with pea-shooter-gauge measures against China—kicking Chinese companies out of the U.S. stock market, for example. On Dec. 10 the U.S. government canceled an initial public offering for the Chinese AI startup SenseTime, whose facial recognition software may help Chinese authorities identify Uyghurs. Two weeks later SenseTime moved its IPO to Hong Kong; it rose 44% in the first two days of trading. China has a trade surplus, $3.2 trillion in reserves, and a 40% savings rate. It is an exporter, not an importer of capital. American capital markets are a convenience, not a necessity for Chinese companies.

We’ve brought a pea-shooter to a gunfight. There’s a big difference between winning, and making ourselves feel better while we’re losing.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18070/npt-treaty-threats

Is the world on the eve of a new arms race that could spread nuclear weapons to a dozen or more countries within the next few years?

The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) clearly states that it is tailor-made solely for Iran and will not be applicable to any other country.

However, a precedent is set to bypass the NPT and the IAEA by putting in charge a group of nations that have not created a formal legal status and pretend to replace the UN just as a posse replaces the sheriff in some Western movies.

The twice-postponed golden jubilee of the NPT may provide an occasion for serious reflection on its failures and ways of reshaping it as an effective instrument to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and speed up the dismantling of arsenals that, if the NPT is to be believed, pose as great a threat to the planet as does climate change, the currently fashionable “big cause”.

Is the world on the eve of a new arms race that could spread nuclear weapons to a dozen or more countries within the next few years?

This is one of the questions that haunt the next Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Twice postponed because of the Covid-19 crisis, the conference which, under the NPT, should be held once every 10 years, is now scheduled for January 4-28 in New York.