RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18040/biden-budget-china-threat

There is nothing [in the US budget] specifically targeting and countering the Chinese biowarfare threat and resultant global pandemic that has seized the world for nearly two years. Nothing. Instead, there is specific reference to military crisis communications – the sort Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley clearly exercised on October 20, 2020 when he told the Chinese military chief: “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.” General Milley has yet to be indicted.

There are other examples of outrageous programs and wild spending –– on everything from “desert fish” to Critical Race Theory indoctrination programs across all departments and levels of government.

Meanwhile, China surges ahead with military and technical advances — at a pace that has caught the US government by surprise. China’s hypersonic missile test in October 2021 seems to have caught the Pentagon flat-footed. Hypersonic missiles travel at around 3,800 mph and higher, and are ideal for evading traditional missile detection and defense systems. China is also ready to launch its first “blue water” aircraft carrier — giving it the ability to project air and sea power around the globe.

Just recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that China is seeking its first military base on the Atlantic Ocean.

The Biden administration is spending American taxpayers’ dollars recklessly on “tree equity” programs

Reading Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior, one is reminded of how FDR grossly ignored the looming threat from Japan and how Biden ignores China’s aggression today.

Which is more urgent?: Does the US need a nearly $5 trillion budget for an immediate deterrence to China’s biowarfare and military buildup, or for climate change and green programs? And are those climate change and green programs largely paybacks to campaign donors and to China?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18123/arabs-biden-iran-policy

The Biden administration’s position “raises a question mark about the seriousness of American efforts to save the world from Iranian threats…. The Iranian regime insists on adopting, supporting and arming terrorist entities in order to continue committing crimes and violations that destabilize the security and stability…in the region.” — Al-Yaum, Saudi Arabia, December 23, 2022.

“Iran’s interventions in neighboring countries… Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain and Kuwait, have become clear and tangible….” — Adnan Salman, Iraqi military expert, Azzaman, January 8, 2022.

Iran boasted that it occupies four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Beirut, Sana’a and Damascus. “The Iranians have turned these Arab capitals into bases for its armed militias, providing them with money, weapons and everything they need to assert Iran’s hegemony over the region.” —Abdel Aziz Khamis, Saudi writer and political analyst, Sky News Arabia, January 6, 2022.

“The Ansar Allah group in Yemen [the Houthis], Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Hezbollah Brigades and Sayed al-Shuhada Brigades and other gangs in Iraq, as well as other brutal gangs in the Syrian and Palestinian territories, have served as tools that allowed Tehran to interfere in the affairs of these countries and threaten others.” — Abdel Aziz Khamis, Sky News Arabia, January 6, 2022.

“What Iran is doing is tantamount to an open war against the Arabs.” — Saleh Al-Qallab, former Jordanian minister of information, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, January 6, 2020.

“Iran is interfering in the region with the aim of dominating it…. The current Lebanese model of Iran’s hegemony through Hezbollah is the model that Iran aspires to and plans for in all the Arab countries.” — Former Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Culture Saad Bin Tefla Al-Ajami, Independentarabia.com, December 31, 2021.

The Biden administration refuses to disclose information about the negotiations that could “pose grave dangers” to the US. “The Biden administration argues that making this information available may harm American national security and reveal intelligence sources. This excuse is flimsy and weak. Here is the clear truth: the weak Biden administration is striving to reach an agreement [with Iran] at any cost to beautify its image in front of the Americans.” — Emil Amin, Egyptian writer, Al-Arabiya, January 7, 2022.

These Arabs, in short, are saying that they view Iran and the United States, and not Israel, as the major threats to their security and stability.

It now remains to be seen whether the Biden administration and the other parties negotiating with the mullahs will heed the voices coming from the Arab world — or continue to allow the mullahs to hoodwink them by having the US sanctions lifted while Tehran continues to advance its plans to obtain nuclear weapons and extend its control to more Arab countries.

Syrian-born TV host Faisal Al-Kasim recently asked his 5.9 million followers on Twitter the following: “Which is better, Israel’s reputation or Iran’s reputation in the [Middle East] region?” The result of the poll showed that 74.8% viewed Israel as having a better reputation as opposed to 25.2% in favor of Iran.

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.