RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-blame-israel-first-policy/91484/

Must Israel hold its fire against Iran in order to make it easier for President Biden to rejoin a nuclear deal that the Jewish state opposes? That is the question that is coming into focus in the wake of the explosion at the Natanz nuclear site and of what the Times is calling “shadowy naval skirmishes” in Mideast seas. Mr. Biden seems to think Israel is obligated to stand down while he pursues his appeasement of the ayatollahs.

That question also confronts an Israeli security delegation that is due in Washington today to air its objections to an entente with Iran, with whom we’re in what are called “indirect talks” at Vienna. On Friday the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was asked whether the delegation — led by the director of Israel’s legendary Mossad — is likely to change the administration’s position. “No,” she answered.

The idea that Israel must stand down amounts, in our view, to a kind of political supersessionism. Mr. Biden seems to believe that his diplomatic ambitions in respect of Iran ought to trump — forgive the expression — Israel’s interests. “Israel’s relentless attacks on Iran may endanger Biden’s diplomacy” is the headline over an editorial in the Washington Post earlier this month. Scant hint that the danger might come from Iran.

The Post does acknowledge that Mr. Biden “doesn’t have much room to pressure” Prime Minister Netanyahu for restraint. It reckons, though, that Mr. Biden “should persist with his diplomatic strategy — and hope that the Iranian regime chooses to make a distinction between Israel and the United States.” It is a blunt call to put daylight between America and one of its closest allies. Call the policy “blame Israel first.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17305/afghanistan-cut-and-run

It is precisely on Afghanistan that Biden has adopted Trump’s hare-brained scheme for total troop withdrawal in exchange for a vague promise by the Taliban, one of the larger terrorist groups, to tone down their deadly attacks. Interestingly, this is precisely the policy that Biden, as Obama’s vice president, opposed as “premature.”

His [Biden’s] cheerleaders in part of the US media and political elite have also forgotten their opposition to Trump’s initial plan, which they dubbed as a “shameful cut-and-run” number and praise Biden’s wisdom of choosing a highly symbolic date for the withdrawal.

[W]hat if the Taliban or kindred terror groups such as ISIS, Khorasan and the Haqqani network choose precisely that date [9/11] to remind the world that they are still alive and kicking?

Who could guarantee that parts of Afghanistan would not , once again, be turned into bases for “exporting” terror beyond the region and, why not, as far as the United States?

Obama baptized Afghanistan as “the good war” in contrast with the “bad war” in Iraq.

Two decades later, the “nation-building” strategy has proved more successful than I thought in 2002. This is why, having argued for a speedy disengagement from Afghanistan in 2002 or 2003, I now believe that continued engagement is in the best interests of the United States.

The US military presence is now down to around 2,500 advisers, training officers and technicians, no longer involved in combat. Their presence is a morale booster for Afghans and a guarantee of support for 8,000 troops from other NATO members. It is also a strong signal that the US does not abandon its allies and does not leave a position unless asked do so by an allied government.

As for the cost of involvement, it is now in the peanuts category compared to what the US spends in Europe or the Far East.

Biden’s dwelling on the length of US involvement is bizarre when we remember that American presence in Germany, Japan and South Korea started eight decades and 13 presidents ago. Ironically, a day after fixing the date for withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden ordered the sending of more troops to Germany.

Deciding a major national security issue on the basis of a vague and necessarily shaky deal with a terrorist group that is hated by a majority of Afghans is a signal to other terror outfits that their best option is to stay in the ring until the “Great Satan” is overcome by political doubt and moral fatigue.

Biden could link withdrawal to the formation of a transition government that is part of the deal…. The US and NATO allies should be involved together with the United Nations Security Council. Remember that US involvement in Afghanistan happened on the basis of a UN mission.

The transition government cannot be concocted through traditional conclaves of tribal chiefs, mullahs and elders known as “loya jirgah”. Afghanistan now has a constitution and new political culture shaped over the past two decades with several referenda, local, parliamentary and presidential elections. To ignore all that would be wrong and unjust, a betrayal of both Afghan and American peoples.

Biden aides talk of a withdrawal with honor. To me, unless transition takes place within the parameters of the Afghan constitution and the participation of a new political generation that reflects today’s Afghan realities, the Trump-Biden scheme would be nothing but a cut-and-run number unworthy of America.

https://bit.ly/3sB9Fyo

While US policy in the Middle East focuses on multilateralism, human rights, democracy and international law, the stormy Middle East displays deeply-rooted domestic and regional Shiite (mostly Iran) and Sunni (mostly Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) repression, terrorism and warfare, as well as imperial aspirations by Iran’s Ayatollahs and Turkey’s Erdogan.

The explosive state of the Middle East has highlighted the vulnerability and the actual/potential disintegration of Arab entities, which have always revered local/tribal – much more than national – loyalty.

This state of affairs emphasizes Western misinterpretation of the unpredictable, violently intolerant, highly fragmented, despotic and dis-functional Middle East, which has systematically frustrated benevolent Western efforts to introduce democracy, tolerance, stability and peaceful-coexistence into the Middle East.

In 2021, the well-armed Middle East is raging with a litany of armed conflicts, domestic and anti-Western terrorism and other forms of violence, which have yielded over 500,000 fatalities and close to 10 million refugees since 2011.

It features Iran (domestic repression and military and terroristic involvement in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and Europe), Turkey (the key supporter of the transcontinental Muslim Brotherhood terrorism, and militarily involved in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf); as well as Libya (internationalized civil war and global Islamic terrorism), Egypt (war on Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS terrorism) and Jordan (war on Muslim Brotherhood terrorism and explosive domestic conflicts).  In addition, there are Lebanon (Islamic terrorism and low scale civil war), Syria (internationalized civil war and Islamic terrorism), Iraq (Islamic terrorism and internationalized civil war, while considering Kuwait its own Province 19), Yemen (internationalized civil war and Islamic terrorism), Qatar (financial supporter of Muslim Brotherhood terrorism and closely aligned with Iran and Turkey), Saudi Arabia (war on Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Shiite terrorism, as well as war on Iran-supported Yemen-Houthi terrorism), the UAE and Bahrain (war on Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Shiite terrorism), etc.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/democrats-comply-chicomintern-lloyd-billingsley/

Back in February, the government of Romania adopted a memorandum that would exclude Chinese firms from public contracts for highway or rail projects. This comes at a time when Romania “desperately needs to start infrastructure works,” according to deputy prime minister Dan Barna, concerned about companies that “do not live up to European standards.”

As Barna and leaders around the world should know, Chinese infrastructure also falls short of American standards. Should that be doubted, consider the new span of the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland, California.

California Democrats could have tapped federal money for the infrastructure project, but that would have required the use of American steel. California Democrats preferred Chinese steel and Chinese labor, and both fell short of American standards.

California selected the state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company, which at the time had no experience building bridges. Zhenhua’s 3,000 employees on the project included steel-cutters, welders, polishers and engineers. The bridge decks and materials were to be constructed in China, which left American workers with only assembly, concrete pouring and such.

In 2007, fissures began appearing in bars of Chinese steel. In 2009, the company shipped from China the main bridge tower and 28 bridge decks. Engineers found hundreds of cracks in the welds, and every one of the 750 panels had to be repaired. In 2013, dozens of the long metal rods on the project snapped, and during storms critical parts of the bridge filled with water.

The bridge came in ten years late, $5 billion over budget, and riddled with safety issues. Then-governor Jerry Brown, a three-time Democrat presidential contender, shrugged it off with “shit happens,” and when whistleblowers called for a criminal investigation, attorney general Kamala Harris ignored them. UC Berkeley engineering professor Abolhasaan Astaneh-Asi, a critic of the design, declines to use the bridge, warning that, “If a single component fails, the whole thing comes down.”

Romanian leaders were doubtless aware of the project, but they had other reasons to be wary of China. Like millions of other Europeans, the Romanians lived under the yoke of Communism from 1947 to 1989. By then it was time for a change and the Romanians knew what to do. The tyrant Nikolae Ceaucescu and his loathsome wife Elena attempted to flee, but the army, now on the people’s side, captured the pair and charged them with crimes against humanity. 

On December 25, 1989, a Romanian firing squad executed Ceaucescu and Elena. Five years later, Romanians believed the summary execution was fully justified. More than 30 years later, Romanians seem aware that China’s “belt and road” initiative leads to substandard infrastructure and dangerous entanglements with a totalitarian regime.

China now functions as the Communist International (Comintern), which the Soviets set up to control the national Communist parties. With the ChiComintern, Democrats are particularly compliant.

For 20 years, California Democrat Diane Feinstein employed a Chinese spy who functioned as her office manager. When Missouri takes China to court over the pandemic, Feinstein takes China’s side, and like other Democrats she parrots Chinese propaganda.

https://richard-kemp.com/our-afghan-retreat-is-a-surrender-to-iran/

Over 50 per cent of Afghanistan is now controlled or violently contested by the Taliban, down from about three quarters before US-led forces threw them out of power after 9/11. Despite the country’s army and police being strengthened by two decades of international training and investment, it is hard to see how the Islamist militants can be prevented from regaining their 2001 position now that Joe Biden has announced the withdrawal of all US forces by September this year.

The Trump administration planned to pull out all US forces four months earlier, subject to conditions including a significant reduction of violence, meaningful negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the breaking of Taliban relations with Al-Qaida and an undertaking not to allow Afghanistan to be used as a base to attack the West. Predictably, none have been met. But that will not affect Biden’s plan which is based not on conditions but an arbitrary date.

We should now be prepared for a civil war even bloodier than anything witnessed so far and the downfall of the democratic government in Kabul. As well as an incessant campaign of violence against women, girls’ schools and anyone transgressing strict sharia laws in the distant provinces, the Taliban have been waging a vicious purge in Kabul and other cities against leaders of the more progressive civil society that has emerged since 2001. Targets for assassination include politicians, judges, lawyers, human rights worker, teachers, university lecturers and journalists: anyone who might lead or influence opposition to a return to fundamentalist rule.

More than 450 British troops have been killed and thousands more maimed in Afghanistan since 2001. As well as fighting the Taliban and other insurgents, our soldiers have been heavily engaged in supporting the Afghan security forces. More than 70,000 of their number have been killed, including nearly 10,000 since the ‘agreement for bringing peace’ was signed between the US and the Taliban in Doha last year.

It is difficult to see total withdrawal of US and other coalition forces as anything but a betrayal of all those that sacrificed so much. High on the Taliban hit list will be Afghans that assisted our troops, in particular the thousands of local interpreters who played such a key role and helped save many lives. One of my own teenage interpreters in Kabul in 2003 is today a general in the Afghan National Army and I dread to think what his fate might be if the Taliban take over.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/bidens-bad-foreign-policy-deals/

Because Barack Obama struck me as a clever fellow, I never understood why, when negotiating with despots, he failed to utilize the leverage available to him.

For instance, he might have said to Russian President Vladimir Putin: “I want to reset our relations, but many Americans haven’t forgotten the Cold War. So, I need you to make clear that Russia today isn’t just the USSR 2.0.”

To Raul Castro, he could have said: “It’s high time for us to open diplomatic relations, but you know the Miami crowd! If you’ll just ease up on dissidents a little, we can meet and go to a baseball game together in Havana, and maybe I’ll even have my picture taken under a portrait of Che Guevara!”

To Iran’s rulers, he should have said: “Many members of Congress, even within my own party, won’t approve the deal you want me to sign off on. So, at a minimum, I need you to demonstrate—verifiably—that you’re permanently out of the nuclear weapons business and won’t threaten your neighbors anymore.”

Instead, of course, Obama gave without getting and then postured as though he’d achieved spectacular victories. President Joe Biden is now doing likewise. A few examples follow.

In February, the Biden administration lifted the foreign terrorist designation of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Since then, they’ve been launching missiles and armed drones at Saudi cities and oil facilities, and have turned down proposals for ceasefires. Mission unaccomplished.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has become a club for chronic human rights abusers—China, Russia and Cuba among them. The Trump administration withdrew from it. The Biden administration plans to return. What reforms have been undertaken in exchange for the United States again lending its legitimacy to the UNHRC? None.