RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/biden-iran-nuclear.html?campaign

WASHINGTON — The United States made a major move on Thursday toward restoring the Iran nuclear deal that the Trump administration abandoned, offering to join European nations in what would be the first substantial diplomacy with Tehran in more than four years, Biden administration officials said.

In an effort to make good on one of President Biden’s most significant campaign promises, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with European foreign ministers and agreed that the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran “was a key achievement of multilateral diplomacy,” and one worth pursuing again, according to a State Department statement.

Mr. Biden has said he would lift sanctions imposed by President Donald J. Trump if Iran returned to the sharp limits on nuclear production that it observed until 2019.

Iran has said the United States was the first to violate the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord, and that it would act only after the United States reversed course and allowed it to sell oil and conduct banking operations around the world. A senior Biden administration official said on Thursday evening that closing that gap would be a “painstaking” process.

The announcement will open what is likely to be a delicate set of diplomatic offerings.

The sparring over who moves first will be just the first of many hurdles. And with a presidential election only four months away in Iran, it was not clear if the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the nation’s political and military leadership would fully support re-engagement with the United States.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/17/why-you-should-be-skeptical-of-the-new-tough-on-china-joe-biden/

The Biden administration is stocking up with the same Democrat establishment cast that supported the project of China’s rise to global dominance.

The Biden administration and its corporate media cheerleaders are at pains to tell you that career-long China kowtower Joe Biden is “tough on China.” But toughness can only be proven by action. Contra the official narrative, however, President Biden’s initial policies and those tasked with implementing and building upon them do not indicate strength. Rather, to America’s detriment, they signal a reversion to the status quo ante of weakness.

The media has trumpeted Biden administration rhetoric on three key China-related issues: the administration’s affirmation — with caveats — of the Trump administration’s designation of the Chinese Communist Party’s atrocities in Xinjiang as constituting “genocide”; its pledge of a “rock-solid commitment” to Taiwan; and its promise to maintain a “free and open” Indo-Pacific — again, with caveats.

The media also celebrated the Biden administration’s most authoritative statements on U.S.-China policy yet, from a readout of the president’s first call with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, and related statements by officials on the administration’s China strategy. Headlines about the call claimed Biden “confronted” Xi with “concerns” about contentious issues such as human rights, trade, and Taiwan. Chinese state media, of course, saw it quite differently — as an amiable and welcome reversal of Trump’s tough on China stance.

American corporate media also reported that Biden staffers embraced the idea America is in an “intense strategic competition with China,” and would be maintaining some of the Trump administration’s policies — a tacit admission of Trump’s relative toughness.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-gets-tested-in-iraq-11613497028?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Joe Biden has said his Presidency won’t be a third Obama term, and he’ll have plenty of opportunities to prove it. The latest comes after a rocket attack against the U.S.-led coalition in Erbil, Iraq.

“Initial reports indicate that the attacks killed one civilian contractor and injured several members of the Coalition, including one American service member and several American contractors,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday. He added that he had told the leader of Kurdistan’s regional government that Washington would help “to investigate and hold accountable those responsible.” America’s adversaries will be watching, especially in Tehran.

An investigation is under way, but it’s hard to believe a Shiite militia allied with Iran isn’t behind the attack. The group Awliya Al Dam, or Guardians of Blood, has claimed responsibility. U.S. and Iraqi officials say smaller organizations like this have been linked to better known Iranian proxies such as Kataib Hezbollah. SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups’ online activity, reports that Awliya Al Dam has vowed more violence after the latest incident.

Iranian proxies launched several rocket attacks on U.S. and allied forces in 2019 and 2020. Their goal is to drive out the roughly 2,500 U.S. troops that assist the Iraqi military, provide intelligence against a return of Islamic State, and limit malign Iranian influence in the country. Retaliatory strikes won’t put a complete stop to such aggression, but the right retaliation can degrade the militias’ abilities. Inaction could invite more brazen attacks.

Before Donald Trump ordered the retaliatory attack on Iranian terror chief Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, many warned such a response would lead to a full-scale war. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tweeted that Mr. Trump “can’t do anything.” Mr. Biden doesn’t need to escalate to Mr. Trump’s level, but it’s worth reminding Tehran that he isn’t Barack Obama —and the U.S. can do something.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-rough-start-with-the-world-11613430041?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

It hasn’t been the most promising start. Less than a month into Joe Biden’s presidency, and his administration is already engaged in spats with China, Russia and Iran. It is also discovering that U.S. allies are not quite as happy with Mr. Biden’s Feb. 4 announcement that “America is back” as many Democrats might have hoped.

In Asia the administration’s Myanmar policy—imposing sanctions that signal displeasure without materially affecting the army’s ability to rule—has attracted little enthusiasm. On Feb 15, India’s foreign minister hailed Indo-Japanese cooperation on regional infrastructure projects that link Myanmar with its neighbors, a not-so-subtle signal that India intends to go on cooperating with Myanmar no matter what Washington wants. Simultaneously, the large portion of the Indian press that supports the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is aflame with resentment that Vice President Kamala Harris’s niece, Meena Harris, seems to be siding with protesters against BJP policies.

European leaders are also dismissive of American moralism. French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the importation of U.S.-academic and cultural wokeness as a threat to the French way of life, while pragmatists on the Continent are pushing to strengthen economic relations with Russia and China—virtually ignoring the Biden administration’s efforts to raise the pressure on human-rights abusers in Moscow and Beijing. With the U.S. trade representative’s recent announcement that Trump-era retaliatory tariffs on European wine, cheese and food imports aren’t going away soon, this has been one of the shortest and coldest diplomatic honeymoons on record.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/14/biden-undercuts-israeli-arab-peace-boosts-china-and-iran/

Imagine Ronald Reagan, during his first days as president in 1981, had started to dismantle the Camp David Accords—the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Imagine, too, that Reagan’s only discernible motive for such an astonishing diplomatic about-face was an obsession with humiliating the man who had brokered the peace deal, his defeated rival Jimmy Carter.  

It follows that Reagan would have faced universal denunciation at home and abroad. The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives would have considered impeachment. Demoralized White House and State Department staff might have quit in protest. I was one of Reagan’s presidential speechwriters. If I was ordered to write a speech repudiating Camp David, my conscience would have prompted me to decline the assignment, or even resign. 

Of course, President Reagan never considered such an outrage. He embraced and strengthened President Carter’s Camp David achievement. 

Joe Biden has taken the opposite approach from Reagan. During his first two weeks in office, he has moved to undermine the Abraham Accords, the most significant advance in Arab-Israeli peace since the Camp David agreement was signed more than four decades ago.  

Trump Defied Conventional Wisdom

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17059/ghosts-that-haunt-president-biden

The slogan “diplomacy is back” is equally meaningless…. Diplomacy is a method of pursuing the goals of a policy. So if those goals are wrong and unjust, pursuing them through diplomacy would be a way of paving the road to hell.

The key question is whether Biden regards China as an enemy or just a competitor that breaks some rules.

On Yemen, Biden forgets that the war started during Obama’s presidency with full US support and endorsement by the United Nations, with the aim of restoring that country’s legitimate government. Biden does not make it clear whether or not he still subscribes to that aim, or if he does, what he intends to do about it.

Burma is a tale of how cynical jackboots sold the Obama-Biden team a bill of goods to gain time for a brutal comeback.

Even before Joe Biden was sworn in as President, speculation was rife regarding the direction that US foreign policy might take under his command. Some observers speculated that he would simply return to the path traced and tested by his former boss, President Barack Obama.

Others, reminding us that as a lifelong foreign policy wonk, Biden wouldn’t be satisfied with doing an Obama, that is to say dodging issues, leading from behind, and, as Hillary Clinton once observed, making a speech each time there was a crisis.