FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Brings a New Seriousness With Him to Asia At least when it comes to security policy, the president has his priorities straight.

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

Donald Trump’s 12-day trip to Asia—on Monday he will be in Japan, followed by stops in South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines—is the longest presidential visit to the region in a generation. That’s no accident: Although many in Washington see only Mr. Trump’s disruption, Asian leaders know his administration has brought a new seriousness and a nuanced agenda to Pacific policy.

The immediate problem is North Korea’s nuclear adventurism. The broader challenge is China’s growing power and ambition. The overarching goal is managing Asia policy in a way that enhances the security and prosperity of the U.S. and its allies.

The Trump administration begins with a hardheaded view of deterrence. Mr. Trump has rattled some Americans with his threat “to totally destroy North Korea” in “fire and fury” if it attacks the U.S. or an ally. But there is no ambiguity in the message this sends Kim Jong Un. To whatever extent North Korea can be deterred, Mr. Trump has done the job by laying down a clear marker of what war will cost Pyongyang: everything.

Previous presidents’ policies toward North Korea were naive in the extreme. Neither the Agreed Framework in 1994 nor the “six party talks” last decade prevented Pyongyang from getting nuclear weapons. Mr. Trump rightly believes rushing into new negotiations would further enable North Korean deception and stalling, while the regime would continue to develop a nuclear-armed missile capable of hitting the U.S. Negotiating holds the most promise when it is done from a position of American strength.

The White House rightly believes that the best chance of shifting Mr. Kim’s course is with pressure from the Chinese. Although Mr. Trump often invoked China as a nemesis during the presidential campaign, he has since dealt deftly, winning unexpected Chinese support for a Security Council resolution this past September imposing stiff sanctions on Pyongyang. Far from having a rancorous relationship, Mr. Trump has reached out regularly to President Xi Jinping.

Increased cooperation from Beijing isn’t the product of any newly benevolent view of America. On the contrary, pressure from the U.S. has helped to cause the turnaround. The Chinese have heard Mr. Trump’s sharp criticisms of their trade and currency policies. But despite his previous threats, the administration so far hasn’t labeled China a currency manipulator. “Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem?” Mr. Trump cagily tweeted in April. “We will see what happens!” When Mr. Trump stops in Beijing on Wednesday, expect blunt talk urging specific promises from China to further tighten the screws on North Korea.

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The Saudi Cauldron Weekend events show the Middle East conflicts to come.

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

Authoritarian governments tend to be most vulnerable when they are trying to change, so the weekend events in Saudi Arabia are worth watching for more than the usual royal family Kremlinology. They reflect the drive for Saudi reform and the contest between the Saudis and Iran for regional influence.

Saudi authorities made a wave of arrests Saturday, including members of the royal family and cabinet members. The targets include Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, a billionaire investor in Apple and Twitter and once a major investor in the Journal’s parent company, News Corp .

The arrests are being advertised as part of an anti-corruption campaign endorsed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to consolidate power as the heir apparent to his father, King Salman. The Crown Prince has been making enemies among royals no longer in favor and the arrests are a sign that he is brooking little dissent as he tries to reform the Kingdom’s economy and even some of its social mores. While the U.S. has a stake in the Kingdom’s successful evolution, the arrests are a sign that the transition will be rocky.

All the more so given that Iran will try to exploit any instability. That’s the message sent by the resignation of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri Saturday on a trip to Saudi Arabia. He said he feared an assassination plot and he blamed Iran for causing “devastation and chaos.” Iran and its Hezbollah militia in Lebanon blamed the Saudis and U.S., and the resignation ends the alliance between the Sunni Muslim Mr. Hariri and the Shiite Hezbollah. Israel welcomed the resignation, and one reading is that this will open the way for Israel or Saudi Arabia to attack Hezbollah to reduce its growing influence in Syria and the Levant.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Texas Church Gunman Was Discharged From Air Force for Bad Conduct Devin P. Kelley was sentenced to confinement for a year, reduction in rank By Zusha Elinson and Ben Kesling

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

The gunman who killed 26 people Sunday at a Texas church was discharged from the Air Force for bad conduct, according to court documents.

Authorities identified Devin Patrick Kelley, 26 years old, as the shooter. He was clad in black and wearing a ballistic vest when he opened fire at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, authorities said. Twenty people were injured in the attack.

Kelley fled the scene and was later found dead in his vehicle, police said. Police were investigating the circumstances of his death.

Kelley served in the U.S. Air Force but was court-martialed in 2012 and ultimately received a “bad conduct discharge,” according to court records. He was sentenced to confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank to E-1.

Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek confirmed that Devin P. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of assault on his spouse and on their child, Ms. Stefanek said.

Kelley lived in lived in the New Braunfels, Texas, area northeast of San Antonio, where he graduated from high school in 2009.

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At Least 26 Dead in South Texas Church Shooting Authorities identify shooter as Devin Patrick KelleyBy Melissa Korn, Alejandro Lazo and Russell Gold

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas—A young man clad in black and wearing a ballistic vest blasted his way into a Baptist church in this south Texas town on Sunday with an assault-type rifle, leaving at least 26 people dead and 20 others injured.

The gunman fled in a vehicle and died following a pursuit, law-enforcement officials said, adding that it wasn’t known whether he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or was shot by someone else. Wilson County Commissioner Ernest “Skip” Hajek confirmed his identity as Devin Patrick Kelley. He said Kelley lived in the New Braunfels, Texas, area northeast of San Antonio.

Among those killed were a woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy and the 14-year-old daughter of Pastor Frank Pomeroy, according to family members of the victims. Twenty-three people were killed at the church, two outside and one died en route to the hospital, officials said.

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New Study Provides Ominous Outlook About Future of Antibiotic Treatments Scientists have learned bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics without exposure to them. By Rebecca Gibian

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

For the future of medicine and treatment of infections, it is scary news. A pair of scientists, Catriona Harkins and Matthew Holden at the University of St. Andrews, have now determined bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics that the bacteria has never seen or interacted with.

According to an article in The Atlantic, the duo sequenced the DNA of 209 samples of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, that were collected between 1960 and 1989. They discovered that “methicillin use was not the original driving factor in the evolution of MRSA as previously thought.” Instead, it was penicillin. According to the research, when penicillin became popular, it likely helped the rise of staph strains that carried mecA, and were already resistant to methicillin.

This revelation makes MRSA even more frightening than previously thought. In 1959, Margaret Patricia Jevons had isolated three strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which has since become a global problem. The bacteria had become a cautionary tale for how quickly bacteria can quickly evolve to resist popular drugs, especially when overprescribed.

But a few questions remained. MRSA appeared in India and some Eastern European countries before the countries had started using the antibiotic methicillin. So how did the bacteria evolve to resist a drug it had never encountered before?

This new study provides an answer, and many new consequences. According to MRSA researcher Hsu Li Yang, from the National University of Singapore, it demonstrates that “antibiotic resistance is a web of unintended consequences, rather than a simplistic cause-effect model that we often find (too much) comfort in.” Read https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/bacteria-can-evolve-resistance-to-drugs-before-those-drugs-are-used/544355/

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Byron York: Spinning in circles on the Trump dossier by Byron York

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

It’s always important to understand how you know what you know, or what you think you know. It’s particularly important in the case of the Trump dossier.

Consider the increasing number of claims that the incendiary allegations of the dossier “check out,” in the words of New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.

Bankrolled by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, guided by the dirt-digging opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele, the dossier’s key allegation is this: “There was a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership.” Steele attributed that claim to “Source E,” whom he described as “an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.”

“What’s relevant is [Steele’s] credibility, the reliability of his sources and the truthfulness of their claims,” Stephens wrote recently. “These check out.”

But do they? In reality, most reasonable people not named Mueller would have to say we don’t know.

“As it relates to the Steele dossier, unfortunately the committee has hit a wall,” Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr noted last month. The committee’s investigation, the best probe outside of the Mueller special prosecutor operation, has not even been able to discover who Steele’s sources were, Burr said.

So how do outsiders conclude that the document’s key allegations check out? How do they know what they know?

Consider one of the dossier’s underlying claims in support of the “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and the Russians. In a section of the dossier dated July 19, 2016, Steele wrote Carter Page, who was briefly on Trump’s little-used foreign policy advisory team, held secret meetings with two high-ranking Russians, one in the Putin government and one the head of Rosneft, the state-owned oil company, during a visit to Moscow early in the month of July. Here are the relevant portions of the dossier, written in spy style, from the July 19 Steele memo:

Speaking in July 2016, a Russian source close to Rosneft President, PUTIN close associate and US-sanctioned individual, Igor SECHIN, confided the details of a recent secret meeting between him and visiting Foreign Affairs Advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald TRUMP, Carter PAGE.
According to SECHIN’s associate, the Rosneft President (CEO) had raised with PAGE the issues of future bilateral energy cooperation and prospects for an associated move to lift Ukraine-related Western sanctions against Russia. PAGE had reacted positively to this demarche by SECHIN but had been generally non-committal in his response.
Speaking separately, also in July 2016, an official close to Presidential Administration Head, S. IVANOV, confided in a compatriot that a senior colleague in the Internal Department of the PA, DIVYEKIN (nfd) also had met secretly with PAGE on his recent visit. Their agenda had included DIVYEKIN raising a dossier of ‘kompromat’ the Kremlin possessed on TRUMP’s Democratic presidential rival, Hillary CLINTON, and its possible release to the Republican’s campaign team.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

A Century Since the Balfour Declaration Daniel Mandel

Posted By on November 6th, 2017

Much to celebrate, despite all the distortions and lies and misrepresentations about its meaning and significance ever since.

A mere sixty-seven words helped alter the course of history. A century years ago this past week, November 2, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued, declaring British support for the establishment within the then-Ottoman Empire territory of Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James, Lord Balfour, sent the following communication to Walter, Lord Rothschild, one of the most prominent Jews in England, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland:

His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Balfour Declaration was the first step on the political road to reversing two millennia of Jewish statelessness and exile which had resulted in the Jews being the most dispersed and persecuted minority in history.

The British commitment did not envisage Jewish statehood in all or indeed any part of Palestine, a sparsely populated, backwater district of the soon-to-be dismembered Ottoman Empire, even though some such prospect was in the fullness of time anticipated by its proponents, especially Balfour and also the Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George. Supporters of Zionism, like South Africa’s Jan Smuts, believed as early as 1918 that a heterogeneous population like Palestine (512,000 Muslims, 66,000 Jews and 61,000 Christians at the time of the Balfour Declaration — the Jewish population had dropped by about a third due to Ottoman depredations during the War) required something other than outright autonomy, with its minorities thrown on the mercy of the majority. (Similar thinking with regard to Lebanon, with its large, multi-confessional Christian population, was also prevalent at the time.)

The Declaration resulted in the subsequent, post-war British Mandate over the territory being dedicated to the upbuilding of the Jewish national home. Even though the British later reneged on this commitment in a bid to appease the Arabs on the eve of the Second World War by drastically curtailing Jewish immigration and land purchases, the state of Israel did eventually arise when the Mandate was terminated in May 1948.

Accordingly, Israel was not anyone’s gift to the Jews. The Jews of Palestine sacrificed scarce blood and treasure to obtain and preserve their independence from five invading Arab armies and internal Palestinian Arab militias led by the war-time Nazi collaborator, Haj Amin el Husseini. One percent of Israel’s population was killed defending Israel from the invasion which all Arabs belligerents declared would result in the destruction of Israel and the massacre of all its Jews.

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Muslim Persecution of Christians, June 2017 by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on November 5th, 2017

“They defend freedom of worship in the West in order to ban it in their homeland. They fight to build mosques in someone else’s homeland whilst destroying churches and synagogues where they have power.” — Kamel Abderrahmani, Arab journalist, Algeria.

“ISIS publicly caged and burned alive 19 Yazidi girls for refusing to have sex with ISIS fighters, according to local activists. Yazidi leaders last year showed Fox News photographs of the Islamic jihadists burning babies to death on a slab of sheet metal, photos that show tiny, roasted bodies side by side as flames engulfed them.” — ISIS in Iraq, Fox News, June 14.

The Erdogan government seized at least 50 Syriac churches, monasteries, and Christian cemeteries, many of which were still active, in Mardin province, and declared them “state property.” — Turkey.

A presidential order replaced Christian education with Islamic Studies in secondary schools. While the subject, “Christian Religious Knowledge,” no longer exists, Islamic, Arab, and French studies have been introduced in the new curriculum…. The Christian Association of Nigeria further denounced this move “to force Islamic studies down the throats of non-adherents of the religion,” as being an “agenda deliberately crafted towards Islamization.” — Nigeria.

Jesuit Father Henri Boulad, an Islamic scholar of the Egyptian Greek Melkite rite, pulled no punches in an interview concerning the motives of Islamic terror and Western responses to it. “Islam is an open-ended declaration of war against non-Muslims” and those who carry out acts of violence and intolerance are only doing what their creed requires, said the priest. The interview continues:

Those who fail to recognize the real threat posed by Islam are naïve and ignorant of history, he said, and unfortunately many in the Church fall into this category.

Citing a letter he wrote last August to Pope Francis, Father Boulad said that “on the pretext of openness, tolerance and Christian charity — the Catholic Church has fallen into the trap of the liberal left ideology which is destroying the West.”

“Anything that does not espouse this ideology is immediately stigmatized in the name of ‘political correctness,'” he said.

The priest went so far as to chastise Pope Francis himself—a fellow Jesuit—suggesting that he has fallen into this trap as well.

“Many think that a certain number of your positions are aligned with this ideology and that, from complacency, you go from concessions to concessions and compromises in compromises at the expense of the truth,” the priest wrote to Francis.

BOOKS Comments turned off

To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the Arab Spring by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on November 5th, 2017

To Hell in a Handbasket is a chilling account of how Jimmy Carter’s abandonment of a longtime U.S. ally in favor of a murderous mullah thirty years ago enabled the Islamization of Iran—and how Barack Obama’s current oblivion to and appeasement of the radical Muslim world are helping to Islamize the rest of the Middle East. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ruthie Blum, who immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1977, was a columnist, interviewer, and senior editor at The Jerusalem Post for two decades. She blogs for Israel Hayom. PRAISE: “Whether Barack Obama is another Jimmy Carter is unfortunately not just academic speculation. Carter was bad enough, especially in the Middle East, but Obama is close on his heels. A second Obama term could well bring a nuclear Iran, a militantly anti-Israeli Egypt, and the overthrow of the pro-American Arab monarchies. The United States needs to wake up to what is happening, and Ruthie Blum’s book is just the ticket. Let’s hope she doesn’t have to write a sequel.” —John Bolton Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations “The esteemed writer and commentator Ruthie Blum has produced a timely and essential account of President Obama’s betrayal of a longtime U.S. ally, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and its consequences for America’s vital national-security interests. Just as important, by placing Obama’s mishandling of the current pan-Arab populist wave against the backdrop of then-president Jimmy Carter’s betrayal of longtime U.S. ally the shah of Iran, Blum demonstrates the timeless truth of George Santayana’s lament that ‘those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.’ ” —Caroline B. Glick Senior contributing editor, The Jerusalem Post, and senior Middle East fellow, Center for Security Policy

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Time for an Assyrian Regional Government in Iraq by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on November 5th, 2017

As can be seen in the region every day, it is not realistic to expect the Assyrians to be quiet and accept their “fate” under the tender mercies of Shiite or Sunni rule.

The future Assyrian regional government could be an independent state or autonomous region like the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Even if it is city-state like Vatican City, it would be monumental in stopping the annihilation of Assyrian people and could also serve as a safe haven for other persecuted minorities.

“Thank God that Jews, a historically persecuted people just like us, now have Israel… After centuries of persecution, is it not the time for Assyrians and other persecuted Christians to finally have their own government?” — Sabri Atman, founder of the Assyrian Genocide and Research Center.

When ISIS invaded Iraq and its Nineveh Plain in 2014, one of the most victimized peoples were Assyrians, a Christian community indigenous to the region.

After the defeat of ISIS, some of the displaced Assyrians from the Nineveh Plain finally returned to their homeland, but today, they are fleeing their homes as their towns once again become a battleground — this time between Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

The Assyrian-Syriac-Chaldean people have inhabited the Middle East since the beginning of recorded history. We might now, however, be witnessing the disappearance of this community. The end of the Assyrians in Iraq means the eventual end of the Assyrians altogether.
The Threat of Iran

Christians are also increasingly facing threats from Shiite Iran as, after its gains against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, it attempts to expand its influence in the region.

“Iran is aggressively establishing schools and mosques and libraries and other structures within the main Christian towns,” said human rights lawyer Nina Shea, who once served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

A UN- and US-protected region is needed in northern Iraq to help restrict the empowerment and Iranification of Iraq, according to experts in the region Andrew Doran, Robert Nicholson, Mark Tooley, and Stephen Hollingshead. They argue that U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley should call on the UN and US coalition allies to establish a protected zone for genocide victims in northern Iraq:

“The UN has a duty to protect Northern Iraq’s indigenous peoples. It can also promote stability and security in the Middle East by preventing Iranian expansion to the Mediterranean Sea. Such a zone would also be a bulwark against Iranian-backed militias in Northern Iraq.

“What is required for administrative, juridical, and economic functions to take hold in these communities is to be liberated from the immediate threat — Iran. The presence of a multinational coalition force would likely be sufficient to deter Iranian aggression…. There are already U.S. and other coalition forces on the ground in northern Iraq. The force required to deter external aggression would be small. It is also worth noting that these communities in Northern Iraq were rarely covered in the news from 2003 until 2014, when ISIS conquered them. This is because they were peaceful, productive, and proven allies of the United States. They have suffered much for that alliance. This is no time to abandon them to Iran.”