RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.org/all-the-presidents-disconnects/

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates states regarding then Vice President Joe Biden in his book Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War released in 2014.

Nothing much has changed since this statement of Robert Gates, who served as Director of Central Intelligence under President George H.W. Bush, and later as Secretary of Defense under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline in June of last year has positioned the U.S. from a net exporter of energy to tapping the caverns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The mullahs of Iran have recently taken to brutal suppression of what began as women protesting, enraged by the death of Mahsa Amini for violating hijab rules. In a strategic disconnect, President Biden has missed an opportunity to address the Iranian people forcefully, to express support for their desire for human rights and regime change. Instead, the White House is seeking another agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear aspirations. To believe that adventurist Iran will not cheat and continue to develop enriched fissile material is a willing suspension of disbelief, to use the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18968/us-presidents-refuse-to-protect-the-us-from-north

The U.S. has the power to stop North Korean missile tests but has chosen not to do so. This is true not only of the Biden administration but also its predecessors. The U.S. has continually decided to adopt feeble options.

Chinese banks have been laundering the North’s proceeds of criminal and prohibited activity for decades. The Trump administration in June 2017 designated, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, China’s Bank of Dandong to be of “primary money laundering concern.” The designation meant the bank could no longer clear dollar transactions through the U.S. banking system.

If the designation was meant as a signal, Beijing ignored it. And the Chinese had assessed the situation correctly. Trump’s administration in 2018 decided not to enforce money-laundering laws against two of the “Big Four” Chinese banks, Agricultural Bank of China and China Construction Bank, which were handling suspicious transactions involving North Korea. Such a designation would have put these banks out of business everywhere outside China, and Beijing, as a practical matter, would have had to stop money-laundering for North Korea.

As a result of inaction, President Trump gave Chinese institutions free passes to violate American statutes. The administration’s decision, an abrogation of its responsibilities to uphold the law, was deeply prejudicial to its efforts to disarm the Kim regime.

The Biden administration has continued Trump’s lax posture.

The administration has the goods on the North Koreans and the Chinese but has continually failed to act. “This failure is a choice. The money Kim Jong Un obtains by fraud, computer hacking, and ransomware and which he uses to build bombs to threaten us is being laundered through our banks. We’re giving Xi Jinping and Kim de facto immunity to keep right on doing it.” — Joshua Stanton, sanctions expert, to Gatestone Institute, October, 2022

North Korea’s accelerated testing of missiles is a reminder that Kim Jong Un is quickly developing the power to destroy American cities. Perhaps the only things his technicians cannot do is miniaturize a nuclear device and shield it from heat upon reentry to the atmosphere. These are, however, capabilities his military, perhaps with China’s help, will develop soon.

Americans might wonder how one of the most destitute regimes on earth can build weapons capable of killing most every American. They may also wonder why Washington has done almost nothing to stop the North Koreans from selling their weapons to Iran, among others.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/how-biden-failed-to-stop-opec-from-cutting-oil-production/

Near the top of President Biden’s to-do list for the past few months has been to keep gas prices down. On Wednesday, this was dealt a likely fatal blow by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which, led by Saudi Arabia, agreed to cut its overall production by two million barrels per day.

In actuality, the cut will mean a reduction of more like one million barrels per day if it’s taken into account that OPEC has been underproducing compared to its previously stated production goals. Still, this is a significant cut, and the effects on oil markets are already being felt.

The Biden administration has been scrounging around for ways to get more oil onto the market and lower prices, from releasing tens of millions of barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to chastising the oil producers themselves. In July, Biden went to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to smooth over America’s rocky relationship with Riyadh and get the Saudis to pump more oil (it seems neither succeeded).

Most egregiously, though, the administration is contemplating offering Venezuela sanctions relief as part of a deal to restart talks with the local opposition and — the real reason — to allow Chevron to produce oil in the country again. This is particularly troubling given that the regime in Caracas has no intention of giving up power and restarting “talks” is a useless gesture. Such a deal would project weakness at a time when projecting strength should be a top priority, as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on and China threatens Taiwan.