RUTHFULLY YOURS

Just last month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the United Nations Security Council that the era of letting North Korea call the shots was over. Commenting on a record in which North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests since 2006, two of them just last year, Tillerson said: “For too long the international community has been reactive in addressing North Korea.” He added, “Those days must come to an end. Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.”

Yet here we are, with Reuters reporting, based on a news conference held Friday in Beijing by senior State Department official Susan Thornton, that the U.S. is “looking at discussing with China a new Security Council resolution on pre-negotiated measures to reduce delays in any response to further nuclear tests or other provocations from the North.”

In other words, the U.S. is waiting to react to North Korea’s next nuclear test, which North Korean officials have already threatened to carry out, and for which preparations have been visibly underway.

With the variation that the diplomatic response (providing China agrees) would be “pre-negotiated,” this sounds disturbingly similar to the ritual that President Obama’s administration dolled up under the fatuous label of “strategic patience.” The result, on Obama’s watch, was that North Korea carried out four of its five nuclear tests to date, and accelerated its missile program to include over the past three years — as The Wall Street Journal reported recently — the launches of “more major missiles than in the three previous decades combined.”

The Obama ritual went like this: North Korea would carry out a forbidden nuclear test (in 2009, 2013, and two in 2016). The U.S. would turn to the UN Security Council, which after a period of closed-door wrangling would respond by approving yet another sanctions resolution, which would then be advertised by the U.S. as tough… tougher… toughest. Whatever.

Recall America’s former ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, declaring after the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2270 in March 2016 (in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test) that “this resolution is so comprehensive, there are many provisions that leave no gap, no window.” That resolution was followed last September by North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, to which the UN responded by adding to the gapless, windowless sanctions resolution #2270 the even more gapless and windowless resolution #2321.

One might reasonably ask: Why reserve all those ever tougher sanctions for North Korea’s next nuclear test, or the one after that? If gapless, windowless sanctions have yet more holes that need plugging, why not do it all now?

If I might hazard a guess, the obstacle is not solely that veto-wielding permanent Security Council members China and Russia have no serious interest in trying to throttle North Korea’s Kim regime. Even when they vote for those ever tougher UN sanctions, they have been, to put it generously, highly casual about enforcing them. On the evidence, China — despite its public expressions of disapproval and disappointment over each North Korean nuclear test — has nonetheless, for decades now, allowed North Korea to proceed. It is past time to ask quite seriously whether Beijing (never mind its public posturing) reached a quiet decision quite some years ago that China can live comfortably enough with a nuclear-armed North Korea that dedicates itself to bedeviling such leading democracies as South Korea, America and Japan.

The savagery of Erdogan’s Turkish enforcers in Washington, whom many observers viewed as thugs, reflects a new dimension in carrying his message to any potential leader who may host him in the future: We treat peaceful dissent abroad as we treat it in Turkey.

Turkey probably was protesting the United States for not giving President Erdogan’s men a license to kill.

According to the official narrative, U.S. President Donald Trump was hosting in Washington the leader of a long-friendly country and historic ally. In typical diplomatic niceties, Trump mentioned Turkey’s role as a pillar in the Cold War against Soviet expansion, and Turkey’s legendary courage in fighting alongside American soldiers in the Korean War in the 1950s. Trump also said, speaking of the present, that he looks forward to “working together with President Erdogan on achieving peace and security in the Middle East, on confronting the shared threats, and on working toward a future of dignity and safety for all of our people.” Facts on the ground, however, are frequently less pleasant than Kodak-moment niceties.

The fundamental incompatibility between Trump and Erdogan was too apparent from the beginning of what looks like a largely transactional, pragmatic but problematic relationship. Erdogan’s political ideology is deep-rooted in an often-aggressive blend of Sunni Islamist supremacy and neo-Ottoman, Turkish nationalism. Erdogan, disregarding Saudi Arabia and other possible contenders for the title, claims to be the protector of Sunni Muslims across the Middle East, and does not hide his ideological kinship with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, of which Trump is not a great admirer. In contrast, Trump hit out at Muslims during his campaign and proposed both a “Muslim travel ban” and a “Muslim registry”. It was only too predictable: in response, Erdogan, in June 2016, called for Trump’s name to be stripped from the Trump Towers in Istanbul.

Erdogan’s Washington, DC visit, apart from Trump and Erdogan agreeing to disagree on more essential issues, will be remembered as a Turkish excess, with scenes of the bloodied faces of peaceful protestors beaten up by Erdogan’s bodyguards in front of the Turkish ambassador’s residence. Although these unpleasant incidents caused an uproar in America, such brutality should have come as no surprise.

Slightly over a year ago, Erdogan and his team were in America on another visit, with the Turkish president scheduled to speak at the Brookings Institution. His security guards harassed and physically assaulted journalists trying to cover the event; they also forcibly attempted to remove several journalists, although they were on the guest list. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Brookings staff prevented them from ejecting the reporters. One Turkish journalist was removed from the building while checking in. But that was not the entire show. An American reporter attempting to film the harassment was kicked in the chest. The National Press Club was outraged. “We have increasingly seen disrespect for basic human rights and press freedom in Turkey,” said the president of the Club, Thomas Burr. “Erdogan doesn’t get to export such abuse”.

Europe still has not realized that the terror which struck its metropolis was a war, and not the mistake of a few disturbed people who misunderstood the Islamic religion.

We are apparently not ready to abandon our masochistic rules of engagement, which privilege the enemy’s people over our own.

It appears that for Europe, Islamic terrorism is not real, but only a momentary disruption of its routine. We fight against global warming, malaria and hunger in Africa. But are we not ready to fight for our civilization? Have we already given up?

This long and sad list is the human harvest of Islamic terrorism on Europe’s soil:

Madrid: 191. London: 58. Amsterdam: 1. Paris: 148. Brussels: 36. Copenhagen: 2. Nice: 86. Stockholm: 4. Berlin: 12. Manchester: 22. And it does not take into account the hundreds of Europeans butchered abroad, in Bali, in Sousse, in Dakka, in Jerusalem, in Sharm el Sheikh, in Istanbul.

But after 567 victims of terror, Europe still does not understand. Just the first half of 2017 has seen terror attacks attempted in Europe every nine days on average. Yet, despite this Islamist offensive, Europe is fighting back with teddy bears, candles, flowers, vigils, Twitter hashtags and cartoons.

Candles and flowers left behind following an evening vigil on May 23, 2017 in Manchester, England, held after a suicide bombing by an Islamic terrorist who murdered 22 concert-goers the night before. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

After 9/11 and 2,996 victims, the U.S. under George W. Bush rose to the fight. The United States and a few brave European allies, such as the UK, Italy and Spain, proved themselves “the stronger horse”. Islamic warriors were thrown on the defensive; Jihadist recruits dropped off and dozens of terror plots were disrupted. But that response did not last. Europe quickly retreated into its own homefront, while the Islamists carried the war onto Europe’s soil: Madrid, London, Theo van Gogh…

Since then, the situation has only become worse: a simple calculation shows that we went from one attack every two years to one attack every nine days. Take just the last six months: Berlin, London, Stockholm, Paris and now Manchester.

Abedi was part of an Arabic-speaking “clique” during his time at the school, The Times reports.

He is believed to have been part of a group of teens that became upset when one of their teachers brought up the topic of suicide attacks.

The teacher “asked what they thought of someone who would strap on a bomb and blow people up”, according to a source quoted by the paper.

The source said the boys then went to their RE teacher and lodged a complaint, telling them it was “Islamophobic”.

The source added: “[Abedi] was a silly boy, not very serious. He was not smart enough to be a mastermind of anything like that.”

A spokesperson for Burnage Academy said yesterday: “We feel the pain that Manchester feels. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Mancunians against terrorism in all forms.”

Pals of the evil killer yesterday revealed his wild youth of booze and drug-taking – and how he was nicknamed “Dumbo” because of his big ears.

Pictures show him grinning in a bar with three student friends and on a beach in Libya, before he is thought to have been indoctrinated.

Pals described the brainy Manchester United fan as “very jolly”.

But over the past two years he is said to have changed completely after a number of trips to Libya to visit his family.

His parents are even said to have confiscated his passport amid fears he was being radicalised.

This week it was claimed Abedi called his family in Tripoli 15 ­minutes before the attack.

His mother Samia Tabbal, 50, and father Ramadan, 51, a security officer, were born in the Libyan capital.

They emigrated to London before moving to Manchester.

Manchester-born Abedi is believed to have regularly travelled to see his family, who moved back to Tripoli following the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

One friend said: “He became silent and withdrawn after a trip a ­couple of years ago. Before then he was a happy-go-lucky kid and always did well in school.

“We used to party together. He loved being around his friends and wasn’t a strict Muslim at all.

“He even used to drink alcohol and loved smoking weed, he never mentioned religion.