RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.ft.com/content/bc1b9521-8381-4fb8-aebd-80846a18085d?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive party won an unprecedented third term in office on Saturday as voters defied China’s warnings against electing presidential candidate Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing called a dangerous separatist. With more than 90 per cent of votes counted, Lai had won 40 per cent, according to the Central Election Commission. Hou Yu-ih from the Kuomintang, the largest opposition party, had 33.5 per cent of the vote and Ko Wen-je from the smaller Taiwan People’s party had attracted 26.5 per cent.

Although the DPP lost its parliamentary majority and Lai’s vote was more than 17 percentage points lower than President Tsai Ing-wen’s when she was re-elected in 2020, the party won a higher share of votes for its nationwide list of legislators-at-large than expected. It is the first time since Taiwan began holding free and direct presidential elections in 1996 that any party has held power beyond two four-year terms.

In a reference to Lai’s failure to win an absolute majority and his party’s loss of its majority in parliament, China said the result “shows that the DPP does not represent majority public opinion on the island”. The Taiwan Affairs Office, the Chinese government department implementing Taiwan policy, said: “We will work with relevant political parties, groups and people from all walks of life in Taiwan to promote cross-Strait exchanges and co-operation, deepen cross-Strait integrated development and jointly promote China culture, promote the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and promote the great cause of the reunification of the motherland.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20299/iran-ballistic-missiles

Because of the apparent lack of oversight from world leaders, especially the United States, the rising provision of ballistic missiles by Iran to non-state actors –including terrorist and militia groups, as well as rogue states — now presents a significant source of concern for global security.

The regime continues to hide behind its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Those are Iran’s human shields. That is why they have proxies in the first place: then it is the proxies doing the dirty work and being attacked, not Iran.

Unfortunately, unless Iran’s leaders themselves feel seriously disrupted, why would they ever stop? The Obama and Biden administrations tried giving Iran billions of dollars in “carrots.” Clearly that was a flop. The answer, all the same, is not: “Maybe there weren’t enough carrots. So next time, we will give more of them!”

To stabilize the Middle East, it is essential to apply ongoing pressure on the Iranian leaders themselves, to disrupt their accelerating programs to produce nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, and to convince them, the old-fashioned way, that their hegemonic dreams of taking over the Middle East simply will not work.

One of the key but lesser-known reasons behind the immense expansion of Iran’s ballistic missile program in the last few years can be attributed to the U.S. Treasury Department declaring in October 2021 the removal of sanctions on Iran’s Mammut Industrial Group and its subsidiary, Mammut Diesel. These companies had previously faced sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in September 2020 due to their identified roles as “key producers and suppliers of military-grade, dual-use goods for Iran’s missile programs.”