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FOREIGN POLICY

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Hillary Clinton’s ‘Shadow Diplomat’ Ran Big-Money China, Russia Deals by John Hayward

By on October 27th, 2016

A new report from the Center for Security Policy, called “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat,” concerns former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who last made the news by forgetting to mention he was getting paid by Boeing while lobbying for the Iran nuclear deal, which just happens to have facilitated a $25 billion deal for Boeing.

Author Christine Brim has uncovered a number of other interesting connections between Pickering, unfriendly foreign interests, and the titanic Clinton money machine.

The Center for Security Policy says the report “reveals Pickering’s overlapping roles: as Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Advisor, as an Advisory Board member for two Iranian advocacy groups, as a paid Director for a Russian firm selling pipeline to Iran and Syria, as a paid consultant to Iranian aircraft contractor Boeing, and as a Senate committee hearing witness, all with a common goal of ending economic sanctions on Iran and reversing U.S. Iran policies.”

Pickering’s ties to that Russian firm, Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya, are even stronger than the consulting relationship he enjoyed with Boeing when the Iran deal was under construction. He was a paid director for a company that is majority-owned by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky. It doesn’t look like one of those purely ceremonial positions companies sometimes hand out to celebrities and politicians, either, as records indicate Pickering was paid over half a million dollars and was a faithful attendee at board meetings where over $3.2 billion in transactions were approved.

The TMK connection loops back around to Iran, as Brim reports the company had business relationships with Iranian and Syrian entities that were banned under U.S. Treasury Department protocols. (Those rules clearly prohibit Americans from doing business with “Specially Designated Nationals” through foreign companies, although “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat” goes into detail on loopholes Pickering may have exploited.)

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David Singer: Obama’s Islamic State Policy Threatens Clinton Election Victory

By on October 27th, 2016

President Obama’s decision to agree to Iraqi and Peshmerga forces attacking Mosul to degrade and destroy Islamic State just three weeks before the US elections sounds alarm bells for the prospects of Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump on 8 November.

Secretary of Defence Ash Carter confirmed Obama’s decision on 17 October.

The timing of the attack is very concerning. Obama’s decision accords with his policy enunciated as far back as 10 September 2014:

“But this is not our fight alone. American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region. “

Obama had then further elaborated:

“…we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground…

… As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission – we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.”

The same day that Carter issued his statement, General Stephen Townsend, Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve, reportedly acknowledged the presence of “forward air controllers” amongst the US “advisory” contributions to the battle.

Those American “advisory” contributions now appear to have included an explosive ordnance disposal technician – Jason Finan – working with a Navy SEAL team near Mosul who was killed by an Islamic State bomb on October 20.

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Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat: Thomas Pickering and Russia’s Pipeline Sales to Iran and Syria Christine Brim ****

By on October 26th, 2016

“Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat” is a hard-hitting investigative report from the Center for Security Policy, exposing the ties of former Ambassador Thomas Pickering to a Putin-linked Russian company that sold oil and gas pipelines to Iran and Syria when Pickering was on its Board of Directors. The report reveals Pickering’s overlapping roles: as Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Advisor, as an Advisory Board member for two Iranian advocacy groups, as a paid Director for a Russian firm selling pipeline to Iran and Syria, as a paid consultant to Iranian aircraft contractor Boeing, and as a Senate committee hearing witness, all with a common goal of ending economic sanctions on Iran and reversing U.S. Iran policies.

As meticulously documented in “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat,” Pickering was a paid Director for the Russian-owned company Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya (TMK) from June 30, 2009 to June 26, 2012. TMK is majority-owned by Russian billionaire oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky, a close Putin ally.

The investigation discovered extensive proof of TMK’s business dealings in Iran and Syria while Pickering was on the Board, including a financial offering disclosure, catalogs, marketing materials, websites, press releases, legal documents, reports from the steel industry press and Iranian customer websites. Sales of oil and gas pipelines to Iran were specifically prohibited under U.S. laws and executive orders.

According to TMK’s records, Pickering attended 143 of the 145 TMK Board meetings. Pickering is estimated to have been paid over half a million dollars for his service to TMK, based on TMK’s compensation rules.

“Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat” documents TMK’s relationships with three Iranian customers, all listed by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as “Specially Designated Nationals” during the years Pickering served on the Board: the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Petropars, and Pars Oil and Gas Company.

The investigation also shows TMK’s relationships with three Syrian customers listed by OFAC as “Specially Designated Nationals” in 2011, while Pickering was on the Board: the Syrian Gas Company, the Syrian Petroleum Company, and the Al Furat Petroleum Company. U.S. persons are generally prohibited from conducting any kind of business with “Specially Designated Nationals.”

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The Book That Obama Won’t Read, But Hillary Clinton Should Sixty years after the Suez Crisis, two new histories of the Egypt-Israel conflict try to garner lessons on the Mideast and American power in a changing world By Adam Kirsch

By on October 26th, 2016

On a list of the most important historical episodes of the 20th century, the Suez Crisis of 1956 wouldn’t make the top 10, or even the top 20. Insofar as it was a war, it was a fizzle: Israel invaded Egypt with a small force, conquered some of the Sinai desert, and then gave it back a few months later. As a diplomatic incident, Suez was more significant, altering the balance of power between Britain, France, and the United States. But it hardly compares to a major Cold War confrontation like the Cuban Missile Crisis of a few years later, which threatened the survival of the world. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/215931/book-hillary-clinton-should-read

Yet the appearance of two new books on the subject of Suez—Ike’s Gamble by Michael Doran and Blood and Sand by Alex von Tunzelmann—suggests that the events of October 1956 continue to have a symbolic significance out of proportion to their actual scale. That is because Suez serves as a convenient marker for the twilight of European colonialism and the rise of American empire. At the same time, it encapsulates a number of the themes of America’s experience in the Middle East, down to the present day: the difficulty of identifying allies and enemies, the uncertainty about how deeply to get involved, and the dangerous law of unintended consequences.

Von Tunzelmann, a British popular historian and journalist, and Doran, an American Middle East specialist and occasional White House adviser, have produced very different books covering some of the same ground. Blood and Sand focuses on the two weeks of the crisis itself, from Oct. 22 to Nov. 8, with hour-by-hour updates on the action as it unfolds across several continents. (Sections are introduced by the kind of datelines familiar from Jason Bourne movies: “1500 Washington DC//2000 London//2100 Paris.”) And Von Tunzelmann interweaves the Suez affair with scenes from another crisis that, coincidentally, broke out at exactly the same time—the rebellion against Soviet rule in Hungary. The effect is a cinematic, you-are-there style of history-writing, which plunges the reader into the chaos of events, but does little to explain their deep background or ultimate consequences.

Doran, on the other hand, fits the Suez crisis into a broader argument about American policy in the Middle East during the Eisenhower administration. He draws on a wider range of primary sources, and crucially, he puts those sources themselves into question, showing how the biases and beliefs of the participants in the Suez drama shaped the way its history has been told. Indeed, Ike’s Gamble is a revisionist history, in which Doran takes issue with precisely the mainstream interpretation of Suez that is found in Blood and Sand.

To understand the lessons these writers draw from Suez, it’s necessary to recall the events themselves. The Suez Crisis lasted only about two weeks. But its roots are very deep—in the founding of Israel in 1948, the British occupation of Egypt in 1881, or even the building of the Suez Canal itself, in 1869. The canal, which connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, was from the beginning a crucial strategic asset for the British and French empires, because it greatly shortened the journey between Europe and Asia. The company that controlled the canal was jointly owned by the British and French governments, and it remained in their hands until the 1950s.

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OBAMA’S IRANIAN LIES: DANIEL GREENFIELD

By on October 25th, 2016

Senator Obama opposed naming Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terror group even while it was closely involved in organizing attacks against American soldiers in Iraq. Then, as part of his dirty deal with Iran, he secretly sent a fortune in foreign cash on airplanes linked to the IRGC.

And, as another part of the secret ransom deal with Iran, he lifted UN sanctions on Bank Sepah.

The United States has gone after plenty of banks for aiding terror finance, but Bank Sepah is somewhat unique in that it is a financial institution actually owned and operated by Islamic terrorists.

Bank Sepah is an IRGC bank. The IRGC, despite Obama’s denials, is an Islamic terror group with American blood on its hands. It is to Shiite Islam what ISIS is to Sunni Islam. And even the Democrats know it.

After the Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 Americans, President Clinton sent a message to the leader of Iran warning that the United States had evidence of IRGC involvement in the attack.

More recently, Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that the IRGC have been “labeled as terrorists” when discussing how the Shiite terror organization will benefit from Obama’s sanctions relief.

Bank Sepah however had been sanctioned for something bigger than terrorism. The scale of bombings it was involved in could make the Khobar Towers attack seem minor. Sepah had been sanctioned for being “involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities.”

Among other activities, it had helped Iran buy ballistic missile technology from North Korea.

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The State Department’s Disproportionate Animus Toward Israel The hypocrisy of Mark Toner’s condemnation of Israel’s plan to resettle Amona evacuees. Joseph Puder

By on October 24th, 2016

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner issued, on October 5, 2016 a statement that “strongly condemned” Israel’s plan to resettle the Amona evacuees whose settlement is to be demolished by an order of Israel’s Supreme Court. Toner stated that “proceeding with this new settlement, which could include 300 units, would further damage the prospects of a two-state solution.” The same term “strongly condemn” was used by the State Department when the Assad regime in Syria used chemical weapons against civilians. Equating the murder of innocent civilians by a brutal dictator with 300 new housing units to resettle Israeli civilians in Shiloh, whose homes are due to be demolished in December, is disproportionate to say the least.

Toner’s boss, Secretary of State John Kerry in London with British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, issued the following statement (October 16, 2016), “Suffice it to say that all of us are more than concerned and deeply, deeply disturbed by and outraged by what is happening in Aleppo, which is in the year 2016, in the beginning of the 21st century, a horrendous step back in time to a kind of barbarianism, a use of force that is of insult to all of the values that the United Nations and most countries believe should guide our actions.” Secretary Kerry expressed “concern” and was “deeply disturbed” by events in Aleppo, but did not “strongly condemn” the killing of thousands of Syrian civilians in Aleppo. The U.S. State Department has disproportionality displayed animus in its attitude toward Israel, and it smacks of a deep bias on top of a long history of anti-Semitism at Foggy Bottom.

In response to a reporter’s question as to why President Obama or Secretary of State Kerry did not use the term “strongly condemn” that the State Department spokesman used, Toner replied: “Well, there have been times in the past when it has come – these kinds of words have come from either Secretary Kerry or President Obama, and the message is always the same, which is we view settlements as counterproductive and counter to Israel’s interests. We’re going to keep up with that message and we’re going to keep conveying it to the Israeli Government when they take these kinds of actions. I think this one was, as we noted in the statement, particularly exceptional in the fact that it came mere days after we had concluded this memorandum of understanding, and also in the wake of one of Israel’s leading statesmen, Shimon Peres’s death.”

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Carol E. Lee :Battle of Mosul Has Bearing on Two Presidencies Outcome Could Affect Obama Legacy, Successor’s Challenge

By on October 24th, 2016

WASHINGTON—The U.S.-backed fight to wrest Iraq’s second-largest city from Islamic State control holds implications extending beyond the battlefield and into both the departing and incoming U.S. presidential administrations, raising the stakes for how it unfolds in the closing weeks of the election campaign.

For President Barack Obama, Mosul is reverberating beyond his broader fight against Islamic State and into his legacy as a reluctant wartime president. It is an opportunity for Mr. Obama to secure a victory in a region that has given him few, but also a risky operation that has put his foreign policy under renewed scrutiny.

For Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, one of whom will inherit the Islamic State fight in January, the battle for Mosul has spotlighted their contrasting positions. Mrs. Clinton has said she would attempt to defeat Islamic State without resorting to the use of U.S. combat forces, while Mr. Trump points to Mosul as evidence of the failures of the administration in which Mrs. Clinton served.

The challenges and stakes of the battle were underscored last week by the death of a U.S. sailor, the first U.S. service member killed during the fight over Mosul. In a signal of the importance of the offensive both to the Obama administration and to the wider fight, Defense Secretary Ash Carter spent the weekend in Iraq, meeting with top officials and traveling outside Baghdad for meetings.

Speaking to reporters in Erbil on Sunday, Mr. Carter said taking back control of Mosul and Raqqa, Syria, were essential to eliminating the group’s territorial holdings, but wouldn’t spell the end of Islamic State.

“It is absolutely essential that we destroy ISIL in these cities of Mosul and Raqqa, however, even in Iraq and Syria, that doesn’t end the campaign,” Mr. Carter said, using another name for Islamic State. “We know that ISIL will take to other, lesser locations in the countryside in Iraq, to take the Iraq example, and we are all planning to help the Iraqi Security Forces to consolidate their control over all of Iraqi territory. “

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Obama’s reluctance to intervene in the conflict in Syria is more likely to define his legacy than the fight in Mosul.

“It would help if Iraq was to be made free of ISIS,” Mr. Haass said, using another acronym for the group, “even [though] making Iraq viable is a long-term and difficult proposition.”

But the battle in Mosul, paired with a future coordinated campaign in Raqqa, could hold strategic implications, said Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank with ties to the Obama administration.

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By All Means, Take Mosul but . . . ISIS, like the matador’s red cape, distracts from the truly mortal danger—a nuclear Iran chanting ‘Death to America.’By Mark Helprin

By on October 24th, 2016

By all means, take Mosul, and continue on until ISIS is no more.

But ISIS, also known as Islamic State, is and has been the wrong focus. Were it not holding hostage the scattered populations it controls in urban areas, a properly directed military coalition of two or three Western powers, or the United States alone, could roll it up in a week. Even as things are, and despite the chaos and cross-loyalties in the present theater of war, with competent diplomacy and military force ISIS could be crushed in a matter of months. The key is NATO’s activation under Article 5 in behalf of alliance member Turkey, which, if only technically, has nonetheless come sufficiently under attack to do so.

With air support from American and French carriers in the Mediterranean, the U.S. Air Force at Incirlik and Gulf bases, and the Turkish, Saudi, and Gulf States air forces, in very short order Turkish divisions from the north could link up with Saudi, Jordanian and an Egyptian expeditionary force from the south, stiffened by American, British, and other NATO units where needed, to cut Syria in half. With Kurds and Iraqis closing from the east, this would simultaneously surround ISIS and confine the Syrian regime in a truncated enclave shielded by its Russian patrons.

The primary purpose of such action, however, would not be to defeat ISIS. Though at the moment ISIS is undeniably the most publicity-rich and barbaric of the jihadist movements, in relation to its structure and resources its ambition to unify the Islamic world has—as in the case of bin Laden, Nasser, and the Mahdi of the Sudan—doomed it from the start. While much has been made of its links to other jihadists in Africa and elsewhere, these alliances have little practical effect, being little more than the distant salutes from one group of psychotics to another. That ISIS has survived for years is less a testament to it than an indictment of the quaking West.

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U.S. Helps Muslims, not Christians Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2016 by Raymond Ibrahim

By on October 23rd, 2016

The Obama administration has taken in 5,435 Muslim refugees, but only 28 Christians — even though Christians are approximately 10 percent of Syria’s population and are classified as experiencing a genocide there.

The logic of the pope’s statement seems to be that violence done that contradicts the Judeo-Christian God’s commandments — such as the murder of wives and mothers-in-law — is identical to violence done in accord with Allah’s commandments to wage jihad on “infidels.”

One million Christian children whose families have been displaced or affected by the violent activities of Boko Haram and Muslim Fulani herdsmen are starving. Boko Haram’s seven-year rebellion has left 20,000 people dead and more than two million displaced. — Nigeria.

One social media posting by the Islamic State showed a picture of a young girl with the caption: “Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old… Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon.”

Countless reports continued to appear indicating that non-Muslim students, most often Christians, are being forced to convert to Islam through the public school system. Teachers force them to recite the shahada — which when said before Muslim witnesses makes them a Muslim. — Pakistan.

The government is trying to “cleanse” the nation of Christians and create a homogenous Muslim state. — Sudan.

As the Muslim persecution of Christians continues to reach critical proportions around the world (see report below), the average American shows much more concern than the current administration. Soon after it was revealed that the Obama administration has taken in 5,435 Muslim refugees, but only 28 Christians — even though Christians are approximately 10 percent of Syria’s population and are classified as experiencing a genocide there. A poll found that more than three-quarters of American respondents agreed with the statement: “It is important to me that the next US President be committed to addressing the persecution that some Christians face around the world (e.g.: imprisonment, beheadings, rape, loss of home and assets).”

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Make America Victorious Again By: Angelo M. Codevilla

By on October 20th, 2016

At the 2016 elections our bipartisan foreign policy class is near-unanimous, not so much behind Hillary Clinton nor even against Donald Trump. Rather, it circles its wagons around its own identities, ideas, practices, and, yes, livelihoods. Clinton represents the ruling class’s people and priorities in foreign affairs as in domestic ones, though she seems to care even less about the former’s substance. Trump, a stranger to most of the foreign policy class (though not to its current epitome, Henry Kissinger) has voiced views on foreign affairs that are within the establishment’s variances in substance if not in tone. Chastise and threaten NATO for its lack of contributions? Senate majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) offered an amendment to that effect in 1970. Cozy up to Putin? Hillary Clinton brought him a bright red “reset” button in 2009.

Nevertheless, the foreign policy class does not merely reject Trump; it detests him. Why? Because Trump, in tone even more than substance, expresses the subversive thought that U.S. foreign policy has failed to “put America first,” causing the nation to suffer defeat after defeat. Hence, the entire foreign policy class—in the bureaucracies, think tanks, academe, and the media—are a bunch of losers. Millions of Americans consider these two thoughts to be common sense. But the above-mentioned class takes the first as the root of heresies, and the second as a demagogic insult. Consequently, the 2016 election is not so much about any particular plank in any foreign policy platform. It is about who defines and what constitutes common sense.

Who and what

Why the fuss? Obviously, foreign policy’s formulators and executors are their country’s fiduciaries. Though it follows logically that they should mind no interest before their country’s, nevertheless our foreign policy class’s defining characteristic for a hundred years has been to subsume America’s interest into considerations they deem worthier. The following is our foreign policy class’s common sense, which it hopes the 2016 elections will affirm.

Since Woodrow Wilson, Progressive Democratic and Republican statesmen have confused America’s interest with mankind’s. In practice, they have taken upon themselves the role of mankind’s stewards (or sheriffs, leaders, pillars of order, or whatever) and acted as if, in Wilson’s words, America has “no reason for being” except to “stand for the right of men,” to be “champions of humanity.” Accordingly, a series of statesmen has forsaken war and diplomacy for strictly American ends and with means adequate to achieve them, and adopted foredoomed schemes pursued halfheartedly—Charles Evans Hughes (commitment to China’s integrity and renunciation of the means to uphold it), Franklin Roosevelt (seeking world co-domination with Stalin and the U.N. to banish “ancient evils, ancient ills”), Harry Truman (pursuing peace through no-win war in Korea), Nixon/Kissinger (scuttling Vietnam to help entice the Soviets into a grand detente), George W. Bush (democratizing the Middle East because America can’t be free unless and until the whole world is free).

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