RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18963/russia-iran-alliance

“I am absolutely sincere in this regard when I say that Iran got much more than it could expect [from the Biden administration]….. [The Iranian leaders] are fighting for [their] national interest like lions. They fight for every comma, every word, and as a rule, quite successfully.” — Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s chief negotiator for the US in the nuclear talks, The New York Post, March 12, 2022.

Russia, of course, is freely trading with Iran, in spite of sanctions against both countries.

Russia and the ruling mullahs of Iran are also ratcheting up their military cooperation in plain sight. The Iranian regime continues to provide Russia with military drones, which have inflicted significant damage on Ukraine — the first time Iranian weapons have been deployed on European soil….

“[N]ow we’re going to pay them hundreds of billions of dollars, and they’re going to have nuclear weapons within a short period of time. Honestly, they can’t be stupid; they must hate our country….” — Former President Donald J. Trump, iranintl.com September 4, 2022.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s weak, or absent, leadership, Russia and the regime of Iran’s mullahs have become closer, more emboldened and more empowered than ever.

The two bedfellows, the authoritarian regimes of Russia and Iran, are, thanks to the Biden administration, running the Iran nuclear talks, while the US waits out in the hall. Russia’s chief negotiator, Mikhail Ulyanov, earlier this year praised his Iranian “colleagues”:

“I am absolutely sincere in this regard when I say that Iran got much more than it could expect [from the Biden administration]. Our Chinese friends were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators.”

https://www.jns.org/you-cannot-stand-with-irans-women-while-seeking-a-deal-with-tehran/

The protests against the Islamist regime in Iran show that the real “war on women” is being waged by the mullahs in Tehran, not American conservatives, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. According to Tobin, the abuse of women by the theocratic government’s “morality police” is bringing attention to both the brutal nature of its rule as well as the fact that American efforts to appease and enrich Iran via a new and even weaker nuclear deal is helping to perpetuate these outrages. Tobin discusses these issues in the latest episode of “Top Story.”

Appeasing the ayatollahs

In his view, the big mistake the Biden administration is making is its attempt to treat the question of human rights in Iran as separate from its efforts—currently on hold until perhaps after the midterm elections—to strike a nuclear pact with the ayatollahs. Instead of merely paying lip service to the courageous women protesting in Iran, the United States must renounce its nuclear delusions about pursuing another dangerous deal with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, he says.

Tobin is joined by Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow Behnam Ben-Taleblu, who explains that while the Biden administration deserves credit for supporting Iranians protesting against their government instead of ignoring them as the Obama administration did, that’s a low bar by which to judge it. What the United States needs to understand, he says, is that the size and reach of these protests show that this is about more than the compulsory wearing of hijabs for women, and speaks to the general dissatisfaction of the Iranian people.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/would-we-risk-new-york-to-keep-odessa-free-putin-biden-tactical-nuke-blackmail-deterrence-nato-diplomacy-11665068559?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

‘A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a joint statement after their summit in June 2021. But Mr. Putin doesn’t always tell the truth.

The reality is that as Mr. Putin’s failing military skedaddles east across occupied Ukraine, nuclear weapons look more attractive. That is not so much because a tactical nuclear strike would be effective against widely scattered Ukrainian forces in the field. It is more that Mr. Putin hopes the political shock waves set off by nuclear explosions in Europe would shatter the West’s resolve to support Ukraine. Is Germany willing to lose Berlin to save Kyiv? Are Americans ready to risk New York to keep Odessa free? These are the questions Mr. Putin is asking himself.

The future of the world may depend on his answers. Meanwhile, the Biden administration faces a terrible dilemma. To yield to Mr. Putin’s nuclear blackmail would be a cowardly act of appeasement from which Neville Chamberlain would recoil—and which would open the door to more nuclear blackmail. Yet to lead the Western alliance into an open-ended nuclear confrontation with Russia is to risk the most catastrophic of wars.

To avoid these unacceptable alternatives, the Biden administration must deter Mr. Putin from using nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict even as it continues to support Ukraine in its battle to drive the invaders back.

Deterrence is more complicated than it looks, and the Biden administration’s efforts to deter Russia have had little success. In February, Mr. Putin blew past the Biden administration’s barrage of threats and diplomacy to launch the war in Ukraine.

Not deterring Russian aggression was one of the costliest failures in recent American foreign policy. But it isn’t clear that the Biden administration understands what went wrong—and how similar mistakes might be undercutting its diplomatic efforts today.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18962/iranian-terrorist-hegemony

US President Joe Biden and his administration have, it appears, decided to sacrifice not only the brave people of Iran now risking their lives in a bid for decent governance, but also the Arabs. This betrayal of longtime allies is taking place, it seems, to appease Russia, ever eager to keep the price of oil at a premium, and its new close ally, Iran.

Russia has been the chief negotiator for the US in the “Iranian nuclear deal” talks; the Americans are not even allowed in the room.

By dropping the two demands [curbing Iranian-backed terrorism in the region and its ballistic missile program] “Biden has practically decided to acquiesce in Iran and its entire terrorist expansion project in the Arab region…. This is a dangerous development. The issue is not whether the agreement is signed or not…. The matter is not limited to these concessions made by Biden; there is something more dangerous than this: Biden has completely abandoned the Arabs, allies and non-allies alike.” — Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of the Gulf’s Akhbar Al-Khaleej newspaper, August 20, 2022.

“The collapse of this [expansionist] project means the collapse of the regime, similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union.” — Lebanese journalist Kheirallah Kheirallah.

“In Iraq, Iran refuses to admit that it is rejected by the majority of the Iraqi people, who expressed this in the last legislative elections. Iran refuses to acknowledge the defeat of its supporters in these elections. We see it currently seeking to overturn the results of those elections, starting with disrupting the formation of a new government and political life in the entire country.” — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Lebanese journalist, Annahar, August 17, 2022.

“A return to the nuclear deal will enhance Iran’s capabilities because it allows it to interact with the outside world, export oil and gas, and develop sectors of the Iranian economy instead of being under severe and comprehensive punishments…. [Iran] is trying to exploit the current international conditions to develop its military capabilities, nuclear and conventional, and its ballistic missiles, for the sake of regional hegemony.” — Hamid Al-Kaifaey, Iraqi author, Sky News Arabia, August 14, 2022.

The Arabs’ biggest fear is that this policy will embolden the mullahs to proceed with their plan to “export our revolution” and expand their control over the whole Arab world.

US President Joe Biden and his administration have, it appears, decided to sacrifice not only the brave people of Iran now risking their lives in a bid for decent governance, but also the Arabs. This betrayal of longtime allies is taking place, it seems, to appease Russia, ever eager to keep the price of oil at a premium, and its new close ally, Iran.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/palestinian-president-called-bidens-secretary-of-state-little-boy/

“Abbas humiliating Blinken though is a sign of the PLO’s arrogance and Biden’s weakness.”

In his remarks at the State Department last year, Biden told Secretary of State Blinken, “The message I want the world to hear today: America is back. America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.”

America is back. To the ritual humiliations of the Obama administration. It’s not just that China, Russia and Iran are humiliating us. Even the lowest creatures on the totem pole, Mahmoud Abbas, a terrorist leader funded by the United States, humiliates Blinken.

And Blinken blinks and asks, “Please sir, may I have some more.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a group of Palestinian Americans last week that he scolded US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for failing to pressure Israel to make peace.

This comes after the Biden administration has repeatedly condemned and pressured Israel, and fought to secure Israel’s capital of Jerusalem for the terrorists by running a rogue diplomatic operation.

While Abbas has not shied away from publicly vocalizing his frustration with the Biden administration over the past year, his remarks during a private meeting with representatives of the Palestinian diaspora on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York appeared to go further and included the belittling of the United States’s top diplomat.

“I told Blinken, ‘You little boy, don’t do that,’” Abbas told the Palestinian Americans, speaking in Arabic. Some details of the meeting were first published by the Haya Washington Arabic news site.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18945/biden-russia-iran-nuke-deal

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stunningly made it clear to US lawmakers that the Biden administration will not stand in the way of Russia cashing in on the $10 billion contract as well as Russia-Iran nuclear cooperation. And the State Department spokesman Ned Price reiterated the Biden administration’s stance by pointing out: “We, of course, would not sanction Russian participation in nuclear projects that are part of resuming full implementation of the JCPOA”.
“The Biden administration is so desperate for a deal with Iran they’ll broker a $10 billion payoff to Russia and waive their own sanctions to make it happen.” — US Representative Darrell Issa, Washington Free Beacon, May 2, 2022.
In addition, the Biden administration is trusting Russia to conduct the nuclear negotiations on behalf of the US; to be the sole country to oversee compliance of the nuclear deal, and to keep Iran’s highly enriched uranium — able to return it to Iran if the mullahs request it, or possibly even use it themselves.
Fifty bipartisan US lawmakers urgeed the Biden administration “not to permit Russia to be the recipient of Iran’s enriched uranium nor to have the right to conduct nuclear work with the Islamic Republic, including a $10 billion contract to expand Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. We should not let war criminal Vladimir Putin be the guarantor of the deal or the keeper of massive amounts of Iran’s enriched uranium. Iran supports the illegal war in Ukraine and has been supplying Russia with drones used to kill Ukrainians.”
“This Iran Deal if and when it is announced will be a massive win for Vladimir Putin.” — US Senator Ted Cruz, Fox News, March 9, 2022.
“Mr President, you’re the only one in America doing business with the Russians, stop doing business with the Russians. Don’t have them negotiating for us, walk on this deal.” — US Senator Jim Risch, Fox News, March 9, 2022.
The Biden administration nevertheless appears determined to give Russia the biggest gift ever: an Iran nuclear deal, complete with enriched uranium for nuclear bombs to be used whenever Russia or Iran decide.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18942/biden-russia-nuclear-strikes

Russia’s nuclear doctrine is called “escalate to deescalate” or, more appropriately, “escalate to win,” which means threatening or using nukes early in a conventional conflict.

Even if Putin is now bluffing — most analysts think he is — he is getting what he wants with threats. Biden, for instance, has been cautious and even timid in providing military assistance to a beleaguered Ukraine. Putin has obviously noticed, which is the reason he has been making more such threats.

Why, then, doesn’t the United States have what it needs at this crucial moment: nuclear-tipped cruise missiles like Putin’s? The arms-control community, arguing that such low-yield weapons would make nuclear war more likely, persuaded American presidents not to build them. President Trump authorized their development, but Biden cancelled the program.

Unfortunately, arms-control advocates got it backwards. As evident from today’s developments, America lacking low-yield nuclear warheads on cruise missiles is making nuclear war more likely, not less.

“The United States will need to reduce its nuclear arsenal to encourage Russia to do the same,” wrote Tom Collina and Angela Kellett on the 21st of this month on the Defense One site.

Entice Russia into disarmament? Been there. Tried that. Failed miserably.

Is it possible to work with Putin at this time?

Even if we can put aside the morality of talking to a genocidal mass murderer — we cannot — it is reckless to believe Putin might actually honor arms-control agreements when he has continually violated them with impunity.

Moreover, it is bad enough to argue for disarmament in peacetime, but it is the height of folly to do so during war — and when China and North Korea are making first-strike nuclear threats of their own.

America’s arms-control advocates have always been naïve. Now, they are delusional.

“If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on the 25th of this month, referring to threats to use nuclear weapons. “The United States will respond decisively.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18925/iran-advance-nuclear-bomb

[M]ore than a year and half of negotiations seems to have benefited no one except the ruling and Islamist mullahs of Iran. The endless negotiations seem simply to have bought time for the mullahs, so that they could comfortably advance their nuclear program to their highest level ever. Not only has the Biden administration seen no urgency to change its disastrous path, it is actually redoubling efforts to for Iran talks, presumably after America’s mid-term election on November 8.

The Biden administration has even been ignoring a joint statement issued by the UK, France and Germany admitting that Tehran “has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.”

The Biden administration needs to make it plain to Iran’s ruling mullahs that if Tehran advances its nuclear program further, severe military, political, diplomatic and economic options against Iran are on the table.

Economic sanctions, which will cut the flow of funds to the Iranian regime and the terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, must be imposed as well. The Biden administration also needs to stand firm against countries such as China, which are violating US sanctions by buying oil or trading with the Iranian regime.

It must be made unmistakably clear to the Iranian regime that the United States will not allow Iran’s current regime, a designated state sponsor of terrorism, to arm itself with nuclear weapons and emerge as yet another global nuclear threat, in the Middle East, in Europe and throughout South America.

The Biden administration implemented its agenda to revive the Obama nuclear deal after US President Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021. Now, more than a year and half of negotiations seems to have benefited no one except the ruling and Islamist mullahs of Iran. The endless negotiations seem simply to have bought time for the mullahs, so that they could comfortably advance their nuclear program to their highest level ever. Not only has the Biden administration seen no urgency to change its disastrous path, it is actually redoubling efforts to for Iran talks, presumably after America’s mid-term election on November 8.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/liz-truss-showed-joe-biden-united-nations/?utm_source=Spectator+World+Signup&utm_

British prime minister Liz Truss’s speech at the United Nations this week was spot-on. It was clear, concise and left no question that the UK would do everything in its power to lead in the defense of the West and its values.

President Biden’s address, by contrast, left you feeling overwhelmed and unsatisfied. That’s not to say he failed to speak about Ukraine — he spent a reasonable amount of time on it — but the substance just was not there. Truss made a clear commitment to continue to “sustain or increase… military support to Ukraine, for as long as it takes,” a concrete and actionable statement. Though Biden issued a ringing condemnation of Putin’s war, he only made a vague pledge to “stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression.”

Proposed US actions were non-existent: there was no promise to bolster defense spending or maintain or increase direct military aid to Ukraine. We were left to assume that, given his touting of American and allied aid to Ukraine, Biden was implying it would continue, but in the context of his speech, that did not seem sufficient. Putin needs to know that he will not get a break, that his threats are not going to change the West’s calculus. Now, as Russia is escalating, explicit statements of strength, unwavering resolve and determined action are essential.

The US is the greatest military and economic power on earth, while the UK is in the midst of a devastating energy crisis and persistent high inflation. Britain should not have to be leading the charge against Russia.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18789/us-strategic-minerals

While China has been relentlessly pursuing self-reliance when it comes to raw materials — especially strategic ones such as titanium, tungsten and cobalt, which are used in the defense industry — the US for the past several decades has been selling off huge chunks of the strategic minerals stockpile to the extent that the National Defense Stockpile is reportedly reaching insolvency.

By comparison, China, as of 2020, was the world’s third-largest exporter of titanium, while the US was the number one destination for the Chinese titanium exports.

It is China’s growing influence in Africa, especially through its Belt and Road Initiative, the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013, that has helped China achieve such near monopolies when it comes to precious resources and raw materials.

The rare earths dependency on China stems in part from the fact that extracting rare earth minerals is an extremely polluting process that China has been willing to undertake, while most other countries have not, including the US, which ironically prides itself on having extremely strict environmental regulations in place.

The US, according to Reuters, has only one rare earths mine and no capability to process rare earth minerals. If China were to stop exporting them to the US, the country would fast run out of the basic building blocks required to produce the military hardware that the US needs, not to mention all the other items where rare earth minerals are needed.

At present, 40 out of Africa’s 54 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

“Beijing has increased its control of African commodities through strategic direct investment in oil fields, mines, and production facilities, as well as through resource-backed loans that call for in-kind payments of commodities. This control threatens the ability of U.S. companies to access key supplies.” — U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 Report to Congress.

“The PRC’s [Communist China’s] long-term goal,” the Pentagon wrote in 2020, “is to create an entirely self-reliant defense-industrial sector—fused with a strong civilian industrial and technology sector—that can meet the PLA’s needs for modern military capabilities.”

While China has been relentlessly pursuing self-reliance when it comes to raw materials — especially strategic ones such as titanium, tungsten and cobalt, which are used in the defense industry — the US for the past several decades has been selling off huge chunks of the strategic minerals stockpile to the extent that the National Defense Stockpile is reportedly reaching insolvency.