RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/16/10-realities-of-ukraine/

One. Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not. 

Two. No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.

Three. Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.

Four. China is now pro-Russian. Beijing wants Russian natural resources at a discount. Russia will pay for overpriced access to Chinese finance, commerce, and markets. Yet if Russia loses the Ukraine war, goes broke, and as an international pariah is ostracized, then China will likely cut the smelly Russian albatross from its neck—in fear of new Western financial, cultural, and commercial clout.

Five. Americans are finally digesting just how destructive the humiliating flight from Afghanistan was. The catastrophe signaled to Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran that Western deterrence had died. 

No surprise that Russia sent missiles into a Ukrainian base near the Polish-NATO border. North Korea in January launched more missiles than in any month in its history. Iran sent missiles into Kurdistan. China daily announces it is just a matter of time until it absorbs Taiwan. The tens of billions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry sent to Ukraine by the West are still far less than what the U.S. military handed over to the terrorist Taliban.

Six. The Ukraine war did not cause inflation and record gas prices. Both were already spiking by early February 2022.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18332/arabs-warning-biden

In a message directed at the Biden administration and the other Western powers involved in the Vienna negotiations, the Arab countries said that Iran and its terrorist militias are continuing to create chaos and instability, especially in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

The Arabs, including the Arab League, are telling the Biden administration that, in their view, it is not only Iran that threatens their security, but also its terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

The Arabs are clearly worried about the financial and military aid that Iran is providing to the terrorist groups.

Any deal with Iran will further strengthen these groups and encourage them to step up their terrorist attacks.

The Arabs are also worried that when Iran obtains nuclear weapons, they will sooner or later find their way into the hands of its terrorist proxies and other terrorist groups, including Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda.

“This president [Biden] is deaf. He cannot be trusted.” – Ali Al-Sarraf, Iraqi political analyst, Al-Arab, March 12, 2022.

If the Biden administration and its friends reach a new deal with Iran’s mullahs, we are likely to see more Arabs come out against the US.

“We have made it very clear that if Iran acquires a nuclear capability we will do everything we can to do the same.” — Adel al-Jubeir, then Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, to CNN, May 9, 2018.

The Arabs consider Iran a lethal threat to their national security and the stability of the entire Middle East and other parts of the world. If the Biden administration is going to align itself with the mullahs, it will lose the support of its Arab and Muslim allies, who feel bitterly betrayed and fear that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of these very mullahs and their terrorist groups.

In what appears to be an eleventh hour and desperate warning to the Biden administration against striking a deal with the Iranian regime, four Arab countries have expressed deep concern over Iran’s ballistic missile program and ongoing support for terrorism.

https://spectator.org/iran-deal-ii-bidens-next-disaster/

Yesterday, Iranian missiles struck near the huge U.S. consulate in northern Iraq. Iran claimed the attack was in retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed two members of its Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria last week.

What is President Biden going to do about it? He’s bound and determined to make a new nuclear weapons deal with Iran.

For one brief moment, it appeared that Vladimir Putin, of all people, was going to prevent Joe Biden from making the worst mistake of his presidency. Biden is obsessed with getting Iran to sign a new version of the 2015 nuclear weapons deal that Obama signed and Trump canceled in 2018. It will be even worse than the original deal.

Biden is obsessed with getting a new deal with Iran for two reasons. First, he has dedicated his presidency to undoing everything that Donald Trump did, regardless of how good it was for America’s economy and national security. Trump’s cancellation of Obama’s “Joint Cooperative Plan of Action” deal (JCPOA) with Iran was one of the best things he did as president. Second, Biden wants to outdo Obama and believes a new version of the JCPOA would be his signal achievement.

For one brief moment, it appeared that Vladimir Putin, of all people, was going to prevent Joe Biden from making the worst mistake of his presidency.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/03/13/pompeo_we_should_prepare_taiwan_to_defend_itself_like_we_failed_to_do_for_ukraine.html

Former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke about his recent trip to Taiwan and Singapore on FNC’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures”

MIKE POMPEO: I’ve talked about the fact that Ukraine is an absolute tragedy. We’ve been behind. What I’m really worried about is cascading series of crises. Overnight there were missiles fired near him U.S. consulate in Iraq.

When I was in Twiwan, they were worried about the same thing. A series of cascading crises that effects them and their lives. I made the statement when I was in Taiwan we ought to do the simple thing of recognizing their independence. Everybody knows they have never been part of mainland Communist China. They don’t want to be.

We ought to be doing the things that we failed to do last summer for the Ukrainian people we ought to be doing for Taiwan.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-eyes-venezuelan-oil-russia-ukraine-gas-prices-maduro-national-imports-11647195311?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

War profiteering is the world’s second-oldest profession, and it’s silly to feign shock over efforts by petroleum companies and financiers to use the bloodshed in Ukraine to make money in Venezuela.

It’s harder to understand why the Biden administration would rush to help the oil industry and its bankers at the expense of the long-suffering Venezuelan people and U.S. national security. But that seems to be where we’re headed.

On March 5 representatives from the White House and the State Department visited Caracas to negotiate with dictator Nicolás Maduro. The meeting wasn’t public. But judging from press reports, citing people familiar with the matter, it’s pretty clear that the administration is thinking about lifting the U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil imports and that it wanted to see what it could get in return.

The White House plays down that speculation. The meeting just happened to take place amid surging gasoline prices and ahead of Mr. Biden’s Tuesday announcement that the U.S. will forbid Russian oil imports.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18327/wartime-confidantes

By anyone’s definition, US President Joseph Biden has become an American war president.

Which begs the question – who are his closest confidantes at a time of extreme peril?

Lincoln had Edwin Stanton who was an unflappable War Secretary Lincoln could depend upon during the darkest days of the Civil War.

Woodrow Wilson sought the advice of “Colonel” Edward House, who served as his diplomatic representative in dealing with our European Allies during World War I and in the months that followed the armistice.

FDR depended on the likes of Harry Hopkins, General George Marshall, and Admiral William Leahy – smart strategists who understood the existential threat that faced America and the free world during World War II.

And Joe Biden? Who is advising this president to confront and outplay Russian President Vladimir Putin at a time when Russian rocket strikes are creeping ever closer to our NATO ally, Poland? Who is giving Biden the type of insight and analysis he needs, given that any misstep could see an exchange of weapons of mass destruction?

Vice President Kamala Harris, whose unimpressive performance during her recent diplomatic mission to Eastern Europe must have given our allies much pause for thought?

This author raised the question of Biden’s unofficial circle of advisors in the Fall of last year when the issues were domestic and Washington’s policies had created such massive national debt that it was capable of triggering historic inflation. (And here we are.) While history teaches us that failed economic models can destroy a nation (such as Germany in the 1920s and the Soviet Union in the 1980s), war can leave a field of ruin where great cities once stood.

We reported then that published reports revealed that John Podesta, Clinton’s former chief of staff and senior counselor to Obama, was actively lobbying Democratic Congressmen on behalf of Biden’s “Build Back Better ” agenda. We also noted that Podesta’s older brother, Anthony, a longtime Democratic lobbyist and fundraiser, was the subject of a New York Times story that reported Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei had hired Podesta despite the fact that Huawei was identified as a national security threat by the Trump administration, and even the Biden administration.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18315/biden-administration-eu-iran

Many Iranians, meanwhile, in defiance of Iran’s regime, gathered outside the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran to express their support for the Ukrainian people, criticize the Iranian government for supporting Russia, and chanted “Death to Putin”.

As police began cracking down on the protesters, the Biden administration and the EU remained silent.

Why are the Biden administration and the EU appeasing the Iranian regime, which has for four decades attacked Americans and carried out terrorist activities and assassinations?

The Biden administration and the other members of the JCPOA nuclear deal negotiated in 2015 (China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany) — with the European Union — instead of holding Iran to account, are evidently determined to reward it. It is not quite clear for what. For years of unspeakable behavior, both to its own citizens and internationally?

Meanwhile, as the US has been negotiating this new agreement, US intelligence services have just identified “at least two Iranians” as trying to assassinate former officials of the Trump administration. The Biden administration is said to have been trying to cover up the plot lest it derail the negotiations to shower Iran with “rewards”.

The Iranian regime, an official state sponsor of terrorism, has carried out terrorist activities around the world for almost four decades. Why are the Biden administration and the EU not implementing the same policies towards Iran’s regime as they are towards Russia?

While the European Union has leveled different kinds of sanctions on Russia, including restricting access to the EU’s capital and financial markets, the EU nevertheless continues to appease Moscow’s staunch ally, the world’s largest sponsor of state terrorism, Iran.

https://emetonline.org/russian-roulette-and-high-treason/

While all eyes are, understandably, on the horrific war Russia inflicted upon Ukraine, scant little attention has been paid to the Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna and the imminent deal. What seems to have also escaped public purview is that America, which was not even allowed into the room to negotiate directly with the Iran, has allowed Russia interlocutor Mikhail Ulyanov to be our water carrier in these critical negotiations. 

It is nothing short of diplomatic malpractice for the American team, headed by Robert Malley, to let a Russian emissary to the Iran negotiations be our water carrier. For months during these talks, Russia has made its imperial designs on Ukraine quite clear, threatening NATO and all of the West as well.  

It has been made transparent that Russia under Putin has no love lost for the United States and wants to resurrect the Cold War, with Russia emerging as a major player on the world’s stage.  Yet, for some inexplicable reason, Malley depended on Russia to negotiate for us, in what State Antony Blinken promised to be “a longer, stronger deal” with Iran.  

One hoped for an agreement that would address the issues omitted from the 2015 agreement, such as Iran’s malign behavior throughout the region and the globe, its missile development, and the sunset clauses which are all due to expire in nine short years. (UN Security Council Resolution 2231, regarding the arms embargo, expired in October 2021.) 

A recent viral video shows Ulyanov gloating about his wins for the Islamic republic. Here are his exact words: “Iranian clerics are fighting for Iranian nuclear national interests like lions.” (His emphasis.)  “I am absolutely sincere in this regard. Iran got much more than it could expect, much more….Our Chinese friends were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators. We could rely on each other on many, many points.” 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bidens-foreign-policy-inconsistencies-come-to-a-head-in-iran-negotiations/

Despite speculations that the Iran deal would drop earlier this week, negotiators in Vienna are still stalling, primarily over Russian demands. EU foreign minister Josep Borrell tweeted that the final text of the agreement is “essentially ready and on the table.” 

Russia continues to demand that U.S. sanctions in response to the brutal invasion of Ukraine do not effect Moscow’s trade with Tehran. 

Given Putin’s needless brutality over the last months, it’s by no means unreasonable to block the Russians from seeking a perk from the proceedings in Vienna. On Tuesday, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland accused Russia of “trying to up the ante and broaden its demands” in Vienna, but said the U.S. is not “playing ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’”