RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://asiatimes.com/2021/03/life-after-death-for-the-neoconservatives/

Delusions die hard. The obsession of American foreign policy after the fall of communism was pro-Western democracy in Russia, and the foreign policy establishment has never forgiven Vladimir Putin for returning Russia to the sort of authoritarian governance it has endured for all but a few brief years of its history.

The obsession is back with Joe Biden – and, with it, the neoconservatives who dominated the failed administration of George W Bush.

For several reasons, President Biden’s March 16 denunciation of Putin as a “killer” without a soul ranks among the dumbest utterances ever by an American leader – and that’s a crowded field. To begin with, heads of state do not insult each other this way, except in wartime.

Secondly, the Biden administration proclaims its concern about competition from China, but American pressure has pushed Russia into a reluctant but resilient alliance with the Middle Kingdom.

Third, Washington will need Moscow’s tacit cooperation to revive the Iran nuclear deal, a key Biden foreign policy objective, and calling Putin out hardly furthers this objective.

Fourth – and most important – Western Europe is determined to improve its relations with Russia. Biden’s outburst will persuade Paris and Berlin that this administration is as loopy as the last one.

The “Russia question” appears to have surfaced in response to a March 16 US intelligence community assessment that “Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy, and the Democratic Party.”

The 15-page public document is fluff. We heard it all before in December 2020, when fifty former intelligence officials denounced news reports of Hunter Biden’s corrupt ties to Ukrainian oligarchs as Russian disinformation.

https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-reset-communist-china-beckons-opinion-157663

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are set to meet with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) counterparts Wang Yi and Yang Jiechi today in Anchorage, Alaska, in what some have speculated is an effort to “reset” relations between the two powers.

The Biden administration has played down this idea—having vacillated previously on its desire for a “reset”—while China has indicated that it welcomes bilateral relations, on its terms.

But the truth of the matter is that by dint of having any such meeting, Team Biden is signaling that a reset is already well underway.

That the administration seeks to engage China without preconditions—and, further, from a position of relative weakness when it has professed it will only do so from strength—validates the view that the executive branch is reverting from a posture of hostility to one of accommodation. This holds regardless of whatever “tough talk” administration officials will likely say they communicated in the aftermath of the meeting.

China has done nothing in the early days of the Biden administration to merit this powwow. Therefore, it is proper to view the Alaska exchange as a de facto reward for the CCP’s continued malign behavior. The CCP continues to persecute Xinjiang’s Uyhurs, crack down on Hong Kongers and threaten the Taiwanese. With respect to its dealings with the West, the CCP has continued its coronavirus cover-up by obstructing the efforts of those investigating the origins of the pandemic that it unleashed upon the world.

In spite of this malign behavior, while it has tsk-tsked China over its human rights abuses and expressed muted criticism over China’s stonewalling of the World Health Organization (WHO) in its pandemic “investigation,” among the Biden administration’s first acts was to rejoin the WHO.

Does the fact it legitimized this CCP-captured organization, becoming party to it again without it having made any discernible reforms, indicate the administration is engaging from a position of strength?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-imposes-his-first-sanctions-on-chinese-officials-ahead-of-bilateral-meeting-11615976219?mod=world_major_2_pos6

HONG KONG—The Biden administration added new sanctions against two dozen Chinese officials it says have undermined Hong Kong’s partial autonomy from Beijing, signaling a continuing strong U.S. line on an issue that has contributed to fraying bilateral ties.

Announced Tuesday evening in Washington, the measures marked the first time the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Chinese officials. The move comes shortly before senior U.S. and Chinese officials are due to arrive in Alaska on Thursday to hold the first high-level in-person talks between the two countries since President Biden took office in January.

The measures extend the confrontation between the U.S. and China over the governance of Hong Kong, where Beijing has stepped up suppression of dissent in the face of Western criticism. U.S. objections to Chinese policies in the former British colony have fueled bilateral tensions, along with discord over issues such as trade, technology and global influence.

In a statement on the new sanctions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited Beijing’s plans—approved by Chinese lawmakers last week—to revamp the electoral system in Hong Kong, a move meant to ensure that only people whom China’s Communist Party considers “patriots” will be allowed to govern the former British colony.

Mr. Blinken said the 24 officials targeted in Tuesday’s action were deemed to have “reduced Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.” All of these officials, who include senior Chinese lawmakers and Hong Kong-based security officials, had already been hit with sanctions by the Trump administration.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hole-in-bidens-china-strategy-central-asia-11615934414?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The brewing competition between the U.S. and China is the defining conflict of the 21st century. The White House’s recent Interim National Security Strategic Guidance Document, crafted to convey President Biden’s vision for how America will engage with the world, is all about the U.S. vs. China. Yet it fails to mention the region where America has its lightest footprint on the planet: Central Asia.

China is building a land bridge to Europe and the Middle East that runs through Central Asia. The new administration will have to account for the region in its strategic thinking if it hopes to re-engage the world after four years of President Trump’s “America First” policy.

The low priority that Mr. Biden’s team assigns to Central Asia is a legacy of successive administrations dating to the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union. The U.S. has since engaged Central Asia, but only in a tactical or transactional manner. Take the 2015 establishment of the C5+1. This U.S.-run diplomatic forum has continued to be the channel through which Washington distributes aid to and organizes meetings between the five Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. But it hasn’t brought Washington anywhere close to being able to compete with Beijing and Moscow in the region.

Thirty years since the U.S. gained access to Central Asia, long tucked away in the Kremlin’s shadow, it is time to develop a broader strategy for the region—one that takes into consideration the rapidly evolving geopolitics in Eurasia, as Beijing seeks to fill the vacuum created by Russia’s receding influence.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-outreach-to-north-korea-has-gone-unanswered-white-house-says-11615835288

The Biden administration has reached out to North Korea to launch a dialogue on Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs but has yet to receive a response, the White House said Monday.

“Our goal is to reduce the risk of escalation. But to date, we have not received any response,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “Diplomacy continues to remain our first priority.”

Ms. Psaki didn’t explain how the Biden administration had tried to contact North Korea nor spell out what its message had been. The administration is currently conducting a review of its policy toward North Korea, which may be completed in coming weeks.

The U.S. has a number of ways to reach out to Pyongyang, including contact through North Korea’s mission to the United Nations, use of an intelligence channel the Obama administration established for sensitive communications with North Korea, and messages through Sweden, the U.S.’s “protecting power” in the country.

Washington and Pyongyang haven’t held nuclear talks since October 2019. The negotiations are held up over U.S. demands that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons program and long-range missiles in return for relief from U.S. sanctions.

Ms. Psaki said the administration has continued to engage with allies in Japan and South Korea as it crafts its own policy toward the region. She added that the U.S. hasn’t had an “active dialogue” with North Korea for more than a year.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17165/yemen-houthi-rebels-terrorists

[T]he Houthis have also used the sophisticated weaponry they have received from Iran, such as drones and ballistic missiles, to broaden the conflict into neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which is leading the coalition military campaign to re-establish Yemen’s democratically-elected government.

[US sanctions were] promptly denounced by humanitarian and aid agencies, which claimed that designating the Houthis as terrorists would impede the global effort to help Yemen’s starving population, an argument that appears perverse as the Houthis control most of the key aid supply routes, and regularly steal aid supplies to sell on the black market and fund their terrorist operations.

So far this month the Houthis have launched more than 20 drone and missile attacks against predominantly civilian targets in Saudi Arabia. In the most high profile attack, the Houthis used an explosive-laden drone and a ballistic missile against the Saudi petroleum plant at Ras Tanura, prompting global oil prices to rise above $70 a barrel earlier this week, its highest in more than a year.

Mr Biden has indicated he is keen to revive the controversial nuclear deal with Iran and, by easing the pressure on the Houthis, whose success on the battlefield is entirely due to the weapons and support they receive from Tehran, the White House was hoping to send a message to Iran that it was serious about having a constructive dialogue with Tehran. Instead, in the weeks since Mr Biden lifted the FTO, the region has seen a significant increase in Houthi activity.

[B]y helping to facilitate these attacks by providing the Houthis with sophisticated weapons, Tehran is showing that, far from seeking improved relations with the new US administration, it remains committed to pursuing an uncompromising policy of aggression throughout the Middle East, one that is unlikely to result in the resumption of talks on the problematic issue of Iran’s nuclear programme anytime soon.

US President Joe Biden has good reason to regret his hasty decision to remove the terrorist designation applied to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after they responded to his act of benevolence by unleashing a fresh wave of attacks in the Middle East.

The Houthis and their Iranian backers are primarily responsible for starting Yemen’s long and bitter civil war after they overthrew the democratically-elected government of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2014.

Apart from helping to create what the UN has called the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, the Houthis have also used the sophisticated weaponry they have received from Iran, such as drones and ballistic missiles, to broaden the conflict into neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which is leading the coalition military campaign to re-establish Yemen’s democratically-elected government.