FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Cynical ‘Biden Doctrine’ Middle East Peace Plan is Dead on Arrival All Americans should speak out against the so-called Biden Doctrine as a perverse politicization of American foreign policy that could significantly harm a close U.S. ally. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/02/the-cynical-biden-doctrine-middle-east-peace-plan-is-dead-on-arrival/

According to a January 31 Axios article and a February 1 New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, the Biden administration is considering a major new Middle East peace initiative to end the Israel/Hamas War by quickly recognizing a fully independent Palestinian state. Friedman calls this “the Biden Doctrine,” which he describes as “big and bold” and potentially “the biggest strategic realignment in the region since the 1979 Camp David treaty.”

The real purpose of this plan is to counter Biden’s sagging poll numbers and growing criticism of his Middle East policy. Although the reported Biden Doctrine has absolutely no chance of being implemented, it could succeed in further isolating Israel.

According to Friedman, the Biden Doctrine is a Middle East peace plan with three parts: (1) a tough U.S. stand on Iran, including robust military retaliation against Iranian proxies; (2) the U.S. will push for recognition now or very soon of a Palestinian state that is demilitarized and led by a reformed Palestinian authority; and (3) a greatly scaled-up U.S. security alliance with Saudi Arabia with the aim of Saudi-Israel normalization if Israel agrees to part 2.

Part 1, a tough U.S. response to Iran and its proxies, is long overdue, but this is empty rhetoric.  Given how weak U.S. responses have been to attacks by Iranian-backed proxies, only a massive U.S. military response has any chance of stopping their attacks. It is hard to believe that President Biden will approve such a response. Moreover, the fact that Biden still has not ordered retaliatory air strikes in response to the January 28 attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three U.S. servicemembers has further eroded his credibility.

Part 2, to promote an independent, demilitarized Palestinian state under the control of a transformed Palestinian Authority, is a complete fantasy. The real purpose of this idea is to salvage Biden’s abysmal Middle East policy and make him look like a peacemaker at home.  Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will ever agree to this proposal.

Israeli leaders have made it clear that an independent Palestinian state under the two-state solution is off the table because of security threats in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Houthi Cruise Missile Came Within Seconds of Hitting USS Gravely “We can’t afford to sit here and play catch indefinitely” Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/houthi-cruise-missile-came-within-seconds-of-hitting-uss-gravely/

Instead of ending Houthi capabilities to terrorize the Red Sea, Biden carried out some light air strikes and promised to impose sanctions in 30 days.

This is the result.

A cruise missile launched by the Houthis into the Red Sea on Tuesday night came within a mile of a US destroyer before it was shot down, four US officials told CNN, the closest a Houthi attack has come to a US warship.

In the past, these missiles have been intercepted by US destroyers in the area at a range of eight miles or more, the officials said. But the USS Gravely had to use its Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) for the first time since the US began intercepting the Houthi missiles late last year, which ultimately succeeded in downing the missile, officials said.

The CIWS, an automated machine gun designed for close-range intercepts, is one of the final defensive lines the ship has to shoot down an incoming missile when other layers of defense have failed to intercept it…

Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was “concerning” that the Houthi missile managed to get so close to a US warship.

“If it’s going at a pretty good clip, one mile translates to not very long in terms of time,” Karako said.

The Houthis acquire much of their weapons technology from Iran, Karako said. Even slower cruise missiles could cover a mile within a matter of seconds, and the decision time for the commanders of warships is compressed because of the narrow waterways in the Red Sea.

This is what acting defensively means, as I wrote earlier.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ‘Bidenomics Worked’ Sham Kicks Into High Gear For 2024

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/02/the-bidenomics-worked-sham-kicks-into-high-gear-for-2024/

Bidenomics boosters in the media and on Wall Street are everywhere to be seen these days, selling the election-year idea that our president’s economic policies have somehow triumphantly raised our economy Phoenix-like from the ashes. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A sampling of headlines going back to last summer show the adulation for Bidenomics among our supposedly objective economic cognoscenti (Latin for “know-it-alls”):

“Bidenomics Is Real Economics,” Time Magazine.

“Bidenomics is working,” New York Magazine.

And our over-the-top favorite: “Bidenomics’ critics are being proven wrong. Happy days are here again,” Fortune Magazine.

We could go on, but why bother? Popular pundits, media mavens and left-leaning economists are all selling you a bill of goods.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Canadian Trucker Convoy All Over the World Diane Bederman

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://dianebederman.com/the-canadian-trucker-convoy-all-over-the-world/

The Canadian Trucker Convoy woke people up from their slumber, and now they are on the march

It’s been difficult to be a proud Canadian under the tyranny of Liberal PM Justin Trudeau – the clown and his leftist wing-man Jagmeet Singh – the court jester.

What kind of leader asks if citizens who disagree with political decisions should be tolerated?  Hmmm, so reminiscent of the Nazis. Two years ago a group of freedom-loving Canadians banded together and formed a trucker convoy to Ottawa to protest against the oppression put upon us by our “leaders.” In response, our PM called out the police to go after peaceful protesters in Ottawa and enacted the Emergencies Act rather than speak to the citizens. And if that were not enough, he arranged to have bank accounts of the truckers frozen. Well, the PM has shared his love of China. “There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.”

And that Convoy, that Convoy For Freedom, gave hope to other countries suffocating from the strict shut down caused by “Covid.” And they began to fly the Maple Leaf.  A shining symbol of hope and freedom. What a proud moment in time for those of us who believe that government bends the knee to “we the people” and not the other way around.

France waved the Canadian flag.

New Zealand  and Australia waved the  Canadian flag.

“It became a rallying call with so much of the protest movement that we see based on populism and nationalism and that flag can be resonant with them. It can be a social movement tool, so we can see them finding unity.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Further Notes On Mann v. Steyn: The Plaintiff Rests Francis Menton

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/

The Mann v. Steyn trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is now in the middle of its third week. For more background on the case, see my post from a few days ago here. I have been watching some substantial chunks of the trial on the court’s livestream, although unfortunately several other matters have prevented me from watching the entirety. Today at the lunch break, the plaintiff Michael Mann concluded the presentation of his case. The technical term is that the plaintiff “rested.” So I thought a short update would be timely.

Because I haven’t seen the whole thing, I’ll just cover some aspects that I find interesting.

In my prior post, I devoted some space to Mann’s claim for damages, which appears to be based principally on the theory that he had lost various government research grants as a result of the allegedly defamatory blog posts of Steyn and Simberg. Last week Simberg’s lawyer Victoria Weatherford had cross-examined Mann with an interrogatory answer he had given to a question asking him to substantiate his damages by providing a list of all grants he claimed he had lost for this reason. In his answer, signed under oath, Mann had not listed any grants, and instead had objected on the ground that the whole subject was “irrelevant.” My comment was “How Mann can claim damages from lost grants after giving this answer, I have no idea.”

Well, as tends to be the case, the story proved to be much more complicated than it first appeared. On re-direct examination, Mann’s lawyer came back with a supplemental interrogatory answer that Mann had served up in 2020, which did contain a list of allegedly lost grants. That seemed like a pretty good response.

But then Ms. Weatherford got another turn on what’s called “re-cross,” and she pulled out yet another supplemental answer provided by Mann to the same interrogatory. This one was dated in 2023. In 2023 the parties were finally in the run-up to the actual trial. In the 2023 answer, there was a list of allegedly lost grants that was either the same or very similar to the list from the 2020 answer, except that the amounts of money allegedly lost as to each grant had changed in many or even most cases. (It was difficult to determine exactly everything that had changed, because they never put the two lists of grants and amounts up on the screen simultaneously for the viewers at home to compare.). Some of the changed amounts were small, but some were dramatic. In the most notable case, the “lost” grant had at first been claimed to be associated with over $9 million of lost funding; but in the amended answer the number had been changed to only about $100,000. At least as to any numbers that ever appeared on the publicly-shown screen, that $9 million amount looked to be by itself far and away the majority of the claimed lost funding.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tracey Jacobson Abandoned Our Afghan Allies. Now She’s Getting a Promotion. The woman who failed to rescue U.S. friends from the Taliban is Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Iraq. By Eli Lake

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/tracey-jacobson-afghan-allies-iraq-ambassador?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

When America was retreating from its 20-year-war in Afghanistan in August 2021, Omar was one of the Afghan allies President Joe Biden promised to rescue. He had performed a perilous task for the U.S. military: identifying and neutralizing roadside mines embedded by the Taliban insurgency. 

Omar was supposed to receive a special immigrant visa, or SIV, which would have been his ticket to a new life in the U.S. now that his old life was in grave danger from the Taliban. 

He never got that SIV. Instead, after being stopped at a checkpoint last February, Taliban thugs dragged him from his home two days later and beat him to a pulp for helping the United States. His family found his unconscious body lying limp on the street. After four surgeries, Omar succumbed to his wounds and died that same month. (The Free Press is withholding Omar’s last name to protect his family) 

Nearly two years after Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are 150,000 Afghans like Omar who put their lives at risk to work with the U.S. government, but are still waiting for their SIVs. Though the SIV process was supposed to provide an escape route for our Afghan allies, that process was “chaos incarnate,” said Tom Kasza, the executive director of the 1208 Foundation, which helps former Afghan allies obtain their visas.

And yet the woman in charge of the SIV Taskforce during the fiasco is getting a promotion. Last week, the White House nominated Tracey Jacobson, 59, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq. The last time Biden talked publicly about Jacobson was on August 14, 2021, the day before Kabul fell to the Taliban. The president said he was putting Jacobson “in charge of a whole-of-government effort to process, transport, and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies.” 

America’s ambassador to Iraq is a crucial appointment now that the U.S. is engaged in a regional war with Iran and its proxies. Iran’s militias in Iraq, which draw their salaries from the government budget in Baghdad, have stepped up their attacks since Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel. One of those militias, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, claimed credit Sunday for a drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three service members and wounded at least 34 more.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Gaza-Egypt border is Israel’s unsolved problem Closing the crucial Hamas smuggling route is vital to ensuring Israel’s security – regardless of what her allies might think Charles Lipson

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/02/01/gaza-egypt-tunnels-hamas-idf-israel-philadelphi-corridor/

The next phase of the Israel-Gaza war will go beyond clearing the vast tunnel network under Khan Younis, the large city in southern Gaza that forms the final redoubt of Hamas leadership. After Khan Younis, the battle is likely to move to nearby Rafah, just north of the Egyptian border.
 
That move will face powerful diplomatic pushback, certainly from Egypt and probably from the United States. Their opposition is focused on maintaining a 100-meter-wide “demilitarized zone” just inside the Gaza border with Egypt.

The Gaza-Egypt Border, called the Philadelphi Corridor 

That zone, known as the “Philadelphi Corridor,” was established in the 1979 Egypt-Israeli treaty.

In Article III:2, Egypt promised to prevent “acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence” in that zone. It tried to do so in 2013-14, shortly after the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted by the Egyptian military. The new regime degraded the tunnels beneath the border and tightened the checkpoints above ground. Since then, however, Egypt has done very little, falling well short of blocking the transit of terrorists, their war materials, and foreign advisers.

The Security Problem for Israel: The Border is Porous

Israel officials are well aware of the problem and united in their belief that the porous Philadelphi Corridor poses a lethal threat. That’s how Hamas receives much of its small arms, missiles, ammunition, money, materials to build still more tunnels and missiles, as well as foreign military advisers and trainers. Most come from Iran. Egypt has failed to stop what Daniel Pipes calls “massive smuggling of armaments to Gaza via tunnels.”
 
As the supplies, money, and personnel have flowed in, the Egyptian government has largely averted its eyes. They are not alone. The United States, the rich countries that fund Gaza, and the UN agencies that operate there have all done the same.

El-Sisi’s Goal: Preserve His Regime, Not Support Hamas

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Iran has a shot at sinking a US Navy aircraft carrier Maya Carlin

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/iran-has-a-shot-at-sinking-a-us-navy-aircraft-carrier/

Could Iran Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier? Yes, There Is a Chance: On Tuesday, a cruise missile launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels came within one mile of an American warship. Typically, the Navy’s destroyers shoot down missile barrages launched by the rogue group at a range of eight miles or more.

For the first time since the uptick in attacks in the Red Sea commenced this Fall, however, a cruise missile came close enough for the USS Gravely to use its Close-In Weapon System (CIWS).

The Islamic Republic of Iran is increasingly threatening American interests in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East. Its regional proxy groups have ramped up rocket, drone and missile barrages targeting U.S. assets following the Israel-Hamas war.

Do Iran or their affiliate groups have the capability to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier?

How Iran Could Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier 

In the final days of 2023, Iranian-state media outlets reported that its naval forces had developed a new cruise missile capable of reaching targets more than 600 miles away.

According to Tehran, the Talaeiyeh is a long-range “smart” missile that can switch targets and adjust course during flight.

The Nasir has short-range capabilities and can be launched from warships. News of these new missiles coincided with the attack on the Norwegian-owned tanker Strinda in mid-December.

The U.S. Central Command released that an Anti-Ship Cruise Missile launched from a Houthi-controlled region in Yemen struck the vessel. Since Hamas’ October 7 massacre, the Iranian-backed group has fired dozens of barrages of missile and drone attacks targeting vessels in the Red Sea.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Crazy Story Behind the Disturbing News. Part Four Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://victorhanson.com/the-crazy-story-behind-the-disturbing-news-part-four/

When Hatred Is Mainstreamed: The Strange Case of Joy Reid (Continued)

3) Given Reid’s free pass to collectively stereotype groups, mostly all whites in general, why—in an era in which cultural appropriation is a common leftist charge in matters of dress and grooming (do we remember the dreadlocks scandal in which whites were blasted for emulating African-American hairstyles?)—would Reid die her hair white/blond?

Note that hair and race are irrelevant. They only become so, when one sees racial differences as essential to our personas rather than incidental, such as Joy Reid herself.

That is, Reid has a long history of claiming hairstyles represent revolutionary politics. In the past, she claimed she deliberately wears her hair in a way that exudes black authenticity and naturalness. For example, a 2020 Forbes article took note of her MSNBC appearance: “It’s why Reid decided her history making new show was an opportunity to be intentional with her choice of hairstyle. It was indeed a political statement. Actually, her choice was a revolutionary act.” 

Or as Reid put it of her “revolutionary act,” “I think that Black women have come into our own in every aspect, including in insisting that we will be ourselves, including in the way we wear our hair. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to embrace our hair as it is, or how we reimagine it, and it’s an affirmation of our full arrival as citizens and cultural leaders. And yes, our natural hair is a political statement.”

If “our natural hair is a political statement,” what then is now Reid’s assessment of her latest style when she wears whitish blond dyed hair, even as she writes off the entire state of Iowa as overrepresented clueless white people who blindly vote for the evil Donald Trump?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How To Ensure a Big, Ugly War with Iran Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://victorhanson.com/how-to-ensure-a-big-ugly-war-with-iran/

Iranian-backed militias have attacked American installations and forces in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan some 170 times.

Ostensibly, these terrorist groups claim they are hitting US forces to coerce America into dropping its support of Israel and demanding a cease-fire in the Gaza war.

In reality, these satellite terrorists are being directed in a larger effort by Iran to pry the US. out of the Middle East, in the manner of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing.

That way, Iran will be free to fulfill its old dream of becoming a nuclear shield for a new Shiite/Persian terrorist axis from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut to the West Bank and Gaza—surrounding Israel and intimidating the Gulf regimes and more moderate states like Jordan and Egypt into concessions.

These Iranian appendages have made a number of unfortunately correct assumptions about America in general and the Biden administration in particular.

One, after the recent serial humiliations of the flight from Afghanistan, the passivity of watching a Chinese spy balloon traverse with impunity the continental United States, the mixed American signals on the eve of the Ukraine war, the troubled Pentagon’s recruitment and leadership lapses, and the destruction of the US southern border, both Iran and its surrogates feel that the United States either cannot or will do much of anything in response to their aggression.

They see the U.S. military short thousands of recruits, its leadership politicized, its munition stocks depleted by arms shipments to Ukraine and Israel, and the massive abandonment of weapons in Kabul.