RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/europe/afghanistan-eu-us-credibility.html

Afghanistan’s rapid unraveling is already raising grumblings about American credibility, compounding the wounds of the Trump years and reinforcing the idea that America’s backing for its allies is not unlimited.

The Taliban’s lightning advance comes at a moment when many in Europe and Asia had hoped that President Biden would reestablish America’s firm presence in international affairs, especially as China and Russia angle to extend their influence. Now, America’s retreat is bound to sow doubts.

“When Biden says ‘America is back,’ many people will say, ‘Yes, America is back home,’” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst.

“Few will gang up on the U.S. for finally stopping a failed enterprise,” he said. “Most people would say it should have happened a long time ago.’’ But in the longer term, he added, “the notion that you cannot count on the Americans will strike deeper roots because of Afghanistan.’’

The United States has been pulling back from military engagements abroad since President Obama, he noted, and under President Trump, “we had to prepare for a U.S. no longer willing to assume the burden of unlimited liability alliances.”

That hesitation will now be felt all the more strongly among countries in play in the world, like Taiwan, Ukraine, the Philippines and Indonesia, which can only please China and Russia, analysts suggest.

“What made the U.S. strong, powerful and rich was that from 1918 through 1991 and beyond, everybody knew we could depend on the U.S. to defend and stand up for the free world,” said Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

“The sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years and so much investment in lives and effort will see allies and potential allies around the world wondering whether they have to decide between democracies and autocracies, and realize some democracies don’t have staying power anymore,” he added.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17647/china-plan-shut-out-world

Moreover, crackdowns in Xi Jinping’s China never really end. They are more than just “wiggles,” as superstar hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio called them in a July 30 LinkedIn posting, as he attempted to explain away Beijing’s harsh moves against business.

The announcement follows a series of stunning attacks on private business.

Xi’s moves to force China’s companies off foreign exchanges could be in preparation for an expropriation of foreign shareholdings in Chinese businesses.

On August 11, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the central government’s State Council issued what the official Xinhua News Agency called “an outline on promoting the building of a rule of law government from 2021 to 2025, on the basis of the successful implementation of a previous 5-year plan.”

The Chinese party-state’s announcement included a promise to enact a series of laws on, among other things, national security, tech innovation, monopolies, education, health and quarantines, food and drugs, and foreigners.

“The announcement,” Reuters stated, “signals that a crackdown on industry with regard to privacy, data management, antitrust, and other issues will persist on through the year.”

Just “through the year”? By its own terms, the announcement makes clear that the crackdown will continue until at least the end of the ongoing 14th Five-Year Plan, in 2025.

Moreover, crackdowns in Xi Jinping’s China never really end. They are more than just “wiggles,” as superstar hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio called them in a July 30 LinkedIn posting, as he attempted to explain away Beijing’s harsh moves against business.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/we-once-waltzed-in-kabul?token=

Catastrophe. Calamity. Chaos. Humiliation. Tragedy.

All words that can be used to describe what we are witnessing right now in Afghanistan, 20 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

You can believe, as many people I respect do, that this war should have ended long ago. You can believe that it was always unwinnable and should have never started in the first place. You can believe that it was utterly naive that America ever thought that something resembling human rights could take root in this foreign land.

But the disgraceful, haunting scenes we are now witnessing— were those also a fait accompli? Of course not.

And I cannot look away from them. From the helicopters evacuating Americans from the U.S. embassy. From the Taliban flag flying over the presidential palace; and from the terrorists who hoisted it hosting a press conference inside. From the supposed leaders of the free world beseeching medieval barbarians to recognize “the international community,” warning them that “the world is watching.”

Saad Mohseni @saadmohseni
Another Saigon moment: chaotic scenes at Kabul International Airport. No security. None.

The most shameful and dishonorable part of this shameful and dishonorable exit is Washington’s abandonment of those Afghans who helped us, trapped by American bureaucracy and now by the Taliban itself.

The email inbox for emergency visa requests for Afghans who worked with American forces has reportedly crashed. “This is murder by incompetence,” said one former sergeant trying to get apply for Special Immigrant Visa on behalf of his Afghan counterpart.

Richard Engel @RichardEngel

There is so much to say about this unfolding catastrophe. In the coming days I will have pieces from the likes of Gen. H.R. McMaster, Justin Amash, Thomas Joscelyn, Nikky Haley and others explaining what this unraveling means for America and the world. If you haven’t yet subscribed, now is a great time to lend us your support:

But before the day was out I wanted to share this moving essay by the journalist Kathy Gilsinan, whom I have long admired, about her friends trapped in Kabul.

We hear a lot about privilege these days in America. Reading Kathy’s moving essay, I am overwhelmed by my own.

I am a free woman — a freedom hard-won and so very far from inevitable.

It’s a freedom that Afghans tasted and will now lose. A freedom that so many of them sacrificed to secure. Surely we owe them something more than abandonment? — BW

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17645/iran-damaged-wings

As the great Iranian theologian Kazem Assar put it: “Monarchy and Shi’ism are the two wings with which the Iranian eagle can soar to unimaginable heights.”
This time, however, things may turn out to be different as the Khomeinist regime has tried to clip off both wings of which Assar spoke.
Over the years, rather than the clergy taking over the state, it is the state that has tried to take over the clergy.
Under Khomeinism, state-appointed mullahs control vast enterprises that pay no taxes and are answerable to no one.
Isn’t it time to recognize the Khomeinist regime for what it really is: a banal despotism disguised as a clerical regime to confuse both Iranians and foreign Iranologists while trying to destroy not only Iran’s monarchic heritage but also its religious tradition?
More importantly, isn’t it time for the traditional clergy to end its often complicit silence about the damage that Khomeinism has done to Iran’s identity, culture, social cohesion, economy and even religion?

The past four decades in which the Khomeinist ideology has dominated Iranian state structures, a new breed of “Iranologists” has emerged in Western academic and media circles. Most old Iranologists saw Iran as a glorious but long dead civilization distinguished by religious tolerance, ethnic diversity and an abiding love of artistic creativity. Those who focused on Iran’s story after the advent of Islam recognized monarchy and the Shi’ite clerical institution that, while at times in conflict, played complementary roles in Iranian society.

With the seizure of power in 1979 by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a new breed of Iranologists emerged to declare the definite end of monarchy in Iran and the advent of a theocratic regime backed by re-energized clergy.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-new-china-reality-nobuo-kishi-military-11628799373?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

The drumbeat of concern from America’s most important Asian ally about China’s military rise is getting louder. Last month Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso warned that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could threaten Japan’s “survival.” Now Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi has bluntly acknowledged America’s relative decline in the Western Pacific and the need for Japan to assert itself militarily to fill the void.

The remarks came in an interview with Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. Mr. Kishi “said the shifting power balance between the US and China ‘has become very conspicuous’ while a military battle over Taiwan had ‘skewed greatly in favour of China,’” the paper reports. He added that China “is trying to change the status quo unilaterally backed by force and coercion” and said “we must build a structure where we can protect ourselves.”

Japanese officials are normally soft-spoken in public, but China’s immense military buildup has become impossible to ignore. According to a new Lowy Institute report by military analyst Thomas Shugart, China has “become the world’s premier sea power by most measures,” adding 80 warships to its navy in the last five years while the U.S. added 36.

Measured by warship tonnage, China’s naval expansion since 2016 easily outpaced the expansion of the U.S. Pacific fleet and the allied “Quad” navies of India, Japan and Australia combined, the report finds. The U.S. Navy retains some qualitative advantages, but quantity eventually overwhelms quality.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/taliban-seize-kandahar-prepare-to-march-on-kabul-11628846975

KABUL—The Taliban pressed their rapid advance across Afghanistan with the capture of Kandahar, the nation’s second-largest city and the Islamist movement’s birthplace, and next threatened Kabul, prompting the U.S. to send thousands of troops for a diplomatic evacuation.

After 20 years of war, much of what the U.S. sought to accomplish in Afghanistan crumbled in just one week. The insurgent movement controlled none of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals until it seized the remote city of Zaranj just a week earlier, Aug. 6.

During that advance, Afghan security forces, meant to number 350,000 men, often surrendered without a fight, with soldiers giving up American-bought weaponry and taking advantage of Taliban promises of amnesty. Politicians in the U.S.-backed government in Kabul continued to squabble, with some senior officials quietly slipping abroad, at a time when unity was required the most.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17633/iran-sea-war

While the Iranian mullahs have been busy breaching two critical international laws, the international community — especially the United States, EU and UN Security Council — have remained silent.

If it were Israel that carried out such a deadly attack, the international community would be up in arms trying to take tough actions against the tiny state.

Worse, the Biden administration and the EU probably still want to revive the catastrophic nuclear deal and lift sanctions against Iran’s lawless and predatory regime.

The Iranian regime has ratcheted up its assaults at sea while the Biden administration and the European Union continue pressing to revive the disastrous Obama nuclear deal and lift sanctions against the ruling mullahs.

On July 30, 2021, the oil tanker MV Mercer Street was attacked by an armed drone 280km from the port of Al-Daqam in the Sea of Oman. Two crew members, one British and one Romanian, were killed in the attack. The ship is Japanese-owned and Liberian-flagged, and is managed by Zodiac Maritime, a British company that is one of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s businesses.

Many countries — including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Israel — concluded that the Iranian regime was behind the deadly attack. Following an investigation by an expert team from the US Defense Department, which inspected the MV Mercer Street following the attack, the US Central Command wrote in a statement:

“The use of Iranian designed and produced one way attack ‘kamikaze’ UAVs is a growing trend in the region. They are actively used by Iran and their proxies against coalition forces in the region, to include targets in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.”