RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/frances-trump-out-running-president-bruce-bawer/

Even before he announced for president, the French media were out there, along with prominent academics and sundry bien pensant observers, warning potential voters that he was a “populist,” a “polemicist,” and a “provocateur” who was “obsessed with Islam” – and not, mind you, in an an affectionate, Obama-like way – and hence patently “dangerous,” “divisive,” and “discriminatory.” Worst of all, as you could tell from reading his books, including the huge 2004 bestseller Le Suicide français, Éric Zemmour subscribed – as do the majority of his countrymen – to the “Great Replacement” theory, which posits that the people of France are in the process of being supplanted by Muslims and their society, culture, and laws are gradually giving way to their Islamic counterparts.

On November 30, Zemmour released a seven-minute video in which he officially declared his candidacy. In powerful words matched with equally powerful images that contrasted present-day France with the France of history, he stated: “You walk the streets of your city and you don’t recognize it. You look at your screens and you are spoken to in a language that is strange and, quite frankly, foreign….you have the impression that you are no longer in the country you know.” He cited the threats posed by mass Muslim immigration to French liberty, French civilization, French film and food and fashion and “the charm of our art of living.” It was, I commented at the time, “an oration for the ages.” And of course the elites sneered: in the New Yorker, the execrable Adam Gopnick compared Zemmour to Hitler and Stalin.

In fact Zemmour seemed to be the only candidate for president of France who was truly serious about – and remotely capable of – saving it from an Islamic future. But despite that stirring kick-off video, and despite what should have been a sensational endorsement by Marion Maréchal, the niece of perennial “far-right” presidential also-ran, Marine Le Pen, his campaign went nowhere. Yes, even before his announcement he’d drained support from Le Pen; but she recovered. Then Valérie Pécresse entered the race, echoing many of Zemmour’s talking points, and not only briefly captured the attention of the media but also briefly stole the #2 spot in the public-opinion polls from Le Pen.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18425/ukraine-germany-morals

Questions are being belatedly asked — and grudgingly answered — about many aspects of Merkel’s failed Russia policy, including her decisions to block Ukraine’s prospective membership in NATO, gut the German military, undermine the transatlantic alliance, and institutionalize Germany’s overdependence on Russian energy supplies.

The responsibility for Germany’s failed Russia policy goes far beyond Merkel: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and a large cross section of Germany’s business, media and political elite have supported — and continue to support — pro-Russia (as well as pro-China and pro-Iran) policies that sacrifice democracy, human rights, and the rule of law on the altar of financial gain.

“The president of Germany is not ready to admit any of his huge personal responsibility for the failure of Berlin’s Russia policy mistake. Even in times of such a war he wants to build new bridges with Russia.” — Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk, interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“The modus operandi of German & EU politics is the indefinite postponement of conflicts. This seemed to have worked well in times of peace (though not in relation to Russia, obviously). The consequences of such an approach in times of war can be catastrophic.” — Stefan Auer, Professor of European studies, University of Hong Kong.

“The problem in my view is one of mindset…. This Zeitenwende [turning point in German-Russian relations] will only succeed if it arrives in the heads of an entire complacent generation of boomer politicians in Germany who have to accept that their naïveté, egocentrism and smug self-righteous conviction in the supposed higher morality of their actions has directly contributed to the greatest catastrophe in European politics since 1945.” — Georg Löfflmann, a German professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick

“Germany’s stubborn insistence on engaging with the Russian leader in the face of his sustained aggression (a catalog of misdeeds ranging from the invasion of Georgia to assassinations of enemies abroad and war crimes in Syria) was nothing short of a catastrophic blunder, one that will earn Merkel a place in the pantheon of political naiveté alongside Neville Chamberlain.” — Matt Karnitschnig, Chief Europe Correspondent, Politico.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a long-overdue reevaluation of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy of appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/iran-plays-hide-and-seek-iaea-hugh-fitzgerald/

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the body responsible for monitoring and inspecting Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has in the past has kept hidden from the IAEA certain sites, of whose existence the agency became aware only after the Mossad managed to locate and bring to the West in 2018 Iran’s entire nuclear archive, which provided the evidence of those top-secret well-hidden sites. But even where the IAEA knew of the existence of sites where Iran’s nuclear program was proceeding, its inspection teams were in some cases required to give Iran a long lead time of warning before going to a particular site, which allowed Iran to remove any incriminating evidence of activities it was not permitted to engage in, including the enrichment of uranium to a level of 60%, just below weapons grade. And Iran continues to keep certain sites off-limits to the IAEA inspectors altogether, like the facilities built deep inside the mountain at Fordow, or underground at Natanz.

This past December, after months of wrangling, the IAEA was at long last allowed to inspect the site at Karaj, where Iran had a workshop that made centrifuge parts. It seemed like a clear victory for the IAEA, but it was short-lived. For now Iran has moved all of its machines out of Karaj to its site at Natanz (it’s not clear if it is an aboveground, or underground, facility). In addition, Iran has set up a another site in Isfahan, where it will also produce parts for advanced centrifuges. A report on these sites, and Iran’s managing to play hide-and-seek with the IAEA, is here: “Iran moves equipment for making centrifuge parts to Natanz – IAEA,” Reuters, April 6, 2022:

Iran has moved all its machines that make centrifuge parts from its mothballed workshop at Karaj to its sprawling Natanz site just six weeks after it set up another site at Isfahan to make the same parts, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18417/china-taking-over-africa

“America cannot ignore Africa. Africa’s challenges, opportunities, and security interests are inseparable from our own…. Our competitors clearly see Africa’s rich potential. Russia and China both seek to convert soft and hard power investments into political influence, strategic access, and military advantage. China’s economic and diplomatic engagements allow it to buttress autocracies and change international norms in a patient effort to claim their second continent.” — General Stephen Townsend, Commander of United States Africa Command, Senate Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2022.

About 40 out of Africa’s 54 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013. BRI aims to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting China with Europe, Africa and beyond, and has already strengthened China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.

“China is dependent on Africa for imports of fossil fuels and commodities… 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.” — US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 annual report to Congress.

In June 2021, in an extremely belated attempt to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Biden administration together with the G7 launched a new global infrastructure initiative, the Build Back Better World (B3W)…. The initiative, however, comes across as far too little, too late. Between 2007 and 2020, China invested $23 billion in infrastructure projects in Africa, according to the Center for Global Development, a US think tank. That is reportedly “$8 billion more than… the other top eight lenders combined…”

It will be very near impossible for the US or others to catch up on that, especially with the planned B3W initiative, because that initiative is not focused on much-needed tangible investments. Instead, its four focus areas are climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.

“More troubling is B3W’s apparent excision of hard physical infrastructure from its remit… In Africa, which lags all other regions of the world in the availability of paved roads and electricity [and rail], that deficit that deficit is set to grow without a massive influx of hard infrastructure investment…” — Gyude Moore, senior policy fellow, Center for Global Development, African Business, February 13, 2022.

In the absence of a serious coordinated international effort, China will go on to fill that infrastructure gap, as it continues to consolidate its influence in Africa while the US lags behind.

China continues to deepen its engagement in Africa on all levels. Recently it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity with African countries. In March alone, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held bilateral talks with his African counterparts in Algeria, Egypt, The Gambia, Niger, Somalia, Tanzania and Zambia. The talks came only two months after Wang Yi visited Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros. Also in March, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a phone conversation with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during which the two spoke about deepening cooperation between the two countries. Ramaphosa affirmed that he supports China’s policies on Taiwan, Tibet, and other “major issues”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18420/france-presidential-election

While Macron appears well on his way to being re-elected, it is appropriate first to draw a balance sheet of his actions as president. For five years, his term has been marked by political scandals that all had the same origin: the desire of this president, with his background in investment banking, to make the state work like a start-up — that is to say, to make the state work without the state’s services.

Macron has tried to create a private militia that works around the security organization of the presidency of the Republic… also in the name of efficiency, he has asked consulting firms (such as McKinsey; Boston Consulting Group, Accenture), in place of the large state institutions and ministries, to formulate polices on the environment, health, security, labor and retirement.

Distrust and contempt sparked the Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) protest movement in 2019, when an increase in fuel prices provoked months of demonstrations by France’s working class — those whom globalization has relegated to the outskirts of large cities and who need their cars to go to work. This protest movement, despised and misunderstood, was repressed by the police with extreme violence.

Macron did not, however, despise everyone. He has given the greatest consideration to Islam and Muslim immigration. During his five-year term, immigration from Africa, North Africa and Asia was not considered a danger, but an “opportunity” for France.

Despite this catastrophic record, it is likely that Macron will be re-elected on April 24. By whom? Who are his voters? First of all, let us specify that one out of four voters did not even vote. Yet it is precisely Le Pen’s electorate who are suffering from this situation: namely, young people and the working classes.

Macron’s voters are mainly retired people, executives, and inhabitants of big cities. Executives benefit from globalization, and the elderly and retired people do not like what appears to a revolution; they are afraid of the radical changes proposed by candidates such as Zemmour or Le Pen.

The elderly are not the majority, but they vote.

Marine Le Pen and the incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron will face each other in the second round of the French presidential election on April 24. The results of yesterday’s first round, with 97% of the votes tallied, show Macron coming out ahead with 27.6% of the vote, followed by Le Pen at 23.4%.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18416/turkey-islamists-bearing-gifts

Then there was what turned out to be a myth about the success of Turkish drones used by the Ukrainian army inflicting “huge” damage on the invading Russian columns. Drones, regardless of their capabilities, cannot be game-changers in a conflict with such vastly asymmetrical military might. The West must send jets, tanks, anti-aircraft, anti-armor and anti-ship missiles, and other weapons to Ukraine to repel Russia’s Chinese-backed aggression — fast — or the US and Europe will soon find themselves enmeshed in wars even messier to fight.

What else does Erdoğan — who is and always has been ideologically anti-Western — think he can win from the West by his hoax charm offensive?

Erdoğan seems to think that just because the madman of Russia did something mad, he, the president of Turkey, can once again fool the West by posing as a pro-Western ally. Let’s do a reality check….

Believing that the TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles could be game-changers in Ukraine is similar to thinking that the Turkish drones could be used to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, former CIA official Paul Kolbe suggested that “Turkey should send Ukraine the Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems.” Turkey said, however, that it dismissed the idea of transferring those systems to Ukraine to help Kyiv resist Russian troops.

The West’s primary weapon against the Russian aggression is sanctions. Who is in it? And who is not? As Western governments targeted Roman Abramovich and several other Russian oligarchs with sanctions to isolate Putin and his allies — but not most Russian oligarchs or businesses — a second super-yacht linked to the Russian billionaire docked in a Turkish resort. In addition, no one seems to be touching the $700 million yacht docked in Italy and reportedly owned by Putin.

A source in Ankara told Reuters that given the sanctions imposed elsewhere, Abramovich and other wealthy Russians were looking to invest in Turkey…. Another source in Ankara said Turkey was not currently considering joining the sanctions action against Russia and was expecting wealthy Russians to purchase assets and make investments.

Turkey apparently hopes to get all it can from this “Christian-to-Christian” conflict: Let the infidels destroy each other as Turkey cashes in with geostrategic gains and spill-over Russian business from the West.

Few people could imagine that on a cold March day in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, the presidential corps, after more than a decade of hostility to its neighbor Israel, would welcome Israeli President Isaac Herzog by playing Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva, with two presidential guards holding Turkish and Israeli flags on horseback. Pundits were quick to talk about a “reset in relations,” or a “historic visit.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he now intends to host Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Ankara.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/04/putin-should-have-brushed-up-on-his-clausewitz/

“The one lesson to be learned from this blatant land-grabbing invasion driven by nationalistic factors is that history repeats itself as both tragedy and farce. Clausewitz, as ever, could have predicted the outcome. Whatever happens, the Free World is behind the Ukrainians in their determination to defend their land. If the axiom that generals are always fighting the last war is applied, it would seem that this has been ignored by the Russian High Command – and to their cost. Whatever is to follow, we are seeing Stalingrad in reverse.”

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
                                                                                   –– Carl von Clausewitz

Six weeks after the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, both military experts and the watching public are more than a little surprised at developments and reconsidering views of fixed certainty that preceded the invasion. Against all odds and contrary to what was expected, the Ukrainians, with a far smaller army and less access to the latest in high-tech weapons, have more than held their own, preventing the Russians from taking any major cities, taking a great toll of their armour and planes and, of late, even advancing from their defensive lines.

None of this was supposed to happen. According to the rules of war, superiority in numbers is essential for victory: “Quantity equals quantity,” Stalin is reported to have said. The blitzkrieg plan was intended to destroy Ukraine’s airfields and air force, followed by an onslaught of armour and infantry supported by drone, artillery and missiles to take the capital Kyiv.

Far from it. Hand-held missiles have contained the airborne onslaught – Russian planes are now rarely seen –  as well as destroying many helicopters. Taking into account that truth is the first casualty, media photos have shown so many shots of destroyed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles that it is clear the armed fist of the invading force has lost its potency. In addition, hordes of soldiers have deserted, surrendered or been captured. Nor have the invaders presented an image of determination or aggression; rather, they come across as frightened and distraught young men bewildered to even be in a war, not having been told before that they were in an invasion. The interviews of tearful lads appealing to their mothers is not a good look in a well-drilled, disciplined and motivated army.