RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/08/why-us-sending-3000-navy-marines-force-persian-gulf

A contingent of more than 3,000 US Navy personnel and Marines sailed into the Suez Canal on Sunday as the Biden administration weighs options to deter Iran from seizing commercial tanker ships in the Persian Gulf region.

The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with sailors and Marines of an Amphibious Ready Group led by the USS Bataan and accompanied by the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall, will provide “greater flexibility and maritime capability” to the United States’ Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, the Navy announced today.

What that means: The Pentagon has remained mum on specifically how it intends to employ the Marines, but their arrival is part of a wider buildup of US forces in the region which defense officials described as a response to Iran’s renewed attempts to seize commercial tankers.

The deployment brings additional aircraft, helicopters and amphibious landing craft to join a dozen US F-35s, as well as F-16 and A-10 aircraft and Navy guided-missile destroyers that have already arrived in the region in recent weeks and months to ramp up joint patrols in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has escalated its attempts to seize commercial ships in Gulf waterways in recent months following the US Justice Department’s confiscation of a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, the Suez Rajan, carrying Iranian fuel to China in April. An Iranian navy vessel opened fire on a Chevron-chartered tanker in international waters off the coast of Oman last month after the civilian ship refused orders to stop.

Iran’s navy and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have harassed or seized control of at least 20 commercial shipping tankers in the region over the past two years, according to the US 5th Fleet’s numbers.

Iran’s moves have further driven a wedge into the United States’ strategic ties with Gulf states, as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates look to reduce their dependency on Washington for defense.

“It’s drawn Gulf states closer to Iran,” one American official told Al-Monitor last week. “It sends a signal to regional partners that in the absence of US forces, the US is not serious about security.”

Al-Monitor reported last week that senior Defense Department officials have been putting the finishing touches on proposals for wider legal authorities in coordination with the White House to enable the military to intervene more directly to prevent Iran’s seizures of commercial tankers.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19867/iran-russia-evade-sanctions

The Biden Administration also tried to deny that it had issued another waiver to Iraq to pay $500 million to the Iranian regime. According to a report by the Free Beacon, the waiver was issued “a day after Biden administration officials denied Iran’s claims that the United States had paved the way for Tehran to receive the $500 million.”

The regime will most likely use the funds to further arm and assist Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, to brutalize its own citizens, to undermine US national security interests, to fund its terrorist and militia groups across the Middle East and to expand more deeply into Latin America.

“Of course the Biden administration lied that they wouldn’t waive sanctions on Iran just days before they did so. They know that by allowing money to pour into Iran, they are not only endangering the safety and security of Americans but also undermining everything they claim to believe about defeating Putin. They say that Iran is a terror sponsor and Russia’s top military backer, but appeasing Iran and getting back into a nuclear deal with the Ayatollah is more important to them. They are funding both sides of the Ukraine war.” — Senator Ted Cruz, Free Beacon, March 24, 2023.

Russia is learning from Iran on how to evade sanctions as well…. Examples include: “the switching of ownership of companies and properties to family members or affiliates, the use of trading companies to source foreign exchange….”

Russia and Iran have signed an agreement to build a sanction-proof $1.7 billion intercontinental rail system for global trade in an apparent effort to compete with the Suez Canal. To bypass sanctions, Iran and Russia in February 2023 also signed an agreement to integrate their banking systems.

Iran recently joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), headed up by Russia and China. The SCO will allow the mullahs to further increase their trade and revenues in spite of sanctions.

Last year, the Biden Administration issued a waiver that had been rescinded by the Trump Administration, permitting companies from Europe, Russia and China to advance work in Iran’s nuclear sites. This was most likely done in the hope of reviving the nuclear deal…

Only because of the Biden administration’s weak leadership, policies of appeasement and reluctance to seriously enforce sanctions have Russia and Iran been able to create so much devastation at such an unprecedented level.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/01/wasted-years-bidens-foreign-policy-record/

U.S. foreign policy under President Biden has been defined by the combination of the failure to advance U.S. national interests and support for the progress of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The administration continues to act as though the threat from the PRC is not an urgent or an existential one where every moment matters. As such, the PRC’s comprehensive national power has continued to grow, as does its global influence. This matters because no matter who is president in January 2025, the U.S. has lost precious time in its confrontation with China.

U.S. foreign policy under Biden has suffered in four major areas.

First, in Europe, the Biden administration’s continued support for the attritional war in Ukraine serves to drain U.S. defense resources with no end to the conflict in sight. The administration will likely make a push to end the war in 2024 due to the U.S. presidential election cycle. This will be true whether Biden is the candidate for reelection or has been replaced by another. This continues while simmering unrest in Kosovo threatens to destabilize the western Balkans with inattention from the administration. Moreover, our British allies have been poorly treated by this administration due to the president’s apparent hostility stemming from his Irish ancestry. However, the greatest failure of the Biden administration in Europe is that it has not pressed Europe to decouple its economy from China. While there is clear evidence that Europe is looking to the U.S. for leadership on this matter, unfortunately, the U.S. has abandoned the Trump administration’s effort to decouple its economy from the PRC.

Second, in Asia, Biden’s failure is profound. Taiwan remains inadequately armed and supported by the U.S., while the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues planning and preparations for its invasion of the island. Every day counts to bolster Taiwan’s ability to deter an attack with conventional weapons. The time lost will impose a terrific cost when the PLA does attack – and attack it will. Senior U.S. officers have warned of a Chinese attack. In March 2021, Admiral Philip Davidson, then commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, stated that China would attack Taiwan before 2027. In October 2022, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday warned that rather than a 2027 window for Chinese aggression, it may come in a 2023 window. The former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, warned many times against the impending threat from China. Most recently, U.S. Air Force General Mike Minihan explained in a leaked January 2023 memo that PRC would attack in 2025. The halting measures Biden has taken are insufficient for a conventional deterrent.

Third, the Middle East, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific remain arenas of China’s expansion. Iran retains warmed relations with China while the UAE and Saudi Arabia build an increasingly close relationship with Beijing. The Venezuelan government and the new one in Brazil are proudly pro-China. China’s intelligence collection facility in Cuba appears to be expanding and will no doubt soon be expanded to permit a greater number of People’s Liberation Army forces. In Africa, the Chinese military presence continues to grow, with a base in Djibouti and a new one likely in one of the many West African nations that Beijing has cultivated around the Gulf of Guinea. China’s relationships with Angola and, increasingly, Nigeria are alarming. In the Pacific, the familiar pattern of economic investment becoming political influence is witnessed from the Solomon Islands to Kiribati. Biden’s cancellation of his visit to Papua New Guinea and of his visit to Australia to address the parliament is a stain that will not soon be forgotten.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19836/biden-axis-of-tyrannies

[T]he weak and possibly compromised administration of U.S. President Joe Biden appears to have enabled and empowered the autocrats of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, all of whom seem to be working overtime to create a new authoritarian world order with themselves at the helm.

Iran, which has already declared a new world order, is, even beyond its accelerating nuclear weapons program, swiftly trying to reshape the world militarily and geopolitically wherever Western nations appear to be losing power. The Iranian regime also appears to be wasting no time indoctrinating it citizens with anti-Western and anti-American points of view.

Since the Biden Administration assumed office in 2021, its vacuum of leadership in the Middle East has led to the increasing influence of China and Iran in the region; the decision by the Gulf nations to dodge the US and tilt towards China, and even to the China-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran that further sidelines the U.S.

“The Chinese have a strategy they’ve been following. We kind of wander around from day to day.” – Former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, WABC 770 radio, March 12, 2023.

In November 2022, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed, “Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about America will no longer have any important role.” The Iranian regime, now that it is aligned with Putin’s Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, would probably be delighted to conquer the US.

As the Biden Administration has unfortunately created a leadership vacuum throughout the world, its apparent risk-paralysis and feeble leadership seem quickly to be leading to a new world order led by the Axis of Tyrannies: China, Russia and Iran, with North Korea heading up the rear.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19839/china-outmaneuvered-biden

U.S. policy toward China appears to be suffering from a belief in magic – that, for instance, withdrawing from Afghanistan would be a great idea; that Putin would be happy with a “minor incursion” into Ukraine; that the Chinese spy balloon was “silly;” that the mission of education and the military should be to ensure “equity,” leading one veteran to say that the US is “trying to out-pronoun our enemies;” and that America’s southern border, with agents trying to process reportedly 8,000 illegal migrants each day, thereby leaving vast swaths of land open to traffickers, smugglers and terrorists, is “secure.”

Regrettably, the Biden Administration seems to be letting itself be outmaneuvered in countering the imminent threat of war posed by China’s leader Xi Jinping and his ruling Communist Party.

Blinken swallowed the airport insult and met anyway with, among others, his Chinese counterpart and Xi himself. They held what the State Department called “a productive conversation, a real exchange.” Chinese officials likewise said the talks were “candid, in-depth and constructive.” Oh good! Then we have nothing to worry about!

At home, Xi has continued to tighten party control over the economy even as economic growth has faltered and unemployment climbed. Why pursue antagonistic policies abroad and counter-productive ones at home?

Xi’s objectives are not economic growth or good relations but rather to insulate China from outside sanctions and other pressure like that, orchestrated by the United States and NATO against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. — J. Kyle Bass, founder of Texas-based Hayman Capital Management, July 12, 2023.

“The day Yellen landed in China, Xi told the Eastern Military Command to prepare for war. I think it’s highly likely he invades Taiwan.” Not by 2027, as estimated by U.S. intelligence, but “in 12 to 18 months.” — J. Kyle Bass, July 12, 2023.

U.S. policy toward China appears to be suffering from a belief in magic – that, for instance, withdrawing from Afghanistan would be a great idea; that Putin would be happy with a “minor incursion” into Ukraine; that the Chinese spy balloon was “silly;” that the mission of education and the military should be to ensure “equity,” leading one veteran to say that the US is “trying to out-pronoun our enemies;” and that America’s southern border, with agents trying to process reportedly 8,000 illegal migrants each day, thereby leaving vast swaths of land open to traffickers, smugglers and terrorists, is “secure.”

Regrettably, the Biden Administration seems to be letting itself be outmaneuvered in countering the imminent threat of war posed by China’s leader Xi Jinping and his ruling Communist Party.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rewarding-an-inimical-iran/

“It is dead, but we are not gonna announce it,” Joe Biden said of the Iran nuclear deal in a surreptitiously recorded video last year. “Long story,” he added. The story isn’t really that long. Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran was never ratified as a treaty by the GOP-led U.S. Senate, which warned that a future Republican administration would void the agreement. That’s exactly what happened. The end.

But while the Biden administration may privately accept this reality, it seems to believe that it is obliged to behave as though the JCPOA can be resurrected. Since he took office, the president has made a variety of fruitless overtures to the Iranian regime, the most recent of which occurred this week.

According to Reuters, a U.S. official confirmed that Washington had provided the government in Baghdad with a waiver allowing it to purchase Iranian electricity via non-Iraqi banks. The State Department has retailed the move as a humanitarian initiative — “a step Washington hopes may keep Tehran from forcing unpopular power cuts during the sweltering Iraqi summer,” the Reuters report read. But the currency waiver is a concession to Tehran.

The latest waiver was expanded to permit payments to banks outside Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government, apparently in the hopes that this might transfer some of the pressure that Iran has exerted on Baghdad to other countries.

“We have to help the Iraqis with this perennial pressure from the Iranians to access the money,” said the U.S. official.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that “these funds will remain in accounts where they can only be used for non-sanctionable activity, and with every transaction approved in advance by the Department of Treasury.” But coming on the heels of the Treasury Department’s decision to sanction 14 Iraqi banks over allegations that they were siphoning money for Iran, the waiver provides Tehran with new access to hard currency that the Islamic Republic desperately needs.