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FOREIGN POLICY

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Obama’s Israel Surprise? Fears grow of a final days presidential ambush at the U.N.

By on November 1st, 2016

The Middle East has few bright spots these days, but one is the budding rapprochement between Israel and its Sunni Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, thanks to shared threats from Iran and Islamic State. Now the Obama Administration may have plans to wreck even that.

Israeli diplomats gird for the possibility that President Obama may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel and the Palestinians at the United Nations. The White House has been unusually tight-lipped about what, if anything, it might have in mind. But our sources say the White House has asked the State Department to develop an options menu for the President’s final weeks.

One possibility would be to sponsor, or at least allow, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction, perhaps alongside new IRS regulations revoking the tax-exempt status of people or entities involved in settlement building. The Administration vetoed such a resolution in 2011 on grounds that it “risks hardening the position of both sides,” which remains true.
But condemning the settlements has always been a popular way of scoring points against the Jewish state, not least at the State Department, and an antisettlement resolution might burnish Mr. Obama’s progressive brand for his postpresidency.

Mr. Obama may also seek formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the Security Council. This would run afoul of Congress’s longstanding view that “Palestine” does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood, including a defined territory and effective government, though Mr. Obama could overcome the objection through his usual expedient of an executive action, thereby daring the next President to reverse him.

Both actions would be a boon to the bullies in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, while also subjecting Israeli citizens and supporters abroad to new and more aggressive forms of legal harassment. It could even criminalize the Israeli army—and every reservist who serves in it—on the theory that it is illegally occupying a foreign state. Does Mr. Obama want to be remembered as the President who criminalized Israeli citizenship?

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Meet Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State Send a $200 million check to Iran. Daniel Greenfield

By on October 31st, 2016

September 11, 2001 has come and gone. Countless bodies lie scattered in fragments around where two of the country’s tallest skyscrapers once stood. Some have burned to ash. Others had their throats slashed by Islamic terrorists. Still others fought and died on a plane to prevent another Islamic terror attack from taking place.

But Joe has an idea. Joe is a guy with lots of big ideas and this one is a real doozy.

The Senator from Delaware has come a long way since his days as a sixties shyster drumming up business in Wilmington. His formerly bald head is covered in hair so shiny is gleams under neon lights. His teeth are capped and shine almost as brightly. After a generation holding down a squeaky seat in the Senate, seniority makes him a man to be reckoned with. And therefore a man to be listened to.

Even if you wish he would shut up.

“I’m groping here,” Joe says. For once he isn’t referring to his notorious habits with women that will go on to make him the star of countless viral photographs, massaging, squeezing, caressing. Instead he’s talking about foreign policy. The Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has no clue.

Joe is worried that the Muslims will think badly of us after they murdered thousands of us. And he has a plan to make them feel better.

“Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Senator Joe Biden says.

The remark isn’t quite as random as it seems. The Senator from Delaware, a state not known for its large Muslim or Iranian population, has a friendly relationship with the Iran Lobby. That relationship will only grow friendlier during the Bush era as he attacks America and appeases its enemies.

Iranian-Americans who hate the Jihadist government that has taken over their country and oppressed the Persian people are outraged when he attends a fundraiser at a pro-Iranian lobbyist’s home in California while treasonously attacking his own government for naming Iran one of the members of the ‘Axis of Evil’.

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At the U.N., Another Obama Kowtow to the Castro Regime The U.S. abstained in the annual vote to condemn its embargo of Cuba. By Elliott Abrams

By on October 28th, 2016

Today, for the first time ever, the United States abstained in the annual United Nations General Assembly vote to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba. Needless to say, President Obama is very proud, Ben Rhodes is very proud, John Kerry is very proud, and our ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, is especially proud.

Power’s remarks to the General Assembly were a perfect rendition of the Obama approach to Cuba, which is to say they were full of apologies about the United States and falsehoods about Cuba. Let’s take a look.

First, Power said that “after 50-plus years of pursuing the path of isolation, we have chosen to take the path of engagement. Because, as President Obama said in Havana, we recognize that the future of the island lies in the hands of the Cuban people, of course.” The Obama policy has been to engage with Cuban regime, not the Cuban people — who are suffering worse repression since Obama signed his deal with Castro. In what possible sense does the future of the Cuban people, suffering under a Communist dictatorship, lie in their own hands? It quite obviously lies in the hands of the Castros, their anointed successors, and the Communist party of Cuba.

Because Obama’s policy was to give the regime all the new advantages it has gotten without demanding anything serious in exchange – without demanding human-rights improvements, for example — an observer might think that perhaps Obama just doesn’t care much about the rights of the Cuban people. No, no! Power tells us that

abstaining on this resolution does not mean that the United States agrees with all of the policies and practices of the Cuban government. We do not. We are profoundly concerned by the serious human-rights violations that the Cuban government continues to commit with impunity against its own people — including arbitrarily detaining those who criticize the government; threatening, intimidating, and, at times, physically assaulting citizens who take part in peaceful marches and meetings; and severely restricting the access that people on the island have to outside information.

We are profoundly concerned, and what are we going to do about it? Give the regime more free gifts, it seems. There is no hint in what Power said at the U.N. of any additional pressure on Cuba to stop beating and jailing dissidents. None.

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Obama’s Sinking Ship in the Pacific He neglected relations with the Philippines, which has now pivoted towards China. By Arthur Herman

By on October 28th, 2016

The words “Obama” and “disaster” go together all too well these days. To name just a few, there’s Obama’s Middle East disaster, the Obamacare disaster, Obama’s economic disaster, and Obama’s Europe disaster, including Putin’s annexation of Crimea and the refugee crisis sweeping the continent — a crisis triggered by Obama’s Middle East disaster.

And now we have Obama’s Pacific disaster, which may have cost us America’s oldest ally in the region, the Philippines. Its president, Rodrigo Duterte, has been on an anti-American tirade since the G20 summit in early September. He’s denounced Obama to his face as a “son of a bitch” and canceled any future joint military exercises with the U.S. “America has lost,” he’s been quoted as saying, meaning we’ve lost out to the other great power in the Pacific, China. Duterte has just finished up trips to Beijing, to court Chinese president Xi Jinping, and to Japan, where Duterte said it was time for all foreign troops to leave his island nation — including the handful of planes and 200 personnel we sent to our former air base at Clark Field to monitor Chinese moves in the Pacific’s hottest hot spot, the South China Sea.

Granted, Duterte is an acknowledged nut case. Granted, too, U.S.–Philippine relations have had their ups and downs, with previous low spots including the Fernando Marcos years and President Corazon Aquino’s closure of our bases at Clark and Subic Bay in 1991. Still, Douglas MacArthur must be somersaulting in his grave. The idea that the country for whose protection and then liberation he dedicated so much of his life; the country whose soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with ours to fight the Japanese army to a standstill on Bataan in 1942, and then hailed MacArthur as their savior when he kept his promise, “I shall return,” in 1944; the country that U.S. Special Ops troops have helped to save from al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents since 9/11 — the idea that the Philippines would abandon its treaty alliance with the United States to join up with China, a nation with which Manila has been feuding for years, would seem outrageous, even contrary to nature.

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How the Iran deal is empowering America’s enemies By Amir Basiri

By on October 28th, 2016

In an attempt to prevent the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from falling apart, U.S. President Barack Obama continues to pursue the failed policy of appeasement and giving concessions to the Iranian regime. The latest round includes the easing of financial restrictions against sanctioned entities such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and paying a hefty ransom to free Americans held hostage by Iran.

There are two fundamental mistakes in the current administration’s approach toward Iran: First, it is assumed that that the nuclear deal will solve all the problems the international community is faced with in respect with Iran. And second, it is believed that doling out concessions to the government of Hassan Rouhani will strengthen the so-called “moderates” against the ambitions of the “hard-liners.”

Both beliefs have proven to be wrong since the nuclear deal was hammered and came into effect. As opposed to what the proponents of the appeasement policy hoped, the Iranian regime has become more aggressive in its illicit activities, including the funding and export of terrorism and the violation of human rights.

In the past month alone, U.S. ships off the coast of Yemen were attacked on several occasions by Houthis, a rebel group that is backed, funded and trained by the Iranian regime. Now thanks to the easing of sanctions, Tehran will be even better positioned to further funnel cash and weapons to the Houthis and its other terrorist proxies in Iraq and Lebanon — many of which have a known history of attacking and murdering U.S. troops — and to further aid the regime of Bashar al-Assad in slaughtering the people of Syria.

But aside from fueling its indirect enmities, the Iranian regime is also becoming bolder in its direct moves against the U.S. interests. Having tasted the hostage ransom business, Tehran has become more aggressive in its arrest and detention of foreign nationals. Last week, the Iranian regime sentenced two U.S. citizens to 10 years in prison under espionage charges, and earlier, a British woman was given a five-year prison sentence for unknown charges. The U.S. nationals were arrested by the IRGC, the same entity that recently dispatched boats to intercept and harass U.S. vessels in the strait of Hormuz, and the same entity that will be the main beneficiary of the easing of economic sanctions against Iran.

There are two main lessons to be drawn from the continued failed policy of the Obama administration toward Iran.

First, moderation under the clerical regime in Iran is a total myth. In fact, the same figures who are now in key positions under Rouhani’s “moderate” cabinet have been endemically involved in the Iranian regime’s crimes in the past three centuries.

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Did Russian’s Half A Million To Her Advisor Influence Hillary On Iran? Americans need to know whether Hillary Clinton and Thomas Pickering put America’s interests first, or those of Russia and Iran. by Christine Brim

By on October 27th, 2016

The Clinton campaign has been complaining bitterly about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s possible ties to WikiLeaks’ daily dumps of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails. My new investigative report, “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat: Thomas Pickering and Russia’s Pipeline Sales to Iran and Syria, exposes Hillary Clinton’s own damaging ties to Russia and Iran while she was secretary of State. Her Foreign Affairs Policy Advisor Thomas Pickering was a paid director for the Russian company Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya (TMK) from June 30, 2009 to June 26, 2012. TMK is majority-owned by Russian billionaire oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky, a close Putin ally.

I discovered extensive proof of TMK’s business dealings in Iran and Syria while Pickering was on its board, including TMK sales of oil and gas pipelines to Iran that were specifically prohibited under U.S. laws and executive orders. Pickering was deeply involved with TMK. According to TMK records, he attended 143 of the 145 board meetings. Pickering is estimated to have been paid more than half a million dollars for his service to TMK from 2009 to 2012, based on TMK’s compensation rules. He has since claimed to have donated it all to an unnamed charity.

Clinton’s, President Obama’s, and Pickering’s interests converged during the time Pickering was on TMK’s board of directors. Clinton had announced the Russian “reset” in March 2009; Obama pleaded with Iran for a new beginning two weeks later; and Pickering joined TMK, which was publicizing its sales to Iran and Syria in numerous documents, in June of that year.
Yes, We Sell to Countries Americans Sanction

Pickering combined his commercial, nonprofit, and policy roles into a seamless whole, all with the common goal of ending economic sanctions against Iran and reversing U.S. Iran policies. He was Clinton’s foreign affairs policy advisor and email correspondent, a board member for two Iranian advocacy groups, a paid consultant to Boeing (now a $25 billion Iranian aircraft contractor, thanks to Pickering’s advocacy), a well-known “behind-the-scenes” negotiator with Iranian representatives, and a paid director for a Russian company—TMK—that was actively exporting pipelines to Iran and Syria.

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Hillary Clinton’s ‘Shadow Diplomat’ Ran Big-Money China, Russia Deals by John Hayward

By on October 27th, 2016

A new report from the Center for Security Policy, called “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat,” concerns former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who last made the news by forgetting to mention he was getting paid by Boeing while lobbying for the Iran nuclear deal, which just happens to have facilitated a $25 billion deal for Boeing.

Author Christine Brim has uncovered a number of other interesting connections between Pickering, unfriendly foreign interests, and the titanic Clinton money machine.

The Center for Security Policy says the report “reveals Pickering’s overlapping roles: as Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Advisor, as an Advisory Board member for two Iranian advocacy groups, as a paid Director for a Russian firm selling pipeline to Iran and Syria, as a paid consultant to Iranian aircraft contractor Boeing, and as a Senate committee hearing witness, all with a common goal of ending economic sanctions on Iran and reversing U.S. Iran policies.”

Pickering’s ties to that Russian firm, Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya, are even stronger than the consulting relationship he enjoyed with Boeing when the Iran deal was under construction. He was a paid director for a company that is majority-owned by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky. It doesn’t look like one of those purely ceremonial positions companies sometimes hand out to celebrities and politicians, either, as records indicate Pickering was paid over half a million dollars and was a faithful attendee at board meetings where over $3.2 billion in transactions were approved.

The TMK connection loops back around to Iran, as Brim reports the company had business relationships with Iranian and Syrian entities that were banned under U.S. Treasury Department protocols. (Those rules clearly prohibit Americans from doing business with “Specially Designated Nationals” through foreign companies, although “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat” goes into detail on loopholes Pickering may have exploited.)

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David Singer: Obama’s Islamic State Policy Threatens Clinton Election Victory

By on October 27th, 2016

President Obama’s decision to agree to Iraqi and Peshmerga forces attacking Mosul to degrade and destroy Islamic State just three weeks before the US elections sounds alarm bells for the prospects of Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump on 8 November.

Secretary of Defence Ash Carter confirmed Obama’s decision on 17 October.

The timing of the attack is very concerning. Obama’s decision accords with his policy enunciated as far back as 10 September 2014:

“But this is not our fight alone. American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region. “

Obama had then further elaborated:

“…we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground…

… As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission – we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.”

The same day that Carter issued his statement, General Stephen Townsend, Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve, reportedly acknowledged the presence of “forward air controllers” amongst the US “advisory” contributions to the battle.

Those American “advisory” contributions now appear to have included an explosive ordnance disposal technician – Jason Finan – working with a Navy SEAL team near Mosul who was killed by an Islamic State bomb on October 20.

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Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat: Thomas Pickering and Russia’s Pipeline Sales to Iran and Syria Christine Brim ****

By on October 26th, 2016

“Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat” is a hard-hitting investigative report from the Center for Security Policy, exposing the ties of former Ambassador Thomas Pickering to a Putin-linked Russian company that sold oil and gas pipelines to Iran and Syria when Pickering was on its Board of Directors. The report reveals Pickering’s overlapping roles: as Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Advisor, as an Advisory Board member for two Iranian advocacy groups, as a paid Director for a Russian firm selling pipeline to Iran and Syria, as a paid consultant to Iranian aircraft contractor Boeing, and as a Senate committee hearing witness, all with a common goal of ending economic sanctions on Iran and reversing U.S. Iran policies.

As meticulously documented in “Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat,” Pickering was a paid Director for the Russian-owned company Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya (TMK) from June 30, 2009 to June 26, 2012. TMK is majority-owned by Russian billionaire oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky, a close Putin ally.

The investigation discovered extensive proof of TMK’s business dealings in Iran and Syria while Pickering was on the Board, including a financial offering disclosure, catalogs, marketing materials, websites, press releases, legal documents, reports from the steel industry press and Iranian customer websites. Sales of oil and gas pipelines to Iran were specifically prohibited under U.S. laws and executive orders.

According to TMK’s records, Pickering attended 143 of the 145 TMK Board meetings. Pickering is estimated to have been paid over half a million dollars for his service to TMK, based on TMK’s compensation rules.

“Clinton’s Shadow Diplomat” documents TMK’s relationships with three Iranian customers, all listed by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as “Specially Designated Nationals” during the years Pickering served on the Board: the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Petropars, and Pars Oil and Gas Company.

The investigation also shows TMK’s relationships with three Syrian customers listed by OFAC as “Specially Designated Nationals” in 2011, while Pickering was on the Board: the Syrian Gas Company, the Syrian Petroleum Company, and the Al Furat Petroleum Company. U.S. persons are generally prohibited from conducting any kind of business with “Specially Designated Nationals.”

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The Book That Obama Won’t Read, But Hillary Clinton Should Sixty years after the Suez Crisis, two new histories of the Egypt-Israel conflict try to garner lessons on the Mideast and American power in a changing world By Adam Kirsch

By on October 26th, 2016

On a list of the most important historical episodes of the 20th century, the Suez Crisis of 1956 wouldn’t make the top 10, or even the top 20. Insofar as it was a war, it was a fizzle: Israel invaded Egypt with a small force, conquered some of the Sinai desert, and then gave it back a few months later. As a diplomatic incident, Suez was more significant, altering the balance of power between Britain, France, and the United States. But it hardly compares to a major Cold War confrontation like the Cuban Missile Crisis of a few years later, which threatened the survival of the world. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/215931/book-hillary-clinton-should-read

Yet the appearance of two new books on the subject of Suez—Ike’s Gamble by Michael Doran and Blood and Sand by Alex von Tunzelmann—suggests that the events of October 1956 continue to have a symbolic significance out of proportion to their actual scale. That is because Suez serves as a convenient marker for the twilight of European colonialism and the rise of American empire. At the same time, it encapsulates a number of the themes of America’s experience in the Middle East, down to the present day: the difficulty of identifying allies and enemies, the uncertainty about how deeply to get involved, and the dangerous law of unintended consequences.

Von Tunzelmann, a British popular historian and journalist, and Doran, an American Middle East specialist and occasional White House adviser, have produced very different books covering some of the same ground. Blood and Sand focuses on the two weeks of the crisis itself, from Oct. 22 to Nov. 8, with hour-by-hour updates on the action as it unfolds across several continents. (Sections are introduced by the kind of datelines familiar from Jason Bourne movies: “1500 Washington DC//2000 London//2100 Paris.”) And Von Tunzelmann interweaves the Suez affair with scenes from another crisis that, coincidentally, broke out at exactly the same time—the rebellion against Soviet rule in Hungary. The effect is a cinematic, you-are-there style of history-writing, which plunges the reader into the chaos of events, but does little to explain their deep background or ultimate consequences.

Doran, on the other hand, fits the Suez crisis into a broader argument about American policy in the Middle East during the Eisenhower administration. He draws on a wider range of primary sources, and crucially, he puts those sources themselves into question, showing how the biases and beliefs of the participants in the Suez drama shaped the way its history has been told. Indeed, Ike’s Gamble is a revisionist history, in which Doran takes issue with precisely the mainstream interpretation of Suez that is found in Blood and Sand.

To understand the lessons these writers draw from Suez, it’s necessary to recall the events themselves. The Suez Crisis lasted only about two weeks. But its roots are very deep—in the founding of Israel in 1948, the British occupation of Egypt in 1881, or even the building of the Suez Canal itself, in 1869. The canal, which connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, was from the beginning a crucial strategic asset for the British and French empires, because it greatly shortened the journey between Europe and Asia. The company that controlled the canal was jointly owned by the British and French governments, and it remained in their hands until the 1950s.

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