RUTHFULLY YOURS

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Secretary Blinken’s January 29-31, 2023 visit to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority was another one of his milestones, well-intentioned – but erroneous – Middle East legacies. It has backfired on vital US interests, in general, and the pursuit of regional stability and peace, in particular.

*A major issue raised by President El-Sisi, during his meeting with Secretary Blinken, was the volcanic turbulence in Libya, which has traumatized the region since 2011, fueling Muslim Brotherhood terrorism in Egypt and overall Islamic terrorism in Africa and Europe.

*This turbulence was triggered by a US-led NATO military offensive against the Gaddafi regime, and was masterminded, largely, by key policy-makers in the Obama-Biden Administration. They included Antony Blinken, then National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden, and were led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her close advisor and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Special Assistant to President Obama Samantha Power.

*The offensive was motivated by noble values of human rights, but went astray due to an intrinsic misreading of the Middle East, in general, and Libya, in particular, where Gaddafi was not fighting innocent bystanders, but anti-US Islamic terrorists. In fact, these terrorists murdered the US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, following their US-facilitated victory over Gaddafi.

*While the aim of the offensive was to prevent a massive slaughter of non-combatant Libyans by Gaddafi, the outcome of the offensive has doomed Libya to decades of chaos, plagued by an ongoing slaughter house, which has dwarfed the worst casualty assessments made by Clinton and Blinken.

*The ill-advised offensive has transformed Libya – the soft underbelly of Europe – into one of the world’s largest platforms of anti-Western Islamic terrorists, drugs and arms traffickers.  It energized a global resurgence of Islamic terrorism, and became a home base for scores of terrorist militias and an arena of civil wars with the participation of Turkey, Qatar, Italy, Russia, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and France.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19343/iran-nuclear-threat

Iran’s mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program’s capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran is selling Russia drones and other material; is Russia “paying” for them by helping the mullahs complete their nuclear weapons undertaking?

Just last week, the US Department of State declared Iran the “world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” This is the same State Department that had allowed the mullahs to brutally crack down on and kill their own people, deliver drones and other deadly weapons to their ally Russia; freely increase their influence in Latin America, and rapidly advance their nuclear weapons program. What will it take for the Biden administration finally to help the young men and women of Iran who have been fighting so hard for their freedom?

Since the Biden administration assumed office, Iran’s ruling mullahs have seized the opportunity to continuously advance their nuclear program, which is currently a short step away from manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Iran’s mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program’s capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

Zohar Palti, the former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s political-military bureau and former intelligence director in the Mossad, recently stated: “They [the Iranian leaders] are days or weeks away from enriching uranium to 90 percent, which is military-grade”.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-the-us-really-defend-taiwan-ambiguity-china-military-tech-defense-budget-congress-semiconductors-11674765405?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Taiwan’s ruling party has a new leader, and the change bodes ill for peace in the Indo-Pacific. Vice President Lai Ching-te, a staunch proponent of the island’s independence, took over chairmanship of the Democratic Progressive Party last week from President Tsai Ing-wen. She stepped down as party leader after the party suffered losses in recent local elections. China will now almost certainly seek to meddle in Taiwan’s 2024 election in an attempt to keep Mr. Lai from winning the presidency. If he does win, Beijing could move quickly to invade.

The U.S. is unprepared for such a crisis. President Biden broke decades of American precedent by stating twice in 2022 that the U.S. would intervene to defend Taiwan if China attacked. Usually Washington has preferred to keep the U.S. security guarantee somewhat vague. On the other hand, no American president has explicitly refused to defend Taiwan, either.

The root of U.S. reluctance to commit formally to the island republic’s defense is the complex diplomatic arrangement that governs Taiwan’s functional sovereignty. The Shanghai Communiqué of 1972, still the foundational document for Sino-American relations, allowed Washington and Beijing to disagree over Taiwan’s status as leaders in the U.S. and China got to know each other. While Beijing’s interpretation of the communiqué argues that the U.S. accepted the People’s Republic of China’s claim to Taiwan, the agreement’s text simply recognizes that, in legal terms, Taiwan and China are both part of “one China.” It thereby endorses the de jure fiction of Chinese control of Taipei while maintaining de facto Taiwanese independence.

Mr. Biden’s remarks caused a stir because a formal U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan would fundamentally violate the Chinese interpretation of the Shanghai Communiqué. American credibility is now on the line, which in theory should strengthen deterrence. China will be significantly less likely to move on Taiwan if doing so means it will have to fight the U.S. as well as the Taiwanese.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19323/korea-nuclear-weapons

We do not have to wonder if Beijing in fact supports North Korea’s weapons programs. China for decades has allowed the North to use Chinese banks to handle proceeds from criminal activities and activities in violation of U.N. sanctions.

Such designations [enforcing U.S. money-laundering laws] would put these state banks out of business everywhere outside China.

If these banks were to fail, so would China’s state-dominated banking system. The failure of the banking system would undoubtedly mean the end of the Chinese economy and financial system. The end of the Communist Party’s political system could not be far behind.

Whatever the effects of designations, the United States needs to enforce its laws. America did not allow Pablo Escobar to run criminal cash through New York, so why does America allow China to do that for North Korea?

“The money Kim Jong Un obtains by fraud, computer hacking, and ransomware and which he uses to build bombs to threaten us is being laundered through our banks. We’re giving Xi Jinping and Kim de facto immunity to keep right on doing it.” — Joshua Stanton, expert on North Korean sanctions, to Gatestone.

No wonder South Korea’s Yoon is not particularly impressed with America.

South Korea is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. If Seoul were to develop nuclear weapons, it would have to withdraw.

Perhaps South Korea should withdraw. China, also a signatory, has been freely proliferating nuclear weapons technology to dangerous states, such as Pakistan and Iran, in addition to North Korea, and the United States has done little, sometimes nothing. At the same time, Washington repeatedly stopped South Korea and Taiwan from building nukes.

Yoon did the world a favor by exposing the folly of America’s nonproliferation policy. Washington needs to stop being afraid of Beijing and start defending allies such as South Korea — and itself.

South Korea’s president has just told the world that he no longer has confidence in the United States.

“It’s possible that the problem gets worse and our country will introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own,” said President Yoon Suk Yeol on January 11, at a joint briefing by his country’s defense and foreign ministries. “If that’s the case, we can have our own nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19322/islamists-east-africa

The most potent threat to East African stability remains Al-Shabaab, rooted in Somalia. Al-Qaeda helps to finance Al-Shabaab through its contacts across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.

Al-Shabaab’s threat to the American homeland should not be discounted: the group has explored possible scenarios of launching a 9/11 style assault on the US. Shabaab is assessed by US intelligence as Al-Qaeda’s wealthiest and largest affiliate.

If Islamists succeed in establishing an Emirate in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s government could be rendered powerless to combat the spread of radical Islam throughout the country. Using Mozambique as a base of operations, jihadists potentially could export terrorist cells to Indian Ocean island countries such as the Comoros Islands, Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles, and ultimately to southern African nations as well.

Jihadist terrorism poses an existential challenge to Africa’s nation-states. While North Africa has been Islamic for a millennium, the Sahel, that part of the continent south of the Sahara, remains under siege by affiliates of the global Islamist networks, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

France, after a ten-year effort, has abandoned its responsibility to safeguard the sovereignty of its former colonies. Consequently, the Sahel’s counterterrorist mission now rests upon the shoulders of a group of regional states called the “G5” : Burkina Faso, Chad. Mali. Mauritania, and Niger.

The most potent threat to East African stability remains Al-Shabaab, rooted in Somalia. Although Al-Shabaab pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in 2009, it maintains autonomy for its terrorist operations. Al-Qaeda helps to finance Al-Shabaab through its contacts across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19320/ukraine-arms-package

In one of the more damning examples of his indecisive leadership, Biden has seemed to be more concerned about upsetting Russian President Vladimir Putin than confronting the Kremlin’s unprovoked act of aggression against its Ukrainian neighbour.

It could even be argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would not have happened in the first place had it not been for Biden’s catastrophic handling of the withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan in the summer of 2022. Biden’s decision to abandon the Afghan people to their fate… sent a clear message to autocrats like Putin, as well as China’s President Xi Jinping, that the Western powers… no longer had any interest in standing up to tyrannical regimes.

The West’s perceived weakness may also explain why Putin made a series of veiled threats about using nuclear weapons if the Western powers became too involved in the Ukraine conflict, which initially had the desired effect of persuading the Biden administration to keep its distance.

At a moment when Putin is giving serious consideration to a new spring offensive to make up for the disastrous losses he suffered last year, the US arms package could prove to be decisive in making sure the Ukrainians do not lose ground.

It is vital, therefore, that the US and its allies set aside their reservations about defeating Putin’s Russia, not least because all the indications are that Putin is currently losing his war, and Western support can make sure he suffers a catastrophic defeat.

It is vital therefore that, rather than constantly questioning the need to support the Ukrainian cause, American politicians, policymakers and the media comprehend that making sure that Russia suffers a devastating defeat is very much in America’s interest.

It would remove the threat Russia poses to global security for a generation, allowing the Western powers to concentrate their focus on the far greater threat posed to world peace by Communist China.

Neutralising Putin means the Western alliance can ensure it is fully-prepared to deal with any future aggression from Beijing, such as threatening the independence of Taiwan.

The most charitable thing that can be said about US President Joe Biden’s belated decision to supply Ukraine with armoured vehicles is that his administration is finally coming to understand what is required to ensure the Ukrainian forces achieve victory in the brutal war with Russia.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19318/eu-biden-rewarding-iran

The Obama-Biden administration had also kept the US Congress, the American people and US allies in the Middle East in the dark about what it was negotiating with the ruling mullahs of Iran. When Biden was vice president, the Obama administration made multiple secret deals with Iran’s mullahs.

“[T]he JCPOA was designed as an instrument to break pro-Israel Democrats, who represent what Obama saw as the most powerful of the internal constituencies that might oppose his reordering of the Democratic Party. That is, the real realignment [ostensibly with Iran] isn’t in the Middle East, which America is leaving anyway, but inside Obama’s own party.” — Lee Smith, Tablet, March 10, 2021.

While the Iranian regime has become more belligerent, the European Union and the Biden administration are still attempting to restore the nuclear deal that will lift economic sanctions on Iran, empower and embolden the regime, enhance its global legitimacy and pave the way for what the US State Department has called the “world’s worst sponsor of state terrorism” to legally become a nuclear-armed state.

The Biden administration claimed that the nuclear deal was “off the table,” but regrettably this statement appears merely an attempt by the administration to keep Congress and the public in the dark, to let their guard down, about the revival of the nuclear deal with Iran. A few days after President Joe Biden claimed that the nuclear deal was dead, Robert Malley, the U.S. special envoy to Iran, revealed in interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda on December 22 that the nuclear deal is in fact not dead.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/01/wokeism-goes-global-bidens-foreign-policy/

There are broadly two ways of conducting a foreign policy. The first is responding intelligently to events abroad as they occur, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Brexit, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Or as Harold Macmillan once said: “Events, dear boy, events.”

The second way, sometimes called a Grand Strategy, prescribes the general direction in which you want your country to go and the policies needed to get there. Thus, Brexit was intended to transform Britain from “a country at the heart of Europe” (John Major’s formulation) into Global Britain.

But since the policies needed to achieve Global Britain were never pursued or even devised because they were opposed by people in government and major British institutions, that grand strategy was stillborn. A successful grand strategy requires the government to know roughly how it wants each crisis to turn out without having to work out its responses from scratch.

President Biden has so far had a mixed record on responding to events: he did badly in Afghanistan but well over Ukraine, where his policy has rallied the Western alliance and frustrated Putin’s Russia. What explains his success in one case and failure in the other?

The answer lies in part in the unusual reality that US progressive Left—which currently dominates the Biden administration—sees America as a racist, sexist, homophobic and white supremacist country. That makes it ambivalent about America’s national interest. Even if it sees the necessity for some purposeful action in a crisis, it can’t want the outcome to benefit the US. At the very least that mindset must weaken and confuse the US even when it follows a prudent course.