RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-iran-and-the-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-saudi-arabia-u-s-oil-israel-11657835429?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden visits Saudi Arabia this weekend to meet with Gulf Arab leaders, including the Saudi crown prince he once vowed to isolate. America’s left is giving the President grief for meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, the erstwhile “pariah,” but realpolitik has its demands. The U.S. needs a better relationship with the Saudis for regional security as much as for oil.

The trip so far is proving to be good news on more than one front. On his stop in Israel, Mr. Biden showed little of the hostility toward the Jewish state that so marked President Obama’s tenure. Mr. Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, wasted years and political capital trying to force a Palestinian-Israel solution that had no chance of happening as long as Hamas and other radicals swear to destroy Israel. The Biden White House isn’t giving up hope, but it has other priorities.

One of those, believe it or not, seems to be building on Donald Trump’s 2020 Abraham Accords that marked a breakthrough in diplomatic relations between Israel and some Arab states. Saudi Arabia hasn’t joined the accords, but events are moving in that direction. Israel on Thursday approved a diplomatic deal over two islands in the Red Sea that could pave the way for the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations. Team Biden has to its credit quietly played a role in the talks.

The Saudi visit will be trickier business. The President is having to defend his meeting with the crown prince, known as MBS, despite what the CIA says was his complicity in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. Biden tried to punish MBS upon taking office, ending support for the Saudi war in Yemen, stopping an arms sale, and firing up new talks with Saudi adversaries in Iran over a nuclear deal.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18698/retreat-small-steps

Thanks to a Treasury Department “interpretation,” Americans can still own stock in companies that were placed on a blacklist by the Trump administration because of their direct ties to the Chinese military.

Thanks to the Biden administration, the “China Initiative” at the Department of Justice to crack down on Chinese attempts to acquire or steal American technology has been discontinued.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s “green energy” enthusiasm, tariffs on solar panels made by Asian countries who are assembling or repackaging solar panels made in China were removed.

The Biden administration has also signaled its intention to remove or lift other tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese products. It has also been friendlier toward Chinese companies such as Huawei and ByteDance (owner of TikTok) in recent weeks.

And all of this has been done with zero concessions from the Chinese government on any of the outstanding diplomatic, military, strategic, health or trade issues that so concern most Americans.

Because the Biden family has been so deeply involved and so vehemently denied their involvement with Chinese business, the next question is as inescapable as the first: Does the flow of money to the Biden family from China influence the foreign policy of the United States?

President Joe Biden has been lying about his knowledge and likely his involvement in his son’s business dealings since at least 2018.

That is the inescapable conclusion to draw from a short voicemail recording discovered on the laptop computer that belonged to his son, Hunter and reported by The Daily Mail and The New York Post recently.

It begins innocently enough. “Hey pal, it’s Dad,” Joe Biden begins. “It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance, just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-more-cash-for-terrorists-payments-west-bank-abbas-biden-visit-martyrs-washington-11657656402?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

” Having a system of payments pegged to the extent of the violence inflicted is a moral stain on the Palestinian Authority.”

President Biden visits Israel and the West Bank Wednesday and is expected to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas will undoubtedly press Mr. Biden to reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington, which President Trump closed in 2018. Mr. Biden must make clear that for the PLO mission to open, the Palestinians must stop paying terrorists, and families of terrorists, who have attacked Israelis.

This U.S. dispute with Palestinian policy isn’t new. Washington ended direct budgetary support for the Palestinian Authority in 2014 over concerns that the prisoner and “martyr” payments create incentives for terrorism. The lack of Palestinian responsiveness led Congress in 2018 to pass the bipartisan Taylor Force Act, prohibiting U.S. assistance to the West Bank that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority (with limited exceptions for the east Jerusalem hospital network and childhood vaccinations). Although Mr. Trump closed the mission on other grounds, Congress later amended the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act to link its reopening to the abandonment of the policy informally called pay for slay. While Congress has few issues of bipartisan agreement, holding the Palestinian leadership accountable for prisoner and martyr payments is one.

The Palestinians would be wise to heed these messages from both sides of the congressional aisle as well as administrations of both parties. Having a system of payments pegged to the extent of the violence inflicted is a moral stain on the Palestinian Authority.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/does-joe-bidens-sojourn-signal-a-return-to-the-old-middle-east/

(July 12, 2022 / JNS) Former Israeli Prime Minister (and current opposition leader) Benjamin Netanyahu prefaced a public statement that he issued on Monday, ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s arrival in the country on Wednesday, with what some beholders might have misconstrued as a Freudian slip.

It’s uncommon for the savvy orator, who is usually as good at winging speeches as he is at reading carefully scripted ones, to make rhetorical gaffes. But in this case, the error was apt.

“The visit to Israel by President [Donald] Trump—or, rather, President Biden—is an important one,” he began. “It’s important not only because, as a friend of Israel’s, he is expressing the strong alliance between Israel and the United States, but also because from here, he is flying to Saudi Arabia.”

He then pointed out that Biden’s direct flight from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, like that of Trump from Saudi Arabia to Israel five years ago, illustrates the “huge change” in what has become an “actual new Middle East.”

Though he didn’t invoke late Israeli statesman Shimon Peres by name, the dig at the author of the above phrase was implicit: that the common “peace camp” wisdom—of the need for Palestinian statehood before progress can possibly be made with Israel’s Muslim-Arab neighbors—had been wrong all along.

The Trump-brokered Abraham Accords, which have seen blossoming warm relations between Israel, the Gulf States, Morocco and Sudan, with the cooperation of the Saudi king, constitute living proof.

The evidence hasn’t put a dent in the fantasies of Netanyahu’s and Trump’s detractors, however. Some consider the above treaties flawed for excluding the Palestinians.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/two_huge_events_shake_americas_top_allies_and_sleepy_joe_botches_the_responses_to_both.html

Joe Biden, the man “elected” to the presidency because of his supposed foreign policy chops, is out to lunch as two huge events shake America’s top allies east and west.

Start with Japan, where the shocking assassination of a former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has occurred in a nation where this kind of activity is not normal.

According to Reuters:

NARA, Japan, July 8 (Reuters) — Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving leader, died on Friday hours after he was shot while campaigning for a parliamentary election, shocking a country in which political violence is rare and guns are tightly controlled.

The shooter opened fire on Abe, 67, from behind as the former premier addressed members of the public on a drab traffic island in the western city of Nara. Japanese media reported that the weapon appeared to be a homemade gun.

Something like this, done by some kind of local freak who made his own gun, is bound to shake Japan, which has always been an open society for politicians to reach out to the voters through street campaigning.  It wasn’t just an attack on a former politician who made a big impact on Japan’s economy and global standing in the world, getting Japan’s military out there as an important check on China, it was an attack on Japan’s tranquil way of life.  Yes, Japan will be shaken by this.

Nation after nation poured in with tributes: 

More from Germany, France, U.K., Sri Lanka, India, Australia, Turkey, Netherlands, Ukraine and other nations in this Axios roundup here.

Joe’s reaction? 

Well, nothing.  Nobody home at the White House.

https://bit.ly/3O0lQj7

*A major goal of President Biden’s July, 2022 visit to the Middle East – in addition to increasing the Saudi and Emirati oil production – is the restoration of the US stature as a reliable strategic ally of the pro-US Arab regimes, and stop their drift toward Russia and China.

*At the same time, Biden pursues a JCPOA-like agreement with Iran’s Ayatollahs and embraces the Muslim Brotherhood.

*However, the attempt to restore the US’ strategic reliability, while aiming for a JCPOA-like accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs and embracing the Muslim Brotherhood, constitutes a contradiction in terms, since all pro-US Arab regimes view Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood as lethal threats. Moreover, they are convinced that a JCPOA-like accord would bolster (as did the 2015 JCPOA) the Ayatollahs’ regional and global subversion, terrorism, fueling of civil wars, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems to rogue entities in the Middle East and beyond.

They are also frustrated by the State Department’s underestimation of the fanatic vision of the Muslim Brotherhood, and taking lightly its terror network throughout the Middle East and beyond (e.g., India and Thailand).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18641/latin-america-china

China is now Latin America’s largest trading partner (excluding Mexico).

China’s relationships with Latin American countries however, are about far more than trade.

“It is not necessary to show malevolent PRC intentions with respect to its activities in Latin America and the Caribbean to conclude that the current and long-term implications of that engagement are grave for prosperity, democracy, and liberties in the region, as well as the security and strategic position of the United States.” — Professor Evan Ellis, US Army War College, “Testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission,” May 20, 2021.

China also has another advantage: No regard for human rights or democracy. It is more than happy to invest in and trade with authoritarian dictatorships like itself.

“… U.S. influence has been diminishing in the continent.” — Martha Bárcena, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, The New York Times, June 9, 2022.

The odds of Biden’s new plan winning over Latin American countries — where China has already massively invested in building roads, railways, harbors, bridges and a host of other infrastructure and communications projects, with no questions asked on the environment, climate or “inclusivity” — are probably low. Even Biden administration officials do not seem to harbor any illusions about the new plan’s ability to change facts on the ground….

“As long as China is ready to put its cash on the table, we seem to be fighting a losing battle.” — U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, Reuters, June 8, 2022.

“Latin American governments complain that there’s a lot of talk but ask ‘where is the money’?” — Welber Barral, Brazil-based partner at BMJ Consultores Associados, Reuters, June 8, 2022.

“The U.S. is losing Latin America to China without putting up a fight, Ecuador’s ambassador to Washington told Axios.”

“And China is waiting, saying, ‘We’re here. We’re giving you money.’ They want control of course, but they don’t say that.” — Ivonne Baki, Ecuador’s ambassador to the US, Axios, September 23, 2021.

China has overtaken the United States in trade terms “in large swathes of Latin America,” according to a recent Reuters analysis of UN trade data from 2015-2021. Reuters added that “outside of Mexico, the top U.S. trade partner, China has overtaken the United States in Latin America and widened the gap last year.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3544622-us-is-playing-risky-game-with-saudi-arabia-and-iran/

“This summit,” Khaled Al-Suleiman, a Saudi Arabian columnist, wrote of President Biden’s upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, “may be a golden opportunity for the American president to restore the [regional countries’] faith in America as a trustworthy historical ally with a solid policy that can be relied upon.

“For the alternative,” he warned, “is that these countries will actually change the map of their international alliances in order to safeguard their interests and enhance their ability to overcome the miscalculations of some of their traditional Western allies regarding the need to defend them from the threat of Iran, whose aggression is known to all and which never stops threatening and igniting fires and wars in the region!”

As Riyadh was planning to seek Biden’s assurances that Washington remains a reliable partner in confronting Iran’s regional expansionism, U.S. and Iranian officials met in Doha in hopes of reviving the 2015 global nuclear deal with Iran — the very deal that Riyadh opposes because it won’t prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons over the long term and because it would do nothing to curb Tehran’s terror sponsorship and other destabilizing regional activities.

For Washington, the question is whether it can have its cake and eat it too — reassure a leader of Sunni Arab nations that seek to contain Shia Iran and reach a nuclear modus vivendi with the latter. The risk, of course, is that Washington will lose on both fronts — fail to revive the nuclear deal and feed more concerns among Saudi officials that Riyadh may need to reconsider its heavy reliance on Washington for regional security.