RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18070/npt-treaty-threats

Is the world on the eve of a new arms race that could spread nuclear weapons to a dozen or more countries within the next few years?

The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) clearly states that it is tailor-made solely for Iran and will not be applicable to any other country.

However, a precedent is set to bypass the NPT and the IAEA by putting in charge a group of nations that have not created a formal legal status and pretend to replace the UN just as a posse replaces the sheriff in some Western movies.

The twice-postponed golden jubilee of the NPT may provide an occasion for serious reflection on its failures and ways of reshaping it as an effective instrument to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and speed up the dismantling of arsenals that, if the NPT is to be believed, pose as great a threat to the planet as does climate change, the currently fashionable “big cause”.

Is the world on the eve of a new arms race that could spread nuclear weapons to a dozen or more countries within the next few years?

This is one of the questions that haunt the next Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Twice postponed because of the Covid-19 crisis, the conference which, under the NPT, should be held once every 10 years, is now scheduled for January 4-28 in New York.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18057/biden-global-challenges

Looking ahead, the proposed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is woefully inadequate in addressing ongoing Chinese aggression — not just towards Taiwan — but on all geopolitical fronts. While China surges ahead with its third “blue water” aircraft carrier and plan for a military base off the Atlantic coast, the NDAA seems to be five steps behind addressing the real threats. Meanwhile, Putin postures aggressively against Ukraine, and Iran races to threaten Israel with a nuclear weapon.

Biden is not going to commit US combat forces to defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion. One day after warning Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would face “severe” economic sanctions, “like ones he’s never seen,” should Russia invade Ukraine, President Joe Biden flatly stated that sending U.S. combat troops to Ukraine is “not on the table.”

Fellow Democrat Representative Seth Moulton bucked the Biden White House line and went to the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal to advocate on behalf of Ukraine, urging weapons shipments, sanctions, and “clearly communicated grave consequences” (whatever that means). Moulton even had the courage to gently remind Biden of the Obama-Biden failure to respond to Russia’s earlier regional conquest writing, “As in 2014, when America failed to deter Mr. Putin’s Crimea offensive…”

Biden, despite the assurances of protection promised to Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum, says he is not going to commit US combat forces to defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion, thereby further eroding “Washington’s already tarnished credibility on the world stage.”

Biden administration weakness emboldens our enemies and scares our friends. How many other countries — and which — will feel compelled to move ahead aggressively towards acquiring nuclear weapons themselves? Japan, Brazil, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Taiwan? If they cannot rely on America to come to their rescue, building nuclear capacity becomes a question of risk versus reward. And will nuclear know-how be sold to bad actors and terrorist groups?

“Evidence is growing that members of the IDF General Staff and the Mossad are beginning to realize that the US doesn’t share Israel’s goal of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.” — Caroline Glick, Israel Hayom, December 10, 2021.

President Joe Biden’s foreign policy seems unfortunately to consist of abandoning allies, emboldening adversaries, and placing our national security at great risk. Biden’s Afghanistan surrender to the Taliban was a strategic failure with enormous global consequences that humiliated the nation and cost countless lives. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is now the “lens” through which to see the Biden administration’s feeble foreign policy.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18051/biden-legacy-nuclear-iran

The Iranian regime is currently advancing its nuclear program at a rapid pace, spinning centrifuges and enriching uranium at a high level, all while the international community has no access to monitor the regime’s nuclear activities to check how far away the Iranian government is from obtaining nuclear weapons.
While the Iranian leaders claim that the country’s nuclear program is designed for civilian purposes….[a] joint statement issued by the UK, France and Germany acknowledged that the Iranian regime “has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is completely silent as the Iranian regime disregards and refuses to answer the IAEA’s questions about three undeclared clandestine nuclear sites in Iran.
All the Biden administration has done so far is to appease a regime that chants “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and that is determined to push the US out of the Middle East.
Iran — one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, according to the US Department of State, as well as a leading violator of human rights — is also committed to uprooting and replacing Israel and seizing all the oil in the Middle East from Syria to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
So, we are just to sit back and watch the predatory, terrorist regime of Iran, which has already begun taking over the entire Middle East, become nuclear state and wreck the Middle East — under the Biden administration’s watch.

The Biden administration seems to have no clear agenda on how to stop the Iranian regime from going nuclear. It has been almost a year and seven rounds of negotiations, but nothing has come out of these talks except that the ruling mullahs of Iran keep advancing their nuclear program, with Russia backing them.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18049/china-ultimate-genocide

China’s coronavirus has now killed more than 806,400 Americans, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Biden these days sees China merely as a “competitor,” not, more appropriately, as an adversary or enemy.

There are Chinese business links with Biden’s family and with members of his administration and doubtless he wants to accommodate campaign donors wishing to do business in China, but most fundamentally the President, despite everything, speaks as if he has never let go of his decades-old benign view of the nature of Chinese communism.

America is a far stronger society than China, which at the moment is especially fragile because of its debt crisis, but the Communist Party can destroy the U.S. simply because Biden is not adequately defending it from malicious—and unrelenting — Chinese attacks. Strength means nothing if America does not have the determination to defend itself.

The next disease from China could be a civilization-killer. China’s military is working on the next generation of pathogens, a new kind of biological warfare of “specific ethnic genetic attacks.” In other words, Chinese researchers are developing viruses, microbes, and germs that leave China’s people immune but kill everyone else.

Biden, like many Americans, likes to think that co-existence with the Chinese regime is both possible and desirable, and he has a hard time comprehending the ruthlessness of the Chinese regime or the comprehensive nature of its assault on the international system.

Furthermore, the Party is trying to destroy America. China’s ruling organization knows that the inspirational impact of American values poses an existential threat to its totalitarian pretensions. What Biden fails to understand is that Chinese communism is in a fight to the finish with the U.S. — whether the U.S. thinks so or not.

Biden in a November 17 statement marked the overdose deaths of more than 100,000 Americans in the 12 months ended April 30. Not once did he mention China. Of that toll, approximately 64,000 deaths were attributable to fentanyl. Of that 64,000, almost all were the result of Chinese fentanyl.

Today, Biden is scheduled to speak about what America can do to protect itself from the spread of COVID-19, but he will not talk about the most important thing the nation must do: impose the greatest of costs on China to make sure the Communist Party will not create another pandemic.

Biden’s failure to confront China, whether on coronavirus or fentanyl deaths, means he is derelict in discharging his most fundamental constitutional duty: protecting the American people from foreign attack.

President Joe Biden on December 15 “smirked and walked away” when a reporter wanted to know why he has not asked Beijing “to do more to be transparent on the origins” of COVID-19.

China’s coronavirus has now killed more than 806,400 Americans, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18044/russia-biden-appeasement

Western efforts to curb Mr Putin’s threatening behavior… are being undermined by the Biden administration’s reluctance to confront Mr Putin.

In seeking to appease Moscow, Mr Biden appears to be overlooking Washington’s commitment to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which commits the US, as well as other allies such as the UK and France, to safeguard Ukraine’s territorial integrity in return for dismantling its Soviet-era nuclear weapons arsenal. Any failure by the Biden administration to honor this solemn undertaking would further erode Washington’s already tarnished credibility on the world stage.

The suggestion that Mr Biden is preparing to sell out Ukraine has enraged Washington’s NATO allies in eastern Europe who are currently bearing the brunt of Russian aggression and believe, with some justification, that Mr Biden is preparing to make unacceptable concessions to Moscow, such as providing political guarantees that will curb NATO’s freedom of movement and its ability to operate effectively against Russian aggression.

Indeed, it could be argued that the Biden administration’s inherent weakness has been a determining factor in encouraging Mr Putin to adopt a more confrontational attitude towards the West on issues like Ukraine.

Mr Biden’s evident unwillingness to defend America’s interests has even prompted the Kremlin to threaten deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe to threaten NATO.

The American president’s deep-seated aversion to military confrontation also explains China’s recent adoption of a more confrontational attitude on the issue of Taiwan, with Taiwanese leaders warning that Beijing could be ready to mount a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025.

Nor is Beijing likely to de-escalate tensions with Taipei when all the indications suggest that Mr Biden is preparing to appease the Kremlin with regard to Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden’s willingness to appease Russia over its aggressive conduct towards Ukraine is threatening to create deep divisions within the NATO alliance — a result that would doubtless delight Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO was created specifically as a collective defense against potential Russian aggression.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18035/china-us-enablers

For Ray Dalio, moral relativism is great for business.

Bridgewater’s business is investment funds. Having more of those in China means more money for Bridgewater. It is really that simple. But in China business deals are not done with fellow capitalists who are dedicated to economic liberty and the free flow of capital to its most rational uses.

Dalio is willfully ignorant defense of Chinese communism… it is the calculated hypocrisy of the rope-selling capitalist.

Major American businesses are more worried about the prospect for growing or even losing their Chinese business revenues than about standing up against tyranny abroad, the silencing of Americans at home, and the outspoken intention of the Chinese Communist Party to supplant the United States — and the freedom that comes with it — as the world’s preeminent nation.

Apple also bowed to the Chinese government’s demand to give it full access to the data of its customers in China, even banning apps that would allow ordinary Chinese citizens to bypass their government’s sophisticated surveillance.

This is in contrast to Apple’s refusal in 2016 of an FBI request to break into the encryption of its iPhone after a domestic terrorist mass shooting incident in San Bernardino, California. Tim Cook told Apple employees at the time that his refusal was based on civil liberties concerns, which apparently did not stop him from agreeing to the Chinese Communist Party’s demands.

“Of course, Apple and Nike publicly claim to decry slave labor. But to be clear, the behavior we are seeing from US corporations is not about a company surviving: It’s about discontent with just hundreds of millions of dollars, desiring instead billions of dollars.” — Jake Tapper, CNN, December 5, 2021.

One of the sadder realities of modern business is seeing how China has managed to co-opt and make hostages of American capitalists dazzled by the riches of the Chinese market. Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates is just the latest financial titan to play the “Who am I to judge how another country runs itself?” card.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18042/west-illusion

Are economic relations and trade effective tools with which Western democracies could persuade totalitarian states to introduce reforms that could lead to democratization?

[T]he question is back… to encourage the Biden administration to give Iranian mullahs what they want in the hope that they might mend their ways. These days one reads op-eds and pseudo-research papers presenting Iran as “a potential market of $3 trillion” and the last missing piece in the great global market.

The thesis has been tested numerous times and proven wrong.

Lenin and Stalin weren’t the only 20th century despots to seduce some in Western democracies.

Decades later, that illusion found its bureaucratic echo in a report to President George W Bush by his Assistant Secretary of State Robert Zoellick urging aid and trade to help Communist China reform and come out of poverty.

Bush fell for that narrative, also marketed by Kissinger as a paid lobbyist for Beijing.

Zoellick’s predictions proved wrong. Under President Xi Jinping, China is moving further away from democratization and casting itself as a rival if not adversary of the United States.

Western beautification of ugly regimes has never led to a change of trajectory to join what Americans tout as “the democratic world.” Regimes that oppress their people can never become trusted friends for anyone, let alone countries where power is based on at least some respect for human rights and government with some consent by the governed.

Next time anyone plays the tune “let’s help mullahs reform”, listen but remember Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao and others.

Are economic relations and trade effective tools with which Western democracies could persuade totalitarian states to introduce reforms that could lead to democratization?

Hotly debated for decades, the question is back with a campaign by the usual suspects to encourage the Biden administration to give Iranian mullahs what they want in the hope that they might mend their ways. These days one reads op-eds and pseudo-research papers presenting Iran as “a potential market of $3 trillion” and the last missing piece in the great global market.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18036/iran-terror-threat

The conflict in Yemen means more to the Iranian regime than merely taunting its Gulf rivals. Rather, it seems to be an ideological crusade to unite the Muslim world under its own Islamist rule, one that will always see any attempts at peace as merely a delay in the process.

One of the Iranian leaders’ main objectives in empowering their militias and terror groups in other countries is to export the Islamic Republic Revolution to other nations. This mission is, in fact, part of Iran’s Constitution.

Iran’s Army and Revolutionary Guards “will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of (Shiite) jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s (Shiite) law throughout the world … in the hope that this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others.” — Iran’s Constitution.

The Biden administration needs, once and for all, to abandon its appeasement policy towards Iran’s ruling mullahs. They are in charge of a predatory regime that has understatedly been called the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism. Yet the current US administration seems hell-bent on empowering them.

In the wake of the largest seizure of arms and fuel from Iranian terror groups to date, the Biden administration has remained silent.

The US Department of Justice announced on December 7, 2021 the successful forfeiture of two large caches of Iranian weapons. The weapons reportedly included advanced arms such as “171 guided anti-tank missiles, eight surface-to-air missiles, land attack cruise missile components, anti-ship cruise missile components, thermal weapon optics and other components for missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles [drones]”. The U.S. Navy also seized Iranian petroleum products from “four foreign-flagged tankers in or around the Arabian Sea while en route to Venezuela. These actions represent the government’s largest-ever forfeitures of fuel and weapons shipments from Iran.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/586166-iran-has-good-reasons-to-hang-tough-in-nuke-talks

Why won’t Iran cut a deal? Its regime has taken an uncompromising line in renewed talks over its nuclear program. Although that has left the United States and its allies bewildered and frustrated, the regime has solid reasons for doing so.

After all, it is currently managing to weather the tough U.S. and global economic sanctions that were supposed to force the Islamic Republic to compromise. Washington and its allies, meanwhile, are split over how best to approach the talks with Tehran, while — after years of empty bluster — U.S. threats of military force to cripple Iran’s nuclear program simply lack credibility. At the same time, the regime is watching America’s current reaction to other global threats, and clearly finding all of it quite reassuring.

None of that bodes well for Washington’s hopes of reviving the 2015 global nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or JCPOA), and then negotiating a broader deal that would cover such matters as Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its terror sponsorship.

With few signs of progress at the talks in Vienna, the Biden administration is moving to tighten the U.S. sanctions that are in place. But, while the sanctions of recent years have clearly battered Iran’s economy — leaving its gross domestic product shrinking, its currency nosediving, and unemployment skyrocketing — the regime believes it can weather the sanctions and continue to make progress on its nuclear and its related ballistic missile programs. The decisions of China and Venezuela to buy Iranian oil and gas, and a $400 billion deal under which China will invest in Iran’s economy and buy Iranian oil at discounted rates far into the future, give Tehran important ways to sidestep sanctions.