RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/west-barks-putin-caravan-moves-bruce-thornton/

For nearly two decades Russian President Vladimir Putin has challenged the West’s “rules-based international order” seemingly validated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Putin has called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” During that time, Western leaders have imposed economic sanctions on Russia, and diplomats have scolded Putin for his violation of human rights and the borders of his neighbors, illiberal policies and murders of political rivals, and ongoing attempts to restore the old Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

But as recent events show, all that tough talk hasn’t slowed Putin down, and if anything has confirmed his contempt for a rich global rival unwilling to face the hard choices necessary for checking his aggression, even though, as the Associated Press said last week, the conflict is heading for a “potentially disastrous confrontation.” With oil prices rising significantly, easing the costs of economic sanctions; China and Iran increasing its cooperation with Russia; and a year of feckless global retreat and appeasement by the Biden administration––including cancelling Trump’s sanctions on the company building the Nordstream 2 pipeline for increasing Russian natural gas deliveries to Europe––Putin may now be calculating that the time is ripe for more aggressive actions to achieve his goal of pushing NATO from Russia’s borders, and restoring its geopolitical clout.

Most recently, Putin has intensified his ongoing pressure against eastern Ukraine by moving nearly 100,000 Russian troops to the border with Ukraine. He’s also sent paratroopers to Kazakhstan to prop up its president, a Putin lackey who is facing serious protests. Many of the protestors have been killed.

The actions against Ukraine are a continuation of aggression going back to the Obama administration in 2014, when Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine, then invaded eastern Ukraine with “little green men,” Russian soldiers in unmarked green uniforms.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/washington-in-slumber/

Sleepy Washington is likely on the verge of being awakened by a major world crisis.

Washingtonians may not fully grasp the impression their city gives to foreign visitors these days. It is one of somnolence. Too many shops or restaurants are closed, temporarily or permanently; the traffic is light; the streets largely empty. As a suburbanite, I drive into Washington for meetings and find I never have to use a parking garage these days. Downtown is sufficiently deserted to make finding a parking meter easy. Thus, to foreign visitors, it often seems that the city is asleep and nothing important is happening right now.

They are right. What, after all, is happening on Capitol Hill? Nothing — or rather nothing but kabuki. Despite knowing what the outcome will be, the Democratic leadership forces votes that will be lost. Perhaps they are thinking this will be useful in November, but for the moment, it means that Congress is doing nothing of serious value.

And what is going on in the executive branch? On the border issues, nothing. On Covid, nothing: The president has said this is mostly a state issue, and anyway, most Americans have given up relying on so-called experts in the federal government. Americans can sign up now for three free masks, a pathetic measure of government action. The “energy in the Executive” of which Hamilton wrote consists nowadays of travel and speeches, and the only thing that gets this president energized is an opportunity to attack his domestic opponents.

On foreign policy, the president is waiting for Putin’s next move. This puts the United States in a position of reaction, issuing repeated warnings of a vague and general nature. Of real action, such as sending 10,000 troops to Poland or announcing a shipment of 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, there is none. The only significant thing that happened in the foreign-policy world in the last week or two was the president’s disastrous press-conference error in saying that a small incursion into Ukraine by Putin would not be a very big deal. This was such an amazing mistake that the White House issued a correction in the nature of a retraction within one hour of Biden’s speech. But such errors give insight into the mind of the president, and this insight will have been profoundly unnerving to every American friend or ally anywhere in the world. Those who are dependent on Joe Biden for their security will have shivered last Wednesday evening. Think of it: This is the most dangerous, immediate national-security issue, and it was certain to come up at the press conference, yet the president was not only inarticulate but actually unable to state U.S. policy clearly.

https://justthenews.com/government/security/amid-missile-test-surge-much-bidens-north-korea-policy-still-unknown

As North Korea starts 2022 with a barrage of weapons tests, the Biden administration’s policy toward the country remains largely undefined to the public, raising questions about how Washington will respond to what could be a year of North Korean provocations and brinkmanship with the U.S.

North Korea on Monday launched short-range ballistic missiles near the capital, Pyongyang, in the country’s fourth missile test in less than two weeks — the most such launches the North has ever conducted to start a year.

It took Pyongyang 10 months to conduct the same number of missile tests last year.

North Korea said the purpose of its latest launch was “evaluation,” describing it as a success.

The test was aimed at “making a selective examination of the tactical guided missiles which are being produced and equipped and verifying the accuracy of the weapon system,” according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. “The Academy of Defense Science has confirmed the accuracy, safety, and operational effectiveness of this weapon system being produced.”

North Korea’s recent missile launches were part of the development of new weapons systems, according to Bruce Klinger, a senior research fellow for northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation.

“Any improvement in Pyongyang’s ability to attack our allies and U.S. forces stationed there is worrisome,” Klinger told Just the News.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-staggering-act-of-appeasement/91963/

The decision of the Biden administration to arrange for the payment of Iran’s dues at the United Nations is being described to us as “a staggering act of appeasement.” That is the phrase used by our sometimes legwoman at the United Nations, Claudia Rosett. We had called her to see what she made of the news. Her tirade is probably still echoing down the telephone lines from the fastness of upstate New York.

The gist of the story is that Iran had failed to pay its dues at the United Nations and had in consequence lost its voting rights in the World Body. One would think that this would be a boon for America. It’s the fruit of American sanctions, after all, and would mean that Iran would be able to foment less trouble at Turtle Bay. If that’s what one thinks, though, one would not be a muckety muck in the Biden administration.

No, it seems that the Biden administration wants Iran to have a vote in the United Nations because the UN is the route through which the Obama administration struck its articles of appeasement known as the Iran nuclear deal. Remember, President Obama couldn’t get the deal ratified in the Senate. The pact was opposed, as the Times noted in an editorial, “overwhelmingly” by both houses of our Congress.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18156/christian-genocide

On November 17, 2021, the U.S. State Department removed Nigeria from its list of Countries of Particular Concern…. despite several human rights organizations characterizing the persecution meted out to Nigeria’s Christians as a “genocide.”

Worse, not only did the Obama State Department for eight years refuse to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern; during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State (2009-2013), she, too, refused to designate Boko Haram in Nigeria as a “terrorist” organization… despite [its] being a jihadist group whose adherents have murdered more Christians and bombed more churches than the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria combined.

Her refusal persisted despite the urging of the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and more than a dozen senators and congressmen for her to designate Boko Haram.

“The one thing she could have done, the one tool she had at her disposal, she didn’t use. And nobody can say she wasn’t urged to do it. It’s gross hypocrisy… The FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department really wanted Boko Haram designated, they wanted the authorities that would provide to go after them, and they voiced that repeatedly to elected officials.” — A “former senior U.S. official,” quoted by Josh Rogin in the Daily Beast, May 7, 2014.

Apparently such is the official unwavering and consistent response, whether under Obama/Clinton or now under Biden: Nigeria is not a “country of particular concern” — even as a genocide continues to be waged against its Christians.

A recent and ostensibly insignificant “label change” by the U.S. Department of State sheds light on both President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama, as well as on a potential presidential candidate for 2024, Hillary Clinton.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18160/biden-colossal-failure-on-iran-redesignate

The Houthis serve as Iran’s proxy in the civil war in Yemen and against Saudi Arabia, which backs the internationally recognized Republic of Yemen government. The UAE, which hosts U.S. military forces at Al Dhafra air base, has been a part of the Saudi coalition to support the official Yemeni government.

With its decisions to delist the Houthis, sideline the Abraham Accords, and focus on diplomacy all within days of each other, the Biden administration demonstrated the lengths it would go to reenter the deeply flawed, Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran.

The State Department most likely realized early on that its decision to delist the Houthis [from the List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations] was doomed to failure. Only two days after they were removed from the terrorist list, the State Department was forced to condemn the group for its continued attacks. State Department spokesperson Ned Price lamely said that the U.S. remains “deeply troubled” by the group’s actions.

Given the clear evidence that its policies are not working, it is time for the Biden administration to shift direction. The administration must redesignate the Houthis as the terrorist organization it is.

A recent drone and missile attack by Iranian-backed Houthis rebels on Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, has laid-bare the ongoing failures of the Biden administration’s approach to Iran and foreign policy in general. The attack, which was deliberately aimed at civilian instead of military targets, shows the limits of appeasement and diplomacy in a region where Iran, figuratively and literally, tries to call-the-shots for and against its neighbors.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/kamala_harris_off_to_honduras_what_could_go_wrong.html

Kamala Harris is going abroad again.

This time, she’s upping her game a little from her last one, the Paris shopping trip, and now heading to Honduras, where plenty is at stake.

Arriving on Jan. 27 or so, she will meet the new Honduran president, who’s a historic “first,” a woman president, which will provide plenty of grist for the Kamala identity politics mill, which interests her more than the border surge. She’ll talk about “firsts” and then at some point get to “root causes,” of illegal immigration as if that information were not already available in some place like Yuma, Arizona, where the latest surge is surging. Instead of going to that un-romantic place with no red carpets and saluting military men, or some other U.S. border point of entry, she’ll do her happy hunting for those “root causes” from a cossetted former first lady of a leftist stripe who’s since been elected president. She’s likely to get into some kind of trouble, given who she’s getting involved with.

Who is Xiomara Castro, the about-to-be sworn-in new president of Honduras? None other than the wife and second cousin of “Cowboy Hat,” former Honduran President Mel Zelaya, with that ‘Mel’ short for “Little Melon” — remember him? He was the former wannabe Hugo Chavez of who got booted from the presidency in 2009 on orders from the Honduran Supreme Court. Zelaya broke the law regarding an illegal ‘poll’ he was conducting with the Venezuelan military’s ‘help’ and when ordered by the Court to stop, didn’t. The Court recognized what he was doing as a disguised bid to scrap the country’s constitution through a phony coerced poll in order to replace it with a Hugo Chavez-style alternative. Zelaya wanted to join the club and have the same things Hugo had. After he ignored the Court, the Court ordered him out and he got rousted from his sleep by the Honduran military acting on orders from the high court and legislature, which forced him onto an airplane to Costa Rica “in his pajamas.” (A State department official told me that actually, he was buck naked, so somebody put some kind of clothes on him.) The global left yelled ‘coup,’ but the word on the streets in Honduras was that it was not a coup, based on the number of law-abiding Hondurans who came out to support and celebrate the ouster.  Zelaya tried to rouse a revolt from his asylum in the Brazilian embassy, but no one took him up on it. After that, he claimed the Israelis were doing radar experiments on him or something. He eventually fled to the Dominican Republic where he ran out on his hotel tab before returning to Honduras, leaving the D.R. to pay the bill. Chavez adored the mustachioed, cowboy-booted dictator wannabe, calling him “Commandante Vaquero.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18159/iran-china-threat

“China’s leading diplomat underlined his country’s readiness to expand cooperation with Iran in financing, energy, banking and cultural sectors despite” the US sanctions. – Tehran Times, January 15, 2022.

The agreement grants China significant rights over the Iran’s resources and help to Iran in increasing its oil and gas production. Leaked information showed that one of its terms is that China will be investing nearly $400 billion in Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will get priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors. China will also be able to pay in any currency it chooses.

The partnership is not only going to assist the Iranian regime to skirt US sanctions, it also enables Iran to gain access to funds, empower its militia and terror groups in the region and continue advancing its nuclear weapons program.

The agreement between China and Iran, defying and challenging the US, also has a military dimension. Iran’s armed forces are currently holding a joint naval exercise with China and Russia. Iran, posing a threat to the region and the United States, will also, in all probability, step up its acquisition of advanced weaponry and nuclear technology from China.

As the largest importer of Iranian oil, China will also have authority over Iran’s islands, gain access to the oil at a highly discounted rate and increase its influence and presence in almost every sector of Iranian industry, including telecommunications, energy, ports, railways, and banking.

The real horror, as China and Iran’s military and strategic partnership intensifies, is that the Biden administration’s reluctance to take a firm stand against the mullahs and Beijing — as with Afghanistan and now Ukraine — can only have incalculably severe repercussions for the national security interests of the US and its allies, who may feel the need to start “hedging their bets” and seeking out presumably more reliable protectors, who may not have our best interests at heart.

The ruling mullahs of Iran are strengthening their ties with the Chinese Communist Party as well as conveniently violating US sanctions without facing any repercussions from the Biden administration.

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

An important pipeline project in the Mediterranean has been caught in a web of conflicting security and energy policy across Europe and beyond. To prevent an energy crisis for our allies and take away Russian leverage, the Biden administration should restore full American support to the project.

The EastMed Pipeline was designed to bring natural gas from the offshore fields of Israel and Cyprus across Greece to Italy and Bulgaria. In 2013, the European Commission designated the pipeline a “Project of Common Interest” and invested tens of millions of dollars in technical, economic and environmental studies. It was estimated that the pipeline could send as much as 20 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe annually. In 2019, the energy ministers of Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority created the East Mediterranean Gas Forum. Notice that Turkey, a NATO member, was not included.

At the end of 2020, Congress passed legislation that included support for constructing pipelines and liquified natural gas terminals, and created a United States-Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center run by the U.S. Department of Energy. Then-secretary of energy Dan Brouillette announced his department’s support for the project.

America’s friends and allies banded together to increase and diversify energy supplies in Europe. So, why—in 2022—would the Biden administration privately and unofficially tell a Greek official that the U.S. no longer supports the project?

EastMed, as it turns out, is in the crossfire of economic, foreign and energy policy across a number of very different countries, continents and operating philosophies.

https://asiatimes.com/author/spengler/

It must be a hitherto unreported side-effect of the Omicron strain, perhaps a malignant protein activated by the rays of the full moon. America’s political class, Democrat and Republican alike, appear to have gone babbling, barking mad, starting with President Joe Biden, but afflicting his political opponents as well.

Biden’s January 19 press conference drew pity from the global press, with verbal gaffes unlike anything that has escaped the mouth of an American president before. He predicted a Russian military move into Ukraine: “My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.” Russia will be “held accountable if it invades,” Biden said, but added, “It depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

A baffled reporter asked if he was giving Russia permission for a “minor incursion,” and Biden dug himself in deeper: “If it’s something significantly short of a significant invasion or not even significant — major military forces coming in…for example, it’s one thing to determine that if they continue to use cyber efforts, we can respond the same way, with cyber…There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do, depending on what happens. The degree to which they are able to go.”

The White House press office spent the next several hours “clarifying” the “minor incursion” remark. The world simply concluded that Biden was senile.

Wrote Germany’s center-right daily Die Welt: “Biden stumbled several times. He showed lack of concentration. He closed his eyes several times and stared at the ceiling to regain his concentration. After more than an hour of questions, he looked at his watch and asked the reporters, ‘How much longer did you want to do this?’”

“It’s obvious why the White House staff wants to put the president in front of a microphone as little as possible,” Die Welt concluded.