Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Majid Rafizadeh • April 9, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Biden administration and the EU do not need to go too far back to see the outcome of those appeasement policies and the nuclear deal with Iran. Its theocratic regime became more determined than ever, as an oblation, an offering to God, to annihilate Israel. Right after the nuclear deal, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who enjoys the final say in Iran's domestic and foreign policy, published a 416-page book, titled "Palestine," with a cover featuring a map of the Middle East with no Israel in it. In the book, Khamenei details his plan of destroying Israel and characterized himself as "the flag bearer of Jihad to liberate Jerusalem." The more the Islamic Republic became empowered due to the appeasement it received, the more it boasted that it could destroy Israel "in less than eight minutes."
The Biden administration and the EU do not need to go too far back to see the outcome of those appeasement policies and the nuclear deal with Iran. Its theocratic regime became more determined than ever, as an oblation, an offering to God, to annihilate Israel. Right after the nuclear deal, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured at right), who enjoys the final say in Iran's domestic and foreign policy, published a 416-page book, titled "Palestine," with a cover featuring a map of the Middle East with no Israel in it. (Image source: Khamenei.ir via Wikimedia Commons)
"Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it," Winston Churchill said. This is exactly what is happening as the Biden administration and the European Union continue relentlessly to appease the ruling mullahs of Iran and attempting to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The Biden administration and the European Union appear to believe that rewarding the Iranian regime will make it act as a constructive and modern nation-state. This idea first surfaced and was acted upon during the administration of then US President Barack Obama, who, on concluding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, pointed out that he was "confident" it would "meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies".
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by Uzay Bulut • April 8, 2022 at 5:00 am
"In Turkey, human rights lawyers are particularly targeted for their work representing human rights defenders, victims of human rights violations, victims of police violence and torture, and many people who simply express dissenting opinions." — Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, June 9, 2021. The government announced in 2020 that it had opened legal proceedings against 597,783 individuals, detained 282,790 and arrested 94,975 for allegedly being behind the 2016 coup attempt. Meanwhile, torture and abuse targeting the government's perceived opponents have become widespread in prisons across Turkey. "The Commissioner is alarmed by the fact that the Turkish judiciary displays, especially in terrorism-related cases, unprecedented levels of disregard for even the most basic principles of law, such as presumption of innocence, no punishment without crime and non-retroactivity of offences, or not being judged for the same facts again." — The Council of Europe, Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, February 19, 2020. Erdogan, meanwhile, claims there are no journalists behind bars... It appears that, according to the Turkish government, dissent is "terrorism." Anyone who does not support the government might be put in the category of so-called "traitors" or "terrorists" and punished by the government. The citizens of Turkey who are perceived to be "enemies" or simply opponents of the government are targeted, abused, jailed or even killed. If they are suspended from their jobs, they are blacklisted by the government, so that it is almost impossible for them to find another job. They are thus put in a situation where they face hunger and poverty daily. Their lives and livelihoods are systematically destroyed. Is there any Western country that treats Muslims so cruelly and unlawfully?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime has arrested and abducted countless Muslims. He has apprehended them from across the world for allegedly being, or supporting, "terrorists" behind a 2016 coup attempt. "In Turkey, human rights lawyers are particularly targeted for their work representing human rights defenders, victims of human rights violations, victims of police violence and torture, and many people who simply express dissenting opinions," according to Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
"Racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and discrimination remain the main problem for the Turkish community in Europe," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a press conference in Germany in 2021. The statement was doubly ironic, as Erdogan's regime has arrested and abducted countless Muslims. He has apprehended them from across the world for allegedly being, or supporting, "terrorists" behind a 2016 coup attempt. Nowhere else, however, can one find the countless crimes committed by the government of Turkey against its own Muslim citizens. The human rights of many citizens of Turkey who were born Muslim -- whether they became devout, secular, or ex-Muslim -- are continually and systematically being violated by the Turkish government.
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by Lawrence Kadish • April 7, 2022 at 10:15 am
Our nation should follow Alabama's lead in safeguarding that only the voter may return his or her ballot, but until they do, there needs to be a concerted effort to educate the American voter of what ballot harvesting really is, for only sunlight will put an end to this dark and vulnerable practice. (Image source: iStock)
Congratulations to Alabama and Ballotpedia for their invaluable role in protecting our democracy. In the age of Covid, with absentee voting now widespread, only one state, Alabama, has safeguards that "explicitly allowed only the voters to return their ballot", to prevent third parties and ballot harvesters from making your vote disappear. If you are unable to vote in person, or if you decide to vote with an absentee ballot, mail your ballot in a sealed envelope to your local Board of Elections Office (Absentee Vote Dept) -- and please mail it yourself.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • April 7, 2022 at 5:00 am
"The UAE has allocated the bulk of the investments of its huge sovereign funds in the American markets, even excluding Asian and European markets, and has been keen to increase the volume of trade exchange with Washington. The UAE wanted to become America's No 1 trading partner." — Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, close associate of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates, Mufakiru Al Emarat, March 29, 2022. "This prompted the UAE and other countries not to rely on the US as a sole strategic partner. The UAE's relationship with the US partner is at stake.... the Biden administration... may be on the verge of losing a regional partner." — Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, Mufakiru Al Emarat, March 29, 2022 "He [Biden] has not learned the lessons from [former US President Barack] Obama's mistakes and disasters.... Biden is continuing to make more mistakes, particularly in his dealings with Russia and the Gulf countries." — Muhammed Al Mahmeed, Bahraini writer, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, April 3, 2022. Veteran Lebanese journalist and political analyst Kheirallah Kheirallah said that there is no real difference between Biden and Obama. "Nothing has changed in Washington, from Barack Obama to Joe Biden. If anything has changed, it is for the worse." — Elaph, March 30, 2022. "How can a US administration ... [refuse] to take note that northern Yemen has become an Iranian base for missiles and drones? These missiles and drones are.... now threatening navigation in the Red Sea as well." — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Elaph, March 30, 2022. "[This US policy] has encouraged Iran to go far in threatening the countries of the region and their security with the help of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. To put it more clearly, there is no sane person in the region willing to take seriously any reassuring words issued by [US Special Envoy for Iran] Rob Malley and other officials in the US administration dealing with the Iranian portfolio. Every child knows that these American officials have nothing but appeasement for Iran...." — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Elaph, March 30, 2022. "Worse than all of the above would be if Washington responds to the Iranian condition by removing the Revolutionary Guard Corps from the list of terrorist organizations, as it did with the terrorist Houthi militia." — Khorshid Delli, Kurdish researcher, Al-Ain, April 1, 2022. "Biden's policy toward the Iranian nuclear is not acceptable to the allies in the Middle East and the Arab Gulf...." — Khorshid Delli, Al-Ain, April 1, 2022. "We see what Iran's proxies are doing in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Kuwait." — Mashari Al-Thaydi, Saudi journalist Al-Ain, March 30, 2022. Although many in the Arab world diplomatically refer to Biden's action as "mistakes," they appear to recognize that they are deliberate, and lacking in any consideration for the wellbeing of people who will have to continue living in the region -- which the Americans making these decisions for them will not. The Biden administration's courtship of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, seems a replay of the same heartless, coldblooded lack of concern as the Americans showed for the people they were leaving behind when they pulled out of Afghanistan; and now, when the US is seen dragging its feet to avoid giving the Ukrainians enough weapons fast enough to defend themselves adequately from a Russian slaughtering army. Many seem confused why the Biden administration would want this as their legacy.
The Biden administration's courtship of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, has many Arabs confused as to why the Biden administration would want this as their legacy. If the human rights record of Saudi Arabia seems a problem, Arabs ask themselves why the human rights record of Iran -- which has murdered so many Americans over the years -- from the Marine barracks bombing of 1983 to the attacks on 9/11 -- is considered any better. (Photo by Robert Giroux/Getty Images)
Many Arabs are continuing to express disappointment and frustration with the administration of US President Joe Biden, particularly its perceived appeasement of Iran's mullahs, failure to classify the Iran-backed Houthi militia as a terrorist organization and turning its back on America's erstwhile allies and friends in the Arab world. These views, expressed in articles published in several media outlets, reflect the widespread concern among Arabs, especially those living in the Gulf states. Some of the Arab writers and political analysts behind these articles are close to the governments and leaders of the Arab countries. It is therefore safe to assume that these views also reflect the official positions of these leaders and governments. One of the prominent writers, Emirati politician and academic Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, is closely associated with Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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by Daniel Greenfield • April 7, 2022 at 4:00 am
Afterward [after Putin invaded Crimea], Obama called Putin to warn him that Russia's actions were in "violation of Ukraine's sovereignty" and that "in coordination with our European partners, we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions." Those "sanctions" consisted of buying twice as much Russian oil in Jan 2015 as in Feb 2014. Biden, like his former boss, keeps insulting and threatening Putin not from a position of strength, but as an admission of weakness. Biden calls for regime change and war crimes trials for Putin, and then slow walks shipments of weapons and refuses to transfer planes to Ukraine. Moscow isn't paying attention to what Washington D.C. says, but what it does. And the real message from Biden is that he's afraid of Putin, but looking to cover it up with tough talk. Biden has once again wrecked America's credibility, making public commitments and private disavowals, putting our honor on the line for a war he has no intention of winning or even getting involved in. Putin understands that even a partial victory in Ukraine means not just a defeat for that country, but for the United States and Europe as paper tigers. Biden has... no intention of properly arming... [Ukraine] to win on the battlefield. What that really means is that Biden and his administration have set up America to lose. The administration's fearful dithering gave Putin the impression that he could quickly take Ukraine and win. After giving Putin permission for a "minor incursion" as his version of Obama's red line, Biden was confronted with a full invasion and after a month still hasn't made it clear to either Russia or Ukraine, or any of our allies, what they can expect America to do about it. Strong nations make it clear what they will and won't fight for. And they don't send mixed signals that only communicate weakness. Nor do they talk about how fearful they are of a fight. [T]he best way to avoid foreign wars is.... as a choice made from a position of strength, not the catastrophic conclusion to a series of inept entanglements that alternately convince our enemies we won't fight and that they have nothing to worry about even if we do. In Ukraine, Biden, like Obama, is hiding behind the Europeans, who are hiding behind us, for a global show of cowardice. Vladimir Putin understands that wars are something you win, while the D.C. establishment doesn't fight wars, but commits American forces to implementing multilateral values. That's why we never win. If you don't fight a war, how can you possibly win one? Are we involved to keep energy and bread prices low, or to avoid a future war on worse terms?
After Putin invaded Crimea, Obama called Putin to warn him that Russia's actions were in "violation of Ukraine's sovereignty" and that "in coordination with our European partners, we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions." Those "sanctions" consisted of buying twice as much Russian oil in Jan 2015 as in Feb 2014. Pictured: Obama and Putin meeting at the UN headquarters in New York City on September 28, 2015. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Putin invaded Ukraine under Obama in February 2014 and Biden in February 2022. The invasions, eight years apart to the month, are not a coincidence. Both times Vladimir Putin was facing a lame duck Democrat who had just flinched away from a military engagement. Each time Putin smelled weakness and he struck. Obama, after declaring a red line in Syria, had panicked and backed away in 2013. He then cheered on Ukrainian protests against a pro-Russian regime in Kiev and Moscow responded by calling his bluff and seizing Crimea. Afterward, Obama called Putin to warn him that Russia's actions were in "violation of Ukraine's sovereignty" and that "in coordination with our European partners, we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions." Those "sanctions" consisted of buying twice as much Russian oil in Jan 2015 as in Feb 2014.
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by Giulio Meotti • April 6, 2022 at 5:00 am
"Germany and several other European countries have largely banned fracking. This has transformed European leaders into the equivalent of 16th-century naval explorers, praying for favorable winds and weather as energy prices rise and fall depending on cloud cover and wind conditions." — Wall Street Journal editorial, October 20, 2021. In the autumn of 2021, COP26, the UN climate conference, was setting up its grotesque spectacle: a kind of ecological Versailles. The rich, powerful and virtuous of the planet gathered in Glasgow to pontificate to the citizenry of Western countries about how much we are harming the planet with our way of life. They arrived in their private jets to complain about the plague of air industry emissions. The British government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Patrick Vallance, said that everyone should eat less meat and fly less. Then came the news that 400 private jets would be flying to the UN climate conference... While the Germans pontificated about the climate, the Washington Post informed us of their hypocrisy: "Germany portrays itself as a climate leader. But it's still razing villages for coal mines... The yawning black-brown scar in the earth that is Germany's Garzweiler coal mine has already swallowed more than a dozen villages. Centuries-old churches and family homes have been razed and the land they were built on torn away. Farmland has disappeared, graveyards have been emptied." The Lützerath mine alone is twice the size of Manhattan. That is why Germany has been labelled as the most polluting country in Europe. Thus, the progressive American pundits until October dreamed of an alliance between the West, Russia and China against global warming. Now that the West has isolated Russia, the largest supplier of energy for Europe, no one is talking about that anymore. Russia, it turns out, has reportedly been promoting, often through "dark money" via Bermuda – which does not require donor countries to be named -- "green" campaigns against nuclear power to ensure dependence by the West on imports of Russia's fossil fuels. Germany's Foundation for Climate and Environmental Protection, which has reportedly received more than 17 million euros from Gazprom, has also been accused of being a Moscow-funded "puppet", the Sunday Times disclosed. The foundation was established this year in Mecklenburg-Pomerania by Manuela Schwesig... an ally of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is Chairman of the companies that own the Nord Stream and Nord Stream II pipelines, built to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. Schröder has also been serving on the boards of Russian state-backed energy companies. "I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – environmental organizations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas". — Then NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, quoted in The Guardian, June 19, 2014. "We have found Gazprom funding in particular environmental NGOs, which furnished certain European countries with ministers -- Belgium for example -- who then evidently embarked on a sort of return of favor by defending an exit from nuclear power." — Dominique Reynié, professor of political science at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, in an interview with CNews. An investigation by Unherd revealed that China is also funding Western environmentalists.
Russia, it turns out, has reportedly been promoting, often through "dark money" via Bermuda – which does not require donor countries to be named -- "green" campaigns against nuclear power to ensure dependence by the West on imports of Russia's fossil fuels. An investigation by Unherd revealed that China is also funding Western environmentalists. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the Energy Club Summit during an International Economic Forum meeting in St. Petersburg on June 21, 2013. (Photo by Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA-Novosti/AFP via Getty Images)
"With winter fast approaching, Europe finds itself in an energy crisis—and reliant on the tender mercies of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. It's a self-induced disaster years in the making". That was how an October 20, 2021 editorial in the Wall Street Journal began, before Russia amassed its troops on the Ukrainian border and no analyst or think tank imagined that the unthinkable was around the corner. The editorial continued: "European leaders have handicapped themselves on energy in the name of pursuing a climate agenda that will have no effect on the climate but is raising energy prices, harming consumers and industry, and is now empowering the bullies in the Kremlin.
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by Daniel Greenfield • April 6, 2022 at 4:00 am
After Biden's retreat, the Taliban have consolidated control over Afghanistan. And over all the hungry children, the girls deprived of an education, and all the other sob stories that kept a river of private charity and taxpayer money flowing into a hellhole in which nothing ever got better. That's on top of the $782 million in "humanitarian aid" allocated to Afghanistan last year since the Taliban took over. This year, Biden signed an executive order allocating $3.5 billion of the Afghan assets held in the Federal Reserve for the same purpose. But even not counting those funds, Biden has dedicated $986 million to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. That's nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money and nearly $4.5 billion in total funds. The Biden administration keeps insisting that the money won't go to the Taliban. That's as plausible as its previous claims that the Afghan government wouldn't collapse, that if it did we would be ready, and that all Americans would be evacuated before Kabul fell to the enemy. There's no one with less credibility on Afghanistan than a member of the Biden administration. The Taliban have been hungry to get their hands on foreign aid, but, likely guided by their Qatari backers, they've also been clever about it. They proposed a joint body with the international community to dispense aid. When that didn't work, they went back to their usual strategy of pressuring NGOs to hire Taliban members to determine where the aid should go and who should distribute it. But that's just a matter of cutting out the middleman for more direct control. Since the NGOs rely heavily on local labor, all the Taliban have to do is intimidate Afghan employees into following their orders. And for a terror group that practices mutilation and beheading, that's not hard. Does anyone really believe that an Afghan with a wife and children living under Taliban rule is going to follow our aid guidelines rather than those of the gunmen The Taliban, like the Houthis in Yemen and other Islamic terror groups who both cause and profit from famines, have already been distributing and taking credit for humanitarian aid. Portions of the nearly $1 billion in foreign aid stolen from the paychecks of American workers and the mouths of their children will be used to finance a new Jihad against Western nations. A generation after 9/11, Americans are once again funding the terrorists who are out to kill them.
The Taliban, like the Houthis in Yemen and other Islamic terror groups who both cause and profit from famines, have already been distributing and taking credit for humanitarian aid. A generation after 9/11, Americans are once again funding the terrorists who are out to kill them. Pictured: A Taliban soldier stands guard at the venue for a flag hoisting ceremony in Kabul on March 31, 2022. (Photo by Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP via Getty Images)
Over two decades, the United States and its international partners poured billions in humanitarian aid into Afghanistan. Much of that aid went into the pockets of the Taliban. After Biden's retreat, the Taliban have consolidated control over Afghanistan. And over all the hungry children, the girls deprived of an education, and all the other sob stories that kept a river of private charity and taxpayer money flowing into a hellhole in which nothing ever got better. The more things change, the more they stay the same. At an aid conference hosted by the UN, the UK, Germany and the Islamic terror state of Qatar, which backs the Taliban, $2.4 billion was raised for Afghanistan. The hosts had demanded over $4.4 billion, which would have been the largest amount ever raised for any nation. The Biden administration kicked in another $204 million.
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by Pete Hoekstra • April 5, 2022 at 5:00 am
Today, Russia in Ukraine is the focus, but the aspirations of China and Iran must not be ignored. The US must -- in the best interests of the United States -- immediately deliver the weapons Ukraine needs to forestall future predators such as China, Iran and North Korea. What happens in Ukraine does not stay in Ukraine. The longer the US shilly-shallies, the longer urgently needed weapons fail to reach Ukraine, the more it invites other predators. Ukraine must have -- now -- not only the weapons it needs to combat Russia's carnage, weapons to "close the skies," such as S-300s and S-400s and MiGs that the Ukrainians could pull over the border; it must also have heavy weapons such as tanks and long-range anti-ship munitions that Zelenskyy is requesting to repel Russia's assault to sever Ukraine from the Black Sea, and landlocking the country to suffocate all means of commerce. One wonders, as Kasparov suggests, if the Biden administration secretly wants Putin, "the devil you know," to win. "Everything I hear from other NATO members is that the U.S. has become the obstacle, and an explanation is required. Allowing Mr. Putin to keep an inch of Ukrainian soil after bombing civilians should be unimaginable. Conceding large areas of eastern Ukraine to the invader in exchange for a cease-fire would only give Mr. Putin time to consolidate and rearm for next time—and there will always be a next time." — Garry Kasparov, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2022. Kazakhstan, too, had an inspirational leader, Serikzhan Bilash, willing to fight for freedom. Many in the media and the Biden administration have completely ignored him and the struggle of the people of Kazakhstan. Another rising voice of freedom is that of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the opposition in Belarus, who is fighting to keep her country on the side of freedom. She, along with Zelenskyy and Bilash, represent the dreams and aspirations of thousands, likely millions, of people within their homelands. They are risking everything for the ideals that America and the West claim to hold dear. [S]upporting those leaders who are out front should be easy. Why is America not supporting them further? Why are Russia's generals and military leaders not being threatened? Why are America's attempts at sanctioning Russian energy and all of Russia's oligarchs, their families and their businesses so incomplete and half-hearted? There is no diplomatic way out of this war. The U.S. not only needs to recognize the power of these defiant leaders, but do more -- much, much more -- to help them. That is what is in the strategic interests of the United States.
Today, Russia in Ukraine is the focus, but the aspirations of China and Iran must not be ignored. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and then Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP via Getty Images)
The world is seeing Vladimir Putin's clear plan to reestablish the Russian Empire. It also is hearing rumblings from Asia about restoration of a Chinese dynasty, and in the Middle East, a return to when Persia -- now an extremely different Iran -- dominated the region. For any of these empires to expand, they need to take control of other states or groups of people. Those states can either be overrun and annexed, or they can be controlled and remain smaller, more manageable political units. Today, Russia in Ukraine is the focus, but the aspirations of China and Iran must not be ignored.
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by Daniel Greenfield • April 5, 2022 at 4:00 am
Russia isn't fighting for Communism, but for market dominance. Europeans outsourced the responsibilities of powering their cities and heating their homes to Russia. While they tinkered with windmills and solar panels, Russia built an energy monopoly. Now it's expanding its monopolistic control the way that most powers and empires used to. Russia may want all or part of Ukraine for nationalistic reasons, but, more importantly, because of pipeline routes and energy reserves. The underlying motive for this war is gas and the European nations decrying the invasion were the ones who provided the motive for the war. The PRC [Communist China] may also be obsessed with claiming Taiwan because of its nationalistic One China program, but the island refuge also possesses TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry which dominates chip manufacturing. If China were to take Taiwan and then help North Korea swallow up South Korea, the PRC and its allies would control over 80% of global semiconductor contract manufacturing. And that would provide China with a virtual monopoly on the future. Solidifying control over Hong Kong and then taking Taiwan is Xi's equivalent of Russia's invasion of Ukraine with tech instead of energy. Even the most socialist leaders had come to think of the world as a set of commodity exchanges. They outsourced the dirty work and salved their conscience by financing some local NGOs. That's how we ended up with the War on Terror, now the Ukraine war, and quite possibly a Taiwan war before too long. Western nations may have decided to abandon imperialism, but all they did was outsource it to the Muslim world, to Russia, and China who are happy to take it on. We can either build empires, grow poor, or become self-sufficient. The green fantasy in which we can leave behind pollution and unsightly factories by embracing solar panels, electric cars, and products with green labels is a lie. Green products are no cleaner, they're just marketed that way. Behind the scenes there are still strip mines, grimy factories, and exploited workers because it takes even more dirty work to make something look shiny and clean. If we want to stop the wars, we have to stop funding Chinese, Russian and Islamic imperialism with our wealth and our industries. The only way to bring the troops home is to bring the industries and resources home.
Russia may want all or part of Ukraine for nationalistic reasons, but, more importantly, because of pipeline routes and energy reserves. The underlying motive for this war is gas and the European nations decrying the invasion were the ones who provided the motive for the war. Pictured: A gas station burns after Russian attacks in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 30, 2022. (Photo by Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images)
In the 90s, Russia was a spent force. The consensus was that free enterprise had defeated Communism. And it had. Russia isn't fighting for Communism, but for market dominance. A generation later we're watching what may be the largest outsourcing war of a new century. Russia, like China, rebooted its economy by exploiting the growing desire of western liberalism to accommodate environmentalists and socialists by offshoring their "dirty" industries. The United States outsourced its manufacturing to China which took on everything from making dollar store trinkets to recycling our used soda bottles while our elites focused on preparing the populace for the "jobs of the future" that would all involve using a computer. Now the PRC has a rising middle class and America has a falling one. China is building entire new cities for its middle class while the American middle class can no longer afford to buy a house or a car.
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by Judith Bergman • April 4, 2022 at 5:00 am
"For China... the Ukrainian crisis provided a unique opportunity to increase its access to Russia's natural resources, particularly gas, gain contracts for infrastructure projects and new markets for Chinese technology, and turn Russia into a junior partner in the relationship between the two countries." — Report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, February 2015. In addition to undermining sanctions through the commodities trade, China is possibly also helping Russia hide its money. Despite all of the above, the Biden administration continues to talk about China as if proof were still needed that it is undercutting sanctions on Russia. China has clearly been giving material help to Russia. So where are the "consequences"? The closest that the U.S. has come to going beyond words is the announcement, along with other G7 leaders, of an "enforcement initiative" to prevent Russia from evading sanctions, but it is -- presumably deliberately -- unclear what that initiative actually entails. "The trade and the purchase of long-term energy supplies undercut the sanctions, because it shows Putin he has got somebody in his corner for the next five years or more." — Michael Pillsbury, author of The Hundred-Year Marathon, Fox News, March 21, 2022. The Biden administration, by repeatedly threatening "consequences" and issuing "warnings" to China, "if" it helps Russia undercut sanctions, merely continues to project indecision, weakness and lack of leadership ...[and] will only result in the additional loss of credibility and the further degradation of U.S. deterrence to the detriment of the West.
Despite tough Western sanctions on Russia, President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine has now lasted for more than a month and Putin is showing no signs of backing down. The power helping him to withstand the effects of the sanctions and continue the war is Russia's most powerful ally -- China. Pictured: Putin meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow on June 5, 2019. (Image source: kremlin.ru)
Despite tough Western sanctions on Russia, President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine has now lasted for more than a month and Putin is showing no signs of backing down. The power helping him to withstand the effects of the sanctions and continue the war is Russia's most powerful ally -- China. Shortly before Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russia and China entered into contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars. On February 4, Putin announced new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5 billion. On February 18, six days before the invasion, Russia announced a $20 billion deal to sell 100 million tons of coal to China. On the day of the invasion, China, lifting restrictions that had been in place previously due to concerns about plant diseases, agreed to buy Russian wheat.
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by Soeren Kern • April 3, 2022 at 5:00 am
The goal is "strategic autonomy" — the ability for the EU to act independently of, and as a counterweight to, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — in matters of defense and security. The key component of the Strategic Compass is the development of a so-called EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC), a military force able to intervene in "non-permissive environments" anywhere in the world. The RDC is to become fully operational by 2025 and commanded by an institution called the "EU Military Planning and Conduct Capability." (The term "capability" is a politically correct substitute for "headquarters," as in "military headquarters.") The push for Europe to achieve strategic autonomy from the United States is being spearheaded by Macron, who, as part of his reelection campaign, apparently hopes to replace former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto leader of Europe. The danger is that many of the pie-in-the-sky policy proposals in the Strategic Compass will divert and drain resources and finances from where they are actually needed: NATO. A logical course of action would be for EU member states to honor past pledges to increase defense spending as part of their contribution to the transatlantic alliance. That, however, would fly in the face of the folie de grandeur — the delusions of grandeur — of European federalists who dream of transforming the EU into a geopolitical "great power."
The goal of the European Union's new "Strategic Compass" strategy is "strategic autonomy" — the ability for the EU to act independently of, and as a counterweight to, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — in matters of defense and security. (Image source: EU External Action Service)
The European Union has published a new strategy aimed at transforming the 27-member bloc into an independent geopolitical actor on the world stage. The long-awaited "Strategic Compass" lays out an ambitious ten-year plan for the EU to develop an autonomous European security architecture. The goal is "strategic autonomy" — the ability for the EU to act independently of, and as a counterweight to, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — in matters of defense and security. The greatest advocate of strategic autonomy, French President Emmanuel Macron, said the objective is to make Europe "powerful in the world, fully sovereign, free in its choices and master of its destiny."
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by Amir Taheri • April 3, 2022 at 4:00 am
Putin began by calling it "special operations" so that he would not have to obtain the consent of the Russian Parliament (Duma) to wage war. This may have been because he expected a quick victory and did not wish to share the glory with anyone. Putin also refused to name a commander-in-chief of the forces unleashed against Ukraine. But even if we go by conservative estimates based on Russian official leaks, Putin's army has suffered a 20 percent loss in killed and wounded. This is twice the maximum accepted in classic military doctrines....
It is hard to establish the number of Russian losses. Pictured: Destroyed Russian Army tanks and armored personnel carriers in Dmytrivka, west of Kyiv, on April 2, 2022. (Photo by Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)
Apart from its political impact on the international order, the war that Russia has launched against Ukraine contains countless features that should interest military analysts and planners across the globe. This is the first time since World War II that the Russian Army (formerly Soviet Red Army) is tested on the battlefield against a medium-sized adversary in a classical war. In the 1960s, the Red Army fought border wars with Communist China and managed to annex large chunks of territory across the border. But that was not a full-scale war, as a much weaker China, then also devoid of nuclear weapons, shied away from fighting back in a meaningful way. Also in the 1950s the Red Army's tanks rolled into Warsaw and Budapest to crush unarmed anti-Communist uprisings. In 1968, the same scenario was played out in Prague, where Russian tanks rolled over the Prague Spring.
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • April 2, 2022 at 5:00 am
If a corporation builds a better mousetrap than the government, we buy it. And generally, that is a good idea. But it may come with costs, not easily measurable in dollars or speed. The Constitution itself was not designed for efficiency.... Ours was designed to check and balance power, rather than to expedite results. We pay a price for our desire to prevent too much centralization of authority in any one person or institution. And sometimes we grow impatient at the slow pace of progress. We want our mail delivered faster and more frequently; we want to know the outcome of elections tonight not next week... we want our disputes resolved without months of pretrial discovery. And so, we turn to the classic American solution: private enterprise, free market competition, capitalism. The time has come to consider the consider the costs and benefits of this important development. It is not the object of this article to resolve these issues or to propose specific jurisprudential shifts. It is simply to bring together a number of related changes that have in common the privatization of traditional governmental activities, and to begin a discussion of the legal changes that, especially in the area of social media censorship, seem urgently required. We must begin a discussion of the legal changes that seem urgently required, especially in the area of media censorship, invasion of privacy and lack of transparency by private companies that appear to be performing functions, possibly at the behest of the government, as a way of bypassing the restrictions placed on the government by the First Amendment.
We must begin a discussion of the legal changes that seem urgently required, especially in the area of media censorship, invasion of privacy and lack of transparency by private companies that appear to be performing functions, possibly at the behest of the government, as a way of bypassing the restrictions placed on the government by the First Amendment. (Adobe Stock File #2478721)
When I was growing up, the mail was delivered by the post office, money was printed by the treasury, votes were counted by election officials, wars were fought by the army, prisons were run by departments of correction, law enforcement was conducted by the police force, space exploration was done by NASA, legal disputes were resolved by judges and juries. Today, these and other traditional governmental functions are being shared among public, private and mixed groups. This growing privatization of what used to be deemed the provenance of the state raises fundamental and rarely discussed questions of constitutional law, political accountability and the nature of our society.
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by Con Coughlin • April 1, 2022 at 5:00 am
Now Western security officials believe that Iran and Russia have struck a cooperation deal to work together to evade Western sanctions once a new nuclear deal has been agreed by the Biden administration. Iran is known to have established a clandestine banking and finance system to handle tens of billions of dollars in annual trade banned under U.S.-led sanctions. Iran, according to Western security officials, has offered to provide Russia with access to its illegal sanctions-busting network in return for Moscow's support in getting a new nuclear deal in place. Russia and Iran are in the process of negotiating a multi-billion dollar arms deal, including the purchase of Russian warplanes and submarines, and Moscow is keen that the deal will not be scuppered as a result of Western sanctions. Following a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in China this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Moscow would work with Tehran to take steps to evade Western sanctions, the RIA news agency reported. Western security officials believe the outline of a sanctions-busting deal between Moscow and Tehran is already in place, with Iran promising not to enforce Western sanctions against Russia. As part of the deal, Iran has offered to use its existing evasion network to help Russia sell its oil on international markets once the nuclear deal is signed, and sanctions have been lifted against Tehran. The imposition of these measures is certainly a long overdue recognition by the Biden administration that Iran is simply exploiting the nuclear negotiations to further its own regional ambitions. And the fact that Iran and Russia are now actively colluding to evade Western sanctions, thereby forming a new "axis of evil", should finally persuade the White House to end once and for all its involvement in this gross act of diplomatic folly.
Russia and Iran are negotiating a multi-billion dollar arms deal, including the purchase of Russian planes and submarines, and Russia is looking to Iran for support in circumventing Western sanctions. Following a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Moscow would work with Tehran to take steps to evade Western sanctions. Pictured: Lavrov (R) and Amir-Abdollahian conduct a joint press conference in Moscow on March 15, 2022. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Thanks to the Biden administration's ill-judged obsession with reviving the flawed nuclear deal with Iran, the world can soon look forward to the creation of a new "axis of evil" between Russia and Iran. In recent months, as negotiations over reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal's official title, have continued in Vienna, Western negotiators have expressed concern about the negative support Iran is receiving from Russia in the talks. Instead of concentrating on key issues, such as Iran's enrichment activities that Western intelligence officials believe are part of Tehran's attempts to develop nuclear weapons, the Russians have encouraged the Iranian negotiating team to focus on relatively minor issues, such as the location of monitoring cameras at key Iranian nuclear installations, which are vital for monitoring their enrichment facilities.
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by Gordon G. Chang • March 31, 2022 at 5:00 am
China, after years of persistent commercial, diplomatic, and military efforts, is taking over the Pacific. Beijing is moving from island group to island group, and soon the People's Liberation Army will be in striking distance of Hawaii. The five-year deal, subject to automatic renewals, will allow Beijing to use the islands to base its military and to do pretty much what the Chinese military wants. If implemented to its full extent, the Framework Agreement will give China the ability to sever shipping lanes and air links connecting the U.S. with its treaty ally Australia and partner New Zealand. For decades, Washington allowed Canberra and Wellington to manage the Solomons and its region.... Beijing, through payoffs now detailed in public, essentially owns Sogavare's government. There is now talk that China will ink a security agreement with Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia. Moreover, China wants to upgrade an airstrip in Kiribati. Beijing says the improvements are for civilian purposes only, yet the military uses are apparent and no one believes the Chinese assurances. The facility is just 1,900 miles south of Hawaii. In Pacific terms, Kiribati is America's next-door neighbor.
Communist China is moving across the Pacific from island group to island group, and soon the People's Liberation Army will be in striking distance of Hawaii. China's new five-year deal with the Solomon Islands, subject to automatic renewals, will allow Beijing to use the islands to base its military and to do pretty much what the Chinese military wants. Pictured: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang shows the way to Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, in Beijing on October 9, 2019. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
On March 25, the Solomon Islands announced it was "expanding" security arrangements, "diversifying the country's security partnership including with China." The announcement was defensive. The day before, opponents of a security pact with China leaked what was labeled a "draft" agreement. Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare's government did not confirm the authenticity of the leaked document, but observers believe he intends that version to be final. Australia, which expressed "great concern," confirmed the draft as authentic. The pact, titled "Framework Agreement Between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of Solomon Islands on Security Cooperation," highlights a disturbing trend: China, after years of persistent commercial, diplomatic, and military efforts, is taking over the Pacific. Beijing is moving from island group to island group, and soon the People's Liberation Army will be in striking distance of Hawaii.
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