A basic rule in negotiations is to keep or gain leverage against the other party. The Biden administration, mystifyingly, is doing exactly the opposite in its negotiations with the regime of Iran.

Iran enriching uranium at any level -- it is a negligibly small step to enrich uranium from "acceptable levels" to "nuclear" levels -- puts the world at risk, especially as other countries in the region might well feel compelled to start their nuclear programs as a deterrent.

The US and the UN Security Council also would do well to impose sanctions on Tehran for its violation of Resolution 2231, which "calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."

China is certainly not the only foreign government that has made American politicians wealthy, either directly or indirectly. Given the size of their economy and the wealth of commercial ties between U.S. business and China, however, they do it bigger and more broadly than anyone else. This beneficence, I believe, poses potentially serious questions about China's influence, China's access to American policy makers, and China's activities in the halls of power. Further, it shows the toothlessness of American ethics watchdogs that these issues have not been more thoroughly reviewed and challenged previously.

The financial relationship between the McConnell-Chao family and the Chinese government has since only deepened. In 2017, as Elaine Chao joined the Trump administration, the Chinese government signed several new agreements with the Chao family.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but similar CSSC deals with other companies have recently cost about $47 million per vessel, which would place the total value of the deals Foremost has with the Chinese at nearly half a billion dollars. Under current disclosure laws, which do not apply to adult relatives, neither then-Secretary Chao nor Senator McConnell was required to report their family's dealings with a major foreign military contractor.

Closer Chinese financial ties for the benefit of one of America's most powerful political families also occurred in 2018 amid an aggressive push by Beijing for infrastructure deals around the globe. These deals are part of the strategic "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) initiative, a massive plan to expand China's influence across Asia and Africa.

Hamas and the PFLP have rejected all the agreements signed between Israel and the PLO, including the Oslo Accords. Yet, these terrorist groups have no problem running in an election held under the umbrella of the Oslo Accords.

[I]t is already evident that some of them have no intention of complying with the wishes of the State Department about "renouncing violence and terrorism" or accepting the "two-state solution."

Representatives of some of the lists running in the election, in fact, are promising the exact opposite. They are saying that they are committed to continuing the fight against Israel and have absolutely no intention of recognizing Israel's right to exist.

These Palestinians oppose any recognition of Israel's right to exist; they oppose any form of normalization with Israel; they oppose any peace talks with Israel and have repeatedly denounced any peace process with Israel as an act of treason.

Abu Zuhri and the Hamas leadership are sending the following message to the State Department spokesman: If you think Hamas will renounce violence and terrorism or accept the so-called two-state solution, you are sadly deluding yourself.

This dangerous exploitation of the Oslo Accords, however, does not seem to bother the US administration or the European Union when they talk about the need for the Palestinians to have free and democratic elections.

Like Hamas, the PFLP also vowed to pursue the fight against Israel "until the liberation of all of Palestine" -- in other words, all of Israel.

Under the current circumstances, it seems that Palestinians who support terrorism and do not accept the "two-state solution" are headed toward dominating the next Palestinian parliament and government.

Now that the Hamas and the PFLP candidates have been approved by the Central Elections Commission, the US or the rest of the international community can prevent this plot from materializing by making it clear that they will not recognize any future Palestinian government with terrorists. This demand should be made before, not after the elections.

There are also teachers who, possibly because they are scared, choose to bow their heads, give up teaching certain subjects and -- when students shout anti-Semitic and anti-Western insults -- to act as if they hear nothing. It has become almost impossible in most French high schools to talk about either Israel or the Holocaust.

Most journalists seem to prefer avoiding all discussion of the advance of radical Islam in France. They know that those who do so are immediately called "racists" or "Islamophobes" and are often threatened, prosecuted, sentenced to heavy fines or fired from their place of work.

Even though what the journalist Éric Zemmour said was accurate and verifiable, the CSA (Superior Audiovisual Council), said that to state certain facts constitutes an "incitement to racial hatred".

In 2015, a French journalist compared the National Rally Party to the Islamic State. [National Rally President] Marine Le Pen responded by posting on Twitter two photographs of crimes committed by the Islamic State and added, "This is Islamic State".... In court, the judge asked Le Pen, "Do you consider that these photos violate human dignity?". Le Pen replied, "It is the crime that violates human dignity, it is not its photographic reproduction".

"Fourteen months before the presidential deadline of 2022, ... the supposition is that ... Marine Le Pen, will necessarily be in the second round of the election and that whoever will face her is no longer guaranteed to win". — Le Monde, March 22, 2021.

At the end of the year, there was a Turkey in deep stages of cold-to-colder-war with the EU (in particular, with EU members Greece, Cyprus and France), Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, General Khalifa Haftar of Libya and the United States (over the S-400 dispute).

Not one of these state actors stepped back and appeased Erdoğan or changed policy in the face of Turkish hostilities.

In December, the Trump administration announced that the U.S. would sanction Turkey for its purchase of the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile system....

All that must have made Erdoğan tick. Apparently cornered, Erdoğan launched a new charm offensive in November. He said Turkey's future was in Europe -- quite a radical departure from his usual histrionics that Europe is Islamophobic, fascist, racist and Europeans are "remnants of Nazis."

Erdoğan's tough guy manners have finally been decrypted by state and non-state actors in the former Ottoman lands.

"Erdoğan will not back down until you show him teeth. That's what we did when we negotiated the [Syrian] ceasefire in October of 2019. We were ready to crush the economy." — James Jeffrey, former U.S. special envoy for Syria (and former ambassador to Ankara), Al-Monitor.

As for voter turnout, we now know that the regime has set the stage for an "historic event". Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Gen. Hussein Salami says the "Supreme Guide" has ordered "an epoch-making turnout" that his force will help assemble.

[I]t is clear that the "Supreme Guide" will not tolerate the slightest deviation from the course he has set: a revolution that he claims is moving from strength to strength. "Today we are stronger and America is weaker," he said recently. One of his ideological gurus, Dr. Hassan Abbasi, aka "Dr. Kissinger of Islam", goes further: "America is the sunset power," he says. "We are the sunrise power!"

[The coming election] could end the illusion that the Khomeinist regime might change course and seize opportunity offered to it to re-join the global mainstream.... The four-decade pursuit of "behavior change in Tehran" would have to be reviewed.

Khamenei speaks of a "conspiracy" to force Iran to become a "normal nation" like everyone else and vows to never allow that to happen.

The Khomeinist system isn't a Middle Eastern version of the people-based Scandinavian Social Democracy.... It is a despotism of the medieval kind with a pseudo-modern varnish borrowed from misunderstood Marxism.

The replacement of illusion with reality, no matter how bitter, may be good news after all.

The gray zone is the space between peace and war involving coercive actions that fall outside normal geopolitical competition between states but do not reach the level of armed conflict.... They usually seek to avoid a significant military response, though are often designed to intimidate and deter a target state by threatening further escalation.

[B]ut do liberal democracies in the 21st Century have the political will to do the dirty work that is necessary to win?

Western nations have multiple pre-emptive and reactive options to respond to gray zone actions directed against them or their allies, most effectively involving multilateral coordination. The objective should be to frustrate or deter, avoiding escalation that might lead to all-out conflict. Broadly, options fall into four categories: diplomatic, informational, economic and military.

Democracies' fear of escalation is a significant deterrent against the use of violent military options in the gray zone, and that is exactly the fear that authoritarian states like Iran wish to instil.....[F]ear of escalation is not the greatest obstacle to the use of a military option — transparency is.

Deterrence is not down to the military option alone. Where possible, diplomatic, informational and economic actions are preferable in providing the necessary punishments. But gray zone opponents who are willing to use military action must also be confronted with a credible military jeopardy to them, and not just a paper capability which will quickly be seen for what it is.

How confident can we be that liberal democracies mean business in the gray zone? When British troops were being killed and maimed in large numbers in Iraq by Iranian proxies... more than a decade ago, the UK government would not even consider any form of gray zone military action, even non-lethal, against Iran, despite a clear capability to do so. Instead they relied on diplomatic démarches -- and the killings continued. The consequences of such weakness are still being played out in Iran's widespread gray zone aggression. If back then — in the face of the slaughter of dozens of their own troops — political leaders' fear of escalation and political fallout caused such paralysis, how likely is it that they will seriously contemplate violent gray zone operations today....

Sadly, while the Biden administration is talking about the "need to protect [Palestinian] civil society through the reduction of arrests of bloggers and dissidents," the Palestinian leadership is evidently moving in precisely the opposite direction.

While the Biden administration says it wants to strengthen Palestinian civil society organizations, the Palestinian leadership is working to tighten its grip on these organizations.

The elections are part of Abbas's attempt to curry favor with the Biden administration and present himself as a leader who cares about democracy and fair elections. The fact is that Abbas is desperate for US funding to preserve his regime and remain in power until his last day.

Abbas's punitive measures against [Nasser al-Kidwa, a former PA foreign minister] are aimed at sending a warning to these officials that they would meet the same fate should they run outside the Abbas-led list. Abbas is essentially announcing that anyone who challenges him will be expelled from Fatah and deprived of money and employment.

Instead of holding Abbas to account for his repressive measures, the Biden administration seems to be headed toward financially supporting his totalitarian regime.

According to the internal memo, the US is planning to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians in late March or early April. This means propping up Abbas and his associates ahead of the elections and allowing them to step up their campaign of intimidation against any candidate who dares to demand reforms and an end to rampant corruption.

The Biden administration is about to pump millions of dollars into Abbas's coffers to help him cut off the emergence of new and young leaders and to help him maintain his authoritarian rule over the Palestinians. Once the bounty is paid, Abbas shows all signs of stepping up his repressive measures against his rivals and critics to ensure that he and his Fatah faction triumph in the elections.

Companies are being pressured to scrub from their websites language about corporate policies on human rights, reverse decisions to stop buying cotton produced in Xinjiang, and remove maps that depict Taiwan as an independent country.

In October 2020, the Geneva-based Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), an influential non-profit group that promotes sustainable cotton production, suspended licensing of Xinjiang cotton, citing allegations and "increasing risks" of forced labor. The statement has since been scrubbed from the BCI website, and, disturbingly, also is not accessible on the Internet Archive.

In March 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in a report, "Uyghurs for Sale," revealed that Uyghurs were working in factories — under conditions of forced labor — that are in the supply chains of more than 80 well-known global brands in the clothing, automotive and technology sectors.

"China's government, increasingly keen to punish critics of their Xinjiang policies, is forcing foreign companies to make a choice they have been studiously trying to avoid: support China or get out of the Chinese market.... The Communist Party views itself as increasingly able to exert economic pressure on others, using the 'powerful gravitational field' of the world's second-largest economy.... The choice between the lucrative Chinese market and the values firms profess in the rest of the world is becoming unavoidable...." — The Economist, March 27, 2021.

"German companies account for a good one-half of the EU's exports to China. The German export industry has little interest in tarnishing this balance sheet with moral zeal.... The economic dependence on China, however, further weakens the already low impact of moral arguments. As long as Europe, and in this case Germany in particular, is not prepared to reduce this dependency, complaints about human rights violations in China will, at best, continue to trigger sloppy defensive reactions from Beijing." — Die Welt, March 24, 2021.

For three principal reasons, his [Biden's] jobs plan will create full employment in China. First, Biden will create substantially more demand for Chinese materials to go into America's planned physical infrastructure improvements. Second, the large corporate tax increases he proposes will drive even more businesses out of the U.S. -- and across the Pacific. Third, Biden's "green energy" ideas will eliminate one of the crucial advantages American manufacturers now have: cheap energy.

"Unless we invest in the capacity to make the steel, cement, and the other materials that go into our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, we will always be at the mercy of China's Communist Party" — Jonathan Bass, CEO of Whom Home and onshoring advocate, in an interview with Gatestone Institute, April 2021.

"Domestic security, domestic economic security, is essential to international security. If we damage our economy... with all these tax hikes, including the corporate tax hikes, companies will be leaving, not coming here. We will lose jobs, not gain jobs. Our whole economy will suffer." — Larry Kudlow, former director of the National Economic Council, Fox Business, March 30, 2021.

So, do we really need the federal government to do anything? After all, industry is moving in a "green energy" direction on its own.

"We can't have a policy that sets us behind and still win a competition with China." — Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative 2017-2021, Fox Business, March 30, 2021.

"In many cases, these UK universities are unintentionally generating research that is sponsored by and may be of use to China's military conglomerates, including those with activities in the production of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as well as hypersonic missiles, in which China is involved in a new arms race and seeks 'massively destabilising' weaponry". — "Inadvertently Arming China? The Chinese military complex and its potential exploitation of scientific research at UK universities," a report by the British think tank Civitas, February 7, 2021.

"This report illustrates how 15 of the 24 Russell Group universities and many other UK academic bodies have productive research relationships with Chinese military-linked manufacturers and universities. Much of the research at the university centres and laboratories is also being sponsored by the UK taxpayer...." — "Inadvertently Arming China? The Chinese military complex and its potential exploitation of scientific research at UK universities," a report by the British think tank Civitas, February 7, 2021.

Australian analyst Alex Joske, in a submission to the Australian Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, "The Chinese Communist Party's Talent Recruitment Efforts in Australia," identified at least 325 participants from Australian research institutions, including government institutions, in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) talent-recruitment programs, with as many as up to 600 academics possibly being involved.... Joske estimated that CCP talent recruitment activity in Australia may be associated with as much as AUD $280 million (USD $217 million) in grant fraud over the past two decades.

According to official statistics, China's talent-recruitment programs drew in almost 60,000 overseas professionals between 2008 and 2016," Joske wrote in his August 2020 report, "Hunting the phoenix - The Chinese Communist Party's global search for technology and talent". "These efforts lack transparency; are widely associated with misconduct, intellectual property theft or espionage; contribute to the People's Liberation Army's modernisation; and facilitate human rights abuses..... Over the long term, China's recruitment of overseas talent could shift the balance of power between it and countries such as the US."

China continues generously to fund Western universities. In the UK, for instance, the Chinese company Tencent funded post-doctoral research in the Department of Engineering at Cambridge University.... According to the CIA, Tencent was founded with financing from China's Ministry of State Security.

Oxford University has also received a generous donation from Tencent. Its prestigious Wykeham chair of physics, which was established in 1900, will now be known as the Tencent-Wykeham chair, in honor of the Chinese software giant's donation of £700,000 to the university.

Much of Chinese influence on British universities comes from the CCP's Confucius Institutes, of which there are at least 29 in the UK, according to a February 2019 report on the topic by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

The memo, however, does not specifically say that the renewed US funding would be conditioned on ending the Palestinians' "pay-to-slay" program. Instead, the Biden administration is only seeking a "commitment" from the Palestinian leadership to end the stipends.

It is likely that PA President Mahmoud Abbas may make such a "commitment" to the Biden administration. In reality, however, Abbas has announced over the past few years that he would never stop the payments to the imprisoned terrorists and the families of the "martyrs."

In the world of Abbas and the Palestinians, any Palestinian who is killed while carrying out a terror attack against Jews is a martyr and hero.

"We will not deduct or suspend the allowances. Even if we are left with one penny, we will spend it on the families of the prisoners and martyrs. We consider the martyrs and prisoners as our stars." — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Wafa.ps

The Palestinian leadership is now hoping that the Biden administration will turn a blind eye to the "pay-for-slay' program and allow them to continue funding terrorists and their families.

The Palestinians are letting the world know that the payments to the terrorists will absolutely continue, just not through the banks. The Palestinians are trying to make it look as if this is a problem related only to the method of payment, and not the fact that the money is going to reward terrorists for murdering, or attempting to murder, Jews.

It is clear that any Palestinian "commitment" to cease rewarding terrorists will not be worth the paper it is written on. Abbas and his henchmen are telling the Biden administration one thing in English and their people the opposite in Arabic. They have no intention whatsoever of stopping the blood-soaked payments. In order to ensure that they continue, the Palestinian leadership are funneling the terror funds through the Palestinian post offices.

If and when the Biden administration resumes financial aid to Abbas, those who will resume collecting US taxpayer dollars are the terrorists.

Hate-filled indoctrination and training in violence is not limited to the "schools" of ISIS or Boko Haram. Public schools all around the Muslim world share elements of this indoctrination. Most recently, a March 2021 study exposed how the school curriculum of Turkey — for decades one of the Muslim world's most secular nations — is also increasingly full of jihadi propaganda.

"The Turkish curriculum has been significantly radicalized in recent years. Jihad war is introduced as a central value; martyrdom in battle is glorified.... Concepts such as "Turkish World Domination" ... are emphasized. The curriculum adopts an anti-American stance and displays sympathy toward the motivations of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.... Christians and Jews are characterized as infidels instead of People of the Book.... The curriculum demonizes Zionism and verges on anti-Semitic..." — "The Erdoğan Revolution in the Turkish Curriculum Textbooks," IMPACT-se, March 2021.

What will happen in a few decades when all these boys — those raised on absolute hate and violence and those raised on absolute tolerance and nonviolence — become the world's decision-makers?

The Arabs are warning the world that Turkey and Iran are funding and arming terrorists, that they a major threat to security and stability in the Middle East, and that they keep meddling in the internal affairs of Arab countries.

The Arabs are also telling the world that the only way to deal with Turkey and Iran is by increasing political and economic pressure on them and holding them to account for their malign actions.

Turkey and Iran, in other words, are telling the Arabs that they can go to hell. They are also telling the Arabs that Turkey and Iran will continue to occupy Arab countries, meddle in their internal affairs, and unleash terrorist attacks to undermine their stability and security.

Veteran Saudi columnist Abdulrahman Al-Rashed warned that Iran's continued "military activities" in the region will likely lead to more chaos that will be increasingly difficult to control.

Al-Rashed also pointed out that the Houthi militia increased its missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia after the Biden administration revoked its designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

[T]he latest Arab warning concerning the Turkish and Iranian threats has gone almost unnoticed by the international community and media. They only pay a great deal of attention to the resolutions of the Arab League foreign ministers when they include -- as they frequently do -- a condemnation of Israel.

Although Iran ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, President Hassan Rouhani's government has made no effort to alter the country's Penal Code, which allows girls as young as nine to be executed.

"Iranian courts, and particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court. Authorities have failed to meaningfully investigate numerous allegations of torture against detainees. Authorities routinely restrict detainees' access to legal counsel, particularly during the initial investigation period." — Human Rights Watch, "World Report 2021."

In rewarding Iran for malign behavior -- by again showering millions of dollars on the Iranian regime, lifting sanctions and reviving the nuclear deal -- the US and the EU are empowering the ruling clerics of Iran to further suppress and crack down on dissidents, torture and kill their citizens and expand their tyranny abroad.