Category Archives: foreign policy

Hypocrisy

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Fox News is reporting that the People’s Republic of China is claiming that

it was forced to veto a United Nations vote on Syria because it was called before differences in the proposal were bridged, but denied playing spoiler and said it wants to see an end to violence there.

Forced.  Poor babies.  The resolution that the PRC (and Russia) chose to veto would have been a move toward ending nearly a year of Bashar Assad’s killing—to the tune of 5,400—of his own people since last March.

The PRC justifies itself by insisting that the resolution, as written, unduly pressured…the Syrian government.  This is a strange, but strangely consistent, objection coming from a country with similar problems in Tibet, and in its Xinjiang province (which is populated with all those uppity Uighurs.  Oh, yeah, and that also is the PRC’s largest natural gas-producing region).  This also comes from a country that still maintains it has a right to conquer the Republic of China.

Liu Weimin, a spokesman for the PRC’s Foreign Ministry, insisted that that too-early Security Council vote was forced before suitable (Chinese diluting) amendments had been agreed.   This, though, ignores the fact that the PRC never would have accepted a resolution that had actual teeth for ending the Syrian government’s butcherybloodshed.  Just as it had consistently demanded watering down earlier versions of the resolution.

Liu also denied that the PRC was favoring Assad, in particular.  Yet this is exactly the outcome of the Chinese veto.

The People’s Daily  opined

The present situation in Syria is extremely complicated.  To naively back one side, while attacking the other side, might look like bringing about a favorable turn, but is actually just laying up trouble ahead.

No.  It’s not complicated at all.  Either the PRC supports Assad and his behavior, or it does not.  In the meantime, people are dying today.  But that’s no trouble at all.

We don’t need to keep taking the PRC seriously on the political stage; we can ignore and bypass them—and we should ignore and bypass them, so long as they continue to side with bloody despotism.

These Chinese are not just on the wrong side of history—they’re on the wrong side of morality.

Resetting with Russia and China

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Given Russia’s and the People’s Republic of China’s veto of an Arab League motion before the UN’s Security Council “aimed at ending the violence in Syria that called for Mr. Assad to hand over his powers to his vice president and allow creation of a unity government,” vetoes that came hours after Assad’s murderous artillery bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs with an estimated 200 civilian deaths )about which Russia and the PRC surely knew), it may be time to “reset” relations.

Plainly, these vetoes are motivated by either, or both, of two things.  Others have written of Putin’s reluctance to admit that a dysfunctional, even dishonest, much less a murderous government should be susceptible to abolishment by the people: for one thing, Syria is important to a Russian naval presence in the Med, for another, Putin doesn’t want to encourage the Russian people along the same lines, and so on.  Other Chinese motives also seem apparent: Iran is a convenient source of needed oil, and Syria is an important, if not critical, ally of the Iranians.

Another motive is much more stark.  A butcher in charge of Syria hurts the US.  American impotence in dealing with this butcher, especially after the benign (compared to the Syrian situation) affair of Gadhafi, hurts the US.  Vetoes of American-backed (if Arab-led in the present instance) public initiatives demonstrate that impotence.

Following these vetoes, we’re getting some unusually strongly couched statements from President Obama’s State Department.  UN Ambassador Susan Rice has said of the vetoes

The United States is disgusted that a couple of members of this Council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose.

and

The people of Syria…have been slapped in the face by several members of the Security Council today.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said

What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty.

and

Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations….

and

We will work to expose those who are still funding the regime and sending it weapons to be used against defenseless Syrians, including women and children….

The question becomes, then, is this a sign that resetting is beginning?  Or is it just more idle chit-chat and firm finger-shaking from the Obama administration?

Sanctions and Trust

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Does his own party trust him anymore on sanctions against Iran—or anything else?

In a letter to President Obama (formally to his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner), two Senators, Robert Menendez (D, NJ), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs, and Mark Kirk (R, IL), Member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, felt constrained to remind Obama and his administration of Congress’ intent when it passed (and Obama signed into law) the recent Menendez-Kirk Amendment to the Comprehensive Iran Sanction, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISAD).  This amendment authorized oil and financial sanctions against Iran should Iran insist on continuing on their course to obtaining nuclear weapons.

We understand that the administration is drafting rules to guide the implementation of the law and we hereby seek to convey the legislative intent underlying certain terms and phrases in the amendment and to ensure that the positive developments that have occurred as a result of the amendment are buttressed  by the administrative rules[.]

The Senators opened their letter with the above.  Their concern arises from Obama’s attempt to eviscerate the amendment to CISAD while it was being developed, even though it was an amendment that Obama had urged and to which Menendez and Kirk had agreed, and then after that agreement, Obama’s repudiation of it (interestingly, following that repudiation the amendment passed the Senate by a 100-0 vote).  Menendez has separately advised Obama that, as a result of Obama’s…behavior, “This certainly undermines your relationship with me for the future.”

The Senators, via their letter, laid out the specifics of some of their concerns.  These included the administration’s definition of the “significant reductions” other nations might claim as a means of continuing to do business with Iran’s Central Bank and to trade for Iranian oil while avoiding the US response mandated by CISAD—the cutting off of those nations’ banks from the US economy.  The strict definition was laid out in that underlying law; the Senators do not trust the administration to hew to that definition in its new implementing rules.  The Senators spelled it out in their letter:

To ascribe more variable terminology to the definition of “significantly reduced” would diminish the ability of countries to understand and comply with the amendment.  An unevenly applied interpretation would also call into question the seriousness of the sanctions policy and send mixed signals to both Iran and our allies.

Menendez and Kirk also are concerned that Obama will use the “national security” waiver in the sanctions law to completely weasel out of applying the sanctions: they fear he won’t apply any waiver on a case-by-case basis, as the amendment requires, attempting instead a blanket waiver that prevents any sanctions anywhere.

It was not our intent that the term “waive the imposition of sanctions under paragraph (1)” as meaning only one waiver is needed to waive the imposition of all sanctions.  In other words, with one report to Congress, the President could decide that not institution will be subject to sanctions….

They concluded,

We would welcome an opportunity to discuss these points with you prior to the publication of the final rule for the Menendez-Kirk amendment.

The Senate no longer trusts this President; his own party no longer trusts him.  Where is the basis for trust on the part of anyone else?  In any event, Obama’s rules are due out this week.  Maybe we’ll see the effect of the Senators’ letter.

The Caliphate

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Is it being established after all, and with the present administration’s acquiescence through ignorance?

There’s this from the Pittsburgh post-gazette (h/t to BLACKFIVE):

The war in Afghanistan may end this year in thinly disguised surrender.

“The Taliban per se is not our enemy,” Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with Newsweek magazine Dec. 15.

We went to war in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime because it had sheltered al-Qaida. Perhaps Mr. Biden forgot.

and [link added]

A story in an Indian newspaper Dec. 29 suggests the reason for the vice president’s memory lapse.  The Obama administration apparently is conducting secret negotiations with the Taliban and has recruited Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, to mediate them.  “Earlier this month, Mr. al-Qaradawi helped draw a road map for a deal between the Taliban and the United States aimed at giving the superpower a face-saving political settlement ahead of its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is due to begin in 2014,” wrote reporter Praveen Swami, citing “Indian diplomatic sources.”

Mr. al-Qaradawi seeks the establishment of a worldwide caliphate ruled by Islamic law.

(Mr Swami also goes on at some length about al-Qaradawi and the threat he poses to India as well as to the West.)

BLACKFIVE points out this:

The bottom line is we have been severely weakened by Obama….  We can start w/ losing one war and one peace [respectively, Afghanistan and Iraq],…the Arab Spring installing Islamists in Egypt, Libya and much of the rest of the Middle East….

Spain surrendered to the Islamists some years ago when it was driven from Afghanistan with its tail between its legs after a series of train bombings followed by instructions from the bombers’ handlers to depart forthwith.

Withal, we have the Umayyad Caliphate being rebuilt from the Middle East west across north Africa and back onto the Iberian Peninsula to the Pyrenees, and east through Pakistan and back into Afghanistan.  The lone holdouts seem to be Portugal and the Sarkozy French in and above Iberia, and a seemingly abandoned Israel in the heart of the redeveloping Caliphate.  It’s true enough that the present reconstruction is no more monolithic than were the Umayyads, but that doesn’t reduce the present threat any more than it did with the Umayyads.  Especially given the current Islamist goals.

Misunderstanding the Threat

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Former CIA Director Michael Hayden (USAF Gen, ret) is reported by FoxNews as saying,

But externally it [closing the Straits of Hormuz] just doesn’t make any sense.

Number one, they [Iran] need the straits as much, perhaps more, than anyone else, the free flow of oil, otherwise their economy is more in the tank than it is today.  Number two, does closing the straits make Iran more or less isolated? … Does closing the straits make it more or less likely that someone will think it’s a legitimate step to attack the nuclear facility at Natanz?  I think it makes it more likely.  So why would the Iranians do that?

Our government’s blinders here (yes, Hayden isn’t any longer in the government, but those who are think similarly) is the utter misunderstanding of Iran and its goals.  As Hayden also says, “This government and its decision-making processes are incredibly opaque.”

I offer some clarification, from my lofty perch on my navel.

“Number one, they need the straits as much, perhaps more, than anyone else, the free flow of oil, otherwise their economy is more in the tank than it is today.”  Number one, the sanctions going into place have the potential to seriously threaten their ability to export oil due to a lack of buyers.  In that scenario, no, they won’t “need the straits…”.

“Number two, does closing the straits make Iran more or less isolated?”  Does Iran care about its isolation?  Certainly the lack of international intercourse can hurt, but is the Iranian government’s pain tolerance the same as ours?  Plainly not.  Nor does the Iranian government care about its isolation as isolation.  Finally, do the Iranian people have any capacity to act, should they disagree with their government?  Those people watched while a previous American administration seemed to incite Iraqis to rebellion against Saddam after our first Iraq war and then stood by while Saddam butchered the Shiites and Kurds.  Lately, they did try to act against their government and experienced the present administration standing by and watching the present Iranian government butcher them.

“Does closing the straits make it more or less likely that someone will think it’s a legitimate step to attack the nuclear facility at Natanz?”  The Iranian government, after years of loud and vociferous chit-chat and firm finger-shaking by the rest of the world, and after years of active support by Russia and the PRC for the Iranian nuclear program, has no reason seriously to think anyone will do anything at all along these lines.  Oh, and not being complete fools, they have been dispersing and bunkering their nuclear weapons facilities.  They think the Israelis might have the stones to act, even though an Israeli mission is fraught with difficulties and has an uncertain outcome.  The Iranian government isn’t too worried about strikes; a greater or lesser likelihood of one is irrelevant to them.

Understanding the threat from a nation begins with understanding that government’s goals.  Let’s broaden Hayden’s question of “why would the Iranians do that?”  One overriding goal of Iran’s is the utter destruction of Israel.  To that end, a successful nuclear weapons program gives them the tools with which to achieve that.  They don’t care the cost to themselves of achieving that destruction; indeed, Iran (at least those who populate the government; the only ones whose goals matter) will simply view their own fate as honored martyrdom.

Another overriding goal of theirs is the destruction of the United States.  To that end, a successful nuclear weapons program also is useful for arming terrorist groups who then will attack the United States (and Europe, and the hands that feed their armorer, Russia and the PRC).  Again, both the terrorists and the Iranian government will simply view their own destruction as a  martyrdom to be sought after.

This threat doesn’t think like we do.  Basing our assessments on the premise that they do is fatally flawed.