Tag Archives: foreign policy

Toward an Iranian Nuclear Weapons Deal

Posted on by
Reply

There is debate brewing in DC regarding the value of a deal with Iran vs the risks of such a deal, or its lack.

There should be no debate; its outcome is clear.

Some former officials say a restored deal could keep the Iranians a safe distance from having sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a bomb for another eight years or so, but that without a deal they could soon be weeks or even days away.

That, to coin a phrase, is a distinction without a difference. Either way, Iran gets nuclear weapons. The difference between weeks and a few years matters only to those hiding under their beds avoiding uncomfortable facts and to some in the Iranian government who are being—or pretending to be—impatient.

That clarity should drive our response, the responses of the nations of Europe who are second in line for Iran’s weapons, and the responses of Israel, which is first on Iran’s list. So far, Israel is the only one who’s clear on what it must do. We, on the other hand, cannot afford to wait on some sort of consensus with a timid Europe; we need overtly to support Israel in its response—support by being alongside them, not sitting on the sidelines shouting, “Rah, rah.”

If an effective effort to put an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons drive requires cyber and kinetic moves, then so be it.

Invasion

Posted on by
Reply

In Monday’s joint press conference that President Joe Biden (D) and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) following their meeting, a German journalist asked Biden, point blank (because no one in the American press has the courage or the integrity to ask such questions), to say specifically what would constitute a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden said without hesitation, “tanks or troops crossing the—the border of Ukraine again” crossing the border into Ukraine.

Because it’s not actually an invasion if Russia penetrates with its “green men” forces. It’s not actually an invasion if Russia shuts down Ukraine’s energy and water distribution networks with cyber attacks. It’s not actually an invasion if Russia wipes away Ukraine’s financial underpinnings with cyber attacks against its financial networks or corruption of its financial databases or both.

Biden keeps making it easier for Russia to invade.

On top of that, as late as today, Biden’s donation to Putin remains unremarked by the American press. Shameful.

Iranian Nuclear Weapons Capability

Posted on by
Reply

It never was seriously hindered by the JCPOA, and the US withdrew from it over that failure. Now the Biden-Harris administration is back-handedly acknowledging that, even as it continues to beg Iran to agree to another ineffective agreement.

Administration officials concluded late last year that Iran’s nuclear program had advanced too far to re-create the roughly 12-month so-called breakout period of the 2015 pact[.]

Ineffective agreement:

Under a restored deal…[t]he constraints on Iran’s nuclear research and development would gradually relax from 2024. Iran’s new breakout time could then fall rapidly after 2026 when the deal allows Tehran to deploy some advanced centrifuges.

In other words, the new agreement that Biden-Harris is so desperate to get still would permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons, just over a (maybe) longer time frame.

That time frame, though, is itself misleading, even were it to last as long as Biden-Harris hopes. One metric for this, and one that Biden-Harris seems to be hanging his hat on, is the breakout time, the time required to go from the end of any agreement to the production of enough weapons grade uranium to produce a single bomb.

The breakout time is different from how long it would take Iran to attain a nuclear weapon because, according to Western officials, Iran is believed not to have mastered all the skills to build the core of a bomb and attach a warhead to a missile.

There are two things about this question of breakout time and an agreement’s claimed delay in an Iranian nuclear weapons program. One is that the added time, to the extent there actually is any, is plainly usable by Iran to develop and execute the needed skills to build and attach a bomb to a missile. That’s in addition to the lack, in the JCPOA, of any constraints on an Iranian missile development program.

The other is that business of attaching a nuclear bomb to a missile. There are lots of ways to deliver a nuclear warhead to its target besides missiles, or aircraft. One of those other ways is by land. One of the reasons (albeit far from an exclusive one) for Iran’s zeal in keeping a land bridge from Iran into Syria open and operational is for land delivery of weapons to its Syrian terrorist surrogates. Such a land bridge easily could accommodate nuclear bomb delivery either for Iran’s Syrian terrorists to deliver over the last mile into Israel or for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to deliver directly.

And there’s the dishonesty of Iran’s blandishments that their nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes. A peaceful nuclear program, for developing and building out nuclear reactors for electricity generation, for instance, needs only the 3.67% uranium purity that always has been allowed. Yet Iran already has 2.5 tons of 20% and greater purity uranium. That level of purity in uranium has no intrinsic use—it’s too rich, for instance, to be usable in a reactor. 20% purity has utility only as an intermediate step on the path to weapons-grade purity.

Biden-Harris Administration’s Level of Preparedness for its Afghanistan Withdrawal

Posted on by
Reply

How prepared was Biden-Harris? What is an outcome of that level of preparedness?

…a news outlet said it obtained leaked notes from the White House Situation Room that showed “just how unprepared” it was to evacuate Afghan nationals who assisted Americans during the conflict.

Per AXIOS, the news outlet in question:

  • Hours before the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital on August 15, 2021, senior Biden administration officials were still discussing and assigning basic actions involved in a mass civilian evacuation.
  • …they’d just decided they needed to notify local Afghan staff “to begin to register their interest in relocation to the United States….”
  • …they were still determining which countries could serve as transit points for evacuees.

Biden-Harris, though, is disputing all of that. The Spokesperson for his National Security Council, Emily Horne, insists,

While we’re not going to comment on leaked internal documents, cherry-picked notes from one meeting do not reflect the months of work that were already underway[.]

Wow. I’m not sure I’d want to insist that the debacle of Biden-Harris’…departure…from Afghanistan was carried out in accordance with carefully developed, long-time prior planning.

If that’s the quality of Biden-Harris planning, it’s no wonder that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just weeks away from invading and conquering Ukraine, and People’s Republic of China’s President Xi Jinping isn’t far behind in his plan to invade and conquer the Republic of China. Those Presidents are playing chess while our President is playing Chutes and Ladders.

Investing in the PRC

Posted on by
Reply

Some pundits are suggesting that the way in which the People’s Republic of China handles real estate company Evergrande’s default will say a lot about the utility of investing inside the PRC. The Wall Street Journal even is asking whether foreign investors are second class citizens “now.”

Last things first: foreign investors always have been second class citizens in the PRC. They’ve only recently been “allowed” to become equal partners or majority holders in established PRC companies being newly invested in or in enterprises being newly formed. It’s still the case, too, that as a condition of doing business inside the PRC, foreign companies must “share” intellectual and technology properties with their partners, and they must permit the PRC government to install back doors into those foreign partners’ primary software.

It’s also the relatively new case that, under the 2017 National Intelligence Law, companies must divulge any and all information that the PRC’s intelligence community requests.

Still, the Evergrande outcome will be informative.

Who is still standing when the dust clears will say a lot about the future of China as a place to invest more generally.

In particular, resolving this misconception will be informative:

Oaktree Capital has moved to seize a large chunk of Evergrande’s Hong Kong property, worth an estimated $1 billion, against a secured loan now in default—a property which could have potentially served an important role in Evergrande’s general offshore debt restructuring.

With the Xi Jinping government having, over the last couple of years, phagocyticly absorbed Hong Kong into the mainland body politic, that city no longer is offshore. Whether Oaktree will be permitted to seize that Hong Kong property is an open question, and a question subsequent to a permitted seizure will be the limits the PRC imposes on Oaktree’s disposition of that property.

I’m not sanguine.