Tag Archives: foreign policy

Not Entirely

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Jay Solomon, commenting in The Wall Street Journal on the recently concluded re-election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s president, has missed the mark.

The landslide re-election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatens to put the Trump administration on a collision course with Europe over future policy toward Tehran.

No, what it does do is “threaten” to put Europe on a collision course with the Trump administration over future policy regarding Iran.  This is because Europe, more importantly, has missed the mark:

European officials hailed the news of Mr Rouhani’s win as heralding a more moderate path for Iran over the next four years.

And

Many European governments hope he will use his next four years to moderate Tehran’s overseas policies….

Aside from the simple fact that hope is not a policy, not a strategy, nor even a useful tactic, there has been nothing moderate about the Rouhani administration’s push for a nuclear weapons deal that codified Iran’s “right” to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, nor has there been any semblance of moderacy in the Rouhani administration’s open support for butchery in Syria or for terrorism against Israel or for arming and controlling Shiite “militias” in Iraq, whose purpose is to serve as tools for manipulating the Iraqi government.

Hailing Hoping for a change from that to a more moderate path in this administration’s second term is…foolish.

The PRC and Northern Korea

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Harry Kazianis tried to explain, in his Real Clear World piece, why the People’s Republic of China “won’t solve” the northern Korea crisis for us.  It’s complicated for the PRC, he said.

He [Kazianis’ carefully unidentified “Chinese scholar” and “retired official of the People’s Liberation Army”] pressed his case, noting, “look at this problem from where I sit in Beijing. I see a world of trouble when it comes to North Korea. I see war. I see death. I see superpower showdowns. We must all agree we don’t want this. Yes, nuclear weapons are bad, but North Korea could create far more trouble than you realize, and China would have to deal with most of it.”

Kazianis then dragged out a couple of bromides that have been arguing against doing anything serious about northern Korea, one maintaining that a desperate Baby Kim, with his energy imports reduced, would start a nuclear war if we got serious; the other insisting that, with northern Korea’s food imports reduced, a desperate population would riot—and a failed coup would lead to civil war that would become nuclear and involve the PRC, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the US.

Kazianis ignored a simple fact, though.  Baby Kim is going to use his nuclear weapons, either for blackmail or for actual strikes, as soon as he can deliver them.  He’s intimated as much often.

If Kazianis’ unidentified, anonymous source actually exists, that just puts a premium on the PRC getting started.  Even if this “source” does not, the principle and its outcome remain the same: Baby Kim is going to do what he’s going to do unless overt, serious steps are taken to deprive him of the tools with which to do them.

Handling Classified

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FBI Director James Comey had this about Huma Abedin and her role in the ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) classified email scandal:

Somehow, her [Clinton’s] emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information.  His then-spouse, Huma Abedin, appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him to print out for her, so she could deliver them to the secretary of state.

Comey justified his lack of action with this:

We didn’t have any indication that she had a sense of what she was doing was in violation of the law[.]

There is, however, no requirement for mens rea under the relevant law; if nothing else Abedin’s actions fit the law’s gross negligence felony charactistic.

With such a bold, declarative statement about what Abedin was doing, then, I have to wonder why there’s been no indictment and subsequent prosecution.

Probably for the same reason he declined to bring a case against Clinton after having said her actions were excessively careless: it’s not politically expedient.

EU and Brexit

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The European Union is either demonstrating its lack of understanding of a main motivator for the people of Great Britain’s decision to quit the EU, or it’s intent on making the departure onerous pour encourager les autres, or some combination of the two.  Michel Barnier, the EU’s “Brexit negotiator,” has laid out the terms of his initial position.

One such term is

ensuring that EU citizens in the UK keep their welfare benefits and residency rights for their lifetimes.

Never mind that EU citizens drawing welfare benefits should have those benefits paid for by the EU or those citizens’ home country—which do not today pay the generous rates that the British government does.

Furthermore, those rights

should be directly enforced by the European Court of Justice, the EU’s top court, giving it a role in Britain until “well after the UK leaves.

This ignores the simple fact that, as a sovereign nation, Great Britain gets to use its own court system for all domestic matters and to determine whom it shall permit within its borders.  It is not for any nation, or any foreign court, to dictate to another to what laws that other must submit or whom that other must accept into its bosom.

That’s not all.  There must be

British payment to cover past EU financial commitments[.]

The payments, of course, insists the EU through Barnier, must be in euros, putting the currency exchange risk on the departing Brits.

And

the status of the Northern Ireland border

is for negotiation and not for the sovereign British to decide with the Republic of Ireland—which is to say the border’s status is already determined.

And this bit:

Michel Barnier repeatedly emphasized that Brexit would be painful and complicated.

Which reminds me of what Theron said to Queen Gorgo in 300.  Barnier displays the same contemptuous disdain for Great Britain.  He should however, recall Theron’s fate at Gorgo’s hand.

The Apocalypse is Upon Us

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Or so Lauren Collins would have us believe in her fearful piece in the New Yorker, titled The Future of Europe Hinges on a Face-Off in France about this weekend’s money round of the Presidential election in France.

After all, this election is a referendum between a globalist economy and a globalist identity (Macron) and a nationalist economy and a nationalist identity (LePen).  That does sound apocalyptic, but really, it’s more apocryphal.

As a practical matter, and as is the case with most democratic-oriented governments, French government power is divided between an executive, the President, and the legislative, which elections are next month.  French government power is divided further: the legislative branch’s majority party appoints the Prime Minister, who has serious executive authorities of his own.

A President Le Pen will face two obstacles to her agenda: a Prime Minister from another party (Front National is unlikely to win more than a few legislative seats) and a hostile legislative.  A President Macron may well have to work with a Prime Minister from another party (his En Marche! is all of a year old and unlikely to win many more seats than Front National), and while he would face a not particularly hostile legislative, its agenda most assuredly will not be his.

Either President will find Executive ambitions greatly dampened.  That’s a purely domestic matter, but it spills across French borders.

As a (n international) political matter, Europe’s political future is not much influenced by either President.  Aside from the domestic dampening, which must also dampen these potential Presidents’ influence externally, both Europe and the European Union are made of sterner stuff.

I’ve written of the lack of long-term viability of the EU, but that weakness stems from weaknesses internal to the EU as an institution, not from pressures from within this or that member State, for all that France is an important member State.  No, the EU is good for several more years, the British departure won’t hurt it or Europe, German continued prosperity definitely won’t hurt Europe or the EU, not even the continued brink-of-bankruptcy state of Greece won’t hurt it.

And neither will a staunch EU-supporting President Macron significantly enhance the viability of the EU, nor will a staunch anti-EU President Le Pen significantly diminish the EU.  Indeed, Le Pen has promised a referendum on French membership in the entity, and the French citizenry are strongly more in favor of Remain than of Exit.

What is a threat to Europe is the aggressively acquisitiveness of Russia and most of Europe’s timidity in responding to that.  Nor Macron’s election nor Le Pen’s will have much impact on Europe’s attitude or what France might do about either that timidity or Putin’s acquisitiveness.  Even with Le Pen’s affinity for all things Putin.