Tag Archives: foreign policy

The Iran Nuclear Weapons Agreement

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…after a year.

Two days before the anniversary of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, the Islamic Republic attempted to launch a new type of ballistic missile using North Korean technology, multiple intelligence officials tell Fox News.

That the launch failed is neither here nor there.  There are two far more important factors in play here, beyond the mish-mash of items in the Fox News piece.  One is the Iranian contempt for the agreement; for the Obama administration; and for Secretary of State John Kerry, who “negotiated” this agreement to allow Iran delayed access to nuclear weapons—a delay that Iran is studiously ignoring.

The other factor is that northern Korean technology that Iran is using in its new type of missile.  So much for the Obama administration’s lip service to stopping the northern Koreans from spreading nuclear weapons technology (although, in truth, this is a long-standing lip service failure; Obama is only the latest of the serial lip servers).

Leave it to Obama

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…and his fellow Progressives, including his proud acolyte, Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The Obama administration is working on a series of agreements with foreign governments that would allow them for the first time to serve US technology companies with warrants for email searches and wiretaps—a move that is already stirring debates over privacy, security, crime and terrorism.

And

Under the proposed agreements described by Mr [Brad, Deputy Assistant Attorney General] Wiegmann, foreign investigators would be able to serve a warrant directly on a U.S. firm to see a suspect’s stored emails or intercept their messages in real time….

Because American sovereignty inside our own nation just doesn’t matter.

Elections have consequences.

Why is this even a Question?

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Republicans officially petitioned the administration Thursday to deny Hillary Clinton access to secret information as Democrats’ presidential nominee, and some GOP lawmakers said if the intelligence community won’t do it, they’ll pass a bill to do it themselves.

Oh, wait—it’s a question because

The White House has said it won’t deny Mrs Clinton access….

On the excuse of tradition, don’t you know.

Never mind the tradition, and the requirement in most serious security régimes—like in a government—of revoking existing security clearances and denying further access to those who’ve committed security violations as egregious as even FBI Director James Comey has documented Clinton having done.

Some rules, some traditions, just don’t apply.  Not when they’re inconvenient.

EU, Great Britain, and Taxes

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Some…suggestions…from continental leaders regarding Great Britain’s departure from the EU and the Exchequer’s suggestions of British corporate tax rate reductions, via The Wall Street Journal:

  • German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble: we can’t have a “race to the bottom, now can we?”

Why not, I ask—what are you so terrified might result from letting those who earned the money keep more of it?

  • Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs: let’s not have any of this “exacerbated(?) fiscal competition between ourselves” nonsense.

I ask—why not?  What’s so terrible about competition, which spurs innovation, holds down costs for the citizenry, limits government power.  Oh, wait….

  • French Finance Minister Michel Sapin: “Whether you’re in the union or yo’’re out, we should all adopt a friendly attitude.” Or else.

So I ask—when are you going to adopt that friendly attitude, M Sapin?

Cut the taxes, guys.  If the continent want to run, screaming, away from the terror of competition, you’ll still have the Irish and the Icelanders with whom to play.  And a whole, wide world outside the European continent and its special snowflakes.

Permanent Court of Arbitration Demurs

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This Hague Court has been hearing the Philippines’ complaint about the People’s Republic of China’s invasion and seizure of the South China Sea, an invasion that occurred at the direct and deliberate expense of the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and other nations rimming this Sea.  It ruled against the PRC, publishing its unanimous ruling last Tuesday.  In its essence, the Court has ruled that the PRC’s Nine-Dash Line, which the PRC used to define the extent of its manufactured historical claim…couldn’t hold water.

China’s claims to historic and economic rights in most of the South China Sea have no legal basis….

And even further,

China [isn’t] entitled to an exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, extending up to 200 nautical miles from any outcrop in the Spratlys archipelago including the largest, Itu Aba, which is claimed by China but controlled by Taiwan.

The EEZ aspect of the ruling is important in another way, too: it renders the PRC’s terraforming, including its military base building illegal.

This will have implications, too, for the legality of PRC behavior and military buildup in the Paracel Islands off the Vietnamese coast and which are claimed by Vietnam and for PRC occupation efforts in Scarborough Shoal, which are Philippine islands.

With the PRC’s Foreign Minister’s office officially rejecting the Court’s ruling, we now can expect an accelerated military buildup throughout the Sea and more aggressive behavior by the PRC’s navy and air force.