Tag Archives: foreign policy

Delays

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Iran is already violating the nuclear weapons agreement it has concluded with President Barack Obama (D). Obama is already pushing back against and outright delaying sanctions against those violations. The excuse?

Senior US officials have told lawmakers the sanctions were delayed because of “evolving diplomatic work” between the White House and the Iranian government.

This is especially the time when pressure needs to be maintained and stepped up. But Obama is, and has been all along, loathe to risk offending the Mullahs.

What, Me Sanction?

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The White House has delayed its plan to impose new financial sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program, according to US officials, amid growing tensions with Iran over the nuclear deal struck earlier this year.

It gets worse.

US officials offered no definitive timeline for when the sanctions would be imposed after the decision was made Wednesday to delay them.

Never mind that Iran has been violating the nuclear weapons agreement since a very few days after Vienna. Never mind, either, that Iran still hasn’t actually signed the agreement. This administration is putting us and our friends and allies in a very dangerous position over the next year. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders want more of the same, too.

Wrong Mindset

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An American B-52 bomber on a routine mission over the South China Sea unintentionally flew within two nautical miles of an artificial island built by China [in the Spratly Island group], senior defense officials said, exacerbating a hotly divisive issue for Washington and Beijing.

The PRC has filed a diplomatic protest, and the Pentagon is investigating the flight.

This is the wrong mindset. We should be making such flights often, at a variety of altitudes, and with a variety of aircraft types. We should be sailing as closely through the Spratlys and might safely be done, with individual ships and with squadrons of them.

The [PRC Defense Ministry] said this and other US operations in the area were “serious military provocations” that endangered Chinese personnel and could cause the militarization of the South China Sea. It added that the Chinese military would take “all necessary measures” to protect China’s sovereignty.

No, the only military provocation is the PRC’s ongoing militarization of the Spratlys, the South China Sea generally, and the East China Sea, as well. Its own militarization activities are all that might “endanger Chinese personnel.”

Finally, the PRC should take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty. That’s not at risk in the South or East China Seas; although Japan’s, the Philippines’, Vietnam’s, Brunei’s, and on and on are certainly at risk.

This isn’t PRC territory, and we—and those other nations—need to be more enthusiastic, more direct, in enforcing that simple fact.

Allies and Arms

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The Obama administration announced a $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan on Wednesday, drawing an immediate rebuke and threats of retaliation from Taipei’s rival Beijing.

To be sure, the stuff being sold to the Republic of China is dated and includes intangibles in addition to hardware; it consists of

two decommissioned US Navy frigates, anti-tank missiles, amphibious assault vehicles and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. There’s also support for Taiwan’s capabilities in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and a weapons system to defend against anti-ship missiles.

These get directly, if in a limited fashion, to the People’s Republic of China’s ability to conduct an invasion of the island.

The PRC’s Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang:

China resolutely opposes the sale of weapons to Taiwan by the US.

If the PRC doesn’t like it, clearly we’re on the right path. Aside from that, and more importantly, the RoC is both a long-standing friend and a critical ally in Asia. We should be supporting them. In spades and with weaponry among a host of support means.

Kudos to Obama for taking this small step toward redressing the shortfall in the RoC’s ability to defend itself. We need to do much more of this.

The Contained Daesh

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While President Barack Obama thinks—and says out loud—that he’s “squeezing [Daesh’s] heart and making it harder for them to pump out its propaganda,” the Pentagon is describing an expanding Daesh.

Now it’s Afghanistan. Daesh has become

“more operationally active” there by carving out territory and openly fighting the Taliban.

In particular, Daesh in Afghanistan’s Khorasan Province

has progressed from its initial exploratory phase to a point where they are openly fighting the Taliban for the establishment of a safe haven, and are becoming more operationally active[.]

Even were “containment” succeeding, this is an illustration of why it’s badly insufficient merely to “contain” or to “defeat” this Evil. It must be destroyed, utterly.

It’s a long, dangerous year we have ahead of us.