Tag Archives: foreign policy

Naïve?

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Brian Spegele wrote in The Wall Street Journal about an accord between Great Britain and the People’s Republic of China concerning the role of the yuan in the world, or at least in the British economy.

The UK and China unveiled plans to further bolster China’s long-restricted currency on the world stage, amid a number of other deals that signal that the two countries have reset relations following a visit to London by the Dalai Lama last year, which upset Beijing.

The deals unveiled Tuesday—which include allowing British investors to plow up to 80 billion yuan ($13.1 billion) in China’s heavily restricted capital markets—demonstrate how China’s wealth and its desire to go abroad often trump political differences and Beijing’s resentment of criticism over its human-rights record.

The deals are part of a series of steps China has taken with a number of countries to increase the yuan’s role.

And

…state-controlled Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd planned to issue a yuan-denominated bond in London, which would further encourage yuan use there.

This will be all well and good—until the PRC decides to “adjust,” again, the value of its yuan to match its convenience, as it’s done all along.  Keep in mind that the PRC tightly controls the exchange rate for—the value of—its yuan, the government’s rhetoric about “increasing flexibility,” or “setting more flexible exchange rate bands,” or … notwithstanding.

Nuclear Iran and Negotiations

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Iran has convinced the US to hold direct talks concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the administration put an optimistic face on the proceedings.  State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said this:

This is certainly…the first substantive step forward.  For the first time, we had…very detailed discussions.

There’s this, also:

Iran has hinted strongly in recent weeks that it is prepared to take significant steps in return for the US. and Europe rolling back expansive sanctions imposed on Tehran over the past decade.

Among these steps, said officials who have talked with Iranian diplomats, are a possible Iranian freeze on the production of near-weapons-grade fuel, which is uranium enriched to 20% purity.

Against this hope, though, we must place this:

The recognition of Israel as illegitimate is one of the principles of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, and even today the Islamic Republic believes Israel must be destroyed, a senior Iranian cleric close to the supreme leader said Saturday night.

Ayatollah Sayyid Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts—the body that chooses the supreme leader—also condemned any effort for improved relations with America and warned that nothing is ruled out against the United States[.]

And

According to a source in the regime’s intelligence ministry—one who cannot be named for security purposes—the regime is unified in this new tactic of showing a moderate face in order to deceive the West into relieving some sanctions.

Toothless Resolutions

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A bit late, but the point remains valid, for all that.

President Barack Obama’s crack UN team was able to shepherd through the UN Security Council, under Russia’s tutelage, a resolution concerning Syria’s…obligation…to turn over its chemical weapons and production facilities for destruction [emphasis added]:

The draft resolution’s demands that Syria abandon its chemical stockpile and allow unfettered access to chemical weapons experts are legally binding.  But if Syria fails to comply, the council will need to adopt a second resolution to impose measures under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows for military and nonmilitary actions to promote peace and security.

Notice that.  The consequence that Russia has allowed for Syrian noncompliance is the passage of a second resolution.  Obama’s enforcement mechanism is “We’ll shake our finger very firmly at you.”

What’s Wrong with This Statement?

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In a discussion about the Navy’s latest carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford (still under construction), and the usefulness of carriers generally, Anthony Cordesman, currently sitter in the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and ex-State and Defense consultant, had this to say:

We aren’t using a land base for a lot of our sorties in Afghanistan; they’re being flown via Pakistan by a carrier.  We need to be sure we can operate without being dependent on allies.

Hmm….

A Thought on Syria

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Brigadier General Salim Idriss, Chief of Staff of Free Syria’s Supreme Military Council, has a question that pretty much says all there is to say:

I don’t understand the West.  Why are all of them just looking on?

There were related questions and answers in the SOI interview:

SPIEGEL: But no one plans to deliver [anti-aircraft missiles] to you out of fear that they could fall into terrorist hands.

Idriss: Terrorists?  We experience terror every day.  A short while ago, I spoke with one of our commanders in the east.  The air force had just bombarded the Euphrates dam again.  If it breaks, billions of cubic meters of water will destroy everything.  Is that not terror?

And

SPIEGEL: One of the West’s fears is that the jihadists could take power if Assad falls.

Idriss: Do you know who vacated their positions in Idlib and Aleppo when a US attack seemed imminent?  The radicals from the “Islamic State.”  Since they have absolutely no interest in the fall of the regime, they thrive in war and profit from our weakness.

But with the West—at least that portion of it represented by the US, the only nation in the West with the physical, if not the moral, capacity to act—having ceded policy vis-à-vis Syria to the Russians, there’s little the West can do other than stand on the sidelines, looking on.