In what is set to be the least-surprising, and most-telegraphed event of the day (unless the president decides to do a press conference Q&A afterwards), Trump delivers his statement de-certfiying the Iran Deal and punting it to Congress...
Live Fed: due to start at 1245ET...
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Update (11:40 am ET): As expected, Trump has confirmed that the White House wants to leave the Iran deal intact - for now, at least. In its official announcement, the administration said it plans to decertify the Iran nuclear deal on Oct. 15, but instead of withdrawing from the pact, it will punt the issue to Congress. Most of the official announcement was not unexpected. However, in one notable development, the administration said it would push Congress to amend US law to adopt sanctions "triggers" - such as evidence that Iran has come within one year of building a bomb. By endorsing triggers, Trump is effectively endorsing the Corker-Cotton plan for strengthening scrutiny against Iran - an amusing coincidence given Trump"s recent spat with Senator Bob Corker.
Other trigger points could include future ballistic missile launches or a refusal to restrict its fuel production.
However, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson noted, it"s entirely possible that Congress will choose to do nothing and leave the current deal intact.
Trump will also direct Treasury Dept to target Iranian Revolutionary Guard members with sanctions
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After months of feverish speculation about the fate of the Iran nuclear deal, President Trump is expected on Friday to announce that he will refuse to certify that the accord serves US interests, leaving the dirty work of deciding whether to kill it to Congress.
In response, Russia warned yet again that abandoning the deal would have a negative impact on global stability and efforts to ensure non-proliferation of atomic weapons, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. Peskov added that reports of Russian military officers being denied US visas to attend a UN briefing on missile-defense were "very worrying."
Trump will make the declaration in a speech set for 12:45 pm ET, during which he’s expected to outline a broader policy of containment aimed at curbing Iran’s controversial ballistic missile program, as well as its support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Bloomberg reports.
Reuters reports that the new strategy will include three key goals: Fixing the nuclear deal to make it harder for Iran to develop a weapon, addressing its ballistic missile program and countering Iranian activities that Washington says contribute to instability in the Middle East.
The administration has long argued that the way the deal is structured will eventually allow Iran to develop a weapon. Of course, Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and denies it is developing nuclear weapons.
Two Republican senators, Bob Corker and Tom Cotton, say they’ve developed a plan to address the administration’s complaints about the deal. Their proposal would involve automatically reimposing sanctions should Iran’s nuclear program advance to the point where it could develop a nuclear weapon in less than one year.
As the administration announced its plan for Iran, Republican Senators Bob Corker and Tom Cotton said they had developed legislation intended to address what they see as deficiencies in the Iran nuclear deal.
In a proposed legislative framework, they offered a plan to automatically reimpose sanctions if Iran’s nuclear program were to get to a point where Tehran could develop a nuclear weapon in less than one year, known as a “breakout” period.
They said their measure, if passed by Congress, would remain in force indefinitely, lead to tougher inspections and limit Iran’s centrifuge development.
It was unclear what chance the measure, expected to be offered as an amendment to the existing Iran nuclear review law, would have of winning enough support to be passed by both the House of Representatives and Senate.
The deal’s other signatories – the UK, Germany, France, China, Russia and the European Union – are less than pleased with the US’s attempts to kill the accord, particularly since they disagree with the US’s assertion that Iran hasn’t complied with the terms of the deal.
Given that the notoriously fickle US Congress will now decide the fate of the deal, the other signatories will be forced to brook the uncertainty surrounding the deal"s ultimate fate. Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the only way Iran would be persuaded to continue to observe the limits on its civil nuclear program would be if the other signatories all agreed to defy the US’s order to reimpose sanctions.
According to Bloomberg, European diplomats have discussed a scenario where they “create a win” for Trump by endorsing his criticisms of the Iranian ballistic missile program and the country’s support for groups like Hezbollah.
Efforts to unwind or rewrite the accord will be a hard sell to the other nations that joined the U.S. in hammering it out in months of talks - not only Iran, China and Russia but also the U.K., France and Germany. The U.S. assertion that Iran isn’t complying with the agreement “contradicts the assessment of all member states of the European Union - and it contradicts our assessment,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters in Berlin on Oct. 9.
European leaders have echoed some of Trump’s concerns, especially about Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for groups they consider terrorists. One European diplomat said on condition of anonymity that allies hope to “create a win” for Trump by endorsing his criticism of Iran in the hope that he will move on to other issues.
Unfortunately for the White House, Corker is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so any legislation will need to pass his committee before the broader senate can bring it to a vote.
Trump famously laid the blame for the Iran deal at Corker’s feet after the senator told the New York Times that the White House was functioning like an “adult daycare center”. Notably, Corker’s plan would stop short of trashing the deal.
But with only a slim two-vote majority, a handful of foreign-policy moderates could feasibly stop the Senate from implementing its plan, creating another situation where Republicans are begrudgingly forced to accept the status quo.
The long awaited deal has taken place. A deposit has already been paid. Turkey has finally signed the $2.5bn (£1.9bn) contract with Russia to buy S-400 advanced missile defense system. With a range of 400 kilometers (248 miles), the system can shoot down up to 80 targets simultaneously, aiming two missiles at each one, at an altitude of up to 30 km.
The system is not operationally compatible with the systems used by NATO countries, which gives Turkey a military capacity independent of the alliance. NATO commanders will not have control over it. The identification friend or foe (IFF) equipment won’t prevent Turkey from using it against NATO aircraft and missiles. Reaching full operational capability will require Russian personnel to be stationed in Turkey on advice, assistance and training missions.
The technology transfer component of the S-400 deal is especially important as it would allow Turkey to rapidly expand domestic defense industry with Russia’s help. Russia would supply two batteries and help Ankara build two more such systems. A few years ago, the US refused to let Turkey produce Patriot air defense systems on its soil and the deal was off.
Ankara does not have industrial infrastructure to produce air defense systems. Russian specialists will have to come and build it from scratch. As a result, Russia will get access to the defense infrastructure of a NATO member state. The agreement to build the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey, which is to be launched by 2023, is another example of fruitful economic cooperation.
NATO insists members of the alliance are obligated to use military hardware that is interoperable with each other"s systems. But the S-400 deal is not the first time the principle of interoperability is not observed. Greece purchased Russia"s S-300 missile system several years ago.
The move - a further sign of Ankara"s gradual estrangement from its Western allies – meets the strategic goal to acquire the nationally controlled defense capability. Turkey has also criticized the US and its allies for their reticence about selling it military arms and technology.
As had been expected, the deal triggered the anger of the United States and other NATO members. The US had long been warning Turkey against the deal. "We have relayed our concerns to Turkish officials regarding the potential purchase of the S-400. A NATO interoperable missile defense system remains the best option to defend Turkey from the full range of threats in its region," Pentagon spokesman Johnny Michael said in a statement.
Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked the US administration to assess how the deal might affect Turkey’s NATO membership and US security assistance to Ankara, which includes weapons sales. He issued the warning on September 14 in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. According to him, the deal violated a bill signed into law in August that imposes sanctions "on any person that conducts a significant transaction with the Russian Federation’s defense or intelligence sectors."
The idea of introducing sanctions against Turkey has been on the EU’s agenda for quite some time. The announcement of the deal with Russia came after German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said his country was suspending all major arms exports to Turkey because of the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and the increasingly strained ties. Gabriel added he believed that Turkey had also abandoned NATO’s common values. The idea of economic sanctions against Turkey is quite popular in Germany.
So, the three big powers, Russia, Turkey and Iran, united by the desire to end the bloodshed in Syria and rout terrorists, have become the targets of Western sanctions already imposed or still to be introduced. The pressure makes them get closer to each other. The cooperation between Russia and Turkey is on the rise and offers great prospects. Iran"s Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri visited Turkey in mid-August - the first visit by an Iranian chief of staff since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. The common threat of terrorism and Western pressure nudge Russia, Turkey and Iran towards one another.
The three states work together within the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) where Russia is a full-fledged member, Turkey has the status of dialogue partner and Iran, an observer, is expected to become a member soon. Last November, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey could become part of the SCO.
Ankara is also showing increasing interest in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). It was invited to join the organization in 2014. This will open new opportunities for developing trade. Furthermore, many of the present and potential members of the EAEU are countries with whom Turkey already has close relations. The Eurasian Economic Union aims to finalize a free-trade deal with Iran by the end of the year. Reaching a deal with Iran on free trade would represent a notable victory for the organization. With Turkey and Iran as members, the EAEU would acquire a global dimension.
Obviously, there is one result the Western sanctions produce – the targeted countries come together to create alternative poles of power. Threats and restrictive measures spur the process. This policy has failed to keep Turkey away from military cooperation with Russia. In the multipolar world there is always an alternative to turn to.
Jack Thompson and Oliver Thränert argue that President Trump´s administration is laying the groundwork for the U.S. to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. However, they suggest that if the U.S. were to end its participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program, it would severely damage transatlantic relations and the nuclear non-proliferation regime. As a result, Thompson and Thränert urge European governments to talk with Trump’s most influential advisers and convince them that a unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA will leave the U.S. isolated.
U.S. President Trump seems determined to kill the nuclear deal with Iran. European leaders should strive to prevent this, as it would severely damage transatlantic relations and the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Key Points
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of 2015, which would have been impossible without close transatlantic cooperation, brought Iran back into compliance with the Nuclear Non-Prolifera¬tion Treaty (NPT).
U.S. President Trump and some of his political advisors are preparing to end participation in the JCPOA, possibly as early as October 2017. Iran is gaining ever more influence in the Middle East, they contend, which is why sanctions need to be reinforced, not lifted.
If the U.S. were to withdraw from the JCPOA, it would deal another blow to U.S.-European ties and could weaken the NPT.
Hence, European governments need to talk to Trump’s most influential advisers and convince them that withdrawal from the JCPOA would leave the U.S. isolated
One of the most successful examples of transatlantic cooperation in recent years was the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was finalized in July 2015. The deal imposes strict constraints on Iran’s nuclear program, and provides for enhanced transparency, in return for relief from international sanctions.
However, that deal is now under threat. U.S. President Donald Trump, who as a candidate called the JCPOA the “stupidest deal of all time”, is convinced that it does little to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Therefore, the White House is laying the groundwork for withdrawal, possibly as early as October 2017.1 If the U.S. were to unilaterally withdraw from the JCPOA, this would antagonize the European signatories who, through their early and intense diplomatic engagement, made the JCPOA possible in the first place. With transatlantic relations already under strain, mostly as a result of the Trump administration’s ambivalence about NATO and, more broadly, the liberal world order, the termination of the JCPOA would constitute yet another significant blow to U.S.-European relations. Furthermore, ending the deal would lift the present limitations on Iran’s nuclear program and weaken the entire nuclear non-proliferation regime. Therefore, decisive European action is required to stop the Trump administration from abandoning the JCPOA.
Divisions in the Trump Administration
Two factors are likely influencing the thinking of Trump and other hardliners.
Partisanship is one. For many conservatives, the Iran deal was emblematic of what they viewed as Barack Obama’s feckless foreign policy, and Trump has been adept at channeling conservative anger at the former president.
Second, Trump and other critics emphasize Tehran’s extensive involvement in Syria and Iraq and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. As a result, they argue, Iran is gaining ever more influence in the Middle East. To stop Iran, goes the argument, sanctions have to be reinforced, not lifted. Intense lobbying by the Saudi and Israeli governments has reinforced the administration’s anti-Iran tendencies.
Key political advisors in the administration, such as Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka, have played a role in convincing the president to put more pressure on Tehran, to end the JCPOA, and to enforce sanctions. At the same time, most of the president’s principal national security advisors – with the notable exception of CIA Director Mike Pompeo – oppose leaving the JCPOA. Though some of them are critical of the agreement, unilateral withdrawal would leave the U.S. isolated, they believe, and would remove any ability it would have to influence the development of Iran’s nuclear program. This group includes Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. But this faction appears to be losing the battle on the Iran deal. Instead, ideologues such as Bannon, Gorka, and Stephen Miller, a Senior Advisor to the president, appear to have scored an important victory. These aides are skeptical of the national security establishment, which they view as the embodiment of the corrupt Washington “swamp” that is in need of draining, and as hostile to Trump’s presidency.
Even though the president has openly stated that he advocates direct abrogation of the deal, some of his advisors reportedly favor a subtler approach. They believe that it would be preferable to find a way to goad Tehran into withdrawing from the agreement or, alternatively, into taking steps that could be portrayed as being in violation of the JCPOA. The most likely option at present is that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is responsible for conducting inspections under the JCPOA, would be convinced to request unrestricted access to all of Tehran’s military sites. This thinking reflects a complete misunderstanding of international organizations, such as the IAEA, on the part of Trump and his followers: Their purpose is not to serve narrowly defined U.S. national interests, but to implement provisions agreed to by all parties. Furthermore, the IAEA would be well advised to ask for access to particular sites only if it has information that hint at anomalies not compatible with the JCPOA. The U.S. is in the process of attempting to gather intelligence that would convince its allies and the IAEA of the need to inspect these sites. In any event, to gain access to additional military sites, a step that Tehran would likely resist, the U.S. would need the support of a majority of the other JCPOA signatories.
The JCPOA and its Implementation
To be sure, the JCPOA is imperfect. Particularly controversial is the fact that it allows Iran to maintain its entire nuclear infrastructure, and to continue conducting research. Moreover, the deal is of limited duration. Iran can return to full-scale uranium enrichment – a dual-use technology that can be used for the production of bomb-grade fissile material – once special restrictions in the JCPOA are removed, beginning about eight years from now. Because Tehran probably knows how to build nuclear explosive devices, it is what nuclear proliferation experts call a “threshold state”: A country that has the knowledge and the infrastructure available to become a nuclear state in a short period of time. Moreover, the JCPOA does not limit Iran’s right to develop and test ever more sophisticated missiles. It is therefore free to perfect its delivery systems, which could be fitted with nuclear weapons.
In spite of such flaws, the JCPOA is a remarkable achievement. It is the only example of a determined violator of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) having been brought back into full compliance without using military force. This was made possible by the creation of an international coalition, which was initiated by the three main European powers – France, United Kingdom and Germany – in October 2003. In an intense diplomatic effort, this troika and the EU joined forces with an initially hesitant George W. Bush administration, as well as with Russia and China. The E3/EU plus 3, or P-5 plus 1, orchestrated, beginning in July 2006, the adoption of a series of UN Security Council resolutions directed against the Iranian nuclear program, including sanctions. When Barack Obama became president, the US immediately took the lead in these diplomatic efforts, which eventually led to the JCPOA.
Unsurprisingly, Iran has tested the limits of the agreement. For instance, its heavy water production exceeded the cap defined by the JCPOA. But this issue has been addressed through the Joint Commission that was set up as a negotiating channel between the E-3/EU plus 3 and Iran. So far, the IAEA apparently has not inspected Iranian military sites, because it did not feel this to be necessary, given that Iran’s plutonium reactor at Arak remains filled with concrete; 15,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment remain locked under IAEA supervision; and Tehran continues to provide inspectors with timely access across the entire uranium chain. At this point, in contrast to Trump and the hawks in his administration, representatives of the E-3/EU plus 3 and the IAEA believe that the JCPOA is working.2
The Threat of Nuclear Proliferation
The cornerstone of international efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has been under stress for some time. Many non-nuclear weapons states contend that the disarmament pace prescribed by this treaty is too slow. The recent adoption in the UN of a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons will further complicate matters. All nuclear weapon states, and those that shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, have boycotted this agreement – a split which is heightening divisions within the NPT community.3Furthermore, one of the few things that NPT members agree upon is continued implementation of the JCPOA, which many see as essential.
Hence, if the Trump administration were to abandon the JCPOA, this would weaken the nuclear nonproliferation norm. Iran’s nuclear program would be freed from the special JCPOA constraints. Moreover, more states may consider the nuclear option. For instance, Iran’s archrival Saudi Arabia might seek to develop a nuclear capability, which would further destabilize the Middle East. In addition, at a time when North Korea is in the process of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles that it could fit with nuclear warheads, Japan and South Korea have already begun to question U.S. security guarantees. They note that, in the event of a military confrontation with Pyongyang, Washington would have to reckon with the possibility of a nuclear strike on its west coast. This has bolstered those in both countries, especially in South Korea, who wish to establish an independent nuclear deterrent. Until now, the very existence of the NPT has served as a check on these arguments. But within the context of a weakened NPT, South Korea – and other states such as Japan – going nuclear could become more likely.4
Europe: Time for Action
In the upcoming months, European governments should do their utmost to convince the Trump administration to not abolish the JCPOA. This will require intensive dialogue with the right people in Washington. These are no longer representatives of the State Department, who seem to have entirely lost their influence. Rather, European officials need to approach national security professionals that value transatlantic cooperation, such as Secretary Mattis. However, if possible, a dialogue with Trump advisers such as Bannon and Gorka might also be useful. Furthermore, Congress needs to be brought into the loop. Influential figures such as Republican Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, seem to be more flexible than the hardliners.
European officials should emphasize four points.
First, they should reassure their counterparts that they would continue to support Washington in any meaningful effort to ensure that Iran implements all of the JCPOA provisions, including verification, but that the respective regulations should not be abused.
Second, the Europeans need to make it clear that they continue to support U.S. sanctions that are directed against human rights abuses and the Iranian missile program. Such was the case in August 2017, when the U.S., joined by the UK, France and Germany, sent a joint letter to the UN Security Council and the Secretary General. Iran’s launch of a missile that carried a satellite into orbit, the letter noted, was inconsistent with UNSCR 2231, which codified the JCPOA.5
Third, European policymakers should seek to convince the White House that they would not allow Tehran to withdraw from the JCPOA, and thereby win the blame game, by arguing that sanctions directed against the Iranian missile program contradict the JCPOA.
Fourth, however, Europe must leave no room for doubt: unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, let alone military action against Iran, would leave the U.S. isolated.
Does any member have the courage and vision to take responsibility?
Just shy of fifty years ago on November 7, 1967, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by J. William Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, met in executive session to assess the progress of the ongoing Vietnam War. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was the sole witness invited to testify. Even today, the transcript of Rusk’s remarks and the subsequent exchange with committee members make for depressing reading.
Responding to questions that ranged from plaintive to hostile, Rusk gave no ground. The Johnson administration was more than willing to end the war, he insisted; the North Vietnamese government was refusing to do so. The blame lay with Hanoi. Therefore the United States had no alternative but to persist. American credibility was on the line.
By extension, so too was the entire strategy of deterring Communist aggression. The stakes in South Vietnam extended well beyond the fate of that one country, as senators well knew. In that regard, Rusk reminded members of the committee, the Congress had “performed its function…when the key decisions were made”—an allusion to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a de facto declaration of war passed with near unanimous congressional support. None too subtly, Rusk was letting members of the committee know that the war was theirs as much as it was the administration’s.
Yet Fulbright and his colleagues showed little inclination to accept ownership. As a result, the back-and-forth between Rusk and his interrogators produced little of value. Rather than illuminating the problem of a war gone badly awry and identifying potential solutions, the event became an exercise in venting frustration. This exchange initiated by Senator Frank Lausche, Democrat from Ohio, captures the overall tone of the proceedings.
Senator Lausche: “The debate about what our course in Vietnam should be has now been in progress since the Tonkin Bay resolution. When was that, August 1964?
Senator Wayne Morse (D-Ore.): “Long before that."
Senator Albert Gore, Sr. (D-Tenn.): “Long before that.”
Senator Fulbright: “Oh, yes, but that was the Tonkin Bay.”
Senator Lausche: “For three years we have been arguing it, arguing for what purpose? Has it been to repeal the Tonkin Bay resolution? Has it been to establish justification for pulling out? In the three years, how many times has the Secretary appeared before us?
Those hearings, those debates, in my opinion, have fully explored all of the aspects that you are speaking about without dealing with any particular issue. Now, this is rather rash, I suppose: If our presence in Vietnam is wrong, [if] it is believed we should pull out, should not one of us present a resolution to the Senate[?] …. [Then] we would have a specific issue. We would not just be sprawled all over the field, as we have been in the last three years.”
Put simply, Senator Lausche was suggesting that Congress force the matter, providing a forum to examine and resolve an issue that had deeply divided the country and that, Rusk’s assurances notwithstanding, showed no signs of resulting in a successful outcome. No such congressional intervention occurred, however. As a practical matter, Congress in 1967 found it more expedient to defer to the wishes of the commander in chief as the exigencies of the Cold War ostensibly required.
So the Vietnam War dragged on at great cost and to no good effect. Not until the summer of 1970 did Congress repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Even then, the gesture came too late to have any meaningful impact. The war continued toward its mournful conclusion.
To characterize congressional conduct regarding the Vietnam War as timorous and irresponsible is to be kind. There were individual exceptions, of course, among them Senator Morse who had opposed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Senator Fulbright who by 1967 openly regretted his vote in favor and recognized Vietnam for the disaster it had become. Collectively, however, legislators failed abjectly.
Well, with the passage of a half century, here we are again, back in the soup (or perhaps more accurately, the sand). With the United States currently mired in the longest armed conflict in the nation’s history—considerably longer than Vietnam—Senator Lausche’s proposal of 1967 just might merit a fresh look.
Of course, the Afghanistan War (ostensibly part of a Global War on Terrorism) differs from the Vietnam War (ostensibly part of the Cold War) in myriad ways. Yet it resembles Vietnam in three crucial respects. First, it drags on with no end in sight. Second, no evidence exists to suggest that mere persistence will produce a positive outcome. Third, those charged with managing the war have long since run out of ideas about how to turn things around.
Indeed, the Trump administration seems unable to make up its mind about what to do in Afghanistan. A request for additional troops by the senior U.S. field commander has been pending since February. He is still waiting for an answer. James Mattis, Trump’s defense secretary, has promised a shiny new strategy. That promise remains unfulfilled. Meanwhile, the news coming out of Kabul is almost uniformly bad. The war itself continues as if on autopilot. Lausche’s “sprawled all over the field” provides an apt description of where the United States finds itself today.
Where is the Congress in all of this? By all appearances, congressional deference to the putative prerogatives of the commander in chief remains absurdly intact—this despite the fact that the Cold War is now a distant memory and the post once graced by eminences like Truman and Eisenhower is now occupied by an individual whose judgment and attention span (among other things) are suspect.
A citizen might ask: What more does the Congress need to reassert its constitutional prerogatives on matters related to war? Surely there must be at least a handful of members who, setting aside partisan considerations, can muster the courage and vision to offer a rash proposition similar to Senator Lausche’s. Doing so has the potential not only to inaugurate debate on a conflict that has gone on for too long to no purpose, but also to call much needed attention to the overall disarray of U.S. policy of which Afghanistan is merely one symptom. Otherwise, why do we pay these people?
“Iran must be free. The dictatorship must be destroyed. Containment is appeasement and appeasement is surrender.”
Thus does our Churchill, Newt Gingrich, dismiss, in dealing with Iran, the policy of containment crafted by George Kennan and pursued by nine U.S. presidents to bloodless victory in the Cold War.
Why is containment surrender? “Because freedom is threatened everywhere so long as this dictatorship stays in power,” says Gingrich.
But how is our freedom threatened by a regime with 3 percent of our GDP that has been around since Jimmy Carter was president?
Fortunately, Gingrich has found a leader to bring down the Iranian regime and ensure the freedom of mankind. “In our country that was George Washington and … the Marquis de Lafayette. In Italy it was Garibaldi,” says Gingrich.
Whom has he found to rival Washington and Garibaldi? Says Gingrich, “Maryam Rajavi.”
Who is she? The leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, which opposed the Shah, broke with the old Ayatollah, collaborated with Saddam Hussein, and, until 2012, was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State.
At the NCRI conference in Paris in July where Gingrich spoke, and the speaking fees were reportedly excellent, John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani were also on hand.
Calling Iran’s twice-elected President Hassan Rouhani, “a violent, vicious murderer,” Giuliani said, “the time has come for regime change.”
Bolton followed suit.
“Tehran is not merely a nuclear weapons threat, it is not merely a terrorist threat, it is a conventional threat to everybody in the region,” he said. Hence, “the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran.”
We will all celebrate in Tehran in 2019, Bolton assured the NCRI faithful.
Good luck. Yet, as The New York Times said yesterday, all this talk, echoed all over this capital, is driving us straight toward war. “A drumbeat of provocative words, outright threats and actions — from President Trump and some of his top aides as well as Sunni Arab leaders and American activists — is raising tensions that could lead to armed conflict with Iran.”
Is this what America wants or needs — a new Mideast war against a country three times the size of Iraq?
After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, would America and the world be well-served by a war with Iran that could explode into a Sunni-Shiite religious war across the Middle East?
Bolton calls Iran “a nuclear weapons threat.”
But in 2007, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies declared with high confidence Iran had no nuclear weapons program. They stated this again in 2011. Under the nuclear deal, Iran exported almost all of its uranium, stopped enriching to 20 percent, shut down thousands of centrifuges, poured concrete into the core of its heavy water reactor, and allows U.N. inspectors to crawl all over every facility.
Is Iran, despite all this, operating a secret nuclear weapons program? Or is this War Party propaganda meant to drag us into another Mideast war?
To ascertain the truth, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should call the heads of the CIA and DIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, to testify in open session.
We are told we are menaced also by a Shiite Crescent rising and stretching from Beirut to Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.
And who created this Shiite Crescent?
It was George W. Bush who ordered the Sunni regime of Saddam overthrown, delivering Iraq to its Shiite majority. It was Israel whose invasion and occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 gave birth to the Shiite resistance now known as Hezbollah.
As for Bashar Assad in Syria, his father sent troops to fight alongside Americans in the Gulf War.
The Ayatollah’s regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia are deeply hostile to this country. But Iran does not want war with the United States — for the best of reasons. Iran would be smashed like Iraq, and its inevitable rise, as the largest and most advanced country on the Persian Gulf, would be aborted.
Moreover, we have interests in common: Peace in the Gulf, from which Iran’s oil flows and without which Iran cannot grow, as Rouhani intends, by deepening Iran’s ties to Europe and the advanced world.
And we have enemies in common: ISIS, al-Qaida and all the Sunni terrorists whose wildest dream is to see their American enemies fight their Shiite enemies.
Who else wants a U.S. war with Iran, besides ISIS?
Unfortunately, their number is legion: Saudis, Israelis, neocons and their think tanks, websites and magazines, hawks in both parties on Capitol Hill, democracy crusaders, and many in the Pentagon who want to deliver payback for what the Iranian-backed Shiite militias did to us in Iraq.
President Trump is key. If he does the War Party’s bidding, that will be his legacy, as the Iraq War is the legacy of George W. Bush.
One month ago, after the shocking collapse of the Gulf nation status quo with the announcement of the diplomatic, naval and financial blockade of Qatar by the Saudi alliance, we said that while it is unclear how this latest political fiasco plays out, one thing was certain: with Saudi Arabia and Qatar suddenly adversaries, any likelihood of a Qatari natural gas pipeline crossing Syria - the fundamental cause behind the Qatar proxy war in the first place - was gone.
But one key question remained: why would Europe vacate all hopes of an alternative provider of cheap, copious LNG and concede the role of quasi-monopolist supplier of this critical for Europe resource to Gazprom, and thus Russia whose leverage over the continent would only grow as a result.
We now have the answer: none other than Donald Trump has been hoping to "steal" Russia"s European natgas relationships and clients, in hopes of making the US become the dominant supplier of LNG to Europe. According to Reuters, Trump "will use fast-growing supplies of U.S. natural gas as a political tool when he meets in Warsaw on Thursday with leaders of a dozen countries that are captive to Russia for their energy needs."
The love-but-mostly-hate relationship between Russia and Europe is familiar to regular readers: in recent years, Moscow has cut off gas shipments during pricing disputes with neighboring countries in winter months, or when the conflict with Ukraine resulted in a halt of transit shipments via the energy hub.
This is where Trump"s plan kicks in: exports from the United States would help reduce their dependence on Russia. Trump will tell the group of European nations that Washington wants to help allies by making it as easy as possible for U.S. companies to ship more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to central and eastern Europe, the White House said. Trump will attend the "Three Seas" summit - so named because several of its members surround the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas - before the Group of 20 leading economies meet in Germany, where he is slated to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time.
Among the aims of the Three Seas project is to expand regional energy infrastructure, including LNG import terminals and gas pipelines: in other words to replace Gazprom as the dominant supplier of European nat gas with US suppliers. Members of the initiative include Poland, Austria, Hungary and Russia"s neighbors Latvia and Estonia. According to James Jones, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Trump"s presence will give the project a lift.
While it goes without saying, Jones adds that "Increased U.S. gas exports to the region would help weaken the impact of Russia using energy as a weapon or bargaining chip."
"I think the United States can show itself as a benevolent country by exporting energy and by helping countries that don’t have adequate supplies become more self-sufficient and less dependent and less threatened," he said. It will also, if successful, infuriate Putin and the Russian energy establishment.
Meanwhile, Trump"s Russia policy is still taking shape, a process made awkward by investigations into intelligence findings that Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Russia denies the allegations and Trump says his team did not collude with Moscow. One thing that Trump has made clear during his campaign is that he wants to pursue ways to de-escalate tensions with Russia, however it is the deep state that prevents any such overture with yet another barrage of "Russian conspiracy" news hitting the WaPo, CNN or NYT.
And while Trump may not even realize the long-term implications of the "Three Seas" project, all those around him understand all too well: with Putin having made a Qatar gas pipeline though Syria impossible, it is up to the US to step in and replace Gazprom as Europe"s nat gas provide.
Which is also why many Republican lawmakers, many of whom want to see him take a hard line on Russia because of its interference in the election and in crises in Ukraine and Syria, support using gas exports for political leverage. "It undermines the strategies of Putin and other strong men who are trying to use the light switch as an element of strategic offense," said Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado who is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Kremlin relies on oil and gas revenue to finance the state budget, so taking market share would hurt Moscow.
"In many ways, the LNG exports by the U.S. is the most threatening U.S. policy to Russia," said Michal Baranowski, director of the Warsaw office of think-tank the German Marshall Fund. He is absolutely correct, and yet the question becomes: if Putin was ready to deploy thousands of soldiers and dozens of warplanes in Syria to defend Russia"s gas export market, what woud - or could - he do, if the US itself is hoping to replace Russia as Europe"s dominant source of energy.
* * *
To be sure, taking over Russia"s nat gas trade ties with European nations would be a slam dunk for the US, which is expected to become the world"s third-largest exporter of LNG in 2020, just four years after starting up its first export terminal. U.S. exporters have sold most of that gas in long-term contracts, but there are still some volumes on offer, and more export projects on the drawing board.
And if there is one thing US LNG exporters want more than anything, it is a virtually unlimited export market. Such as Europe.
Cheniere Energy which opened the first U.S. LNG export terminal in 2016, delivered its first cargo to Poland in June. Five more terminals are expected to be online by 2020. Tellurian has proposed a project with a price tag of as much as $16 billion that it hopes to complete by 2022, in time to compete for long-term contracts to supply Poland that expire the same year and are held by Russian gas giant Gazprom. "We would like to be a supplier that competes for that market," Tellurian Chief Executive Meg Gentle told Reuters.
There are other problems as well: a global glut in supply may, however, limit U.S. LNG export growth, regardless of Trump"s support. The glut has depressed prices and made it difficult for LNG exporters to turn a profit, said Adam Sieminski, an energy analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Russia has the advantage in Europe due to its proximity and pipeline connections, however it is only a matter of time before technological advances make US LNG production price competitive: just ask OPEC.
"Europe is going to be the great competitive arena between Russian gas and LNG," said Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning oil historian and vice-chairman with IHS Markit analysis firm.
* * *
For now, Europeans will be watching to see whether Trump clarifies his administration"s position on a new notorious pipeline to pump Russian gas to Germany, known as Nord Stream 2.
As we reported several weeks ago, the U.S. Senate passed a package of sanctions on Russia, including provisions to penalize Western firms involved in the pipeline. This prompted a furious response from close European allies such as Germany, France and Austria. However, should Trump assure Europe that American nat gas is competitive with Russia"s, we expect European leaders would quickly change their mind,
Once again, it should come as no surprise that the U.S. State Department has already lobbied against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a potential supply chokepoint that would make Europe more vulnerable to disruptions. What it really means is that if left unchecked, Nord Stream 2 would make Europe even more reliant on Moscow"s good will.
Meanwhile, as Reuters reports, the threat of sanctions adds to tensions between Washington and Berlin. Germany"s government supports the pipeline, and Trump"s position on it is a concern for European diplomats.
While it is soon to say if Trump will be successful in stealing Russia"s European LNG business, the mere attempt will be seen by the Kremlin as an unmistakable aggression against it by the Trump admin, or those who are pulling the strings behind the scenes on the Three Seas project. And the fact that this takes place on the same day when China"s patience with Trump finally ended, and Xi warned that Trump"s actions since their Mar-A-Logo meeting have resulted in "negative factors" for the US-China relationship, will certainly have drastic consequences for the global balance of power and status quo, as Russia and China are drawn even closer politically to prevent the US from replacing Russia"s energy dominance, leaving Moscow with a fraction of its leverage over central Europe.
But the most interesting deliverable next will be what Putin"s reaction will be: should GazProm and various other Russian nat gas lose access to the European market, the consequence to the Kremlin would be far more dire than even the breakout of a small, regional, hard water. Finally, if Putin finds that no diplomatic recourse is left to preserve Russian supremacy, will the former KGB spy find a way to esalate?
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved new sanctions to punish Russia for "meddling" in the 2016 election.
The bipartisan legislation, which passed with an overwhelming 97-2 vote, slaps new sanctions on Russia and restricts President Trump from easing them in the future without first receiving congressional approval. The only two senators to vote against the measure were Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY), while Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) abstained.
Known as the Crapo Amendment, after Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, the measure was endorsed by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) and ranking member Ben Cardin (D-Maryland). The deal was attached to an Iran sanctions bill that is expected to pass later this week. While top Republican senators had initially wanted to give the White House space to try improving U.S.-Russia relations, but ultimately decided talks with Russia have been moving too slowly.
The sanctions against Russia are “in response to the violation of the territorial integrity of the Ukraine and Crimea, its brazen cyber-attacks and interference in elections, and its continuing aggression in Syria,” according to the deal"s sponsors.
The amendment also allows “broad new sanctions on key sectors of Russia’s economy, including mining, metals, shipping and railways” and authorizes “robust assistance to strengthen democratic institutions and counter disinformation across Central and Eastern European countries that are vulnerable to Russian aggression and interference.”
New sanctions would be imposed on “corrupt Russian actors” and those “involved in serious human rights abuses,” anyone supplying weapons to the Syrian government or working with Russian defense industry or intelligence, as well as “those conducting malicious cyber activity on behalf of the Russian government” and “those involved in corrupt privatization of state-owned assets.”
The biggest neocon in Congress, John McCain, was delighted with the outcome: “We must take our own side in this fight. Not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) before the vote. “It’s time to respond to Russia’s attack on American democracy with strength, with resolve, with common purpose, and with action.”
As AP adds, lawmakers took action against Russia in the absence of a forceful response from President Donald Trump. While the president has sought to improve relations with Moscow and rejected the implication that Russian hacking of Democratic emails tipped the election his way, non-stop "anonymous sources" have repeatedly leaked "news" to the NYT and WaPo, suggesting Trump colluded with Russia and/or was being probed by the FBI. Following Comey"s testimony, which confirmed there is no "there" there, the media attacks against Trump have shifted, and now accuse the president of obstruction of justice and interference with the FBI"s investigation into Mike Flynn.
Speaking earlier on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin"s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said told reporters the Kremlin will hold out with its reaction until the U.S. decides on new sanctions against Russia.
“We wouldn’t like to enter this sanctions spiral again. But that’s not our choice.” Indeed, and with the US having made Russia"s choice for them, we now look for Moscow"s response.
Incidentally, earlier this week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told lawmakers that US allies around the world had asked Washington to improve relations with Russia, and warned that further measures against Moscow could hinder ongoing progress in the fight against terrorism in Syria.
“I have yet to have a bilateral, one-on-one, a poolside conversation with a single counterpart in any country: in Europe, Middle East, even South-East Asia, that has not said to me: please, address your relationship with Russia, it has to be improved,” Tillerson said on Tuesday, testifying before the Senate appropriations subcommittee about the proposed State Department budget.
Unfortunately, for the US Military Industrial Complex, which stands to profit only in times of (near) war, a detente with Russia, or any other nation for that matter, is not an option.
The American guided missile destroyer USS Dewey was reported as having carried out a ‘freedom of navigation operation’ or FONOP in the South China Sea on May 24. According to the US Naval Institute the undertaking involved manoeuvres «within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef for about 90 minutes zig-zagging in the water near the installation. At one point during the operation, the ship’s crew conducted a man overboard drill».
Mischief Reef is 900 miles from the mainland of China, and 12,000 miles from the mainland of the United States. It has been built up by China from a sandy pile of rock into a habitable base and lies in the Spratly Island chain which is claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam, both members of the Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN.
A week before the United States sent a warship to «demonstrate that Mischief Reef is not entitled to its own territorial sea regardless of whether an artificial island has been built on top of it» there was a meeting attended by representatives of China and all ten ASEAN countries. The purpose was to continue discussions aimed at establishing a code of conduct in the South China Sea, and on May 18 an announcement of progress was made. It was stated that all concerned nations «uphold using the framework of regional rules to manage and control disputes, to deepen practical maritime cooperation, to promote consultation on the code [of conduct] and jointly maintain the peace and stability of the South China Sea».
As stated by the head of the Chinese delegation, deputy foreign minister Liu Zhenmin, «the draft framework contains only the elements and is not the final rules, but the conclusion of the framework is a milestone in the process and is significant. It will provide a good foundation for the next round of consultations». It wasn’t a breakthrough in agreeing about allocation of territory or anything like that — but it was indicative of peaceful progress in an important matter affecting regional countries.
In 2012 the countries involved had agreed that «the adoption of a code of conduct in the South China Sea would further promote peace and stability in the region» and issued a statement that included reaffirmation of «their commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and other universally recognized principles of international law which shall serve as the basic norms governing state-to-state relations».
All these countries are, of course, signatories to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which, according to the Voice of America «provides guidelines for how nations use the world"s seas and their natural resources. It also contains mechanisms for addressing disputes».
But the United States of America, whose coast is 12,000 miles from the South China Sea where its ships zig-zag in ‘Freedom of Navigation’ operations, and its electronic warfare aircraft roam the skies forcing China to activate its mainland defensive radars so that they can be identified as future targets, refuses to sign the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The Berkeley Journal of International Law notes perceptively that «Although ratification of UNCLOS is unlikely today given staunch opposition to it in the Senate, the treaty remains an essential instrument of international law, particularly for resolving international maritime disputes. America’s abstention from the treaty is significant in this context, since as the preeminent naval power in the world it should hold a leading role in shaping the law of the sea. Instead, other nations are playing a larger role». But the US Senate is not known for a logical approach to international affairs, and its reaction is usually confrontational.
On May 10, just before the China-ASEAN conference and the zig-zagging antics of the USS Dewey, several US senators, including the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to President Trump expressing concern that the US Navy had not carried out patrols «upholding freedom of navigation» in the South China Sea since October 2016. This caused them to «urge your administration to take necessary steps to routinely exercise freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, which is critical to US national security interests and to peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region».
There has been no instance of any international commercial vessel being in any way denied passage through the South China Sea. There has never been a case in which any nation in the world has had cause to protest that one of its transiting merchant ships has been approached or in any fashion intimidated, endangered or even mildly disconcerted by the actions of a Chinese warship. There hasn’t been a single Chinese zig-zag.
These US Senators appear unable to understand that for China to take such action would be economically disastrous. The New York Times records that «$5.3 trillion worth of goods moves through the sea every year, which is about 30 percent of global maritime trade. That includes huge amounts of oil and $1.2 trillion worth of annual trade with the United States». Surely these representatives of the American people, elected presumably because of their outstanding levels of intelligence, flexibility, shrewdness, self-discipline and overall integrity, can see that if there were any real threat to passage of mercantile craft in the South China Sea there would be a catastrophic impact on making profits?
Even if they are not intelligent or shrewd or possess any of the other qualities desirable in a national legislator, they should realise that if the world’s financial community thought there was a threat to merchant ships in the South China Sea then insurance rates would go through the roof. There would be worldwide rocketing of commodity prices and a massive financial crisis. That is basic enough for even the dumbest senator to understand.
The only overflights in the region that have drawn attention have been the coat-trailing provocative electronic warfare missions of US military aircraft. There has not been one occasion on which an overflying civil aircraft has experienced interference of any sort.
Maintenance of peace and furtherance of prosperity of the region are being handled satisfactorily by regional countries, as demonstrated by the recent amicable gathering of Asian nations who agreed to «jointly maintain the peace and stability of the South China Sea». The major problem in the region is interference by warships and military aircraft of the United States. There is little doubt that China’s deputy foreign minister had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he told the media he hoped the China-ASEAN consultations would not be «subject to any outside interference», because he knew very well that cordial agreement between China and other Asian nations concerning the South China Sea would be anathema to Washington.
The Congress and the Pentagon are marching in step, as evidenced by the declaration of the senators that «We are encouraged by the statement made by Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of US Pacific Command, during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 26, that he expects new FONOPs to take place soon. We also share Admiral Harris’s assessments that ‘China’s militarization of the South China Sea is real’ and that ‘China continues its methodical strategy to control the South China Sea’».
Much of the world believes that the United States, 12,000 miles from the South China Sea, is the country that wants to control it. Methodical strategy might be the way to go about it, but as we have seen in the swathe of nations from Afghanistan to Libya, by way of Iraq and Syria, the strategy of the United States is not methodical. But it is decidedly confrontational. And disastrous.
Preface: We spoke for quite a while with Dr. Postol by phone, and find him to be an ethical, honest, patriotic American man. He"s made some interesting discoveries debunking the Syrian chemical weapons propaganda, and so we"re helping to spread his findings.
By Theodore A. Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. Postol’s main expertise is in ballistic missiles. He has a substantial background in air dispersal, including how toxic plumes move in the air. Postol has taught courses on weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological threats – at MIT. Before joining MIT, Postol worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment, as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations, and as a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory. He also helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. Postol is a highly-decorated scientist, receiving the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists.
This report provides unambiguous evidence that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) of April 11, 2017 contains false and misleading claims that could not possibly have been accepted in any professional review by impartial intelligence experts. The WHR was produced by the National Security Council under the oversight of the National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster.
This image was extracted from a video of a worker during midday (note shadows) on April 5, 2017 next to the crater where sarin was allegedly released according to the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued of April 11, 2017.
The WHR asserts that it reviewed commercial video evidence and concluded that sarin came from the crater next to a man. Other video frames show unprotected workers in the crater showing no evidence of sarin poisoning at the same time the dead birds are being packaged. The URLs to this and a related video are contained in this report.
The evidence presented herein is from two selected videos which are part of a larger cache of videos that are available on YouTube. These videos were uploaded to YouTube in the time period between April 5, 2017 and April 7, 2017. Analysis of the videos shows that all of the scenes taken at the site where the WHR claims was the location of a sarin release indicate significant tampering with the site. Since these videos were available roughly one week before the White House report was issued on April 11, this indicates that the office of the WHR made no attempt to utilize the professional intelligence community to obtain accurate data in support of the findings in the report.
The video evidence shows workers at the site roughly 30 hours after the alleged attack that were wearing clothing with the logo “Idlib Health Directorate.” These individuals were photographed putting dead birds from a birdcage into plastic bags. The implication of these actions was that the birds had died after being placed in the alleged sarin crater. However, the video also shows the same workers inside and around the same crater with no protection of any kind against sarin poisoning.
These individuals were wearing honeycomb face masks and medical exam gloves. They were otherwise dressed in normal streetwear and had no protective clothing of any kind.
The honeycomb face masks would provide absolutely no protection against either sarin vapors or sarin aerosols. The masks are only designed to filter small particles from the air. If there were sarin vapor, it would be inhaled without attenuation by these individuals. If the sarin were in an aerosol form, the aerosol would have condensed into the pours in the masks, and would have evaporated into a highly lethal gas as the individuals inhaled through the mask. It is difficult to believe that such health workers, if they were health workers, would be so ignorant of these basic facts.
In addition, other people dressed as health workers were standing around the crater without any protection at all.
As noted in my earlier reports, the assumption in WHR that the site of the alleged sarin release had not been tampered with was totally unjustified and no competent intelligence analyst would have agreed that this assumption was valid. The implication of this observation is clear – the WHR was not reviewed and released by any competent intelligence experts unless they were motivated by factors other than concerns about the accuracy of the report.
The WHR also makes claims about “communications intercepts” which supposedly provide high confidence that the Syrian government was the source of the attack. There is no reason to believe that the veracity of this claim is any different from the now verified false claim that there was unambiguous evidence of a sarin release at the cited crater.
The relevant quotes from the WHR are collected below for purposes of reference:
The United States is confident that the Syrian regime conducted a chemical weapons attack, using the nerve agent sarin, against its own people in the town of Khan Shaykhun in southern Idlib Province on April 4, 2017.
We have confidence in our assessment because we have signals intelligence and geospatial intelligence, laboratory analysis of physiological samples collected from multiple victims, as well as a significant body of credible open source reporting
We cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods, but the following includes an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of this attack.
By 12:15 PM [April4, 2017] local time, broadcasted local videos included images of dead children of varying ages.
… at 1:10 PM [April4, 2017] local … follow-on videos showing the bombing of a nearby hospital …
Commercial satellite imagery from April 6showed impact craters around the hospital that are consistent with open source reports of a conventional attack on the hospital after the chemical attack.
Moscow has since claimed that the release of chemicals was caused by a regime airstrike on a terrorist ammunition depot in the eastern suburbs of Khan Shaykhun.
An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed [Emphasis Added]—not on a facility filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun. Commercial satellite imagery of that site from April 6, [Emphasis Added] after the allegation, shows a crater in the road that corresponds to the open source video.
Observed munition remnants at the crater and staining around the impact point are consistent with a munition that functioned, but structures nearest to the impact crater did not sustain damage that would be expected from a conventional high-explosive payload. Instead, the damage is more consistent with a chemical munition.
Russia’s allegations fit with a pattern of deflecting blame from the regime and attempting to undermine the credibility of its opponents.
Summary and Conclusions
It is now clear from video evidence that the WHR report was fabricated without input from the professional intelligence community.
The press reported on April 4 that a nerve agent attack had occurred in Khan Shaykhun, Syria during the early morning hours locally on that day. On April 7, The United States carried out a cruise missile attack on Syria ordered by President Trump. It now appears that the president ordered this cruise missile attack without any valid intelligence to support it.
In order to cover up the lack of intelligence to supporting the president’s action, the National Security Council produced a fraudulent intelligence report on April 11 four days later. The individual responsible for this report was Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the National Security Advisor. The McMaster report is completely undermined by a significant body of video evidence taken after the alleged sarin attack and before the US cruise missile attack that unambiguously shows the claims in the WHR could not possibly be true. This cannot be explained as a simple error.
The National Security Council Intelligence Report clearly refers to evidence that it claims was obtained from commercial and open sources shortly after the alleged nerve agent attack (on April 5 and April 6). If such a collection of commercial evidence was done, it would have surely found the videos contained herein.
This unambiguously indicates a dedicated attempt to manufacture a false claim that intelligence actually supported the president’s decision to attack Syria, and of far more importance, to accuse Russia of being either complicit or a participant in an alleged atrocity.
The attack on the Syrian government threatened to undermine the relationship between Russia and the United States. Cooperation between Russia and the United States is critical to the defeat of the Islamic State. In addition, the false accusation that Russia knowingly engaged in an atrocity raises the most serious questions about a willful attempt to do damage relations with Russia for domestic political purposes.
We repeat here a quote from the WHR:
An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed—not on a facility filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun [Emphasis Added]. Commercial satellite imagery of that site from April 6, after the allegation, shows a crater in the road that corresponds to the open source video.
The data provided in these videos make it clear that the WHR made no good-faith attempt to collect data that could have supported its “confident assessment.” that the Syrian government executed a sarin attack as indicated by the location and characteristics of the crater.
This very disturbing event is not a unique situation. President George W. Bush argued that he was misinformed about unambiguous evidence that Iraq was hiding a substantial store of weapons of mass destruction. This false intelligence led to a US attack on Iraq that started a process that ultimately led to the political disintegration in the Middle East, which through a series of unpredicted events then led to the rise of the Islamic State.
On August 30, 2013, the White House produced a similarly false report about the nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 in Damascus. This report also contained numerous intelligence claims that could not be true. An interview with President Obama published in The Atlantic in April 2016 indicates that Obama was initially told that there was solid intelligence that the Syrian government was responsible for the nerve agent attack of August 21, 2013 in Ghouta, Syria. Obama reported that he was later told that the intelligence was not solid by the then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper.
Equally serious questions are raised about the abuse of intelligence findings by the incident in 2013. Questions that have not been answered about that incident is how the White House produced a false intelligence report with false claims that could obviously be identified by experts outside the White House and without access to classified information. There also needs to be an explanation of why this 2013 false report was not corrected. Secretary of State John Kerry emphatically testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee repeating information in this so-called un-equivocating report.
On August 30, 2013 Secretary of State Kerry made the following statement from the Treaty Room in the State Department:
Our intelligence communityhas carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack[Emphasis added], and I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment. Accordingly, we have taken unprecedented steps to declassify and make facts available to people who can judge for themselves.
It is now obvious that this incident produced by the WHR, while just as serious in terms of the dangers it created for US security, was a clumsy and outright fabrication of a report that was certainly not supported by the intelligence community.
In this case, the president, supported by his staff, made a decision to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. This action was accompanied by serious risks of creating a confrontation with Russia, and also undermining cooperative efforts to win the war against the Islamic State.
I therefore conclude that there needs to be a comprehensive investigation of these events that have either misled people in the White House White House, or worse yet, been perpetrated by people to protect themselves from domestic political criticisms for uninformed and ill-considered actions.
Sincerely yours, Theodore A. Postol
Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Massachusetts Institute of Technology Email: postol@mit.edu
Video Evidence That Reveals the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017 Contains Demonstrably False Claims about a Sarin Dispersal Crater Allegedly Created in the April 4, 2017 Attack in Khan Sheikoun, Syria
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Rex Tillerson’s nomination as secretary of state by a vote of 11-10 - falling along party lines (with Democrats dissenting). As Bloomberg notes, this vote clears the way for the full Senate to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s most critical cabinet choices.
Before the vote on Monday, Democrats also said they were concerned about Tillerson’s statement that he would recuse himself from matters related to Exxon during his first year as secretary and rely on guidance from the State Department’s ethics office after that.
“In the end, I just had too many concerns and questions about the kind of leadership he would provide at the state department to feel comfortable voting for him,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat.
The 11-10 vote came hours after Senator Marco Rubio, who had been the lone Republican withholding his support, said he would back the nomination of the former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executive officer as the nation’s top diplomat despite concerns over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his refusal in his nomination hearing to condemn human rights abuses in Russia and the Philippines. As The Hill reports,
“I concluded that it would not be good for our country to unnecessarily delay or created unwarranted political controversy over this particular nomination,” Rubio told the panel at the Monday meeting.
“My concern was that Mr. Tillerson would be an advocate for and would pursue a foreign policy of dealmaking at the expense of traditional alliances and at the expense of the defense of human rights and of democracy,” he said, which he weigh against positive answers from Tillerson on issues like Cuba and supporting armament for Ukraine against Russia.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the panel’s chairman, said that Tillerson had “no doubt that Rex Tillerson is well-qualified.”
“He has managed the world’s eighth largest company by revenue, with over 75,000 employees. Diplomacy has been a critical component of his positions in the past, and he has shown himself to be an exceptionally able and successful negotiator who has maintained deep relationships around the world,” Corker said.
Two key GOP senators who have been concerned about Russia and Putin, Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and John McCain (Ariz.), also announced in recent days that they would support Tillerson.
Tillerson will now face a vote in the full Senate, where he is nearly certain to get the majority vote that he needs to become the United States’ top diplomat.
We were surprised by how contained China was this morning after yesterday"s confirmation hearing of Rex Tillerson, in which the former Exxon CEO said that a failure to respond to China had allowed it to “keep pushing the envelope” in the South China Sea and added that “we’re going to have to send China a clear signal that first the island-building stops and second your access to those islands is also not going to be allowed” and that putting military assets on those islands was "akin to Russia’s taking Crimea” from Ukraine."
Traditionally such a direct threat would be i) perceived as very undiplomatic and ii) prompt an immediate, and angry rebuke from Beijing, with China immediately shifting to the offensive.
“This is the sort of off-the-cuff remark akin to a tweet that pours fuel on the fire and maybe makes things worse,” Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra told Bloomberg. “Short of going to war with China, there is nothing the Americans can do.”
But not today: during his press conference earlier today, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang could barely muster the will to sound defensive, saying China has been acting within the limits of its sovereignty. “Like the U.S., China has the right within its own territory to carry out normal activities,” he said at a regular briefing in Beijing. When asked repeatedly about Tillerson"s comments on blocking access to islands, China"s foreign ministry spokesman said he couldn"t make any guesses as to what Tillerson was referring to and would not answer hypothetical questions, Reuters reported.
As it turns out, China may not have had time to digest what Tillerson said. After all his South China sea remark was toward the end of his nearly all day long hearing, and so many local media outlets may have simply missed it. However, they caught up today, and first China Daily, then its nationalist tabloid, the Global Times took turns to first mock, then attack Tillerson.
Here is the gist of the China Daily op-ed published earlier today: according to the Chinese daily mouthpiece, not only were Tillerson"s views "divergent from, even contrary to, those of Trump on some critical issues. He openly conceded he is yet to have a serious, in-depth discussion with Trump on foreign policy imperatives. These boil down to one simple point – his remarks at the Wednesday hearing, sensational as they were, turned out to be of little reference value except for judging his personal orientations."
Yet while China realizes that Tillerson"s bluster was intended for a specific audience, that does not make it any happier:
The backlash that has ensued is understandable. It is certainly no small matter for a man intended to be the US diplomat in chief to display such undisguised animosity toward China. Tillerson labeled China"s reclamation projects in the South China Sea as "an illegal taking of disputed areas without regard for international norms," in obvious disregard of the essential truth that all those activities took place well within the country"s persistent, historical territorial claims.
Blaming the "extremely worrisome" state of affairs in the South China Sea on an "inadequate US response", the US secretary of state nominee even claimed China"s access to those islands should "not to be allowed". Which sounded intimidating; though he stopped short of elaborating how to achieve it. And like Trump, he blamed Beijing for "not being a reliable partner" in dealing with the Democratic People"s Republic of Korea.
And then, the not so subtle threats followed:
Such remarks are not worth taking seriously because they are a mish-mash of naivety, shortsightedness, worn-out prejudices, and unrealistic political fantasies. Should he act on them in the real world, it would be disastrous.
As many have observed, it would set a course for devastating confrontation between China and the US. After all, how can the US deny China access to its own territories without inviting the latter"s legitimate, defensive responses?
Finally, the mocking of Tillerson as a clueless former company exec who does not have the faintest understanding of diplomacy: "Tillerson wanted a reality-based China policy that is "based on what we see and not based on what we hope". But what he presented was based more on what prejudice and arms-spurred self-righteousness make him believe and hope than on real-world realities. What happened on Wednesday shows that if and when confirmed, Rex Tillerson needs to first acquaint himself with the ABCs of China-US relations and diplomacy at large."
The Global Times approach was almost verbatim. First, the justification of Tillerson"s "bluster":
It is suspected that he merely wanted to curry favor from senators and increase his chances of being confirmed by intentionally showing a tough stance toward China.
Tillerson did not give details of how he would achieve his self-proclaimed goals. Nonetheless, he also mentioned that Chinese and American economic interests are deeply intertwined and that "China has been a valuable ally in curtailing elements of radical Islam." He noted that "We should not let disagreements over other issues exclude areas for productive partnership."
Motives aside, the GT then explained that China no longer views itself as America"s subordinate:
China has enough determination and strength to make sure that his rabble rousing will not succeed. Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish. The US has no absolute power to dominate the South China Sea.
Following this, just like in the case of China Daily, there was the mocking:
Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories. Probably he just has oil prices and currency rates in his mind as former ExxonMobil CEO.
Next, the not so thinly veiled threat - again - aimed not so much at Tillerson but at Trump:
As Trump has yet to be sworn in, China has shown restraint whenever his team members expressed radical views. But the US should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of their threats.
How does it all end according to China? Unless Trump"s diplomatic team changes course, the Times said "the two sides better prepare for a military clash."
Tillerson"s statements regarding the islands in the South China Sea are far from professional. If Trump"s diplomatic team shapes future Sino-US ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash. South China Sea countries will accelerate their negotiations on a Code of Conduct. They have the ability to solve divergences by themselves without US interference.
And the conclusion:
Just as the Philippines and Vietnam are trying to warm their ties with China, Tillerson"s words cannot be more irritating. It is hoped that Tillerson will desire a productive partnership with China more and his harsh words are just coaxing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But no matter what, China will always respond to various US diplomatic maneuvers.
As a reminder, all this has already happened and Trump isn"t president yet. We eagerly look forward to the president-elect"s next steps vis-a-vis an increasingly angry CHina and vice versa.
