Category: United States

Posted on

US on the Brink: Will Attorney General Sessions Drain the Sewer or Fall In It?

A moment of truth will hopefully be told at the Friday press conference held by Attorney General Sessions. We will know whether the US will turn towards a constitutional republic or will remain an oligarchy empowered by the deep state. While the mainstream media focuses on the circus like atmosphere at the White House, more historic events are taking shape.

Republicans in the US House Judiciary committee sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week to recommend an investigation into the crimes of Hillary Clinton. Among the potential charges are ‘unlawful international dealings’ of the Clinton Foundation. This comes days after President Trump tweeted that Attorney General Sessions has taken a ‘very weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes’. While some conservative pundits expressed outrage over the President’s critique of a loyal campaign supporter, this criticism has merit. Outgoing Congressman Jason Chaffetz last month said he didn’t see much difference between the Trump and Obama administrations and that AG Sessions was ‘worse than what I saw with Loretta Lynch in terms of releasing documents and making things available’.

History

President Trump has done everything within his legal right to abide by his promise to ‘drain the swamp’  (now upgraded to ‘drain the sewer’). While it is the AG’s job to open an investigation, AG Sessions is aware of the oft-mentioned ‘Clinton body count’ and the recent suspicious murders involving the DNC lawsuit. He is also mindful of the assassination attempt on Congressman Steve Scalise after announcing his efforts to stop human trafficking. It is unclear if prior to his nomination he engaged in some sort of backroom deal with his fellow Senators where he agreed not to prosecute any former colleague(s) including Secretary Clinton.

A growing segment of the US has become completely disillusioned with the two-party system. They are beyond frustrated with politicians who personally enrich themselves, promise one thing when they campaign and do the exact opposite after they get elected. They are outraged at a system that allows Speaker Dennis Hastert to get by with a 15-month sentence after committing horrific criminal acts. For all of President Trump’s indiscretions, his supporters hate the DC political establishment even more.

Opposing View

Opponents of President Trump say that any prosecution of a political opponent is petty, divisive and politically motivated. Richard Painter, a former Bush ethics lawyer, suspiciously claims that the President has committed an ‘impeachable offense’ and that ‘Congress must act now’. Perhaps, those in the prior Bush administrations know that they are next.

Bombshell Interview

In the past, sordid rumors of crimes by the Clintons were relegated to ‘right-wing media’. Now, former critics to the President are demanding justice. During a CNN interview two years ago, lawyer Elizabeth Beck said that President Trump had an ‘absolute meltdown’. Now, ignored by the mainstream media, she appeared on pro-Trump site Infowars to make shocking statements linking the Clinton Foundation to the Mayo Clinic. Ms. Beck unquestionably looks petrified at the information she has come across. She even says, ‘sometimes evil is so powerful there is nothing we can do’. I would like to remind her of Edmund Burke’s quote that ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’.

Decision

Perhaps, since Attorney General Sessions is a religious individual, he will take note of a biblical verse that is applicable. As quoted from the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), Chapter 1, verse 16-17,

I instructed your judges at that time, saying, “Listen among your brethren and judge righteously between a man and his brother or his litigant. You shall not show favoritism in judgement, small and great alike shall you hear; you shall not tremble before any man, for the judgement is G-d’s’’

Conclusion

If AG Sessions refuses to open an investigation against the Clinton Foundation, he will be forced to resign. There is no possibility of a future Attorney General to be confirmed by the Senate that is unfriendly to the deep state. The US would continue to be gripped by chaos and confusion. It would be clear that there are effectively two sets of laws – one for the privileged few and one for everyone else. The US will be equivalent to an oligarchy instead of a functional constitutional republic where rule of law exists. Frankly, there is no domestic issue of greater importance.

Some would say that the US has become a laughingstock of the world. I would argue that a country run with a moral compass, led by the rule of law with liberty and justice for all does not need to feel shame. Instead, its citizens can feel proud and thereby lead other nations by example.

Originally Published on News with Chai.

Posted on

U.S. SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS MUST END

A hefty reward awaits the murderer of an Israeli family — courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

The Solomon family was massacred Friday night as they celebrated Shabbat and the birth of their newest grandson in their home. They were massacred by a 19 year old jihadist who posted an explanation of his imminent act of barbarous murder against his Jewish neighbors on Facebook less that two hours before he stormed their home in Neve Tzuf.

The murderer used the same language as his”moderate” “pro-peace” “legitimate” leader, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas who said that Jews pollute the Temple Mount with our “filthy feet.”

Ironically and appallingly, just last week the US State Department published a report blaming Israel for Palestinian terrorism and claiming that the PLO-led, and US-funded Palestinian Authority doesn’t incite terrorism and violence and hatred.

The State Department also opposes the Taylor Force bill which if passed — along the lines passed in the House of Representatives, (the Senate bill is an insult to our intelligence), would end US taxpayer subsidization of Palestinian terrorism to the tune of more than half a billion dollars a year.

The State Department — Tillerson included, apparently, doesn’t see anything wrong with the fact that the PA uses more than $300 million every year to pay people like the murderer who butchered the Solomons and their families.

Having murdered the Solomons in their home, this terrorist is guaranteed a lifetime salary and pension for his family that ensure them all an upper middle class economic status — courtesy of US taxpayers via the “moderate” PA, PLO, Abbas, terror machine.

I just gave my final speech in Australia and will be heading on to the US for a month from here.

It is my intention to use my time in the US to convince the Washington types that this appalling, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish policy of supporting people committed to our annihilation in the name of fake peace must end.

Enough is enough. This simply cannot continue. Jewish life is sacred, not worthless. It is time for the US to accept and base its policy on this basic, self-evident fact.

Published from Caroline Glick’s Facebook Page.

Posted on

With the Petrodollar Dying Can a US – Japan Alliance Slow a Rising China?

Massive changes in world alliances are occurring now, with the rapid decline of the petrodollar. This decline is led by China’s drive to move the Middle East into their sphere of influence. This past week, Reuters hinted at the petrodollar’s inevitable demise with an articletitled ‘The waning power of the petrodollar’.

Russia – Saudi Arabia Relations

Saudi Arabia is the cornerstone of the petrodollar system. The ‘blossoming friendship’ between Russia and Saudi Arabia is another direct threat to this arrangement. Saudi Arabia agreed to cut crude oil shipments to its customers in August by more than 600,000 barrels per day and will meet with Russia, among other nations, on July 24 to discuss compliance. According to a Moscow Times report, Saudi Arabia agreed to an arms deal valued at $3.5 billion with Russia.  They will also consider investing in a LNG plant currently being built by Russia.

But, to replace a global reserve currency, currently the US dollar, an alternative system must be implemented to replace the existing one.

New US Stance on China

By fixating on the theme of ‘Russia – Trump collusion’ charges, commentators in the US miss the reality that China is clearly the bigger (if not biggest) threat to US hegemony. While both Russia and China are two of the top three military powers in the world, the size of the Chinese economy (approximately ten times the size of Russia’s) gives China a substantially greater ability to inflict severe harm to the US economy than Russia. As forecast last November, instead of selling out US strategic assets to China, the Trump administration, to its credit, has implemented a more nationalistic approach to benefit its own citizens and not its personal interests. A Bloomberg report partly confirms this, as Chinese ‘cross-border purchases plunged 67 percent during the first four months of this year’ due to ‘tighter capital controls and increasingly wary counterparties’. This reflects a clear contrast to a prior administration that approved the sale of sensitive US missile technology to China. Interestingly, related entities, like a foundation, haven’t been (as of today) criminally prosecuted since witnesses strangely commit suicide before they were scheduled to testify. Also, the Trump administration is focused on potential Chinese spying. Guo Wengui, a Chinese dissident residing in the US, has claimed that China has ‘at least 25,000 Chinese intelligence officers and more than 15,000 recruited agents conducting espionage operations in the US’.

China’s Solution

China is moving towards implementing some type of gold backed currency or trade note to minimize the role of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Russia’s largest bank has just this week begun trading physical gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Since virtually all business and consumer transactions today are done digitally, the viability of a gold standard remains in question. The days of going to your local store and buying an item for a gram of gold are long gone. China’s central bank (PBOC) has developed its own digital currency and there have been rumors that China will roll out a cryptocurrency backed by gold. Several firms have already introduced a gold-backed cryptocurrency.

Japan’s Plan

With the world’s third largest economy, Japan maintains its place as a key participant to stunt Chinese ascendance. The Japanese central bank has bought stocks at unfathomable proportions as they now own at least ‘71 percent of all shares in Japan-listed ETFs’. Japan has officially moved to a policy of ‘unlimited money printing’ according to Forbes. While central bank manipulation can prolong unsound economic policy, there is no dispute that Japan’s massive debt load (approximately 234% debt-to-GDP ratio) can never be paid back.  So, before the Japanese Yen begins its inevitable decline on the path towards hyperinflation (like Venezuela or Zimbabwe), Japan must transition to an alternative system. Since they have negligible natural resources and a military force incapable of invading countries for profit, Japan appears to have settled on Bitcoin as their solution. On July 1, the consumption tax on the sale of Bitcoin was officially eliminated and over 260,000 retail stores are now poised to accept Bitcoin via a specialized application.

A fundamental appeal of cryptocurrencies (and blockchain technology) is its decentralized nature and its empowerment of individuals to bypass the central banking system of control. Japan has moved to the forefront of the break with central bank authority. The nature of China’s government, which censors the Internet and restricts free speech, cannot be expected to yield control to the individual in lieu of the state.

China’s Overreach

There may be some signs that more nations are wary of China’s ambitions. Last month, China attacked India and destroyed two Indian bunkers. After it flew six warplanes over the Miyako Strait between two southern Japanese islands in a military exercise, China dryly told Japan to ‘get used to it’. The US, India and Japan have aligned against this Chinese threat with recent naval exercises.

Conclusion

Perhaps, more nations will align with a renewed US led by President Trump who has worked to destroy the US deep state and who vowed at his inauguration to ‘seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world’ and ‘not seek to impose our way of life on anyone’ versus an increasingly imperialist China. Unfortunately, according to US military intelligence, defense cooperation and economic ties between Russia and China is slowly expanding. However unlikely, it would be most beneficial for US interests to drive a wedge between the Chinese-Russian alliance to forestall this progress.

The potential transition from the US as the world’s only superpower to something else will be a historic moment. It will inevitably arouse concern from countries historically allied with the US. These counties could take the advice of Philippines President Duterte who speaking on behalf of his own country said ‘We cannot forever be the little brown brothers of America. … We have to develop, we have to grow and become the big brother of our own people’.

Originally Published on News with Chai

Posted on

CAGE MATCH: Conservative Leadership vs. Alex Jones

Originally Published Under the Title: The Secret Reason Why Many Conservative Media Figures Won’t Denounce Alex Jones

Currently under fire for her controversial interview with Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly tweeted the following a few days back:
“…How does Jones, who traffics in these outrageous conspiracy theories, have the respect of the president of the United States and a growing audience of millions? President Trump, by praising him, appearing on his show, and giving him White House press credentials, has helped elevate Jones, to the alarm of many. Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light – as journalists are supposed to do – on this influential figure, and yes – to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.”

Legitimate question – why does Alex Jones have the respect of President Trump? As a presidential candidate, President Trump in fact said that Alex Jones has an ‘amazing reputation’. To date, he has not revoked his statement about Mr. Jones thereby making him conspirator-in-chief. So, in light of this, how can anyone take President Trump seriously? But curiously, as the NY Times states, many conservatives have never publicly denounced Alex Jones.

I have constructed a hypothetical conversation between Rush Limbaugh and President Trump which will provide the answer to why conservatives won’t denounce Alex Jones:

PT: Rush, great to see you.

RL: Mr. President, great to see you. You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, and I say this with all due respect, but why are you so fond of this Alex Jones guy? I remember calling him a Democrat kook years ago. He is just nuts.

PT: Uh, huh. Well, Rush..

RL: No really, Mr. President. I don’t think you are helping yourself by associating with him.

PT: Rush, you and I know all about fake news.

RL: Sure, drive-by media, but..

PT: Let’s start with the Kennedy assassination, you don’t actually believe the official Warren Commission report, do you?

RL: No, of course not. Wait, you’re not going go all National Enquirer and implicate Ted Cruz’s dad for this?

PT: Well..

RL: Sir, this is crazy. My theory is it had to be the mob or Castro but..

PT: Rush, you know the CIA admitted that it covered up the assassination and there are still missing documents.

RL: Ok, fine, but that was over 50 years ago and we all know about that.

PT: Well, you know what my buddy, Bruce Willis, said to Vanity Fair in 2007 – he was afraid of getting killed:

 

“They still haven’t caught the guy that killed Kennedy. I’ll get killed for saying this, but I’m pretty sure those guys are still in power, in some form. The entire government of the United States was co-opted. One guy did it? I don’t think so.”

RL: Ok, what does this have to do with anything? Look – I get all the Clinton conspiracies. We all know about the Clinton body count. I covered the Seth Rich murder conspiracy on my show. Sean [Hannity] laid out how he felt last October. You brought up Vince Foster during the campaign. But 9/11 being an inside job? Do you know how crazy that is?

PT: You know about the $2.3 trillion missing from the Pentagon.

RL: Yeah, whatever, that kind of stuff happens.

PT: Rush, you know there was no way those buildings were brought down by fire.

RL: Here we go.

PT: Look, I am a builder and know everything there is to know about building structures. I even said so on 9/11 during an interview that there were bombs in those buildings.

RL: Ok…

PT: Rush, you read the 28 pages right?

RL: Yeah, basically faulted elements of the Saudi government. And, why are we still friends with the Saudis anyway?

PT: Don’t you find it curious how close the Bush family is to the Saudis?

RL: Yeah, but they didn’t have anything to do with it. Why, George W. Bush is a fine man. You are not going with this Bush did 9/11 theory are you?

PT: Let’s just say the Bushes are not so innocent in all this. Just view this.

RL: Is this stuff true?

PT: Of course, these are official government documents and there is lots of circumstantial evidence. Its also plain common sense.

RL: Huh.

PT: Make sense?

RL: Yeah, I guess I finally understand why the Bushes and Clintons are such good friends. And all the new world order stuff..

PT: Yeah.

RL: I also get why you were so tough on Jeb. Wait, so why are we fighting all these wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. For goodness sake, I was selling Club Gitmo t-shirts!!

PT: Rush, you’re not the only one. Talk to Congressman Walter Jones. He went from calling out France, you know, the whole freedom friesthing to deeply regretting his support for the Iraq war. He even said a few years back that Dick Cheney is probably going to hell.

RL: Wait, so Ron Paul has been right all along?

PT: Ron Paul, good guy – can never be president – but very honest man.

RL: So, Sandy Hook? Pizzagate? Are they all true?

PT: Look, not all conspiracies are true. There are some crazy ones going around. I even heard of one that Jared is a Mossad agent. All the truth will come out eventually.

RL: So, what do we do?

PT: Well, don’t worry, there are plenty of us who know. Alex is one of the leaders. Until we reach a critical mass, we can’t go public yet. Information will come out in pieces. Look, we have gotten the concept of the deep state out there. Before my inauguration, barely anyone had even heard of it. So, we are making tremendous progress, tremendous. Still a lot of hate, a lot of division. We need to come together. In the future, expect more revelations. Like what my buddy Vladimir said. He just accused the CIA of planning the JFK assassination. And you remember how I hinted about not having any columns when I spoke to the CIA?

RL: Ok, I get it. So, what I am going to do?

PT: Rush, the choice is yours, I understand the risks and won’t ask you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with doing. The truth will get out, regardless of what happens to me. It’s up to you to choose which side of history you want to be on.

RL: Thank you sir. This conversation never happened.

Originally Published on News With Chai

Posted on

Burying Obama’s legacy

The fact is that Trump has given Netanyahu support as he has walked away from the failed policy paradigm of the Obama years.

It may very well be that this week was the week that Israel and the US put to rest former president Barack Obama’s policies and positions on Israel and the Palestinians.

If so, the move was made despite the best efforts of Obama’s team to convince the Trump administration to maintain them.

The details of Obama’s policies and positions have been revealed in recent weeks in a series of articles published in Haaretz regarding Obama’s secretary of state John Kerry’s failed peacemaking efforts, which ended in 2014.

The articles reported segments of two drafts of a US framework for a final peace treaty between the PLO and Israel. The drafts were created in February and March 2014.

The article series is predicated on the assumption that Kerry and his team were on the precipice of a historic breakthrough between PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But a close reading of the documents shows that the opposite was the case.

There are two reasons that Kerry had no prospects for reaching a deal.

First, he, Obama and their advisers were too hostile to Israel and its citizens to ever convince Netanyahu that Israel’s interests would be secured.

A February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations Kerry and his team held with Netanyahu and his advisers, makes this clear. The draft includes Netanyahu’s demand that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria not annexed to Israel would remain “in place” after the implementation of a peace deal, and presumably, become towns in the future Palestinian state.

In other words, Netanyahu demanded that the Israelis in Judea and Samaria whose towns would be located in the territory of “Palestine” would enjoy the same rights and protections as Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy.

Kerry and his team would have none of it. The February draft agreement notes, “[US] negotiators need to check with PM [Netanyahu] on whether he wants to [maintain this position]… They believe that if so, he will push strongly for ‘in place.’ ‘In place’ is inconsistent with US policy and therefore unacceptable to us as well as the Palestinians.”

In other words, the position of the Obama administration was that all Israelis living in areas that would become part of the Palestinian state must be forcibly removed from their homes and communities.

Haaretz reporters Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon recalled that in previous rounds of negotiations, the Palestinians – unlike the Obama administration – had not rejected this Israeli position out of hand. That is, in demanding the mass expulsion of Israeli Jews from their homes, the administration adopted a policy more extreme than the PLO.

Then there is the problem with the PLO.

Abbas rejected Kerry’s February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations with Netanyahu and his advisors. But he also rejected Kerry’s March 2014 agreement, which was based on the US’s conversation with him and his advisors.

The March 2014 draft was presented to Abbas by Obama himself during a meeting between the two in the White House. Not only did Abbas not accept Obama’s offer, he refused to respond to it.

This should have surprised no one. Abbas did the same thing in 2008 after then-prime minister Ehud Olmert presented Abbas with his peace proposal. Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat, responded in the same way in July 2000 to then-prime minister Ehud Barak’s peace offer, and in December 2000, to then-president Bill Clinton’s peace offer.

Given the consistent track record, it is beyond foolish to believe that anyone – even Trump – will fare differently from his American and Israeli predecessors.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Haaretz series is what they tell us about Netanyahu.

Like him or hate him, the Netanyahu revealed in the articles is a brilliant statesman. In difficult diplomatic conditions, with the US openly siding with the PLO against him, Netanyahu managed to parry and duck. Although Haaretz tries to present Netanyahu as weak and compliant, the text shows that the opposite was the case.

In the face of massive pressure from Obama, Netanyahu refused to commit to anything. His only recorded position was that all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria remain in place in perpetuity.

Rather than confront Kerry directly, Netanyahu stood aside and watched as the Americans drafted their anti-Israel proposals. He nodded. He smiled. He refused to commit to anything.

And he waited patiently for Abbas to walk away from the table.

Until this week, much to the dismay of many of his supporters, Netanyahu appeared unwilling to move beyond the defensive position he maintained throughout the Obama presidency. This week he took three great big steps forward.

First, Netanyahu announced that he supports amending Israel’s NGO law to ban foreign governments from funding political nonprofits registered in Israel.

For the past 20 years, Israel has been subjected to ever-escalating subversive campaigns funded and often directed by foreign governments and carried out by Israeli-registered NGOs. The purpose of these campaigns is to legitimize political and economic warfare against the Jewish state by European and other Western governments. The campaigns legitimize political and economic warfare against Israel by demonizing the Jewish state, its citizens and its soldiers.

In recent years, lawmakers have tried repeatedly to block the funding. But due to US pressure, Netanyahu scuttled all their attempts. Proposed reform bills were watered down until they were limited to instituting weak reporting requirements. Foreign government funds continue streaming into the coffers of NGOs whose positions are supported by no significant domestic constituencies.

By announcing that he now supports passing legislation that will bar foreign government funding of nonprofits, Netanyahu is striking a strategic blow at the political and economic war being waged against Israel by the EU and by the international Left.

This war, waged in the name of the Palestinians, has harmed Israel’s relations with the Palestinians by discouraging them from living peacefully with their Israeli neighbors.

Then there is UNRWA. The UN’s refugee agency dedicated to the Palestinians is arguably one of the central reasons for the perpetuation of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Indeed, UNRWA was formed by the Arab governments to specifically block all prospect of peace between Israel and its neighbors.

UNRWA prevents the permanent resettlement of the Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and 1949 as well as their descendants. It has doomed five generations of “refugees” to live in the squalor of its camps, blocked from receiving citizenship in the countries of their birth and prevented from being resettled in other countries.

After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni decided that the best way to respond to the move was by massively increasing UNRWA’s budget. They were unmoved by the fact that UNRWA employs Hamas terrorists. They ignored the fact that UNRWA schools in Gaza and elsewhere indoctrinate their students to embrace jihad and the cause of Israel’s annihilation.

Under Obama, the US increased its payments to UNRWA even as UNRWA schools, clinics and other facilities have been used as missile launching pads and storage depots in Hamas’s war against Israel.

This week, Netanyahu finally put to rest the dangerous folly that UNRWA is a foil to Hamas and a positive force in the region. He called for UNRWA to be dismantled and for the Palestinians and their descendants to be treated like every other refugee group in the world and be resettled by the UN’s high commissioner for refugees.

If Netanyahu’s move against UNRWA is translated into actual Israeli and US policy, it will mark the beginning of the end of one of the primary causes of the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Finally, there is incitement. Palestinian terrorism would vastly diminish were it not for constant incitement that encourages terrorism and rewards and celebrates terrorists.

Since it was established by the Qatari regime in 1996, Al Jazeera has been a central engine of antisemitic and jihadist indoctrination of the Palestinians. And yet, Israel has never moved to close Al Jazeera’s bureau in Israel.

Israel has given the terrorist network a pass largely because it hasn’t wanted to deal with the Western outcry that such a move would provoke.

This week, for the first time, Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, announced they support Al Jazeera’s closure and have directed their staff to consider the best way to do so.

In so doing, Netanyahu and Liberman are making the most of the opportunity afforded Israel by the Arab states’ open cleavage with Qatar. Last week, Saudi Arabia and Jordan closed Al Jazeera’s bureaus in Riyadh and Amman. Egypt, which closed Al Jazeera’s offices in 2013, blocked its website.

Taken both separately and together, Netanyahu’s moves this week strike strategic blows at three central components of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Incitement, political warfare and the eternalization of Palestinian refugee status all render the conflict intractable and prevent peaceful Palestinian leaders from emerging.

Notably, whereas the Obama administration would have subjected Israel to hysterical condemnations if Netanyahu had dared to take the steps he took this week, the Trump administration has taken no position on Netanyahu’s announcements.

The real reason that Trump appears to be burying Obama’s legacy is because unlike the ideologically- driven Obama, Trump is willing to consider evidence and facts when determining his opinions.

In May, Abbas came to the White House and told Trump that he abjured terrorism. Israel then presented Trump with evidence that Abbas publicly incites terrorism and uses the Palestinian Authority budget to support terrorists and their families.

Trump took in the information and upbraided Abbas for lying to him.

True, this week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson falsely told Congress that Abbas had cut off the payments. And true, Tillerson doubled down on his assertion after both the Palestinians and Israel said the payments have not been cut off.

True as well that Trump continues to believe that he can make “the deal” that his predecessors failed to secure.

But the fact is that Trump has given Netanyahu support as he has walked away from the failed policy paradigm of the Obama years.

In other words, Netanyahu’s moves this week, and the fact that the Trump administration has left him alone to make them without being second-guessed or condemned by Washington, indicates that we have finally moved past Obama’s legacy.

Where we are going is still unknown. But what is certain is that by going after the sources of the continued malignancy of the conflict and pushing back against the lies that informed Obama’s policies, both Israel and the US have abandoned them.

Originally published in Jerusalem Post

Posted on

Global Currency Reset Happening Now as Bitcoin Price Explodes

A major risk to the solvency of the banking industry is the notional amount of financial instruments such as interest rate swaps known as derivatives. A recent report stated that US banks have over $200 trillion of derivatives exposure. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Forbes covered global derivatives exposure over four years ago: 

the risk that is still staring us in the face: the lack of transparency in derivative trading that now totals in notional amount more than $700 trillion. That is more than ten times the size of the entire world economy. Yet incredibly, we have little information about it or its implications for the financial strength of any of the big banks.

Moreover the derivatives market is steadily growing. “The total notional value, or face value, of the global derivatives market when the housing bubble popped in 2007 stood at around $500 trillion… The Over-The-Counter derivatives market alone had grown to a notional value of at least $648 trillion as of the end of 2011… the market is likely worth closer to $707 trillion and perhaps more,” writes analyst Jenny Walsh in The Paper Boat.

“The market has grown so unfathomably vast, the global economy is at risk of massive damage should even a small percentage of contracts go sour.  Its size and potential influence are difficult just to comprehend, let alone assess.”

To understand the risk of derivatives to the global economy, one should understand the history of fiat currencies and how money is created by central banks. Mike Maloney has a great series that I recommend:
Mike Maloney’s Hidden Secrets of Money

While there are real industries that make real products, one can nevertheless sense that global markets are rigged and current economic wealth is really an allusion created by the central banks. 

Recently, there has been a parabolic price move in Bitcoin (along with several other cryptocurrencies). As of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at over $2700!


According to investment manager Jeffrey Gundlach, China’s instability is one of the main drivers of this spike.

 

Bitcoin up 100% in under 2 months. Shanghai down almost 10% same timeframe, compared to most global stocks up. Probably not a coincidence!

A recent credit downgrade may have also had an impact according to The Telegraph and Bloomberg.

Forbes adds the following:

..it looks like Chinese money is going into bitcoin, global stocks and bonds. But not gold. Remember, the story of the latter 2016 and early 2017 period, out of China, has been the Chinese government’s efforts to restrict domestic capital from leaving China. It doesn’t appear that they are winning.

China has hinted at attempts to implement regulations to remedy the matter.

In a translated summary of his findings uploaded to Twitter by cnLedger, Xuedong stated, among other items, that “most Bitcoin investors are young people” and that exchange behavior such as faking trading volumes “should be examined and regulated.”

Bitcoin’s future in China “cannot work out without regulations,” he said, speaking in the wake of the US refusal of the first Bitcoin ETF.

The rise of bitcoin buying in China was simply a reaction to an inevitable currency devaluation. It was not the root cause of this devaluation. China is caught trying to balance competing interests: keep up with the latest technology to further grow its economy vs preventing a currency devaluation that could potentially lead to an economic catastrophe.

 

In addition, there is increasing implementation of Bitcoin recently on a global scale. Here are some examples:


The Japanese are Using Bitcoin More than Expected
Australia Will Recognize Bitcoin as Money and Protect Bitcoin Businesses, No Taxes
Bitcoin Coming To Russian E-Commerce Giant Ulmart Starting September 1 
India’s Zebpay Has More Mobile Users Than All Korean Bitcoin Apps Combined 
You Can Now Pay Bitcoin for Parking at 27 UK Airports 

 

Fidelity Investments is acknowledging the increased demand by allowing clients to see digital currencies on its website.

 

Incidentally, for years, rumors of China and Russia joining together to dump the US dollar have been discussed. If true, they could be holding up their economies until the right time to move towards a gold standard. This bombshell report from Zerohedge seems to confirm the idea.

 

Speaking on future ties with Russia, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in mid-March that Sino-Russian trade ties were affected by falling oil prices, but he added that he saw great potential in cooperation. Vladimir Shapovalov, a senior official at the Russian central bank, said the two central banks were drafting a memorandum of understanding to solve technical issues around China’s gold imports from Russia, and that details would be released soon.

If Russia – the world’s fourth largest gold producer after China, Japan and the US – is indeed set to become a major supplier of gold to China, the probability of a scenario hinted by many over the years, namely that Beijing is preparing to eventually unroll a gold-backed currency, increases by orders of magnitude.

“We discussed the question of trade in gold. BRICS countries are large economies with large reserves of gold and an impressive volume of production and consumption of this precious metal. In China, the gold trade is conducted in Shanghai, in Russia it is in Moscow. Our idea is to create a link between the two cities in order to increase trade between the two markets,” First Deputy Governor of the Russian Central Bank Sergey Shvetsov told Russia’s TASS news agency.

In other words, China and Russia are shifting away from dollar-based trade, to commerce which will eventually be backstopped by gold, or what is gradually emerging as an Eastern gold standard, one shared between Russia and China, and which may day backstop their respective currencies.

I suggested in a prior post that Bitcoin would be the best alternative for the US to counter the economic alliance between China and Russia. If there is a move toward some form of a gold standard (i.e. gold backed trade note), virtually all fiat currencies (those not backed by gold, silver, oil, etc.) will hyper-inflate. In that case, people will lose confidence in central banks and the only viable alternative will be cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

There are small hints that the Trump administration is pro-Bitcoin: 

CNNMoney reported:

His budget director, former US House member Mick Mulvaney, had been dubbed the “Bitcoin Congressman” by some of the currency’s backers.

And vice president Mike Pence’s chief economist Mark Calabria has given speeches in support of bitcoin as well. Calabria was formerly the director of financial regulation studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute before joining the administration.

In addition, there was a mysterious Sean Spicer tweet – Did Sean Spicer actually tweet a Bitcoin transaction?

But, there have been some like blogger Michael Krieger who think that President Trump is completely controlled by Wall Street. Maybe he has a point. Just look at the number of Goldman Sachs alumni in his administration. Also, the manipulation of markets (stock, commodities, bond, etc.) continues unabated. Others, like Brandon Smith, are adamant in spreading a completely bogus theory that President Trump has been selected by the central bankers to be a scapegoat for future economic calamity. No one with even a primitive understanding of economics can possibly blame President Trump for some future economic collapse. In that case, blame will be placed squarely on the FED. I easily refute Mr. Smith’s assertion and lay out the Trump strategy to end the FED in my prior post.

So, what is the solution? One approach, suggested by Dr. Ron Paul (back in 2011) would be to declare bankruptcy and return to a gold standard. The market manipulation could end with a new system in place. That would be an incredibly dangerous approach in my opinion. Imagine the 10-year bond moving up 300 basis points (i.e. from 3% to 6%) over a short period of time. With banks completely leveraged and holding trillions in derivatives, they would become effectively insolvent. The whole economy would then implode.

I think a better approach, which is maybe what the Trump administration has settled on, is to try to stave off bankruptcy (via Plunge Protection Team) until an alternate system (like Bitcoin) is in place. Ultimately, Bitcoin is an enemy to all central banks including the FED. As individuals opt to use cryptocurrencies (i.e. wire transfers, payments) and move away from using fiat currencies, the central banks lose their control over people. The central bank will effectively be irrelevant. This alternate system which is being implemented right now is part of the global currency reset that has been discussed for years.

The president of the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, made some interesting comments about Bitcoin recently:

“This is a topic a lot of people across the Fed are paying attention to and watching how it evolves.”

“The problem I have [with bitcoin] is while it says, by design, you’re limiting the number of bitcoins that can be created, it doesn’t stop me from creating NeelCoin or somebody from creating Bobcoin or Marycoin or Susiecoin.”

 

Perhaps Mr. Kashkari didn’t realize he was actually making an endorsement for Bitcoin with his statements. Central bankers shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to create money.

In fact, anyone can should be able to create their own cryptocurrency. You can get essential instructions from one of these articles:

How To Create Your Own Cryptocurrency
How Anyone Can Make Their Own Digital Currency


(Wow, maybe this can convince some unfortunate, misguided individuals that the Jews really don’t run the world and control all the banks.)

Back in 1980, as the price of gold and silver exploded higher, the FED raised interest rates several times. They also stopped the Hunt brothers from cornering the silver market. Today, a similar interest rate increase is not possible as the national debt (as % of GDP) is much higher than it was back then.

Although the precious metals markets are rigged, as evidenced by the Deutsche Bank settlement, highlighted in this Bloomberg article, Wall Street has limited resources for manipulating cryptocurrencies. There are no ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) approved by the SEC that directly track cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. So, there is limited potential of selling short Bitcoins. There could be future raids on one of the exchanges (i.e. Mt. Gox) but this will only be temporary setback and not stop the momentum of cryptocurrencies.

We can only hope that the transition is smooth. I wouldn’t count on it.

An earlier version of this article was posted on 5/25/15 at the Newswithchai blog.

 

Posted on

Donald Trump, NWO, and the Deep State’s War Against Jerusalem

Donald Trump’s first international trip, like the President himself, broke many previous policies of the USA in regards to major geopolitical issues.  The one that has been most noted is his visit to the Western Wall, which is a first by a sitting American President.  Beyond that, the White House YouTube labeled Jerusalem as part of Israel on their channel.  This is in stark contrast to his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and NSA head General McMaster who do not regard Jerusalem as being part of Israel.

Trump is certainly aware that his actions flew in the face of a globalist agenda, which seeks to destroy the Jewish link to Jerusalem. It is no accident that a peace deal favorable to Israel is coinciding with increased leaks from behind Trump’s back as well as a focused witch-hunt against his team.

The NWO (New World Order) and the Deep State, view Israel’s control over Jerusalem as a threat to their hegemony. Why? The global security state  seeks to undermine the miraculous nature of Israel’s existence and triumph, especially the gains made in just six days 50 years ago. By forcing Israel to give up their Divine connection to these lands, the globalists can prove that they and only they are the rulers of the world. G-D? The globalists want a world where they play that role.

By Israel continuing to do the impossible by returning to their homeland and holding onto their eternal capital, the ability for the globalists and their soldiers in the Deep State to cement their control over the hearts and mins of the world citizens remains elusive.

By Trump essentially declaring that Jerusalem belongs to Israel, he has out flanked the global elite.  By doing that, the President has pushed them to increase their animosity to himself and his agenda.  McMaster and Tillerson will try to derail Trump’s accomplishments he made between the Arab world and Israel.  Expect the leaks to increase and the investigations to begin to focus on the President himself. All the while the North Korean crisis will erupt and drag America into a serious war, leaving Israel vulnerable to attack.

Trump has done the unthinkable, but the Deep State and the globalist agenda have tremendous power behind it, enough to harm the President and his backers. The war over Jerusalem is beyond politics and intersects with who we and the world as people truly want to be. Children of G-D or servants of man.

Posted on

CREATING CHAOS: Did Russia Leak its White House Conversation to the Press?

While Democrats, the Deep State, moderate Republicans, and elite media attempt to use Trump’s passing of intelligence to the Russian foreign minister as a reason to deem him unfit, a vexing issue abounds concerning the actual meeting itself: Who leaked the content of meeting to the press and why? I want to make it clear, there is really nothing illegal about the President passing vital intelligence to the Russians, if by passing it Americans are safer at the end of the day.

In terms of the leaker, there are a bunch of theories on who would leak such a sensitive meeting to the press.  Most people have assumed it is someone from the Trump team.  While this could be true, I believe it was the Russian team.

Once we break free from the idea that the Russians had a horse in the US presidential race we begin to see a pattern of creating chaos in the American political system.  What better way to do that than make it seem as if there is collusion on the part of the Trump administration when there is none. The meeting provided a perfect opportunity to leak routine intelligence sharing and allow the elite media to blow it out of proportion.

Chaos is the key objective for Putin and he is achieving it. With each passing day, Trump’s White House is under increasing pressure from its enemies both domestic and foreign. Putin knows a cornered Trump is no match for him. An American political system where all sides are ready to knife one another is a system in free-fall. The Russians have accomplished something far more important than a securing a friendly White House, they have created chaos and shattered an already troubled American political system.

Breaking the US-Israel Alliance

The leak achieved one other very important goal for Putin…crippling the alliance between Israel and the US.  If Israel, out of fear its intelligence will fall into the wrong hands pulls back on giving the US the intelligence it needs, America will be running blind in Syria since it has relied heavily on Israel’s intelligence gathering tools and agencies to understand what is going on there.

Putin is on the move.  It is time to stop playing into his hands and get united.

Posted on

AMERICAN GREATNESS AND THE PLO

The creation of a PLO state will not make the Middle East more stable.

Eight years from now, China will outstrip the US as the world’s largest economy. In three years, Israeli GDP per capita will outstrip Japan’s. These two data points are useful to bear in mind as we consider the Trump administration’s sudden decision to go retro and embrace the Clinton administration’s foreign policy on Israel from the early 1990s.

When then US president Bill Clinton decided to embrace Yasser Arafat, the architect of modern terrorism, it seemed like a safe bet.

The US had just won the Cold War. With the demise of the Soviet Union, US dominance in the Middle East was unquestioned. Even then Syrian president Hafez Assad provided symbolic support for the US-led war against his Baathist counterpart Saddam Hussein.

Assad had no choice. His Soviet protector had just disappeared.

The PLO, for its part, had never been weaker. The Gulf states reacted to Arafat’s support for Saddam in the 1991 war by cutting the PLO off financially. The Palestinian uprising against Israel, which broke out in 1988, sputtered into oblivion in late 1990 because without Arab money, Arafat and his cronies couldn’t pay anyone to attack Israelis.

As for the Arabs, operating under the US’s protective shield, in 1993 the Arab world appeared impermeable to internal pressure. No one imagined that Arab nationalism or the reign of presidents for life, kings and emirs would ever be questioned.

As for Israel, its decision to bow to the US’s demand during the Gulf War to stand down and do nothing in response to Iraq’s unprovoked Scud missile attacks was informed by a sense that Israel could not afford to stand up to America. While many debated the wisdom of this conclusion, the fact was that Israel in 1991 was economically weak. Its per capita income stood at around $15,000. Its economy was entirely dependent on the US and Europe.

With America’s power at an all-time high, Clinton and his people had every reason to believe that with minimal effort, they would be able to reach a peace deal between the Israelis and the PLO.

In the event, the assessment that peace would be an easy effort turned out to be entirely wrong. Arafat and his deputy Mahmoud Abbas played the Americans for fools. Worse, they humiliated Clinton.

In July 2000, when Arafat rejected Israel’s US-supported offer of peace at Camp David, it wasn’t just the notion of peaceful coexistence with Israel that he rejected. He rejected the notion that you cannot stand up to America.

Clinton aggravated the deleterious effect of Arafat’s action when rather than either retaliate against the PLO chieftain or at a minimum cutting his losses and walking away, Clinton spent the last months and weeks of his presidency pursuing Arafat and begging him to agree to a deal. Clinton went so far as to present his own peace offer to the PLO chief with less than a month left in office. And Arafat stomped away.

A lot of people were watching what happened. And a lot of people drew the logical conclusion: the US is a paper tiger. You can humiliate it. You can attack it. And the Americans, secure in their belief that unlike every other world power in history their primacy was permanent, would do nothing to you.

When Clinton left office, it wasn’t just the peace process that lay in shambles. America’s reputation was also massively weakened. In contempt of Washington, North Korea was racing toward the nuclear finish line.

Iran was taking over south Lebanon through Hezbollah and murdering Americans in Saudi Arabia.

India and Pakistan went nuclear.

And al-Qaida bombed two US embassies and one US naval destroyer.

How could Clinton pay attention to these things when he was captivated by the notion that once a peace deal was signed with the PLO, all the problems of the region would disappear?

He couldn’t.

And in time, neither could his successors. George W. Bush and Barack Obama each in time adopted Clinton’s near religious faith in the curative powers of embracing the PLO at Israel’s expense. Why should the world’s sole superpower deal with the difficult and bloody pathologies of the Islamic world? Why should it consider modernizing its alliances with its Asian partners as China rose seemingly inexorably? Why should it consider its inability to expand the US economy by 4% a year as a national security threat when all would be well the minute that the PLO agreed to a deal with a diminished and enfeebled Jewish state?

And so three American presidents have wasted 24 years ignoring serious and growing threats and changing global conditions while embracing the fantasy that the PLO holds the keys to global peace, or the ultimate deal or American exculpation of the sins of its past.

Israel for its part has followed its American friends down the garden path, even as the rationale for doing so has vastly diminished.

While the Americans surrendered their universities to the fantasies of anti-American multiculturalists and grievance mongers, Israel has modernized its markets, strengthened its society and revolutionized its economy.

One of the reasons Israel didn’t dare to question the Americans in the early 1990s was its terrible credit rating. In 1988 Israel’s credit rating was – BBB. And it needed to borrow billions of dollars to pay for the absorption needs of a million Jews from the former Soviet Union who moved to Israel from 1989 through 2006. US loan guarantees were the only way Israel could borrow money at affordable rates.

Over the intervening quarter century, those million Jews were the major driver in developing Israel’s information economy.

The main reason that Israel has maintained its slavish devotion to America’s PLO fetish is that our leftist elites, that dominate the media, share it. Like the American foreign policy discourse, Israel’s elites’ assessment of Israel’s priorities has remained frozen in time for the past 24 years.

The same cannot be said of the public.

The vast majority of Israelis have greeted President Donald Trump’s sudden embrace of his predecessor’s obsession with the PLO with surprise and at best bemusement.

“Well, good luck with that,” is the most polite response.

It isn’t simply that unlike the American foreign policy establishment, the vast majority of Israelis are convinced there is no deal to be had with the PLO. Most Israelis simply don’t care anymore. They view the PLO and the Palestinians as largely irrelevant.

When Israeli leaders outside the leftist elite’s echo chambers prefer to speak with foreign audiences about anything beside the Palestinians, it isn’t because they are trying to avoid an unpleasant conversation. It is because they don’t see the point anymore.

The notion that a PLO state will make the region more stable as far more coherent Arab states collapse is absurd.

The notion that it is necessary to empower the PLO to win Arab allies when the Arabs are beating a path to Israel’s door begging for help in defeating Sunni jihadists and Iran is ridiculous.

The notion that Israel’s ability to expand its markets is contingent on peace with the PLO when every week more world leaders descend on Jerusalem to sign trade deals with Israel is not even worthy of a giggle.

As for demography, the American hysteria is bizarre.

The Palestinians already have passports and vote – when they are allowed to – in their own elections. Why would Israel be expected to let them vote for the Knesset?

Beyond that, Jewish immigration to Israel remains high. Israel’s Jewish birthrates have surpassed its Muslim birthrates both within sovereign Israel and in Judea and Samaria.

So why would Israel give up Jerusalem for demography?

As for Israel’s Arab citizens, the truth it that but for the meddling of foreign governments, Israel’s Arab population would have integrated fully into Israeli society a decade ago.

Next week, President Trump will arrive here. His meeting last week with PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and statements by administration officials since make clear that Trump intends to be the fourth US president to get sucked into the PLO vortex.

Trump will arrive in Israel believing that his campaign pledge to “Make America Great Again,” and his goal of reaching the “ultimate deal” with the PLO are complementary aims.

If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explains nothing else to Trump when they meet next week, he should explain to him that the two goals are mutually exclusive. And if he has any extra time, Netanyahu should give Trump the details of the massive price America has paid, since 1993, for its three past presidents’ obsession with the PLO.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

Posted on

OBAMA’S CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST

Ticking time bombs from Syria to North Korea.

Democrats inherit the foreign policy crises of a thousand Republican presidential fathers, but the foreign policy crises inherited by incoming Republicans in the White House are always orphans.

Or at least that’s how the media likes to spin it.

If you believe your random mainstream media outlet of choice, North Korea and Syria were crises freshly spawned by this administration with no prior history. But these ticking time bombs are the direct result of the two terrible terms of his predecessor.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner’s years in the White House were the most dysfunctional, schizophrenic and senseless eight years of our national foreign policy. His domestic policy was a disaster, but it was a radioactive toxic waste dump with clear and consistent goals. ObamaCare, the abuses of the Justice Department, the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency were the naturally terrible outcome of left-wing policies being implemented with inevitably terrible results.

But Obama’s foreign policy was a wildly inconsistent mess. The Nobel Peace Prize winner couldn’t quite decide if he was a humanitarian interventionist or a pacifist non-interventionist. He couldn’t make up his mind if he wanted to take the side of the Sunnis or the Shiites in their Islamic unholy war. He didn’t know if he wanted to appease Russia or sanction it, to pivot to Asia or run the other way, to play another round of golf or replace his defense secretary for the fifth time.

Obama could be consistent on domestic policy because there were few hard choices to make. Government had to be constantly expanded and every arm of it enlisted in pursuing left-wing goals. Republican opposition was largely hapless. The “Irish Democracy” of the public response to ObamaCare was more effective at sabotaging it, but by the time anyone understood that it was far too late.

The world stage was a much more dynamic place with players who didn’t fit into Obama’s ideology. The Islamist democracy proponents got Obama to kick off the Arab Spring. When Gaddafi shot the Islamists in the streets, the interventionists got him to sign on to regime change in Libya. But then Syria boiled down to Sunni and Shiite Islamists shooting each other and interventionism hit a roadblock.

Obama stopped at his own Red Line and couldn’t figure out what to do next. His foreign policy had somehow boiled down to helping Shiites kill Sunnis in Iraq and helping Sunnis kill Shiites in Syria.

He was bombing and arming the same Islamists at the same time to improve relations with them.

Even a guy who thought they speak Austrian in Austria and celebrated Cinco de Cuatro had to know that something had gone horribly wrong with his foreign policy. When the Russians stepped in and promised to clean up the WMD mess in Syria, he was happy to take them up on the offer without looking at the fine print.

Like a badly programmed computer, Obama locked up in Syria because Islamists fighting Islamists didn’t fit into his left-wing code. He feared alienating either Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile appeasement not only failed to defuse the growing conflict with Russia, but poured more fuel on the flames. And bluffing China with a hollow pivot only sent the message that America was impotent.

Obama’s tenure was marked by two inexplicable wars; a surge in Afghanistan that failed to accomplish any of its goals while killing and crippling thousands of Americans, and an illegal regime change operation in Libya that left the country looking like Iraq. Obama and his fans don’t talk about either of these wars. And you can’t blame them. They make ObamaCare look like a shining success story.

But they’re not the biggest Obama disasters that President Trump inherited.

President Bush left Obama a largely stabilized Iraq. All he had to do was keep the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds working together. It wasn’t a cakewalk, but it was far from the mess that it had been or would be again. A decade ago though Democrats had been as obsessed with Iraq as they would be with Russia. Obama, like the leading non-Hillary candidates, ran on being against the war. So he pulled out instead.

Pulling out alone might have been disastrous because it would encourage the Shiite majority to trample on the Sunni minority. But Obama combined a pullout from Iraq with backing for Sunni Islamists nearly everywhere else, including next door in Syria, who helped swell the ranks of ISIS.

The threat of ISIS and other Sunni Islamists helped Iran get a firm grip on Iraq and Syria. The Arab Spring wedged it deeper into Yemen. And Obama was too worried that Iran would walk away from a potential nuclear deal to do anything about it. The nuclear deal sealed the deal for a resurgent Iran.

And that means that Russia is the dominant power in the region.

Obama alienated Egypt by backing the Brotherhood.  President Trump has been trying to undo that disaster. Obama backed Turkey’s totalitarian Islamist tyrant even as he quarreled with and then sidled up to Russia. The only remaining strong ally in the region capable of defending itself is Israel.

Meanwhile possible alliances in Asia fell apart as Obama dithered. The Philippines has an anti-American government that Obama further alienated during his disastrous final months in office. South Korea has fallen back into political instability at a time when it can least afford it while Japan stands alone.

Obama’s Asia pivot was exposed as another gimmick when he proved unwilling to defy the People’s Republic in the South China Sea. His diplomatic efforts seemed to prioritize ideological gestures toward Vietnam’s Communist regime over meaningful strategic alliances. Aside from the risk of war over China’s expansionism, this failed policy was cutting off the non-military China route to resolving North Korea.

This is the route that President Trump is now struggling to reopen again by restoring leverage.

Perversely, Obama did more damage with his failed Asia pivot than he would have done by staying out of it. The non-military option, like so much of diplomacy, depends on the perception of what we might do. In Asia, as in Syria, Obama made it painfully clear that he would do nothing. And the average totalitarian regime has difficulty grasping that different American governments really are different.

The Iran deal once again sent the message to North Korea that nuclear weapons can only benefit it. And that, when combined with Obama’s failures in Asia, funnels us into the military option in North Korea.

Back in Syria, Obama’s Red Line stranded us in the middle of an Islamic civil war and credibility crisis. Obama had handed over the keys to the region to Iran and Russia. America is now stuck trying to get them back.

President Trump chose to do it by going back to the point of collapse and enforcing Obama’s Red Line. It was a controversial choice, but it made a clear statement that presidential promises mean something. It also sent a message to Syria, Russia and Iran that just because we don’t want yet another war, doesn’t mean that they have a free hand to do anything they want.

Obama saw foreign policy in the social justice terms of the left. Trump and his people see a geopolitical struggle. His predecessor believed that we had to atone for our historical crimes. Trump understands that at the root of local crises like Syria and North Korea is a larger contest with Russia and China. It’s the worldview that Obama had sneeringly dismissed as rooted in the Cold War in his debate with Romney.

And yet it’s far more useful than Obama’s incoherent foreign policy whose three pillars were Islamism, appeasement and global warming.

President Trump believes that global stability comes from the stability in the relationship between world powers. Syria and North Korea are just the ways that Russia and China test us to see how far they can push. His goal is to achieve stability from the top down by reaching an understanding with the other powers. And to do that he has to undo the credibility crisis that he inherited from Barack Obama.

Obama left behind plenty of domestic and international ticking time bombs, from ObamaCare to Iran, and Trump’s first years in office will be occupied with finding ways to keep the bombs from going off.

Published First in FrontPageMag.