Tag: Iran

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Iran on the Move, But Does it Fit Into Putin’s Agenda for the Middle East?

The fall of Kirkuk to the joint Iraq-Iran army last week may very well be seen in years to come as a gret turning point in Middle Eastern and World history. The collective punditry is that Iran chalked up a big win in its drive for Middle Eastern hegemony.  This is correct, yet the Iranian occupation of Kirkuk, a historically Kurdish city may be the very thing which begins to undo the Shiite advancement in the fertile crescent.

Up until now, there has been a very tight working relationship between the Russian military and the Iranians.  The two armies have consistantly worked together in turning around the Syrian Civil War.  This has allowed Iran to sweep across the Middle East to within 20km of the Golan Heights, a turn of events that has made Israel very nervous.

Yet, the occupation of Kirkuk has alarmed the Russians, as has Iran’s clear movement of military personel and equipment to the frontlines on Israel’s Golan.  Russian president Vladamir Putin needed Iranian ground forces to help crush ISIS and the Syrian rebel groups, but now that the bulk of the war is finished, Putin would like to be viewed as the great statesmand peace maker not destablizer. The Iranians have different plans.  They would like to use their newfound stature to corner both the Kurds and Israel and finish them off.

However, the Iranian advancement towards Erbil seems to have shaken Putin from his daze. For the Iranians, there is no difference between Iraq and Syria. The problem is that Russia does not view the Kurds with any sort of animosity and has gone out of the way to bring the Kurds into their orbit.  Russia has invested billions into Kurdish infrastructure and oil and gas development.  Putin has no interest in seeing these contracts destroyed.

In the coming weeks, Iran will continue to make gains, but a wary Puting will allow mor Israeli military flights over Syrian territory. Putin’s goals are to create the appearance of Russian military might in the face of the West as well as building a reputation as the great stablizer.

This his goal in the Middle East.  To become the address for those in dispute an then only Putin can ensure a stable Middle East.

 

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Decertifying Iran- A moral imperative. But now what?

As the experience of 2003 shows, Iran will only abandon its nuclear program if confronted by what it perceives to be a tangible military threat

In a large country with multiple facilities and ample experience in nuclear concealment, violations will be inherently difficult to detect. Devising theoretical models of inspection is one thing. Enforcing compliance, week after week, despite competing international crises and domestic distractions, is another. Any report of a violation is likely to prompt debate over its significance—or even calls for new talks with Tehran to explore the issue – Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2015.

…in 2015, Congress passed the Iran nuclear agreement review act to ensure that Congress’s voice would be heard on the deal. Among other conditions the law requires the president of his designee to certify that the suspension of sanction under the deal is appropriate and proportionate to…measures taken by Iran to terminate its illicit nuclear program. Based on the factual record…I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification we will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout – President Donald Trump, October 13, 2017.

Last Friday, the US president, Donald Trump, refused to certify the July 2015 nuclear Iran “deal” concluded in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran, and the P5+1(the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany), and the EU on the other.

Dubbed with the wildly inappropriate misnomer the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA) the “deal” is—as we shall see—anything but “comprehensive”. Moreover, it could hardly be designated a “plan of action” when a far more fitting characterization of it would appear to be a “plan of inaction”.  

Decertification: The moral imperative

In effect, by decertifying the JCPOA, Trump was merely fulfilling his legal obligations under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA).

Passed immediately following the signature of JCPOA, the INARA bill mandates (among other things):

The President shall, at least every 90 days, determine whether the President is able to certify that:

– Iran is fully implementing the agreement,

– Iran has not committed a material breach of the agreement,

– Iran has not taken any action that could significantly advance its nuclear weapons program, and

– Suspension of sanctions against Iran is appropriate and proportionate to measures taken by Iran with respect to terminating its illicit nuclear program and vital to U.S. national security interests.

In light of the record of Iran’s gross misconduct, it is patently clear—or at least, it should be—that no US president could, in good faith, certify that Iran was in compliance with its JCPOA commitments or that continued US adherence to the JCPOA—particularly the suspension of sanctions against Iran—was “vital to US national security interests”.

After all, how can anyone certify that Iran is in compliance with its pledges to not “advance its nuclear weapons program” or is not in “material breach of the agreement”, when this is impossible to verify, given the fact that Tehran has barred inspection of its military sites—the very sites in which one might suspect militarized Iranian endeavor is taking place.

Moral imperative (cont.)

But perhaps even more astonishing and disconcerting is the revelation that “secret side deals” exist between Iran and third parties, to which the US is neither privy, nor party to—and hence has not the foggiest notion as to how these may impact or impair the implementation of, or the adherence to the terms of the JCPOA. Typically, these involve “deals” between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the body charged with the inspection of Iranian nuclear sites. Incredibly, in some cases, these deals allow Iran to conduct its own inspection of its facilities. Moreover, the IAEA is obliged to keep much of the information gathered confidential and not share it with other parties—including the US.

You couldn’t make this stuff up!

No less crippling to effective inspection—and hence to the ability of the US president to certify that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA—is the fact that if suspicion arises that illicit activity is being conducted, Iran must be given weeks of advance warning, providing it ample opportunity to conceal or dispose of any incriminating evidence. Worse, the Iranians must also be provided with adequate reasons for the suspicion of untoward conduct on their part, thus   risking exposure of intelligence sources that provided the relevant information!

Indeed, these very absurdities of the JCPOA were crisply and caustically conveyed by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a Knesset address on the day immediately after it was reached: “It’s like giving a criminal organization that deals drugs a 24-day warning before inspecting its drug lab…The agreement also requires the world powers to… show Iran the very intelligence for which they want to conduct the inspections in the first place.”

Incomprehensive plan of inaction

To be honest Donald Trump has never really been my “cup-of-tea”. Indeed, without wishing to be too disparaging, to my mind, his incontestable advantage is that he is…not Hilary Clinton.

That said, the decertification speech was undeniably impressive. He provided an effective tour d’horizon of Iranian malfeasance: Tehran’s violation of agreed production quotas of heavy water and operation of advanced centrifuges; its intimidation of inspectors from carrying out their work effectively; its flouting of international resolutions regarding the development of ballistic missile technology; its fomenting turmoil “throughout the Middle East and beyond”; and last but not least, its sponsorship of terror across the globe.

In this, Trump demonstrated compellingly that Iran had not only violated the spirit, but also the letter, of the JCPOA. But beyond that, he not only exposed how appallingly incomprehensive this purportedly “comprehensive” blueprint is, but also the grave perils of inaction the alleged “plan of action” necessarily entails.

Indeed, without wishing to push historical parallels too far, some portions of Trump’s speech were distinctly reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s stern caveat in his epic account of World War II, ‘The Gathering Storm,’ in which he cautioned: “…. if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival”.

Expressing strikingly similar sentiments, Trump warned: “History has shown that the longer we ignore a threat, the more dangerous that threat becomes…We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout”.

Incomprehensive inaction (cont.)

Trump detailed Iran’s transgression as justification for his decision to desist from certifying the JCPOA: “Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world…Based on the factual record I have put forward, I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification.”

Of course, this catalogue of Iranian misconduct underscores just how hopelessly ineffectual the entire JCPOA edifice is. For by limiting its relevance to Iran’s nuclear program (and even then inadequately), it, in effect, allows the Islamist theocracy license to wreak mayhem in any other sphere, wherever and whenever it chooses—without incurring any of the penalties in the unverifiable nuclear deal.

To convey just how ludicrous the JCPOA arrangement is, just imagine reaching an agreement with a belligerent neighbor down the road that he will refrain from attacking you and your family with firearms but is free to stab you with knives, batter you with clubs, impale you on spears and target you with arrows. Worse, not only is he free to do this without retribution, but you actually agree to help him finance  his stockpile of said knives, clubs, spears and arrows.

Ridiculous as this might seem, this is in principle precisely what Trump was called on to certify last Friday—and is being vilified by allies and adversaries for not doing so.

Go figure.

The futility of “fixing”, the necessity of “nixing”

While decertification of the JCPOA is both inevitable and imperative, it is not in itself an alternative strategy. Indeed, even the Trump administration itself has been at pains to clarify that, in and of itself, the decertification does not automatically imply that—with all the withering criticism it has of the agreement—the US will not necessarily opt out of it.

This is a risky position to adopt and, like a man with one foot on the pier and the other in the boat, it is one that cannot be maintained for long. Indeed, the US has now created a clear choice for itself if it is not to retreat humiliatingly from the robust stance it has taken: Either to endeavor to fix the defective JCPOA, or to nix it.

Any remotely realistic analysis will swiftly lead to the conclusion that any endeavor to fix the JCPOA (i.e. introduce far more intrusive inspection procedures and impose far more extensive and intensive punitive measures for delinquent Iranian behavior) are futile.

Clearly, it would require large doses of unfounded and unbounded optimism to believe that Iran could be induced by diplomatic pressure to submit itself to a harsher regime of inspections/sanctions than that currently stipulated in the JCPOA. After all, if the P5+1 countries backed away from sterner coercive measures when confronting a weaker, poorer Iran, what reason is there to believe (and more importantly, for Tehran to believe) they would stand up to a now much richer and stronger Iran??

This bleak prospect leaves us with only one other option – the necessity to nix the JCPOA in its entirety – which might just happen anyway. For as Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney predicts: “Decertification corrodes the legitimacy of the deal…[It]will slowly collapse.”

Decertification- what now?

So how is the US (and Israel( to deal with a post-JCPOA reality? What strategies are available to prevent a good initiative from making the situation worse?

According to its adherents, the JCPOA was the best possible agreement. This is clearly an untenable contention—unless the underlying assumption is that the only feasible alternatives are those Iran deigns to accept.

However, if the rationale is not to accommodate the ayatollahs, but to coerce them or replace them, the alternatives are clear:

The first of these options is to enhance US sanctions, backed by a credible threat of military action aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and their attendant infrastructure.

 

Skeptics as to the efficacy of such a harsh alternative should be reminded of the events of 2003, when Iran, in effect, curtailed its nuclear program after the US-led invasion of Iraq created a tangible threat which US-military presence projected in the eyes of the Islamic Republic. As a result “Iran agree[d] to suspend its uranium–enrichment activities and ratify an additional protocol requiring Iran to provide an expanded declaration of its nuclear activities and granting the IAEA broader rights of access to sites in the country.”

 

Significantly, once the threat perception receded, Tehran annulled this agreement and reverted to accelerating its nuclear program.

 

What now? (cont.)

 

The only effective alternative to coercing the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear program is to replace them –i.e. induce regime change. Sadly, just as it has greatly reduced the possibility (or at least, greatly increased the cost) of coercing them to forgo nuclear weapons capability, so it has dimmed the prospects for regime change. In the words of one well-known Iranian expatriate: “The Vienna [i.e JCPOA] deal bears a very grave danger for Iran’s civil society. Not only won’t we see their economic situation improve, but the regime will also have an incentive to abuse human rights more severely. A flood of cash is going into the pockets of this leadership. It will be used to tighten their grip [on power] and to further imprison, torture and kill innocent Iranians.”

So over  two years after it was agreed upon, all the JCPOA has really achieved is to empower the Iranian tyranny militarily, enrich it economically and entrench it politically—for nothing more than a dubious delaying of its acquisition of weaponized nuclear capability.

Which, of course, is why decertifying it was no more than a moral imperative.

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THE OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS OF TRUMP’S IRAN INITIATIVE

Trump lays the groundwork for a real strategy against Iran to begin.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump initiated an important change in US policy toward Iran.

No, in his speech decertifying Iran’s compliance with the nuclear accord it struck with his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump didn’t announce a new strategy for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, or stemming its hegemonic rise in the Middle East, or limiting its ability to sponsor terrorism.

Trump’s move was not operational. It was directional.

In his address Friday, Trump changed the policy dynamics that dictate US policy on Iran. For the first time since 2009, when Obama backed the murderous regime in Tehran, spurning the millions of Iranians who rose up in the Green Revolution, Trump opened up the possibility that the US may begin to base its policies toward Iran on reality.

Trump began his remarks by setting out Iran’s long rap sheet of aggression against America.

Starting with the US embassy seizure and hostage crisis, Trump described Iran’s crimes and acts of war against America in greater detail than any of his predecessors ever did.

Trump’s dossier was interlaced with condemnations of the regime’s repression of its own people.

By merging Iran’s external aggression with its internal repression, Trump signaled a readiness to drive a wedge – or expand the wedge – between the authoritarian theocrats that rule Iran and the largely secular, multiethnic and pro-Western people of Iran.

Trump then turned his attention to Iran’s illicit ballistic missile program, its sponsorship of terrorism, including its links to al-Qaida, its aggression against its neighbors, its aggressive acts against maritime traffic in the Straits of Hormuz, and its bids to destabilize and control large swaths of the Middle East through its proxies.

It is notable that these remarks preceded Trump’s discussion of the nuclear deal – which was the ostensible subject of his speech. Before Trump discussed Iran’s breaches of the nuclear deal, he first demonstrated that contrary to the expressed views of his top advisers, it is impossible to limit a realistic discussion of the threat Iran constitutes to US national security and interests to whether or not and it what manner it is breaching the nuclear accord.

This was a critical point because for the past two years, US discourse on Iran has focused solely on whether or not Iran was complying with Obama’s nuclear pact. By placing the nuclear deal in the context of Iran’s consistent, overarching hostility and aggression, Trump made it self-evident that no US interest is served in continuing to give Iran a free pass from congressional sanctions.

After accomplishing that goal, Trump turned his attention to how Iran is actually breaching the letter and spirit of the nuclear pact. Only then, almost as an afterthought, did he announce that he was decertifying Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal, setting the conditions for the renewal of congressional sanctions on Iran and opening the floodgates of congressional sanctions on Iran in retaliation for the full spectrum of its aggressive and illicit acts against the US, its interests and allies.

By empowering Congress to prohibit economic cooperation with Iran, Trump put the Europeans, Chinese and Russians on notice that they may soon face a choice between conducting business with the US and conducting business with Iran.

After putting them on notice, Trump discussed the possibility of improving Obama’s nuclear accord. Among other things, he suggested expanding the inspection regime against Iran’s nuclear installations and canceling the so-called “sunset” clause that places an end date on the restrictions governing certain components of Iran’s nuclear advancement.

Trump’s address has the potential to serve as the foundation of a major, positive shift in US policy toward Iran. Such a shift could potentially facilitate the achievement of Trump’s goals of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, containing its regional aggression and empowerment and defeating its terrorist proxies.

Unfortunately, it is also likely, indeed, it is more likely, that his words will not be translated into policies to achieve these critical aims.

Trump’s decision to transfer immediate responsibility to Congress for holding Iran accountable for its hostile actions on the military and other fronts is a risky move. He has a lot of enemies, and the nuclear deal has a lot of supporters on Capitol Hill.

Obama would have never been able to implement his nuclear deal if Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, hadn’t agreed to cast the Constitution aside and ignore Obama’s constitutional duty to present the nuclear deal to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.

Over the past week, Trump and Corker have been involved in an ugly public fight precipitated by Corker’s announcement that he will not be seeking reelection next year.

Today Corker has nothing to restrain him from scuttling Trump’s agenda. If he wishes, out of spite, Corker can block effective sanctions from being passed. And he may do so even though the implications for his Senate colleagues would be dire and even though doing so would render him an unofficial protector of Iran’s nuclear program.

What is true for Corker is doubly true for the Democrats.

Leading Democratic senators like Robert Menendez, Ben Cardin and Chuck Schumer, who opposed Obama’s Iran deal may now feel that as opponents of the Trump administration, they are required to oppose any change to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

Indeed, given the rise of radical forces in their party it is likely that they would rather give Iran a free pass for its anti-American aggression and nuclear proliferation than work with Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

Then again, by framing the issue of Iran’s threat to America as he did, and by transferring responsibility for reinstating sanctions and passing further sanctions on Iran to Congress, Trump opened up the possibility that Congress will conduct substantive – rather than personal – debates on Iran.

And the more substantive those debates become, the further away the US discourse will move from the mendacious assumptions of Obama’s Iran policy – that the Iranian regime is a responsible actor and potential US ally, and that there is nothing inherently aggressive or problematic about Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program.

The second major risk inherent in Trump’s approach is that he will get his way; that the Europeans, Russians and Chinese and the Iranians will agree to improve the nuclear deal. The problem here is not obvious. Clearly, it is better if the deal is amended to delete the sunset clauses and expand the inspections regime.

Yet even an amended, improved deal will still serve as a shield to Iran’s nuclear program. An improved deal won’t destroy Iran’s centrifuges.

It won’t take away Iran’s enriched uranium. It won’t destroy Iran’s nuclear installations. And it won’t bring down the regime which by its nature ensures all of these things will remain a menace to the US, its allies and international security as a whole.

So long as the US continues to maintain a policy based on the false view that all that is necessary to destroy the threat of a nuclear armed Iran is a combination of the nuclear deal and economic sanctions, it will continue to ensure that Iran and its nuclear program remain a major threat. Distressingly, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, the most outspoken supporter of decertifying Iranian compliance in the Trump administration, told NBC on Sunday that the US intends to remain in the nuclear deal.

To understand what must be done we must return to Trump’s speech and its strategic significance.

By taking a holistic view of the Iranian threat – grounded in a recognition of the inherent hostility of the regime – Trump opened up the possibility that the US and its allies can develop a holistic policy for confronting and defeating Iran and its proxies. If the Iran deal and sanctions are two components to a larger strategy rather than the entire strategy, they can be helpful.

A wider strategy would target Iran’s regional aggression by weakening its proxies and clients from Hezbollah and Hamas to the regimes in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It would target the regime itself by empowering the ayatollahs’ domestic opponents. It would pin down Iranian forces by arming and otherwise assisting the Iraqi Kurds to defend and maintain their control over their territory along the Iranian border while strengthening the ties between Iranian Kurds and Iraqi Kurds.

Friday, Trump created the possibility for such a strategy. It is up to members of Congress, and US allies like Israel and the Sunni Arab states to help Trump conceive and implement it. If they fail, the possibility Trump created will be lost, perhaps irrevocably.

Originally published the Jerusalem Post. 

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Battle Over Kirkuk Begins, Turkey Supports Baghdad Against Kurdistan

The battle over Kirkuk has officially begun as Iranian and Iraqi forces enter the city of Kirkuk with US weapons gifted to Iraq for use only on ISIS. The Kurdish Peshmerga under threat from A1-Abrams Tanks now in the hands of the Hashd Al-Shaabi (an Iranian backed militia in Iraq) fell back to the city’s center.

Kurdish casuties have already been reported by Kurdistan 24 and Rudaw.

Peshmerga reinforcements have been sent from Erbil to push out the Iran-Iraq army now occupying Kirkuk and the oil rich region around it.

In a breaking development Turkey has publicly backed Baghdad over the Kirkuk crisis in a carefully worded statement:

“We are closely following the steps the Iraqi government is taking to establish its constitutional sovereignty over Kirkuk, the homeland of our Turkmen kin throughout history. Turkey will side with the Iraqi government in taking steps to ensure lasting peace and stability in the country,” the statement read.

Turkey has reportedly built up their defenses against the Syrian Kurds in preparation of their own assault against the Kurdish region in Syria.

Will US Back the Kurds?

Given that Baghdad, after years of US support has openly handed over A1-Abrams to America’s number one enemy, Iran, as well as after years of training with the US has now openly switched allegience to Tehran, US policy must change.  In order to hold Iran back the Kurds must be seen as the frontlines in stopping Persian expansion.

Given the fast pace of events in and around Kirkuk, the US military leadership has been reported to be meeting with Kurdish leadership in Erbil.  This meeting is a foreshadowing of preperations for a push back against the onlsaught by the merged Iran-Iraq army.

 

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BREAKING: Hamas-Fatah Fire Rockets From Sinai Into Israel

Hamas-Fatah fired two rockets from Southern Sinai into the Eshkol Regional Council in southern Israel Sunday evening.

The two rockets landed in open areas.

The IDF believes that the rocket attack and increasing tensions on the border near Gaza are a direct result from the Hamas-Fatah unity pact signed last week.  This pact sees the PA take control of the Rafah crossing while Hamas remains in charge of its own militias in the strip.  They will essentially remain an Iranian proxy.

This set up has been described as very similar to the way Iran and the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi work with one another.

Israel’s security assessment sees a possible uptick in direct hostilities both in and around Gaza and from Lebanon as the crisis between Kurdistan and Iran escalates.

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Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi Close in on Kurdistan

The Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi, which is an Iranian proxy in Iraq has been reportedly moving in on Kirkuk as of Friday.  The group, backed by the Iraqi military gave the Peshmerga and Kirkuk governor a list of demands.

Rudaw reports: “Peshmerga officials, including Sheikh Jaafar Mustafa, head of the 70 Force, confirmed on Friday that the Hashd al-Shaabi demanded the Peshmerga leave their posts south and west of Kirkuk in order to allow for their forces and the Iraqi army to move in on Thursday night.”

The Iraqi government has given the Kurds until 2am on Sunday to vacate all the land it has acquired in fighting ISIS. Most of our sources in Kurdistan have confirmed this and clearly stated that the Peshmerga has no attention of pulling back.

Furthermore, these sources have confirmed that the Peshmerga, in anticipation of a wider conflict with Iranian proxies and the Iraqi military have closed the main road between Mosul and Erbil.

Iranian Revolutionary guards are reportedly already blended in with their Iraqi counterparts.

“The Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi are not the only state that are attacking us. We have intelligence with 100 percent accuracy that there are also the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards among them,” Shwan Shamerani, commander of the Peshmerga second brigade said.

The Iranian calculus is clear.  The regime in Tehran views Trump’s move to decertify the Iranian Nuclear Accord as well as placing the Revolutionary Guard on a terror group list and the rise of an independent Kurdistan as interwoven events. The Iranian regime can waste no time in taking on a rising Kurdistan.

With the Kurdish Peshmerga ready to hold onto its territory, the first big test for an independent Kurdistan is set to get underway.  With Trump’s move against Iran in the geo-political arena still fresh, the question remains whether this will translate into support for Kurdish independence on the ground. Eitherway, the coming Iranian Kurdish conflict maybe the opening shot in a wider war.

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Iran, UNESCO, and President Trump’s Big Move

President Donald Trump is vigorously going after pillars of global “stability” at a lightning fast pace.  The State Department first rocked the international community this week when it would announce that the US would be quitting UNESCO by 2019 due to its inherent anti-Israel bias.

Second,the President himself gave a frank speech in which he announced is decision not to recertify the Iran nuke deal, punting the final decision to Congress.

These two decisions are the first shot across the bow of a rapidly changing Middle East that was allowed to plunge into chaos under the Obama Administration.  The Trump team understands that the Islamic decision to rewrite history using UNESCO in order to disconnect the Jewish nation from its own homeland is not just absurd but dangerous to America’s own sense of purpose. A world not governed by truth is one that is essentially filled with chaos.

This chaos has been used to allow Iran and Russia to essentially steer the future of the Middle East.  Trump’s removal of the US from UNESCO, which gave Israel the confidence to do the same is built around the message that globalism is not superior to moral clarity.   With all of the USA’s faults, it has still been viewed upon as a beacon freedom.  Trump is sending a message that those countries that stand with the US get first priority and in the Middle East, Trump is learning that Israel may be the most reliable.

President Trump’s decision not to recertify the Iran nuclear accord known as the JCPOA sends a serious message that Iran and its backers are scrambling to find a way to retaliate against.  Trump has now designated the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity which places them within the bounds of the US military’s sights.

Trump said the following in part of his televised speech:

“The Iranian regime has committed multiple violations of the agreement, for example on two speared occasions they have exceeded the limit of 130 metric tons of heavy water, until recently, the Iranian regime has also failed to meet our expectation in its operation of advanced centrifuges. The Iranian regime has also intimidated international inspectors into not using the full inspection authorities that the agreement calls for. Iranian officials and military leaders have repeatedly claimed they will not allow inspectors onto military sites, even though the international community suspects some of those sites were part of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program; there are also many people who believe that Iran is dealing with North Korea. I am going to instruct our intelligence agencies to do thorough analyses and report back their findings beyond what they have already reviewed. By its own terms the Iran deal was supposed to contribute to regional and international peace and security. And yet, while the U.S adheres to our commitment under the deal the Iranian regime continues to fuel conflict, terror and turmoil throughout the Middle East and beyond.”

Watch the full speech below:

Deputy commander of the Qods Force Ismail Ghaani told the Tanzim news agency:

“We are not a country that likes war, but any military threatening us will regret it. Trump is hurting America- we’ve buried many like him and we know how to fight the United States.”

Does this mean there will be war tomorrow?  Not necessarily, but Iran and Russia will not allow this to go quietly.  As for the Trump administration they understand that it is better to push back now than when Iran, backed by Russia and in partnership with Turkey finalizes its take over of the Middle East.  That would leave Israel surrounded and the USA locked out of a strategic region.

The globalists were hoping that President Trump would back off and toe the line, but it is clear that his foreign policy is built around America First, for better or worse. This makes for a rocky couple of next weeks that may see both the Middle East explode and the North Korean standoff break out into a full-blown war.

Yet, this multi-sphere conflict was set in motion the moment Obama decided to lower America and its allies stature within the world’s geopolitical arena.  Trump may seem like he is shaking the world, but he is heading off the ascendance of regimes that are totalitarian from do far more damage down the line.

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Is Trump Preparing to Take on Both North Korea and Iran at the Same Time?

President Donald Trump said the following in a Tweet Storm Saturday morning:

“Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid hasn’t worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!”

While there maybe a desire to play this sort of verbage down, the prevailing opinion is that the comments portend to a direct conflict between North Korea and the USA coming very soon.

To complicate matters even more, rumors from within the White House make it clear that President Trump is seriously considering pulling out of the nuclear treaty with Iran. None of this is disconnected as it may seems. Most observers agree that Iran and North Korea are in nuclear symbiotic relationship where the latter develops weapons in exchange for needed money.

The above facts point to a two front war between the USA and Iran and North Korea at the same time. Considering that any conflict in this arena risks bringing in both China and Russia, the stakes are consitantly growing higher.  Trump and Washington are losing ground in both the Pacific and the Middle East as Saudi Arabia is making serious agreements  with Russia’s Putin.

In order to hold Saudi Arabia within the US network, a more robust policy is necessary against its arch-enemy Iran.  Given the fact that Russia appears to have taken large areas of the Middle East as well as funding the North Korean regime, Trump has no choice but to push back.

It appears that the USA is at a breaking point in terms of holding to a non-poractive foregin policy.  Trump is now willing to change that, but it could be too little, too late.

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Does Saudi Shift to Russia Leave Israel Cornered?

Saudi Arabia opened its historic four day visit to Moscow with a clear indication that it is ready shift towards the Russian orbit.  With the Kingdom penning a $3 billion arms deal with Putin and agreeing to buy Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft system, the seismic shift is clearly well underway.

Up until now the prevailing assumption was that Israel had growing covert relations with the Sunni leader due to the ascendancy of Iran, but a Saudi shift to Russia puts this theory on ice.

With a US on freefall and a Russia in firm control of the Middle Eastern future, Saudi Arabia has no choice but to switch allegiences in the hope that Russia would be able to hold back Iran from attacking.

Israel has always prided itself on  having a neutral foreign policy which has allowed it in recent years to expand relations to countries previously off its radar such as China, India, and much of East Africa.  Yet, the presence of Russia and the shifting positions of its Sunni allies in the face of a US in the midst of a regional pullback, changes its calculus in relating to the growing strength of Iran on its border.

Israel can no longer pretend to remain neutral while Russia allows Israel’s Persian nemesis to gain the upperhand.  Jerusalem must decide to either stick it out by itself while its long time ally America pulls back or finally decide like the Saudis that it is better to cut a deal with Putin in hopes he holds back Iran rather than face them alone.

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Civil War in the House of Saud?

Reports are flying from Riyadh that as King Salman nears abdication, there is a potential coup set to go in effect in order to deprive his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from taking over.

In response to the Crown Prince’s fears Saudi Arabia arrested between 16-30 people in a broad crackdown across the Kingdom. The arrestees though were all members of the regime, yet loyalists of the ousted former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef.

Why would the monarchy, which prides itself on collective unity in the face of ensuring its own survival feel the need to go after one another.

 Andrew Korybko of the Oriental Review gives the following intriguing possibility:

Iran and Qatar are close with Russia and China, and the latter two Great Powers are actually enjoying a renaissance of relations with Saudi Arabia right now. While one might expect this to make Tehran and Doha jealous, the opposite is true – Moscow and Beijing’s developing high-level strategic partnerships with Riyadh are designed to bring balance to the Mideast by weaning the Kingdom away from Washington and slowly but surely integrating it into the emerging Multipolar World Order, which will never be perfect or without friction, but is still a step in the right direction. In order to appreciate what’s happening, one needs to be reminded of a few things that have happened this past year when it comes to Saudi Arabia’s relations with Russia and China.

Concerning Moscow, Riyadh agreed to an historic OPEC output deal with Russia last year and renewed it a few months ago after it expired. The Saudis are also cooperating with the Russians in encouraging Syria’s so-called “opposition” to merge into a unified entity for facilitating peace talks with Damascus. Foreign Minister Lavrov was just in the Kingdom last week, and King Salman is expected to visit Moscow sometime next month. As for China, Beijing signed a total of over $110 billion of deals with Saudi Arabia in the past six months alone in an effort to assist the Crown Prince’s ambitious Vision 2030 program of economic modernization. It’s that initiative more so than anything else which holds the danger of inadvertently destabilizing the country’s internal affairs because of the opposition that it’s come under from some of Saudi Arabia’s many radical clerics who are against the social consequences of its reforms.

Bearing all of this in mind, it’s worthwhile to revisit the question of who has an interest in destabilizing Saudi Arabia right at the moment that it’s turning away from the US and towards Russia and China, timing their subversive efforts to coincide with a prolonged leadership change and an economic transition. By all indicators, those aren’t the hallmarks of an Iranian or Qatari operation, but the red flag for an American one.

US, Russian, and Chinese Neo-Colonialism in the Middle East

The fast changing word is in a great transition between a post Cold War uni-polarism to a 21st Century multi-polar chaos of various competing interests circling around energy control and market influence. Both the Russians and Chinese are thriving off of a Middle East in chaos and have learned like the US did that the Arab rulers have no loyalty to their countries.

These rulers, when given protection and money have the loyalty to the world powers providing them the money and arms to control their local “peasants.” The Russians and Chinese have figured out that the key to US dominance in the Middle East and therefore oil profits is the defense pacts Washington has used with the Saudis and Gulf States to ensure the dollar is constantly inflated due to its use as the sole oil currency.  This is now changing. Even more so, the Russians and Chinese as pointed out in the Oriental Review have gone out of their way to lure the Saudis away from America.

By creating balance between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Russians and Chinese are in the process of playing both sides to ensure continued control of the region.  The American security establishment used the same policy in both encouraging Iran to push ahead across the Middle East, while using that threat to encourage the Saudis to stay within the American orbit.

The Saudis are trying to figure out how to work with both, but unlike Israel, the House of Saud has no real value to it other than a colonial apparatus to rented out to the highest bidder.

Where Does this Leave Israel?

With the Saudi family in the midst of an internal implosion, Israel has little room to maneuver.  The prevailing assumption has been that the blocs would remain the same and actually consolidate in opposition to the Iranian threat.  The insertion of Russia and China as the new power brokers has scrambled this assumption.