That’s the question the United States’ allies around the world are asking themselves these days, thanks to the president’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. In what can only be seen as a purely political decision—rather than a move to make our nation, our allies or our Afghan partners any safer—Biden has enabled the enslavement of roughly 39 million people to the Taliban. A population the size of California’s was cavalierly discarded with no thought of the consequences, and no consideration of the American citizens left behind or the Afghans who helped America’s war effort for years. This move can only create doubts in capitals around the world about Biden’s decision-making capability, something no U.S. president should ever have to worry about.

But is any of this really a surprise? Over his decades as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and eight years as vice president, Biden has frequently been at the center of foreign policy train wrecks. Afghanistan, while only the most current example, could prove to be the most costly. The Taliban could take thousands of Americans hostage, and America’s enemies will surely be emboldened. If Biden wouldn’t come to the rescue of thousands of U.S. citizens as Afghanistan collapsed, would he really come to the aid of Taiwan in a crisis with China? Would he really help South Korea if North Korea attacked? What about Ukraine if Russia decided to invade?

The president’s track record of getting things wrong in the Middle East is evidence that his only national security instinct is to try and gain a political advantage, and to play it safe, with no vision of how to keep America secure at all.

Afghan armed men supporting the Afghan security forces against the Taliban stand with their weapons and Humvee vehicles at Parakh area in Bazarak, Panjshir province on August 19, 2021.AHMAD SAHEL ARMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

For starters, Biden opposed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Biden was also against the first Gulf War—if that had been the majority view, the United States would have left Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in charge of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Biden was then somehow in favor of the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, when there was little evidence Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or presented a threat to the U.S., our homeland or our allies. Biden then opposed the 2007 troop surge that stabilized Iraq—only to see U.S. forces leave under the Obama administration, an action that led to the rise of ISIS.

Biden’s national security blunders are not limited to the Middle East. The president loves to brag about how he has spent more time with Chinese president Xi Jinping than with any other world leader, before the latter assumed power. Yet did any of Biden’s knowledge lead to a robust China policy during the Obama-Biden years, when Beijing built a world-class military that can now directly challenge America’s position in the Indo-Pacific? What about when China built artificial islands in the South China Sea, a move that could allow Beijing to declare that body of water, worth trillions of dollars in trade and natural resources, off limits?

Then there is North Korea. Obama and Biden’s policy on how to deal with North Korea amounted to what can only be described as “watch and wait.” The consequences were disastrous. They watched while the Kim regime built more sophisticated nuclear weapons that could be miniaturized and placed on long-range missiles capable of reaching the U.S. homeland. They then waited for North Korea to make a step towards denuclearization, expecting they would be rewarded with talks on how Pyongyang would surrender its nuclear program. This so-called strategic patience policy was clearly a failure, and in 2017 led the U.S. and North Korea to the brink of armed conflict. And it’s the same policy Joe Biden has adopted towards Pyongyang today, clearly having learned nothing from his past experience in the White House, all but guaranteeing North Korea builds more nuclear weapons.

In one of the greatest unforced errors in U.S. foreign policy history, President Biden has not only put in doubt his own national security instincts, but now gives America’s enemies a green light to probe for weakness and exploit his horrendous decision-making skills on the world stage. But it was something we all should have seen coming.

Harry Kazianis is Senior Director at the Center for the National Interest. He also serves as Executive Editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. He previously served as part of the foreign policy team for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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Source: https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-withdrawal-will-have-global-consequences-opinion-1621239

The post Biden’s Withdrawal Will Have Global Consequences | Opinion first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A funeral for a man who was killing during an anti-government protest in Baghdad in November. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded since the start of the demonstrations.Credit…Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters

BAGHDAD — For 12 weeks, Iraqi protesters have massed in the streets of Baghdad and cities in southern Iraq to demand the ouster of the government, an end to corruption and a halt to the overweening influence of Iran.

And for 12 weeks, the government has foundered in its response, alternating vague promises of reform with brutal treatment of protesters by its security forces. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded, according to the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, but the violent response has only deepened protesters’ resolve.

The prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, has resigned but has remained in a caretaker role, and Parliament has yet to come up with someone to replace him.

The political crisis that now confronts Iraq is as serious as any since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein 16 years ago, and its leaders appear ill-equipped to reckon with it. No consensus has emerged for a plan to reform the government to meet the protesters’ demands.

Parliament has not seriously considered even the proposed changes to the election law put forward by President Barham Salih, which would reduce the influence of parties and the corruption they foster.

This week, a constitutional deadline for Parliament to nominate a new prime minister came and went. Even finding an acceptable candidate for prime minister is a tall order.

“It’s very difficult to find someone who is both broadly acceptable to the street, to the protesters, but who also has the party support, the political support to navigate the transition,” said Maria Fantappie, a senior adviser on Iraq and Syria for the International Crisis Group.

Iraqi security forces during a clash in November with anti-government groups in Baghdad.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Even if they did, that would hardly begin to address the protesters’ sweeping demands.

“Our goal is not to have Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resign,” said Mehdi Chassin, a college student from Amara, in southern Iraq, who came to Baghdad to join the protests. “That makes no difference because another guy will come who will be just the same. We want them all to go.”

But Parliament is unlikely to adopt reforms that would end the careers of everyone in it, and the protesters are unlikely to accept anything less.

“What the parties want is rejected by the Iraqi people and what the Iraqi people want is rejected by the parties,” said Karim al-Nuri, a senior official in the Badr Organization, one of the parties that is close to Iran, but has a diverse membership.

“So there are two alternatives: either to change the Iraqi people or to change some of the political class and make some change in the political process.”

Parliament also seems unprepared to find a way to reduce Iranian influence.

Iranian political and military operatives — including senior figures like Qassim Soleimani, the head of the powerful Quds Force that reports to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — have been in and out of Baghdad trying to ensure that whoever is nominated for prime minister meets Iran’s needs.

So, rather than debate the protesters’ demands directly, members of Parliament talk about how much they are doing — passing legislation to limit salaries of the ministers for instance.

Qais Al-Khazali, the leader of one of the Shiite parliamentary blocs close to Iran, said, “We have enacted legislation, that is our responsibility, now the government’s responsibility is to enforce it.”

When the protests started on Oct. 1, many who came to demonstrate in Baghdad and across southern Iraq were demanding jobs and services such as electricity and clean water.

But after the government opened fire on them, killing more than 100 in the first five days, the number of protesters multiplied and they began to agitate for more far-reaching changes.

Overhauling the entire system of government seems far from politically possible. But the protesters’ focus reflects their frustration with the government’s failure to foster economic opportunity or deal with entrenched corruption. These grievances unite all of those who have come to the street: the young people, the workers, the poor, the educated and the barely literate, the tribal leaders as well as urban street sweepers.

The protesters secured a bridge in Baghdad as part of a sit-in on Dec. 10.Credit…Ali Abdul Hassan/Associated Press

Some members of Parliament acknowledge that they are engaged in a different struggle: the allocation of spoils in the next government. The discussions over choosing a new prime minister, they said, have centered less on the ideals and desires of the Iraqi people than on political power and money.

“There’s a lot of division about who comes next as prime minister, and that’s a problem because the political parties are redividing up the ministries, looking to figure out who gets which ministry share,” said Haithem al-Jubori the head of Parliament’s finance committee.

Iran is particularly concerned that it maintain influence in Iraq’s ministries, especially those dealing with security and economic matters. With America’s tight sanctions against Iran, Tehran increasingly needs Iraq in order to “breathe” economically — both for its markets and for military purposes, to protect its interests in Syria and Lebanon.

The parties that are most powerful and closest to Iran are those that grew out of the armed Shiite groups. It is militia units from ministries controlled by those parties, or agencies of the prime minister, that are blamed by human rights activists for the most violent attacks on the protesters.

In responding to the protests with violence, these forces are taking a page from the Iranian playbook: When Tehran was faced with protests over gas prices in November, it crushed them brutally, killing as many as 450 people in four days and imprisoning 7,000.

Protesters in Najaf set a fire during a protest in front of the Iranian consulate in November.Credit…Reuters

The post Iraq in Worst Political Crisis in Years as Death Toll Mounts From Protests first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Demonstrators take part in ongoing anti-government protests in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, on Tuesday.Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Nearly 17 years ago, the United States invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. That created a power vacuum partly filled — and exploited — by Iran. The U.S. has been trying, with limited success, to dampen its regional arch enemy’s influence over Iraq ever since. In recent weeks, assistance has come from an unlikely source: the Iraqi people.

In early October, the Arab Spring finally arrived in Iraq. Large-scale demonstrations broke out against the government, pitting thousands of young protesters against a government they believe has failed them economically and politically and want it to step aside. Demands for jobs, respect for human rights, an end to corruption and better public services are at the heart of protesters’ grievances. But so is anger at Iran for trying to use Iraq’s political class for its own ends.

Tehran has tried to build influence in Iraq for well over a decade in a not-so-subtle effort to turn Iraq into a subservient vassal state, provoking deep resentment among many ordinary Iraqis. In fact, the protests were touched off by outrage at the reassignment of a popular Iraqi counter-terrorism official who had been trying to rein in pro-Iran armed militias. And the volume of anti-Iran rhetoric is only growing; a few days ago, Iran’s consulate in the southern city of Karbala was attacked.

In a region with few signs of hope, this popular uprising against political and economic corruption, with anger toward Iran at its center, is both a serious challenge and a beacon of possibility for the United States. It is a ground-up movement that threatens not only the Iranian grip on an important regional ally but Iran as well. The United States has a strong interest in helping Iraq navigate these tough challenges — both to help Iraq itself, which could fall victim once again to a resurgent Islamic State militant group if not shored up, and to counter Iran’s ambitions.

Iran is under growing duress from the Trump administration’s campaign of “maximum pressure,” which has ratcheted up sanctions and moved additional forces to the Persian Gulf to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions and counter its destabilizing regional policies. In this context, Iran’s leaders see Iraq’s political turmoil in conspiratorial terms, blaming it on “foreign hands” (read: the U.S. and Israel). They know the damage that “losing” Iraq would do to their strategy for attaining regional supremacy.

And they are all too aware of the possibility that Iraq’s mass demonstrations could inspire a similar popular uprising in their own country, having been buffeted by the massive demonstrations of 2009’s “Green Movement” as well as countrywide protests early last year against the government’s economic policies and repressive theocratic rule.

That’s why Iranian security officials have advised Iraqi counterparts to get tougher on the protesters. Militia forces aligned with Iran have been suspected of involvement in the killings of demonstrators, and there have been allegations that Iranians took part. New reports suggest that Iran may be preparing to intervene on a larger scale.

The United States has a strong interest in helping Iraq chart a different course in dealing with the protesters. Beyond neutralizing Iran, Iraqi stability is vital to many U.S. interests, including minimizing the threat posed by ISIS and maintaining security in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps most important, a stable Iraq can show that an electoral democracy can take root in a volatile region and that there is a middle path between autocracy and chaos.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has issued a 13-point reform plan in response to the criticism of the protesters, but he acknowledges there is no quick and easy fix and has offered to resign, a prospect the Iranians abhor as they see him as a political ally. President Barham Salih pledges to hold new elections eventually, but the process of forming another government would take months. Iraq, a country awash in weapons, needs to see conciliatory rhetoric and promises of change backed up by quick and decisive action rather than talk of change months down the road, or the situation could deteriorate dramatically.

It’s bad enough right now. Protests have turned steadily more deadly as government forces have turned their weapons on the demonstrators. At least 260 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded since the protests began in October, according to Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights., and daily clashes between security forces and demonstrators are escalating in number and ferocity. A massive crackdown failed to tamp down the unrest.

As if the mounting challenge to Iraq’s political order were not worrying enough, chaos in neighboring Syria following the sudden withdrawal of most U.S. troops has opened the door for the re-emergence of ISIS. Since 2016, the group has transformed itself into a covert network with as many as 20,000 fighters in northern Syria and Iraq, where the United Nations believes it is preparing for an “eventual resurgence” to re-establish its “caliphate,” the quasi-state that once controlled an area the size of the U.K. Iraqi officials are clearly worried that the return of ISIS could exponentially magnify their internal crisis.

What’s taking place in Iraq is similar to the Arab Spring protest movements that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya beginning in 2011. They came close to overthrowing Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, too, before Russia and Iran intervened to prop him up. And they find echoes in the protests that have taken place recently in Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco. Events in Iraq show that it, too, is vulnerable to the same discontent that brought down authoritarian, unresponsive governments elsewhere.

Ultimately, only Iraqis can fix Iraq. But Washington incurred a responsibility when it invaded the country in 2003. The United States must now do what it can to help provide the economic tools Iraq needs to address its problems, particularly by doing more to organize international efforts in support of long-neglected reconstruction projects in the hardest-hit provinces.

The U.S. should provide strong diplomatic backing for Iraqi leaders as they strive to implement the bold political plans and compromises they need and insist on respect for the human rights and civil liberties of the protesters. And Washington should make clear its commitment to Iraq’s security by increasing training, logistical support and equipment transfers to the Iraqi Security Forces.

American leadership on Iraq can begin to undo the damage the Trump administration’s chaotic policy in Syria has done to perceptions of U.S. regional leadership and put Iran on notice that it cannot have a free hand in the Middle East. These are tough challenges indeed, but challenges the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iraq-protests-against-iran-government-corruption-are-rare-sign-hope-ncna1078746

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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the United Solidarity and Brotherhood rally in Gaziantep, Turkey, August 28, 2016.Umit Bektas, Reuters

The post Opinion For Turkey, All Kurds Are Terrorists first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

As Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) has terrorized his opponents at home and abroad, fear has spread within the Saudi kingdom. Has he become the new Saddam of Arabia? As Iraq’s Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s, MbS is cementing his power domestically and regionally through fear and economic largesse under the guise of fighting Iran, Islamic radicalism, and terrorism.

Much like the tyrant of Baghdad did in Iraq, MbS has crushed his domestic and regional opponents. Both of them have enlisted the support of foreign powers, especially the United States and Britain, to buttress their hold on power in their territories and expand their reach internationally. They both spoke the language of “reform,” which appeals to Western audiences, and both demonized Iran as a promoter of regional instability and a source of evil internationally.

They both used chemical weapons against their opponents—Saddam against his Kurdish citizens and against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war; MbS against civilians in Yemen. Saddam threatened and later invaded his neighbor Kuwait. MbS has waged a vicious campaign against his neighbor and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Qatar and threatened to invade it.

Saddam and MbS also cynically donned the mantle of Sunni Islam in their hypocritical claims against the so-called Shia Crescent and its main proponent Iran. Saddam’s “Republic of Fear” seems to be slowly morphing into a “Kingdom of Fear” under MbS.

In his “city-busting” campaign during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam committed horrible atrocities against civilians in Iranian cities in the 1980s. Thirty years later, MbS is committing equally horrible crimes against innocent civilians in Yemen. The famine and starvation that MbS’s war has wrought on Yemeni children is arguably more calamitous than what Saddam did in Iran. Sadly, both Saddam and MbS have relied on American military, intelligence, and political support in the execution of their bloody wars.

Saddam killed thousands of people and arrested and executed hundreds of his opponents, including journalists, academics, and peaceful dissidents. MbS has used the same playbook. The “premeditated murder” of Jamal Khashoggi—a Saudi citizen, a U.S. permanent resident, and a Washington Post journalist—starkly illustrates MbS’s campaign against his critics.

Both autocrats used their foreign ministers to weave a pro-regime narrative, mainly for Western audiences, to exonerate their rulers from the war crimes they committed. Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s foreign minister, regaled Western media with his outlandish interviews about Saddam and his service to the West in fighting Iran and Islamic radicalism. Adel al-Jubeir, MbS’s foreign minister, has given frequent interviews presenting the war in Yemen as a Saudi defensive action against “evil” Iran and minimizing the horrible human tragedy that Saudi airstrikes have caused. Only a few days ago, al-Jubeir described the global reaction to the Saudi murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as “hysteria.”

Several examples highlight Mohammad bin Salman’s dystopian decent into bloody autocracy and regional chaos.

The Iran War

Saddam Hussein, the late tyrant of Iraq, went to war against Iran in September 1980 on the claim that he was protecting the Sunni Arab states against Shia Iran. He was supported by the Arab states of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and its neighboring family-ruled emirates, on the grounds that the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran under the ayatollahs’ theocratic rule planned to export its revolution to the Arab littoral of the Persian Gulf to topple the tribal regimes in the Gulf Arab emirates. Except for Syria, most Sunni Arab states supported Saddam’s war against Iran.

Saddam’s dream of defeating the “Persian menace” next door faded quickly following the defeat of his forces on al-Fao peninsula on the southern tip of Iraq. The casualties of his poorly trained soldiers began to mount, and the specter of losing the war loomed large. Recognizing this reality, the United States decided to supply Saddam with intelligence and military support. Washington’s decision was driven not by love for Saddam but by the painful memory of the hostage crisis and Iran’s newly found sense of empowerment in the Gulf region and beyond. American support for the five-year duration of the war after Fao was pivotal in Iran not winning the war and Saddam’s not losing it. Over one million Iraqis and Iranians died during that war, which lasted for most of the 1980s.

Aside from his hatred for Shia Iran, Saddam went to war to force the new regime to abrogate the Shatt al-Arab treaty, which he felt he was forced to sign with the shah of Iran in Algiers in 1975. The treaty gave Iran the right to pass through the Shatt al-Arab estuary to reach Abadan, Iran’s major oil city. Saddam correctly believed at the time that by signing the treaty, the shah-supported Kurdish rebellion in the north would end. It did. In return, Saddam expelled Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the “cassette” revolution against the shah from southern Iraq, from the country. Khomeini continued his anti-shah movement from France.

During the war, Saddam persecuted and terrified his Shia population, and right after the war, he gassed Iraqi Kurds in the Iraqi town of Halabja. Also, following the war when oil-rich Gulf Arab states refused to pay Saddam billions of dollars to shore up his depleted budget, he invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Once this happened, Washington put Saddam in the cross hairs.

Upon his appointment by his ailing king as Saudi Arabia’s minister of defense, the 31-year-old MbS started his war in Yemen against the Houthis, which has presumably been conducted by a Saudi-led Sunni Arab coalition in which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates assumed a pivotal role. Like Saddam before him, MbS has used the Iran “menace” to justify a war against a neighbor. In addition to the Sunni Arab states, MbS has received tacit and explicit support from Israel and the United States. Washington has extended a vast array of intelligence and tactical support in its prosecution of the war, including weapons that have left thousands of Yemenis homeless, hungry, and destitute.

Airstrikes have caused untold misery and death, without much concern in the West other than from human rights organizations. Western leaders, much as they did during the Iran-Iraq war, have paid lip service to the Yemeni human tragedy without holding MbS accountable for this arguably illegal war. A few days ago, the Independent reported that the death toll in the Yemen war could be “five times higher than we think.” It’s time for the international community to take responsibility for the human disaster that the Saudi-led war has created in Yemen.  Washington should halt its weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and should hold MbS responsible for the war crimes he is committing in Yemen.

In pursuing the war in Yemen, MbS, much like Saddam, also harbors territorial interests. He wanted to control access to the Bab al-Mandab between the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, which also connects with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea on the other end of the Red Sea. When MbS offered billions of dollars to Egypt’s strongman Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to shore up the Egyptian economy, Sisi gave him Sanafir and Tiran, two strategically located islands in the Red Sea. MbS’s ambition seems to establish Saudi Arabia as the preponderant power in the Arabian Peninsula as a countervailing force to Iran.

Kuwait and Qatar

Two years following his disastrous war with Iran, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, ostensibly to reclaim it as Iraqi territory. Although some Iraqi government officials have at different times referred to Kuwait as the nineteenth province of Iraq, Saddam’s invasion was driven by his anger at the emirate’s refusal to forgive the billions of dollars in debts that Iraq owed Kuwait for the loans it received during the war. Saddam arrogantly believed that his war against Iran helped save Kuwait and other emirates from Iran. Of course, the American-led coalition declared war on Saddam and forced him to leave the “nineteenth province” 100 hours after the start of the war.

MbS’s hostility toward Qatar, which has been driven by the Qatari emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s independent streak toward Saudi Arabia and his lukewarm support for MbS’s adventurism in Yemen and bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, led him to declare an illegal siege on Qatar, a fellow member in the GCC. He closed the Qatari-Saudi border and halted all trade with Qatar, which had previously imported most of its food stuffs over land via Saudi Arabia. MbS intended to starve the Qatari people, forcing them to rise up against their ruler. This deadly, childish game of blockade and severing of diplomatic relations—which Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt supported—has failed to cow Tamim into submission. Tamim has survived MbS’s plotting, developed new trade routes, and remained an independent player in the region.

During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam dried up the marches in southern Iraq to force the Shia into submission. MbS is now trying to dig a trench between Saudi Arabia and Qatar to alter the emirate’s geography from an island into a peninsula, thereby further isolating it. The marches are back brimming with wild life, and Saddam failed to subdue Iraqi Shia. The wasteful trench project will equally fail to force the Qatari ruler into submission. The animus that Saddam exhibited toward Kuwait on the eve of the invasion in 1990 and the bellicosity MbS displayed toward Qatar differ little in the geopolitics of the Middle East. The difference is that Saddam invaded Kuwait while the United States and others strongly advised MbS against invading Qatar.

Saddam’s arrogance of power and obsession with regional leadership led him to pursue military adventurism in the neighborhood, which brought disaster to him and his country. In pursuing similar policies, will MbS face the same fate?

The post MbS: The New Saddam Of Arabia? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.