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.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is inheriting a landscape of challenges and ill will toward the United States in many countries.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

U.S. relations with China are the worst since the countries normalized ties four decades ago. America’s allies in Europe are alienated. The most important nuclear anti-proliferation treaty is about to expire with Russia. Iran is amassing enriched nuclear fuel again, and North Korea is brandishing its atomic arsenal.

Not to mention global warming, refugee crises, and looming famines in some of the poorest places on earth, all amplified by the pandemic.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is inheriting a landscape of challenges and ill-will toward the United States in countries hostile to President Trump’s “America First” mantra, his unpredictability, embrace of autocratic leaders, and resistance to international cooperation. Mr. Biden also could face difficulties in dealing with governments that had hoped for Mr. Trump’s re-election — particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia, which share the president’s deep antipathy toward Iran.

Outside the United States Consulate in Chengdu in July, after China ordered the United States to close the consulate there.Credit…Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

The Middle East: Shifts on Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran?

Mr. Biden has vowed to reverse what he called the “dangerous failure” of Mr. Trump’s Iran policy, which repudiated the 2015 nuclear agreement and replaced it with tightening sanctions that have caused deep economic damage in Iran and left the United States largely isolated on this issue.

Mr. Biden has offered to rejoin the agreement, which constricts Iran’s nuclear capabilities if Tehran adheres to its provisions and commits to further negotiations. He also has pledged to immediately nullify Mr. Trump’s travel ban affecting Iran and several other Muslim-majority countries.

Whether Iran’s hierarchy will accept Mr. Biden’s approach is unclear. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has said the United States is untrustworthy regardless who is in the White House. At the same time, “Iran is desperate for a deal,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Still, Mr. Kupchan said, Mr. Biden will face enormous difficulties in any negotiations with Iran aimed at strengthening restrictions on its nuclear activities — weaknesses Mr. Trump had cited to justify renouncing the nuclear agreement.

“The substance will be tough — we’ve seen this movie and it’s not easy,” Mr. Kupchan said. “I think Biden’s challenge is that it will not end up blowing up in his face.”

Mr. Biden’s Iran policy could alienate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who leveraged Mr. Trump’s confrontational approach to help strengthen Israel’s relations with Gulf Arab countries, punctuated by normalization of diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. How Mr. Biden manages relations with Saudi Arabia, which considers Iran an enemy, will also be a challenge.

“There’s a very hard square to circle here,” Mr. Kupchan said.

Mr. Trump’s extremely favorable treatment of Israel in the protracted conflict with the Palestinians also could prove nettlesome as Mr. Biden navigates a different path in the Middle East. He has criticized Israeli settlement construction in occupied lands the Palestinians want for a future state. And he is likely to restore contacts with the Palestinian leadership.

“Benjamin Netanyahu can expect an uncomfortable period of adjustment,” an Israeli columnist, Yossi Verter, wrote Friday in the Haaretz newspaper.

At the same time, Mr. Biden also has a history of cordial relations with Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Biden has said he would not reverse Mr. Trump’s transfer of the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv — a relocation that deeply angered the Palestinians.

“We had differences, but there was never a basic mistrust about having common views of the world,” Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway, told The New York Times last month. Over the past four years, she said, European leaders had learned they could “no longer take for granted that they can trust the U.S., even on basic things.”

A photo released by the official North Korean government news service shows a test launch of a Hwasong-14, one of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.Credit…Korean Central News Agency

Confronting North Korea’s nuclear threat

Mr. Trump has described his friendship and three meetings with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, as a success that averted war with the nuclear-armed hermetic country. But critics say Mr. Trump’s approach not only failed to persuade Mr. Kim to relinquish his arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, it bought Mr. Kim time to strengthen them. Last month the North unveiled what appeared to be its largest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile.

“On Trump’s watch, the North’s nuclear weapons program has grown apace, its missile capabilities have expanded, and Pyongyang can now target the United States with an ICBM,” said Evans J.R. Revere, a former State Department official and expert on North Korea. “That is the legacy that Trump will soon pass on to Biden, and it will be an enormous burden.”

Mr. Biden, who has been described by North Korea’s official news agency as a rabid dog that “must be beaten to death with a stick,” has criticized Mr. Trump’s approach as appeasement of a dictator. Mr. Biden has said he would press for denuclearization and “stand with South Korea,” but has not specified how he would deal with North Korean belligerence.

As vice president, Mr. Biden pushed for sanctions against Russia over President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea.Credit…Pool photo by Mikhail Klimentyev

A likely tougher approach to Russia and Putin

Mr. Biden has long asserted that he would take a much harder line with Russia than Mr. Trump, who questioned NATO’s usefulness, doubted intelligence warnings on Russia’s interference in U.S. elections, admired President Vladimir V. Putin, and said that improving American relations with the Kremlin would benefit all. Mr. Biden, who as vice president pushed for sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 — the biggest illegal land seizure in Europe since World War II — might seek to extend those sanctions and take other punitive steps.

While tensions with Russia would likely rise, arms control is one area where Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin share a desire for progress. Mr. Biden is set to be sworn in just a few weeks before the scheduled expiration of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. He has said he wants to negotiate an extension of the treaty without preconditions.

A migrant from Honduras, near the border in Juárez, Mexico, seeking asylum in the United States.Credit…Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

A return to the Paris Agreement and international commitments

Mr. Biden has said one of his first acts as president will be to rejoin the Paris Climate accord to limit global warming, which the United States officially left under Mr. Trump on Wednesday. Mr. Biden also has said he would restore U.S. membership in the World Health Organization, which Mr. Trump repudiated in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, describing the W.H.O. as a lackey of China.

More broadly, Mr. Biden is expected to reverse many of the isolationist and anti-immigrant steps taken during the Trump administration, which are widely seen by Mr. Trump’s critics as shameful stains on American standing in the world. Mr. Biden has said he would disband Mr. Trump’s immigration restrictions, stop construction of his border wall with Mexico, expand resources for immigrants and provide a path to citizenship for people living in the United States illegally.

Nonetheless, many of Mr. Trump’s policies had considerable support in the United States, and it remains to be seen how quickly or effectively Mr. Biden can change them. The convulsions that roiled American democracy and the divisive election have also sown doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver on his pledges.

“There is relief at a return to some kind of normalcy, but at the same time, history cannot be erased,” said Jean-Marie Guehenno, a French diplomat who is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program and a former under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations. “The kind of soft power that the United States has enjoyed in the past has largely evaporated.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/world/americas/Biden-foreign-policy.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

The post Biden to Face Long List of Foreign Challenges, With China No. 1 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In a dramatic sign of how Democrats’ messaging apparently backfired, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” ran an ill-timed sketch suggesting that Trump had created “jobs” for ISIS — just hours before the president held a news conference announcing al-Baghdadi’s demise. The sketch aired around the time the two-hour late-night raid in northwest Syria was underway.

“It’s genuinely fascinating watching Democrats in the real-time struggle to figure out what to say about this,” journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote on Sunday. “They want to be patriotic and anti-ISIS, but also need a way to malign Trump without contradicting their gushing Obama praise over [Usama bin Laden]: not an easy balancing act. Good luck!”

WASHINGTON POST PRAISES ISIS LEADER AS ‘AUSTERE RELIGIOUS SCHOLAR,’ DESPITE HISTORY OF RAPE, MURDER

Through the day, the Democrats — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Menendez and former Vice President Joe Biden — seemingly settled on a new strategy. They praised the troops who executed the historic raid, while pointedly avoiding complimenting the president in any way.

Congressional Democrats also lamented that they were not informed in advance of the operation, while the Russian military was told so that their airspace could be used. The president suggested Sunday that Democrats in Congress, who have been conducting an impeachment inquiry against him that has been fraught with leaked information to the media, were not notified before the raid because of concerns they might compromise the operation with leaks.

“I congratulate our special forces, our intelligence community, and all our brave military professionals on delivering justice to the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” Biden, one of the many Democrats seeking to unseat Trump in 2020, said. He went on to call on Trump to “keep up the pressure to prevent ISIS from ever regrouping or again threatening the United States.”

Pelosi, meanwhile, praised the “heroism, dedication and skill of our military and our intelligence professionals and acknowledge the work of our partners in the region,” then condemned Trump’s “green-lighting of Turkish aggression into Syria against our Kurdish partners.”

However, in May 2011, when President Obama announced Usama bin Laden’s death, Pelosi, D-Calif., was much less reluctant to praise the commander-in-chief.

“I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment,” Pelosi said at the time.

LIKE ‘WATCHING A MOVIE’ — HERE’S HOW THE DARING RAID WENT DOWN

Some commentators also noted that The Washington Post also had applied a different standard on Sunday than it did when bin Laden was killed. “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48,” read a head-turning, since-changed headline in the Post.

The sympathetic obituary described the terror leader as “a shy, nearsighted youth who liked soccer but preferred to spend his free time at the local mosque” and noted that “despite the group’s extremist views and vicious tactics, Mr. Baghdadi maintained a canny pragmatism as leader.”

But in 2011, the Post’s headline announcing bin Laden’s death flatly called him the leader of a “terrorist group.”

In her statement Sunday, Pelosi further demanded that the “House must be briefed on this raid, which the Russians but not top congressional leadership were notified of in advance, and on the administration’s overall strategy in the region.”

That was a line of attack that had already resonated among progressive commentators and journalists on Twitter. CNBC reporter John Harwood remarked: “Trump didn’t give Pelosi advance word, indicating he didn’t trust her to keep intel secrets Pelosi was ranking Dem on Intel Committee. … Trump gave top Russian officials classified info in Oval Office.”

For his part, Menendez, D-N.J., on Sunday also steered clear of praising or saluting Trump, and instead exalted “our men and women in uniform who successfully executed the attack on a brutal murderer who mercilessly killed Americans, terrorized populations across the Middle East, and threatened regional peace and security.”

The operation, Menendez said, “is a testament to the courage of our military who put their lives at risk every day to protect our nation, and a sobering reminder of the importance of sustained American leadership with reliable and capable partners on the ground, including the Syrian Democratic Forces and Iraqi military.”

Republicans, on the other hand, called the ISIS leader’s death the culmination of the Trump administration’s campaign against the terror group. The so-called ISIS caliphate that dominated Iraq has largely crumbled under a withering barrage of airpower from U.S. and allied forces in the region.

GOP Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, praised the soldiers who carried out the raid, then added: “Of course, I commend the president. I mean, we got one bada– president to make this kind of decision, and his statement this morning was awesome. It was awesome.”

“We got one bada– president to make this kind of decision, and his statement this morning was awesome. It was awesome.”

— GOP Tennessee Rep. Mark Green

Other Republicans echoed that sentiment, although with somewhat less colorful language.

“President Trump and the Trump administration had already largely decimated and destroyed ISIS — the body of the snake,” GOP Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But, yesterday they cut off the head of the snake in killing Baghdadi. ”

‘HE DIED LIKE A COWARD’: TRUMP DESCRIBES ISIS LEADER’S LAST MOMENTS AS US SPECIAL FORCES CLOSED IN

Georgia GOP Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, suggested Trump’s decision not to inform congressional Democrats in advance of the raid was sound.

“Anybody who looks to ISIS right now ought to look to their leader who went pretty, cowered in a corner and blew himself up,” Collins said. He added that the “bigger story” was that Trump “can’t get information from his own intel committee about Syria. It goes to show you that this president who has been attacked and who has been harassed by an impeachment probe for the last 10 months, while all of this is going on in the House… this president… kept his eye on the ball.”

The spin commenced immediately after Trump’s speech to the nation Sunday morning, when he announced that the ISIS leader — a notorious murderer and rapist whom Trump called a “gutless animal” — had died “in a vicious and violent way, as a coward, running and crying.”

al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive vest as U.S. Special Operations Forces stormed his compound in the Idlib Province, Trump said, killing him and three of his children.

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“No personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi’s fighters and companions were killed with him,” Trump announced, adding that the U.S. recovered “highly sensitive” materials related to ISIS. “You are the very best anywhere in the world,” Trump later said of the U.S. forces.

Trump said al-Baghdadi died while being chased down by U.S. forces in a tunnel, and that the ISIS leader was “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/baghdadi-democrats-trump-syria-pullback-isis

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WASHINGTON — The Senate failed Monday in a bid to override a trio of vetoes issued by President Trump, allowing the administration to move forward with plans to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump’s decision to sell the weapons in a way that would have bypassed congressional review infuriated lawmakers from both parties. In a bipartisan pushback, Democrats and Republicans banded together to pass resolutions blocking the $8.1 billion weapons sales to the U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.

Votes to override Trump’s vetoes failed, 45-40, 45-39 and 46-41. A two-thirds vote was needed in each case.

The White House argued that stopping the sales would send a signal that the United States doesn’t stand by its partners and allies, particularly at a time when threats from hostile countries such as Iran are increasing. Saudi Arabia has long been a regional rival to Iran. Its strategic importance has grown as tensions with Iran have mounted after Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 accord that restricts the Iranian nuclear program.

The Senate votes came as the House Oversight Committee released a report criticizing the Trump administration over its apparent willingness to allow the president’s friends and allies undue influence over policy toward Saudi Arabia.

New documents obtained by the committee “raise serious questions about whether the White House is willing to place the potential profits of the president’s friends above the national security of the American people and the universal objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons,” the report said.

The report “exposes how corporate and foreign interests are using their unique access to advocate for the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s Democratic chairman.

Cummings, who has repeatedly targeted the Trump administration in a series of investigations, came under sharp attack from Trump this weekend when the president called the congressman’s district a “disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess” were “no human being would want to live.”

The 50-page Oversight report, released Monday, says Trump’s longtime personal friend, campaign donor and inaugural chairman, Tom Barrack, negotiated directly with Trump and other White House officials to seek positions within the administration, including special envoy to the Middle East and ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

At the same time, Barrack was promoting the interests of U.S. corporations seeking to profit from the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia; advocating on behalf of foreign interests seeking to obtain U.S. nuclear technology; and taking steps for his own company, Colony NorthStar, to profit from the proposals, the report said.

One of the companies leading an effort to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia, IP3 International, repeatedly pressed the Trump administration not to require Saudi Arabia to commit to a rigorous “gold standard” in any agreement with the U.S., complaining it would lock them out of lucrative nuclear contracts, the report said.

IP3 officials had “unprecedented access” to the highest levels of the Trump administration, including meetings with Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Cabinet Secretaries Rick Perry, Steven Mnuchin, Mike Pompeo, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, and Wilbur Ross, the report said.

The report also criticized the White House for refusing to produce any documents in the investigation and said communications obtained from outside sources indicate Kushner and other officials used personal email or text accounts to communicate about Saudi-related deals.

The private communications appear to violate White House policy and the Presidential Records Act, the report said.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

A spokesman for Barrack said he has been cooperating with the Oversight panel and provided documents the committee requested.

The spokesman, Owen Blicksilver, said Barrack’s investments and business activities are well known and are intended to “better align” the Middle East and U.S. objectives. Barrack has never served in the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has approved seven applications for U.S. companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia could develop nuclear weapons if the U.S. technology is transferred without proper safeguards.

Congress is increasingly uneasy with the close relationship between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia. Trump has made the kingdom a centerpiece of his foreign policy in the Middle East as he tries to further isolate Iran. In the process, Trump has brushed off criticism over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudis’ role in the war in Yemen.

“From the start, this administration has failed to demonstrate what kind of national security threat or quote-unquote ‘emergency’ from Iran warranted fast-tracking the sale of these weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.,” said Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The pending sale “not only is a Saudi jobs program, but it is also a giveaway of sensitive U.S. military technology,” Menendez said.

Source: https://triblive.com/news/world/senate-bows-to-trump-vetoes-allows-saudi-arms-sales/

The post Senate bows to Trump vetoes, allows Saudi arms sales first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, and during the hearing, the subcommittee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, South Carolina), grilled him on the Trump administration’s foreign policy objectives.

High among Graham’s priorities was the future of northeastern Syria, where the US has some 2,000 Special Forces deployed alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), America’s main ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria.

Graham repeatedly asked Pompeo about a “stabilizing force” that would remain in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, after the bulk of US forces are withdrawn.

US officials have grappled with the problem of how to deal with that area ever since President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement in December that US troops would leave following the military defeat of the Islamic State.

Eastern Syria is strategic territory, and various parties, some hostile to the US, would step into the vacuum if US forces left abruptly. Moreover, senior US officials—including Trump himself—have repeatedly said they will ensure the protection of America’s Kurdish allies there.

The latest approach to that problem appears to be the creation of a “stabilizing force” in the territory now under the control of the SDF and coalition troops. Graham’s questions focused on understanding the nature of that force.

“The stabilizing force” in Syria will have “more Europeans and our numbers” will decrease. “Is that correct?,” Graham asked Pompeo.

“That’s the discussion that’s underway,” the Secretary replied.

Graham, who also serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long been prominently concerned about the fate of the Kurds, both in Syria and in Iraq. Among other things, Graham played a key role in getting Trump to modify his original decision to withdraw all US forces from Syria.

“Do you agree,” Graham continued, as he addressed Pompeo at Tuesday’s hearing, that “a stabilizing force in northeastern Syria” will prevent Iran from “taking over the oil” there?

“It is an important part of our overall Middle East strategy,” Pompeo replied, “including our counter-Iran strategy.”

Stressing that point, Graham continued, “So containing Iran would include having a policy in Syria that would keep them from benefitting from our withdrawal?”

“That’s right,” Pompeo said, as he also affirmed that the US would maintain a contingent of troops at al-Tanf, further south on Syria’s border with Iraq, which sits astride the main highway from Baghdad to Damascus and Beirut.

By remaining in al-Tanf, the US will continue to block a route that would otherwise become a key part of the “land-bridge” to the Mediterranean that Tehran seeks.

The exchange between Graham and Pompeo over the “stabilization force” marked the first clarification of the future US posture in eastern Syria since late March, when US officials ceased to speak about a “safe zone,” but did not explain what else they had in mind.

Graham also raised the issue of US relations with Turkey, which have become particularly troubled over Ankara’s repeatedly stated intent to purchase the S-400, Russia’s most advanced air defense system.

Graham asked, “Have you told Turkey, that if they deploy the S-400, they can’t be part of the F-35 program,” America’s latest, most sophisticated jet-fighter?

“Yes,” was Pompeo’s terse, one-word reply.

Editing by Nadia Riva

Source:  http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/0fbdd37c-74a7-4ae5-96ad-615879d296b6

The post US plans ‘stabilizing force’ for Syria first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The United States has quietly frozen its aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) pending review,i24NEWS has learned. The move comes two months after Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which aimed to force the PA to terminate its “pay-for-slay” policies of paying stipends to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and to the families of dead terrorists.

The act orders that US assistance to the West Bank and Gaza “that directly benefits the PA” be suspended unless the Secretary of State certifies that the Palestinian Authority has met four conditions: terminating these payments to terrorists, revoking laws authorizing this compensation, taking “credible steps” to end Palestinian terrorism, and “publicly condemning” and investigating such acts of violence.

The Taylor Force Act was passed as part of an omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill on 23 March 2018. It was named for the US army veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Jaffa in March 2016, in an attack that injured eleven people.

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee aide told i24NEWS, “Our understanding is that US funding to the West Bank and Gaza is on hold pending an administration review.”

Separately, i24NEWS understands that the West Bank and Gaza office of USAID — the American international development agency — has not received its budget for the upcoming fiscal year and therefore has not been able to put its projects out to tender.

The funding freeze has caused the suspension of certain programs run by international agencies. An official at the HALO Trust, which performs landmine clearance operations in the West Bank, told i24NEWS that it had suspended operations because the United States had stopped transferring funds at the end of May, leaving a major funding shortfall.

The withholding of USAID’s total budget as well as third-party projects means the administration is taking an expansive interpretation of what assistance “directly benefits” the PA, viewing humanitarian projects that would otherwise need to be paid for by the PA as constituting direct assistance to that organization.

A Palestinian official confirmed the report, saying the Trump administration had told the PA in mid-January 2018 that it was reexamining its Palestinian aid budget. He said the United States had informed the PA after the emergency Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Istanbul in mid-May, which convened in protest at the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the situation in Gaza, that the assistance had been put on hold and placed under review.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walks with US President Donald Trump in Washington on March 5, 2018 but now he returns home to what may be the most crucial stretch of his long career with corruption probes encircling him   MANDEL NGAN (AFP)

The United States was, till now, the world’s largest financial backer of the PA. Although it did not provide the PA direct budgetary assistance, unlike the European Union, it contributed massive funds for humanitarian projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as for UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency.

The total aid budget requested by the State Department for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 stood at $215 million annually for projects designed to boost the Palestinian economy, develop infrastructure, and boost institutional capacity among other goals.

The suspension of this aid means the Secretary of State has not certified that the Palestinian Authority has taken the steps the Taylor Force Act demanded. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has defended these payments as “social responsibility”.

The committee aide also confirmed that the State Department has submitted to Congress its criteria for determining assistance that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority, as the act required. The US State Department declined to share this unclassified report.

The PA has long had a policy of paying stipends to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and to the families of dead militants. In 2017, the total budget for “prisoners’ payments” stood at $345 million, equivalent to half of the international contributions to the PA’s budget. The stipend is pegged to the length of the convicted terrorists’ prison sentences, meaning it is indirectly pegged to the severity of the crime.

The Trump administration slashed US payments to UNRWA in January 2018. UNRWA says $305 million have been withheld, plunging the agency into its “largest funding crisis ever” and forcing it to scramble for emergency contributions from other nations.

The funding cut comes at a time of an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between the United States and the PA, which is boycotting Trump administration officials and rejecting in advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan they intend to launch soon.

Eylon Levy is the i24NEWS investigative reporter. Twitter: @EylonALevy

Senior Middle East Correspondent Mohammed al-Kassim contributed to this report

Source: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/177909-180624-exclusive-us-freezes-palestinian-aid-budget

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