France to probe "major lead" in MH370 hunt | Thursday July 30th, 2015 at 9:55 AM U.S. National Security And Military News Review: A United States Congressional review into last month’s cyber theft of millions of government personnel records has concluded that its impact will go far “beyond mere theft of classified information”.
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Investigators say "high degree of certainty" aircraft wreckage found on island in Indian Ocean is from same kind of plane as missing Malaysia air flight
intelnewsian by Ian Allen
A United States Congressional review into last month’s cyber theft of millions of government personnel records has concluded that its impact will go far “beyond mere theft of classified information”.
Marine, NATO, Georgian forces unite during command post exercise
Camp Lejeune Globe About 250 service members from five NATO-allied nations joined forces with the host-nation of Georgia during Agile Spirit 15's command post exercise July 18 through 21 at Vaziani Training Area. "It's always important for us to develop partnerships with ... and more » |
 New York Daily News |
Former Navy SEAL alleges anti-gay bullying by CIA workers
Fox News Brett Jones said he filed the complaint last week against the CIA, saying he was forced to endure homophobic slurs and other inappropriate comments on June 11 in Afghanistan as a group of contractors and civil servants in the agency's Global Response ... Ex-Navy SEAL Alleges Anti-Gay Bullying by CIA WorkersABC News Openly gay CIA contractor faked family emergency to leave Afghanistan amid ...New York Daily News all 44 news articles » |
Top General Gives ‘Pragmatic’ View of Iran Nuclear Deal
By HELENE COOPER and GARDINER HARRIS
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Cybersecurity workforce shortage: Millions of experts needed
KSAT San Antonio While the need for cybersecurity swells, the industry is facing a workforce shortage. Ruben Portillo, who oversees issues like cybersecurity for Northeast Independent School District's Safety Department, said the necessity for cybersecurity even ... |
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A group of warships of Russia's Black Sea Fleet (BSF) led by the Moskva missile cruiser is returning to the Mediterranean after a series of exercises in the Atlantic Ocean, BSF spokesman Captain 1st Rank Vyacheslav Trukhachev told reporters on Wednesday.
The Guards Missile Brigade of the Baltic Fleet's coastal troops based in Russia's westernmost Kaliningrad Region will hold drills with simulated multiple and single missile launches, Western Military District spokesman Andrey Bespaly said on Wednesday.
The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missiles and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $5.4 billion. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on July 28, 2015.
A group of 12 Russian combat aircraft has been spotted on Wednesday close to Latvia's airspace, Latvian National Armed Forces said in a statement.
Berlin says German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the president of Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, Massoud Barzani, agree that Turkey should continue a peace process with Kurds despite a rise in violence.
The Security Council today extended for another year the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and expressed its intention to review the operation's mandate in twelve months or sooner, if requested by the Iraqi Government.
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U.S. President Barack Obama's trip to Africa this week culminates a streak of accomplishments that he has achieved at a time in a president's term when most U.S. leaders are considered powerless "lame ducks," analysts say.
The U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement limits Iran's ability to produce a nuclear bomb but puts no limits on the Defense Department or the United States, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate panel today.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reiterated that cooperation on the recent nuclear agreement between Iran and G5+1 should be a basis for relations coupled with confidence for the future.
It's no secret that a tide of hearty enthusiasm for Russia has been sweeping France's right-wing parties of late.
China's widespread crackdown on rights lawyers and activists over the past three weeks has fueled growing concerns that President Xi Jinping is using the law as a tool to mute dissidents and those who defend them in court.
July 30, 2015, 9:10 AM (IDT)
American investigators have concluded that a large object that washed up Wednesday on the shore of Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, came from the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, the first object every found since the Boeing 777 disappeared mysteriously in March 2014.They are waiting for French aviation experts to confirm the find belonged to the doomed plane. It is a piece of debris about 9 feet long and 3 feet wide which looks like a wing flap.
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Understanding the Indications and Warning Efforts of US Ballistic Missile Defense
ISN According to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, “countries invest in ballistic missiles because they are a means to project power in regional and strategic contexts” and provide “a capability to launch an attack from a distance.”1 This has led to an ... |
The Russian government has signed major nuclear cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan since the start of this year, increasing its influence among traditional U.S. allies in the region.
In June, Russia closed a major deal on nuclear cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Since the end of the last decade the Saudis have been implementing plans to construct as many as 16 commercial nuclear power plants. The Saudis have signed agreements with other nuclear nations, including the United States, France, China and Argentina, to help construct the reactors.
Russia is now expected to play a sizable role in operating the nuclear plants, which are still to be built.
The Saudis have indicated that a nuclear program will free up oil reserves to be used almost exclusively for foreign sales that generate hard currency earnings.
In February, Russia and Egypt secured a preliminary deal in which Russia signaled its willingness to assist Egypt in building its first nuclear power plant. The agreement was announced during President Vladimir Putin’s February visit to Cairo, during which he also solidified Russia’s overall political and trade relationships with his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Current plans call for the power plant to be built near the northern Egyptian city of El Dabaa. Russia, which has extensive experience with nuclear energy, has offered to provide training and nuclear-related research for Egyptian engineers.
Shortly thereafter, the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission and Russia’s Rosatom, the state-run nuclear energy corporation, agreed on a plan for the construction of Jordan’s first nuclear power plant. Under the agreement two nuclear reactors of 1000 megawatts each would be built.
As with the plans in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, construction of the nuclear power reactors is a complex undertaking and could easily take as many as 10 years. For Jordan, the reactors will provide badly needed cheap electricity.
The three deals will earn Russia billions of dollars in new business, but it has been suggested that Russia and its new partners also have political goals in mind. The three Arab states involved in pursuing new paths of nuclear cooperation with Russia are all Sunni nations. The recently negotiated nuclear deal between the major powers and Iran, a Shiite, Persian nation, may have convinced the Arabs that Iran would one day become a nuclear weapons state.
Civilian nuclear power, such as that which the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians are seeking, has been used in the past in other nations to serve as cover for an enrichment program, a direct path toward acquiring fissile material.
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· ·
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) called for the Department of Veterans Affairs to be “fundamentally turned on its head” during remarks made in Washington, D.C., Tuesday.
Speaking at the Conservative Reform Network’s “Room to Grow: A Series” launch at Google’s offices in the district, McCarthy discussed entrepreneurship in the United States and the need for innovation in the federal government.
The California lawmaker cited the VA as an an example of the need for reform in government agencies.
“The VA has severe problems,” McCarthy said. “We’ve done everything we could to change it. We’ve changed the secretary; we’ve changed the rules, we’ve given them a tremendous amount more money and the wait times are even longer.”
McCarthy pointed to what he considers the illogical structure of the VA, which prevents incompetent employees from being held accountable. Rep. Jeff Miller (R., Fla.) has sought to resolve the issue in the wake of the fake waitlist scandal by introducing a bill that would allow Robert McDonald, the agency’s secretary, to remove or demote a VA employee on the grounds of poor performance or misconduct.
Miller expressed skepticism earlier this month that McDonald even wants such power. President Obama threatened Wednesday to veto the legislation, labeling it “counterproductive.”
“You know what happens in the VA system? You can’t get rid of anybody,” McCarthy said. “The structure does not allow you to do that. … One person has been fired in this process about that wait time, [but] she didn’t get fired because she didn’t do the wait time right. She did something illegal somewhere else. They couldn’t even fire her for the incompetence.”
“You have a structure that’s designed to be dysfunctional and you get a dysfunctional outcome and you wonder, ‘Why do I have to do it?’ Oh, it’s government. We should put up with it—no,” McCarthy said. “That’s why I think it needs to be fundamentally turned on its head to be able to go forward.”
He also complained of the $3 billion deficit in the VA budget that the agency reported to Congress weeks late due to technological incompetence. If lawmakers do not sort out the budget fiasco, some VA hospital operations could be shut down.
“Before we leave this week, we have to give the VA $3.3 billion more,” McCarthy said. “They were before committee less than a month ago and they never mentioned that they were going to have a $3 billion deficit this year. But a week later they come back and say, My God, we didn’t realize this. So you ask the question, Why didn’t you realize this? Well, we have two computer systems.”
“The answer is not just to feed them more money,” he continued. “Turn it upside on its head.”
From an entrepreneurial perspective, McCarthy explained, the VA should not be spending federal money on “bricks and mortars” to build additional facilities but should instead find a way to provide a greater choice of hospitals at which the nation’s veterans can receive care.
“How long do we have to accept the dysfunctional government?” he asked.
In a more general discussion of the place for innovation in Washington, McCarthy called for the branches of government to become “co-equal,” citing the REINS Act, which passed the House on Tuesday, as a way that Congress can achieve a level playing field with the executive branch.
The legislation, formally known as the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act, wouldrequire Congress to approve all federal regulations with at least $100 million in annual economic impact.
“You might think that’s no big deal, but if you want to start a company, its probably one of the biggest deals [in terms of] whether you can enter the market,” McCarthy said of the bill.
President Obama has in the past threatened to veto such legislation.
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· · ·
Senior Iranian officials are accusing the Obama administration of lying about the details of the recent nuclear accord in order to soothe fears among U.S. lawmakers and Americans about the implications of the deal, which will release billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic while temporarily freezing its nuclear program, according to reports from Iran’s state-controlled media.
As Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior Obama administration figures launch a full-court press to convince Congress to approve the deal, Iranian leaders are dismissing the rhetoric as “aimed at domestic consumption.”
Kerry and other top administration officials have been defending the deal on Capitol Hill in recent days, claiming that it will rein in the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program and fix its nuclear “breakout” period, the time required for it to obtain the amount of highly enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon, at one year.
Critics have noted that the deal provides Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief that could be spent on terrorism and lifts bans on Iran’s export of weapons and construction of ballistic missiles.
When addressing claims this week by the administration that the deal shuts down Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, Iranian officials scoffed and said that the Obama administration is misleading the public in order to sell the deal.
Hamid Baeidinejad, an official in the Iranian foreign ministry and one of the country’s nuclear negotiators, scoffed on Wednesday at the Obama administration’s comments, saying that they were meant to placate an American domestic audience.
“The remarks by the western officials are ambiguous comments which are merely uttered for domestic use and therefore we should say that there is no ambiguity in this (nuclear) agreement,” the Fars news agency quoted Baeidinejad saying in an interview with state-controlled radio.
Baeidinejad said that the Obama administration is misleading Americans about the deal in order to “calm opponents in the Congress and Zionist lobbies to soothe the internal conditions prevailing over debates on the nuclear agreement in that country,” Fars, which is also run by the Iranian state, reported.
As Congress spends 60 days reviewing the deal, which it may reject, the Iranian parliament is undertaking the same task.
During a meeting on Wednesday with Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran urged world powers to keep its commitments under the deal.
These includes lifting sanctions on the nearly $100 billion dollar financial empire of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and agreeing to bar American inspectors from all Iranian nuclear sites.
“The Iranian government is standing strong on the path of (implementing) the agreement and we will remain committed to our undertakings as long as the other side remains loyal to its obligations,” Rouhani was quoted as saying during a meeting in Tehran with Fabius, who served as a key negotiator for the French.
Rouhani said the agreement could help Iran become a key player on the international stage.
“This agreement is not against any country and our cooperation and consultations to settle the regional problems, including fight against terrorism, humanitarian aids, and materialization of nations’ demands can prove it,” Rouhani was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Fabius was met at the airport by Iranian protestors who accused him of serving as an Israeli spy.
“The protesters chanted slogans such as ‘Aids, A French Gift to Iran’, ‘We Neither Forgive nor Forget’, ‘Fabius, Servant of the US, Spy of Israel’ and ‘No Welcome to Aids Lord,’” according to Fars.
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· · ·
OMAHA—China and Russia are developing maneuvering high-speed strike vehicles that pose new threats to the United States, U.S. Strategic Command leaders said Wednesday.
Adm. Cecil D. Haney, Strategic Command’s (Stratcom) senior leader, said during remarks at a nuclear deterrence conference that despite arms control efforts, hypersonic weapons are among several threatening strategic trends emerging in the world.
China has conducted four flight tests of a 7,000 mile-per-hour maneuvering strike vehicle, and Russia is developing high-speed weapons and reportedly tested a hypersonic weapon in February.
“Nation states continue to develop and modernize their nuclear weapon capabilities,” Haney said. “Nuclear and non-nuclear nations are prepared to employ cyber, counter-space, and asymmetric capabilities as options for achieving their objectives during crisis and conflict, and new technologies such as hypersonic glide vehicles are being developed, complicating our sensing and defensive approaches.”
The advanced weapons capabilities are being proliferated by U.S. adversaries and “are becoming increasingly mobile, hardened, and underground, which is further compounded by a lack of transparency,” the four-star admiral said.
Asked later about the hypersonic missile threat, Haney said the Pentagon is developing capabilities that can be used to counter hypersonic arms.
“As I look at that threat, clearly the mobility, the flight profile, those kinds of things are things we have to keep in mind and be able to address across that full kill chain,” Haney said.
“Kill chain” is military jargon for the process used to find targets, gauge location and speed, communicate data to weapons used to strike the target, and then launch an attack.
Stratcom is in charge of U.S. nuclear weapons and warfighting, and is tasked with protecting and countering threats to strategic space systems and cyberspace, which is used for command and control of both conventional and nuclear weapons.
Hypersonic weapons are ultra-high speed weapons launched atop missiles that accelerate to speeds of between Mach 5 and Mach 10—five and ten times the speed of sound. The vehicles fly along the edge of space and can glide and maneuver to targets.
Air Force Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the outgoing deputy commander at Stratcom, said hypersonic strike vehicles are part of efforts by nations to gain strategic advantage.
Hypersonic weapons technology “certainly offers a number of advantages to a state,” Kowalski said.
“It offers a number of different ways to overcome defenses, whether those are conventional, or if someone would decide to use a nuclear warhead, I think gives it an even more complicated dimension,” Kowalski added.
The three-star general said, “at this point since nothing is fielded it remains something that concerns us and may be an area of discussion in the future.”
Hypersonic weapons are being developed by China and Russia to defeat U.S. strategic missile defenses that currently are designed to counter non-maneuvering ballistic missile warheads that travel in more predictable flight paths that are tracked by sensors and can be hit by missile interceptors.
The National Air and Space Intelligence Center has testified to Congress that China’s hypersonic glide vehicle will be used to deliver nuclear weapons. A variant also could be used as part of China’s conventionally-armed anti-ship ballistic missile system, which is aimed at sinking U.S. aircraft carriers far from Chinese shores.
Russian officials have said their hypersonic arms development is aimed to penetrate U.S. missile defenses.
China has conducted four tests of what the Pentagon calls a Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle. The four tests over the past several years are an indication the program is a high priority for Beijing.
The Pentagon is also developing hypersonic vehicles, both gliders and “scramjet” powered weapons. A year ago, an Army test of a hypersonic weapon blew up shortly after launch from Kodiak Island, Alaska.
Haney said some of his concerns are being reduced by U.S. weapons research.
“I am assured in some regards because we ourselves are doing some research and development associated with understanding that kind of capability,” Haney said.
“But at the same time, clearly, we are working to ensure that we can do what we always do with any threat—be able to understand it and then be able to have a variety of courses of action in order to address it, number one, to deter its use, but then of course to be able to have our own mechanisms to counter that kind of capability.”
Haney said it is “very important that we pay attention to that kind of capability.”
Nuclear deterrence, preventing foreign nuclear weapons states from attacking, requires more than warheads and bombs on aircraft and missiles, Haney said.
“To have a credible, safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent, we must also ensure we have the appropriate intelligence and sensing capabilities to give us those early indications and warnings of threats coming against the U.S. and our Allies including—but not limited to—missile launches and bomber threats,” he said. “We must also maintain the ability to communicate and provide the president options should deterrence fail.”
As a result, Stratcom also must protect space assets and cyberspace in a conflict, he added.
“Peacetime activities must shape the environment of crisis and conflict and dissuade our adversaries from considering the use of cyber, space, or nuclear in a strategic attack,” Haney said.
Kowalski, the deputy commander, also was asked in a meeting with reporters about China’s development of multi-warhead missiles and whether the deployment of additional weapons will change the U.S. nuclear force posture.
“I’m not aware that there’s been any significant change in the overall size of the Chinese [nuclear] inventory that may cause us to go back and reassess,” Kowalski said.
“Right now we’re pretty comfortable that they’re well below 300 [warheads] and there’s a mix in there,” he said, adding that intelligence estimates of the Chinese arsenal are deficient and that there is a need for greater openness on the part of the Chinese.
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· · · ·
 STRATFOR |
Kyrgyzstan Quarrels With the United States, Again
STRATFOR The Kyrgyz government is clearly concerned that its strong ties with Russia in the context of Moscow's broader standoff with the West puts it at risk of U.S. retaliation. Moreover, Bishkek fears the country's history of political instability, along ... and more » |
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 Sputnik International |
NATO Should Decrease Intensity of Rhetoric With Moscow - Russian Official
Sputnik International The only thing we want to say is that the Russian Defense Ministry is ready to develop mutually beneficial international cooperation,” Antonov told journalists. NATO responded to the reunification of Crimea with Russia in March 2014 by amplifying its ... and more » |
 Business Insider |
The suspected Chinese hack on United Airlines makes the CIA's job 'much more ...
Business Insider And Dave Aitel, CEO of cybersecurity firm Immunity, Inc., notes that the hackers' breach of United is especially significant as it's the main airline in and out of Washington, DC's Dulles International — the nearest international airport to the CIA's ... and more » |
 TIME |
FBI: Child Abuse 'Almost at an Epidemic Level' in US
TIME Despite rescuing 600 children last year, the FBI says child sex abuse is at epidemic levels where tens of thousands of children are believed to be sexually exploited in the country each year. “The level of paedophilia is unprecedented right now ... Sex trafficking: Lifelong struggle of exploited childrenBBC News all 3 news articles » |
The question is not if your devices will be hacked, but when
WIS There has been an obvious increase in cyber-warfare, along with new strategies from hackers to hide their tracks and steal sensitive data. A digital security expert at the University of South ... "I think that it's a mixture of using technology, say ... and more » |
Russia makes proportionate response to missile defense in Europe — Defense ...
Russia and India Report Russia is taking proportionate military and technical measures in response to the missile defense system the United States is creating in Europe, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said on Thursday. "All decisions will be made, if and when there ... and more » |
 News On 6 |
At Least Two Arrested After Police, FBI Surround East Tulsa Motel
News On 6 Tulsa Police's special operations team along with federal agents converged on a local motel on Admiral Place Wednesday evening arresting at least two people and serving a number of search warrants. Just after 8 p.m. police and FBI agents surrounded the ... and more » |
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If you wonder why Congress is so feeble these days that it can’t even find a simple way to pass a transportation bill, look no further than Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who proffered a little resolutionon Tuesday night to oust John Boehner from the speakership.
The move was quickly dismissed by Boehner loyalists as showboating by a second-term member, and Meadows himself said he might not even seek a vote on his own measure. His hope is to provoke a “family conversation” among Republicans. It’s a heck of a dysfunctional family. The GOP these days may have its advantages on the Lannisters of “Game of Thrones” fame, but it’s a very long way from the Brady Bunch.
E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column and on the PostPartisan blog. He is also a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a government professor at Georgetown University and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio, ABC’s “This Week” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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Perhaps by crushing Meadows’s insurrection, which many of even the most rebellious right-wing Republicans thought was ill-timed, Boehner will strengthen his hand. The more likely outcome is that this resolution to “vacate the chair” will once again remind Boehner of the nature of the party caucus over which he presides. I use “preside” rather than “lead” precisely because his difficulty in leading these folks is the heart of his problem.
The House GOP (and this applies more than it once did to Senate Republicans as well) includes a large and vocal minority always ready to go over a cliff and always ready to burn — fortunately, figuratively — heretical leaders and colleagues. More important, a significant group sympathizes with Boehner privately but is absolutely petrified that having his back when things get tough will conjure a challenge inside the party by conservative ultras whose supporters dominate its primary electorate in so many places.
This means that Republicans have to treat doing business with President Obama and the Democrats as something bordering on philosophical treason. Yes, on trade, where Obama’s position is relatively close to their own, they will help the president out. But it’s very hard to find many other issues of that sort. Politicians of nearly every kind used to agree that building roads, bridges, mass-transit projects and airports was good for everybody. Now, even pouring concrete and laying track can be disrupted by weird ideological struggles.
The text of Meadows’s anti-Boehner resolution is revealing. He complains that the speaker has “caused the power of Congress to atrophy, thereby making Congress subservient to the Executive and Judicial branches, diminishing the voice of the American people.” Actually, Congress has done a bang-up job of blocking Obama’s agenda since Republicans won control of the House in 2010. How, short of impeachment, is it supposed to do more to foil the man in the White House?
Meadows also hits Boehner for “intentionally” seeking voice votes (as opposed to roll calls) on “consequential and controversial legislation to be taken without notice and with few Members present.” He has a point. But since so many Republicans are often too timid to go on the record for the votes required to keep government moving — they don’t want to be punished by Meadows’s ideological friends — Boehner does what he has to do.
On the other hand, Meadows’s charge that Boehner is “bypassing the majority of the 435 Members of Congress and the people they represent” is absolutely true.
But the logic of this legitimate protest is that Boehner should allow many more votes on the floor in which a minority of Republicans could join with a majority of Democrats to pass legislation, thereby reflecting the actual will of the entire House. If Boehner had done this with immigration reform, it would now be a reality. Boehner didn’t do it precisely because he worried about what Republicans of Meadows’s stripe would do to him.
Meadows’s move bodes ill for the compromising that will be required this fall to avoid new crises on the debt ceiling and the budget. Republicans already faced difficulties on this front before the “vacate the chair” warning shot, as Post blogger Greg Sargent noted Wednesday.
And Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), another Boehner critic, reacted to the resolution by invoking the Lord Voldemort all Republicans fear. Jones expressed the hope that “the talk-show hosts who are so frustrated would pick up on this thing and beat the drum.” It’s enough to ruin a speaker’s summer.
Republicans are talking a good deal about the threat to their brand posed by Donald Trump’s unplugged, unrestrained appeal to the party’s untamed side. The bigger danger comes from a Republican Congress that is having a lot of trouble getting that governing thing down.
Read more from E.J. Dionne’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
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It came two days after the announcement of the nuclear agreement with Iran, yet little mention was made on July 16 of the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion, near Alamogordo, N.M. The anniversary underscored that the agreement attempts to thwart proliferation of technology seven decades old.
Nuclear-weapons technology has become markedly more sophisticated since 1945. But not so sophisticated that nations with sufficient money and determination cannot master or acquire it. Iran’s determination is probably related to the United States’ demonstration, in Iraq and Libya, of the perils of not having nuclear weapons.
George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a contributor to FOX News’ daytime and primetime programming.
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Critics who think more severe sanctions are achievable and would break Iran’s determination must answer this: When have sanctions caused a large nation to surrender what it considers a vital national security interest? Critics have, however, amply demonstrated two things:
First, the agreement comprehensively abandons President Obama’s original goal of dismantling the infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Second, as the administration became more yielding with Iran, it became more dishonest with its own citizens. For example, John Kerry says we never sought “anywhere, anytime” inspections. But on April 6, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the agreement would include “anywhere, anytime” inspections. Kerry’s co-negotiator, Wendy Sherman, breezily dismissed “anywhere, anytime” as “something that became popular rhetoric.” It “became”? This is disgraceful.
Verification depends on U.S. intelligence capabilities, which failed in 2003 (Iraq’s supposed possession of WMDs), in 1968 (North Vietnam’s Tet offensive) and in 1941 (Pearl Harbor). As Reuel Marc Gerecht says in “How Will We Know? The coming Iran intelligence failure” [the Weekly Standard, July 27], “The CIA has a nearly flawless record of failing to predict foreign countries’ going nuclear (Great Britain and France don’t count).”
During the 1960 presidential campaign, John Kennedy cited “indications” that by 1964 there would be “10, 15 or 20” nuclear powers. As president, he said that by 1975 there might be 15 or 20. Nonproliferation efforts have succeeded but cannot completely succeed forever.
It is a law of arms control: Agreements are impossible until they are unimportant. The U.S.-Soviet strategic arms control “process” was an arena of maneuvering for military advantage, until the Soviet Union died of anemia. Might the agreement with Iran buy sufficient time for Iran to undergo regime modification? Although Kerry speaks of the agreement “guaranteeing” that Iran will not become a nuclear power, it will. But what will Iran be like 15 years hence?
Since 1972, U.S. policy toward China has been a worthy but disappointing two-part wager. One part is that involving China in world trade will temper its unruly international ambitions. The second is that economic growth, generated by the moral and institutional infrastructure of markets, will weaken the sinews of authoritarianism.
The Obama administration’s comparable wager is that the Iranian regime will be subverted by domestic restiveness. The median age in Iran is 29.5 (in the United States, 37.7; in the European Union, 42.2). More than 60 percent of Iran’s university students, and approximately 70 percent of medical students, are women. Ferment is real.
In 1951, Hannah Arendt, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, argued bleakly (in “The Origins of Totalitarianism”) that tyrannies wielding modern instruments of social control (bureaucracies, mass communications) could achieve permanence by conscripting the citizenry’s consciousness, thereby suffocating social change. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution changed her mind: No government can control human nature or “all channels of communication.”
Today’s technologies make nations, including Iran, porous to outside influences; intellectual autarky is impossible. The best that can be said for the Iran agreement is that by somewhat protracting Iran’s path to a weapon it buys time for constructive churning in Iran. Although this is a thin reed on which to lean hopes, the reed is as real as Iran’s nuclear ambitions are apparently nonnegotiable.
The best reason for rejecting the agreement is to rebuke Obama’s long record of aggressive disdain for Congress — recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess, rewriting and circumventing statutes, etc. Obama’s intellectual pedigree runs to Woodrow Wilson, the first presidential disparager of the separation of powers. Like Wilson, Obama ignores the constitutional etiquette of respecting even rivalrous institutions.
The Iran agreement should be a treaty; it should not have been submitted first to the United Nations as a studied insult to Congress. Wilson said that rejecting the Versailles treaty would “break the heart of the world.” The Senate, no member of which had been invited to accompany Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference, proceeded to break his heart. Obama deserves a lesson in the cost of Wilsonian arrogance. Knowing little history, Obama makes bad history.
Read more from George F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook.
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GWEN IFILL: General Breedlove, thank you so much for joining us.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, NATO Supreme Allied Commander: Oh, thanks for having me.
GWEN IFILL: I want to start by talking about Turkey. How significant is it that Turkey has allowed us to start using Incirlik for a basing to attack ISIS?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Those things that we are working at now to use bases like Incirlik and Diyarbakir, those will be very important to our ability to prosecute a joint campaign with Turkey as a part of our coalition.
GWEN IFILL: How far does that buffer zone go and how far do we go into it?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: We’re not creating any specific zone.
What we’re talking about is bringing Turkey into an arrangement where, as a part of the coalition, they cooperate in our counter-ISIL campaign in the north. And that’s the real key to this.
GWEN IFILL: So, it’s not a no-fly zone, per se, is what you are saying?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: That’s correct.
GWEN IFILL: I want to take you to Ukraine, especially Russia’s role. The new incoming nominee to be — for Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford, said at a congressional hearing last week that he saw Russia as our chief global threat. Is that something you agree with?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: I have testified to the same thing in the past.
GWEN IFILL: Why?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, clearly, there are lots of threats out there, for instance, ISIL.
But I think what you hear from numerous leaders is that Russia is a different case. This is a nation that for 20 years we have tried to make a partner. And in the last few years, we have seen that they’re on a different path. So now we have a nation that has used force to change internationally recognized boundaries. Russia continues to occupy Crimea.
Russian forces now are in the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine. So this nation has used force to change international boundaries. And this is a nation that possesses a pretty vast nuclear inventory, and talks about the use of that inventory very openly in the past. And so what I think you see being reflected is that we see a revanchist Russia that has taken a new path towards what the security arrangements in Europe are like and how they are employed.
And they talk about using, as a matter of course, nuclear weapons. For that reason, these senior leaders, I believe, see that as a major threat.
GWEN IFILL: Secretary Kerry has not said that. And I wonder if the distinction there is between the diplomatic approach to dealing with Russia on things like Iran and the military concerns.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: So, Russia can and we hope in the future will be a great partner. There are many places where our needs and requirements match.
But, again, in Europe, they have established a pattern now, Georgia, Transnistria, Crimea, Donbass, where force is a matter of course. And that’s not what we look for in partners in Europe.
GWEN IFILL: So NATO has talked about providing training and artillery and some sort of support against this force you describe, this Russian bear on the border. Is that enough?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, NATO nations are offering some assistance to Ukraine, as is the United States. Many nations now are coming along to be a part of helping Ukraine to defend themselves. They have the right to defend themselves.
GWEN IFILL: But is it enough?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, NATO nations are offering some assistance to Ukraine, as is the United States. Many nations now are coming along to be a part of helping Ukraine to defend themselves. They have the right to defend themselves.
GWEN IFILL: But is it enough?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: I think that question is yet to be determined.
We believe that there is a diplomatic and a political solution. So when you ask, is it enough, the question is, is it enough to set the conditions so that we can get to a political and a diplomatic solution?
GWEN IFILL: What about the Baltics? There is a lot of nervousness that Russia is going to expand its view of aggression in that direction as well, and they will be entirely unable to defend themselves.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Both NATO, as an alliance, and the United States have come to great measures of assurance for our Baltic nations.
GWEN IFILL: What about the Baltics? There is a lot of nervousness that Russia is going to expand its view of aggression in that direction as well, and they will be entirely unable to defend themselves.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Both NATO, as an alliance, and the United States have come to great measures of assurance for our Baltic nations.
We have U.S. soldiers alongside British and other soldiers inside of these countries now, exercising, doing training, to assure those allies that NATO is there and will be there. I was privileged to sit in the room at Wales when the leaders of 28 nations, including our president, were rock-solid on Article V, collective defense. And that includes the Baltics.
And I think that Mr. Putin understands that NATO is different.
GWEN IFILL: There is a lot of nervousness, however, that this option, if this doesn’t take hold, is war.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, the best way not to have a war is to be prepared for war. So, we’re in there now, training their soldiers.
As you know, we are looking at and have decided to preposition stops forward. We have heavy equipment that we train with in these nations now. And so we need to be prepared, so that we can avoid.
GWEN IFILL: Is there a line between preparation and provocation?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Absolutely. I believe there is.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Absolutely. I believe there is.
We do defensive measures, and in, I think, very easily defined defensive stances in our forward bases. We’re not putting big forces into the Baltics. Right now, there is a company of U.S. soldiers in each of the three Baltic states. That is well below a proportional issue.
GWEN IFILL: If it is possible for there to be a diplomatic or a political solution to head off any future conflict, what would that look like?
GWEN IFILL: If it is possible for there to be a diplomatic or a political solution to head off any future conflict, what would that look like?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: We always talk about a European land mass whole, free, and at peace.
To get to that, we need to have a partner in Russia, not someone that we are competing with. The Russian energy…
GWEN IFILL: Do you see a partnership that I don’t see?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: No, no, I’m saying we have to have one in the future.
GWEN IFILL: Right.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: If we really believe we’re going to get to whole, free, and at peace and prosperous, then we need a partner in Russia.
GWEN IFILL: Well, give me an example of one way to get there, especially if the person who has to be your partner is Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t show any indication, other than being helpful at the Iran nuclear talks, of being the partner you envision.
GWEN IFILL: Well, give me an example of one way to get there, especially if the person who has to be your partner is Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t show any indication, other than being helpful at the Iran nuclear talks, of being the partner you envision.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: So first, it’s communication. We need to reestablish those lines of communication.
You have seen our secretary of state, undersecretary of state reaching out in several forums. Mil-to-mil communications need to become routine again. They are not routine now, where they were once before, communication first.
GWEN IFILL: I guess I hear what you are saying, but I don’t see how you get there.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Its’ not going to be an easy road. And it’s not going to happen quickly. This business with Russia is a long-term thing.
I have said in testimony in other places that this is global, not regional. And it is long-term, not short-term. But we have to start down the path.
GWEN IFILL: Assuming for a moment there is a diplomatic-to-diplomatic impasse or president-to-president impasse, is there a military-to-military way of forging that kind of agreement?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: There is.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: There is.
It is important also that, even if our countries are not getting along, when you are flying airplanes in close vicinity, when you are sailing ships in close vicinity, when you have soldiers on the ground exercising sometimes just on the other side of borders, military men and women have to be able to communicate in a very matter-of-fact way to preclude anything ugly from happening.
GWEN IFILL: Well, and we hope nothing further ugly happens.
NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove, thank you very much.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: No, thank you very much.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: No, thank you very much.
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People walk past an exchange office sign showing the currency exchange rate in Moscow, Russia, Monday, July 27, 2015. The Russian ruble dropped by 2 percent on Monday, to nearly 60 rubles against the dollar, battered by low oil prices.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
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MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian ruble is falling under the pressure of cheaper oil, reviving concerns over the country's economic outlook, particularly the perniciously high inflation rate.
The ruble was down 0.9 percent in Moscow trading on Thursday, at 59.2 rubles against the dollar.
The decline comes a day after the Russian central bank halted daily purchases of foreign currency in an attempt to stop a week-long slide in the national currency. The ruble on Tuesday hit 60 rubles to the dollar, its lowest point in more than four months.
The currency took a battering in 2014 because of a slump in global prices for oil — the country's biggest source of revenue — and recovered somewhat early this year before falling again. A weaker ruble threatens the government's plans to curb inflation, which was 15 percent in June.
The central bank was buying foreign currency on the market to build up its international reserves it needs for bond repayments. But those purchases also help weaken the ruble, so the recent days' drop has forced the central bank to halt them.
An "excessive" drop in the ruble would not be politically palatable, analysts from the Moscow-based investment bank Sberbank CIB said in a morning note to investors. They added that the goal of rebuilding foreign currency reserves is "not compatible" with the aim of a stronger and more stable ruble.
The investment bank UralSib said Thursday that since the central bank started buying foreign currency worth $200 million a day in mid-May the ruble has lost more than 15 percent against the dollar.
The fates of the Russian economy and currency are closely linked to the price of oil, but have also been affected by Western economic sanctions on Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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