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The U.S. military has begun flying armed aircraft over Syria from Turkey, the Pentagon said Monday, a move that could expand its ability to carry out airstrikes to protect U.S.-trained rebels in northern Syria.Read full article >>
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For the first time, US launches armed flights over Syria from Turkish base
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(BAGHDAD) — U.S.-led airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria have likely killed at least 459 civilians over the past year, a report by an independent monitoring group said Monday.
The report by Airwars, a project aimed at tracking the international airstrikes targeting the extremists, said it believed 57 specific strikes killed civilians and caused 48 suspected “friendly fire” deaths. It said the strikes have killed more than 15,000 Islamic State militants.
While Airwars noted the difficulty of verifying information in territory held by the IS group, which has kidnapped and killed journalists and activists, other groups have reported similar casualties from the U.S.-led airstrikes.
“Almost all claims of noncombatant deaths from alleged coalition strikes emerge within 24 hours — with graphic images of reported victims often widely disseminated,” the report said.
“In this context, the present coalition policy of downplaying or denying all claims of noncombatant fatalities makes little sense, and risks handing (the) Islamic State (group) and other forces a powerful propaganda tool.”
The U.S. launched airstrikes in Iraq on Aug. 8 and in Syria on Sept. 23 to target the Islamic State group. A coalition of countries later joined to help allied ground forces combat the extremists. To date, the coalition has launched more than 5,800 airstrikes in both countries.
The U.S. has only acknowledged killing two civilians in its strikes: two children who were likely slain during an American airstrike targeting al-Qaida-linked militants in Syria last year. That same strike also wounded two adults, according to an investigation released in May by the U.S. military.
That strike is the subject of one of at least four ongoing U.S. military investigations into allegations of civilian casualties resulting from the airstrikes. Another probe into an airstrike in Syria and two investigations into airstrikes in Iraq are still pending.
U.S. Army Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for the coalition, did not address the report directly, but said “there is no other military in the world that works as hard as we do to be precise.”
“When an allegation of civilian casualties caused by Coalition forces is determined to be credible, we investigate it fully and strive to learn from it so as to avoid recurrence,” he said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the department has seen the press reports on the additional civilian casualties but said the Pentagon will have nothing to say until the reports are reviewed.
U.S. Central Command has finished four investigations into alleged civilian casualties, concluding that three were unfounded and that two innocent civilians were killed and two other people wounded in the fourth case.
There are six other investigations still ongoing.
Airwars said it identified the 57 strikes through reporting from “two or more generally credible sources, often with biographical, photographic or video evidence.” The incidents also corresponded to confirmed coalition strikes conducted in the area at that time, it said.
The group is staffed by journalists and describes itself as a “collaborative, not-for-profit transparency project.” It does not offer policy prescriptions.
“The coalition’s war against ISIL has inevitably caused civilian casualties, certainly far more than the two deaths Centcom presently admits to,” the group says on its website.
“Yet it’s also clear that in this same period, many more civilians have been killed by Syrian and Iraqi government forces, by Islamic State and by various rebel and militia groups operating on both sides of the border.”
In Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition includes France, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark and Canada. Jordan has also carried out airstrikes in Iraq as well as in Syria, although it has released no further information about the dates or locations of its attacks.
The coalition conducting airstrikes in Syria include the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Canada began its own strikes in April, while Britain carries out routine reconnaissance-only drone missions above Syria, and British pilots have carried out airstrikes while embedded with U.S. forces.
Airwars called for greater transparency and accountability from coalition members, since each is individually liable for any civilian deaths or injuries it causes.
“Only one of twelve coalition partners – Canada – has consistently stated in a timely fashion both where and when it carries out airstrikes,” the report said.
Other groups also have reported on major casualties suspected of being caused by the U.S.-led airstrikes. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of on-the-ground activists, said 173 Syrian civilians have been killed since airstrikes began, including 53 children under the age of 18. Most of the civilians were killed in airstrikes near oil refineries and oil fields in the northern provinces of Hassakeh, Raqqa, Aleppo and Deir el-Zour.
The Observatory said the deadliest incident was on May 4, when a U.S.-led airstrike on the northern Islamic State-controlled village of Bir Mahli killed 64 people, including 31 children. A Pentagon spokesman at the time said there was no information to indicate there were civilians in the village. The death toll was confirmed by other opposition groups in Syria.
Two videos and several photos released by a media arm of the IS group purport to show the aftermath of the strikes in the mixed Arab and Kurdish village showed children allegedly wounded in the airstrikes.
In another incident on June 8, an airstrike likely conducted by the U.S.-led coalition on the Islamic State-held village of Dali Hassan, also in northern Syria, killed a family of seven, the Observatory said.
Turkey, which recently began carrying out its own airstrikes against the IS group in Syria and Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, said it would investigate accusations by the Iraqi Kurdish regional government and activists with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, that its airstrikes caused civilian casualties in the northern Iraqi town of Zargel.
The United Nations said Monday that it is concerned about reports that 40 civilians may have been killed and over 30 wounded in an airstrike west of Ramadi in Iraq’s Anbar province, and called on the Iraqi government to investigate the incident.
Also on Monday, the leader of Iraq’s Kurdish region, President Massoud Barzani, said Iraqi Kurds must maintain control of areas in northwestern Iraq, including the city of Sinjar, after they are recaptured from IS militants.
His speech marked the anniversary of the fall of Sinjar to the Islamic State group, which forced tens of thousands of people from Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority to flee into the mountains, prompting the U.S. to begin the airstrikes targeting the militant group.
Other Kurdish groups, including the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, claim Sinjar as part of their territory. All three groups are battling to retake Sinjar.
___
Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Salar Salim in Irbil, Iraq and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for talks with Iranian and Russian officials expected to focus on efforts to end the four-year-old war in his country.
The US held its largest counter-drone technology demonstration on Friday. Report by Conor Mcnally.
White House running out of time to sway lawmakers considering the nuclear accord before Senate leaves Washington at weeks' end for August recess
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They gathered in Manchester ahead of their first official debate Thursday
The FDA tells hospitals to stop using an infusion pump after learning it could be a cybersecurity risk
Q&A: A look at the felony indictment on securities fraud of Texas Attorney General Paxton
Police: Fake officer's attempt to pull over off-duty Ohio cop leads to misdemeanor charge
A United Nations official has said that she has seen a 'price list' for child slaves that has been circulated amongst Isis fighters in Syria and Iraq.
US Police Chiefs Meet to Address Spike in Violent Crimeby webdesk@voanews.com (Mike Richman)
Police chiefs from big cities in the United States met Monday to discuss how to deal with a dangerous spike in violent crime, especially gun shootings. The meeting in Washington of the Major Cities Chiefs Association was organized to help cities compare examples of gun violence and come up with solutions. "We came together to help identify ways to interrupt this violent trend and ensure that our cities continue to thrive," said the association's president, Tom...
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Russia Bids for Vast Arctic Territories at UNby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
Russia has submitted its bid for vast territories in the Arctic to the United Nations, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry said in a statement that Russia is claiming 1.2 million square kilometers (over 463,000 square miles) of Artic sea shelf extending more than 350 nautical miles (about 650 kilometers) from the shore. Russia, the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up...
Monitor Says Hundreds Of Civilians Killed By Coalition Air Strikes by support@pangea-cms.com (RFE/RL)
U.S.-led air strikes targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria have likely killed at least 459 civilians over the past year, an independent monitoring group said August 3.
Republicans claim to have enough votes to pass a resolution blocking the Iran nuclear deal in the U.S. House, but not enough to overcome a likely presidential veto of their resolution.
Shots were heard as nationalists used cobble stones in an attack on an opposition party in the government-held city of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine.
IS Claims Child Militant Who Executed Iraqi Spy 'Killed In Air Strike' by support@pangea-cms.com (Joanna Paraszczuk)
A child militant who appeared in a shocking video appearing to shoot an alleged Iraqi spy in the head has been killed in an air strike, IS social media accounts say.
A Force For Change: Kyiv Gets New Policeby support@pangea-cms.com (Tony Wesolowsky)
A new police force in Kyiv seems to be winning over the public in the Ukrainian capital, if social media is any barometer.
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People in the neighborhood where Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez lived for some months said they had seen no sign of the rage he unleashed in Tennessee.
CURITIBA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian police on Monday arrested former government minister Jose Dirceu, one of the most senior members of the ruling Workers' Party to be detained so far in a corruption scandal engulfing state-run oil company Petrobras.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the weeks leading up to a critical annual U.S. report on human trafficking that publicly shames the world’s worst offenders, human rights experts at the State Department concluded that trafficking conditions hadn’t improved in Malaysia and Cuba. And in China, they found, things had grown worse.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several U.S. politicians sharply criticized the Obama administration on Monday over an annual global report on human trafficking in response to a Reuters article chronicling how senior U.S. diplomats had watered down rankings of more than a dozen strategically important countries.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is concerned about the growing influence of Islamic State, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, calling for international cooperation on the matter.
President Putin renews Russia's claim to about 1.2 million sq km (463,000 sq miles) of the Arctic shelf in a new submission to the United Nations.
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Protesters carry a wounded man in Istanbul on July 25, during clashes between police and protesters denouncing the deaths of 32 people at a suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey. Angered Kurds have accused the government of allowing the ISIS suspected attack to happen, because it's government has been trying to drive the Kurds out of the country. Turkish jets struck camps belonging to Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, authorities said, the first strikes since a peace deal was announced in 2013, and again bombed Islamic State group positions in Syria. Cagdas Erdogan/AP
Toward the end of July, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went to war. On his orders, 40 jets pounded strongholds in northern Iraq belonging to Kurdish separatists, killing at least 190 militants, according to the Turkish military. Turkish police also rounded up 1,050 terrorist suspects in raids all over the country—some of them supporters of ISIS and radical leftist groups, but over 80 percent of them suspects linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. At the same time, Kurdish militants ambushed army vehicles, shot policemen on the streets of Turkish cities and bombed police stations, killing at least 13 in the bloodiest fortnight of Turk-Kurd violence in decades.
Just months after Erdogan came within a whisker of striking a grand peace deal with the Kurds, which would have ended a 30-year-old insurgency in southeast Turkey that has claimed nearly 40,000 lives, the war is on again. “It’s not possible for us to continue the peace process with those who threaten our national unity and brotherhood,” Erdogan said as he announced the airstrikes in retaliation for PKK attacks on Turkish soldiers.
The switch from near-peace to all-out war has not only been sudden—it is also a radical U-turn for Erdogan and his conservative Islamist AK Party. For most of his 12 years in power, Erdogan has been an ally of Turkey’s 20-million-strong Kurdish minority. “I know how my Kurdish brothers have suffered,” Erdogan told a rally in Diyarbakir, Turkey’s biggest ethnic Kurdish city, in 2011. Ditching decades of nationalist distrust, Erdogan declared an end to forcible assimilation of the Kurds and legalized Kurdish-language television stations. And this February, his top lieutenants sat down with PKK representatives in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace to hammer out the details of a full disarmament of the insurgent group and negotiate its full withdrawal from Turkish soil.
“The talks came very, very close to a breakthrough,” says one senior Western diplomat in Ankara who followed the peace process in detail. “But the AK Party leadership took a decision to stall a grand deal on the Kurdish question till after [parliamentary] elections in June.… They were saying to the Kurds: You vote for the AK Party, and we’ll give you what you want at the negotiating table.”
Erdogan said as much when he addressed a rally in Gaziantep in March. “Are you ready for a decisive settlement [to the Kurdish question]?” Erdogan asked supporters. “Then, brothers, give us 400 deputies and let this issue be resolved peacefully.”
The problem was that Turkey’s Kurds didn't listen. They deserted the AK Party in droves and voted instead for a new, upstart pro-Kurdish movement called the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP. In a shocking result, the HDP scored 13 percent of the vote, passing a 10 percent threshold that allowed the party to enter the parliament with 80 MPs—and depriving Erdogan’s AK Party of an overall majority for the first time since 2002.
Overnight, the AK Party turned its rhetorical and political guns on the HDP and its charismatic young leader, Selahattin Demirtas. Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan—who represented the government in the Dolmabahce talks—denounced the HDP as a “front” and “subcontractor” for the PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States.
A couple runs away from tear gas used by riot police to disperse demonstrators during a protest in Istanbul, Turkey, July 20. Police in Istanbul fired teargas and water cannons when a demonstration by protesters blaming the government for a suspected ISIS suicide bombing turned violent. Hundreds gathered near Istanbul's central Taksim Square after the bombing, chanting slogans against President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party, including: "Murderer Islamic State, collaborator Erdogan and AKP." The PKK Kurdish militant group earlier said it held the government responsible for the attack, saying Ankara had "supported and cultivated" ISIS against the Kurds in Syria. Huseyin Aldemir/Reuters
It was the PKK, though, that pushed rising tensions into violence. On July 16, the group, which is headquartered on the Kandil Mountain range in northern Iraq, announced the end of a two-year-old cease-fire and days later began killing Turkish policemen. When a suicide bomber trained in Syria by ISIS killed 32 young pro-Kurdish student volunteers as they gathered in the border town of Suruc, Turkey, the PKK’s response was to blame the Turkish security services for allowing the attack to happen, and it retaliated by killing four Turkish soldiers. The Turkish state’s response was swift and devastating—airstrikes against ISIS targets inside Syria, as well as PKK targets inside Iraq. Ankara also finally succumbed to months of U.S. pressure and allowed U.S. warplanes to use the Incirlik Air Base in southeast Turkey to wage an air campaign against ISIS.
Though the PKK undoubtedly began the shooting war, it’s also true that conflict with the Kurds suits the AK Party's electoral purposes. So far, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu—a close Erdogan ally—has failed to strike a postelection coalition deal with any opposition party. Those talks are ongoing. But a more radical way forward, reportedly favored by top AK Party figures including Erdogan himself, would be to break the coalition deadlock by calling for new elections. It’s a high-risk strategy—but if the AK Party manages to regain a large enough majority, Erdogan can press on with his pet project of rewriting Turkey’s constitution to create a French-style executive presidency, thereby giving himself sweeping new powers. “Erdogan asked himself what had prevented him from exercising full executive power,” says veteran commentator Murat Yetkin. “The answer is the HDP. If the HDP can be pushed back under the 10 percent threshold in a new election, the AK Party can rise again and the problem can be solved.”
Clearly, the AK Party is counting on renewed conflict with the Kurds to discredit the HDP. In the wake of the PKK attacks, Erdogan called for Demirtas and the HDP’s MPs to be stripped of their parliamentary immunity so that they could be investigated for “links to terrorist organizations.” The newly minted parliamentarians of the HDP, for their part, welcomed the suggestion and even moved to voluntarily surrender their immunity—and suggested that all other MPs do likewise. They also lodged a cheeky counterblow, petitioning for a host of top AK Party officials to be investigated for corruption and enriching themselves while in office. Clearly, all hope of a true reconciliation with the Kurds for the time being has taken second place in Erdogan’s mind to destroying the HDP.
“Erdogan began disliking the peace process with the PKK when the HDP emerged as an obstacle for his presidential ambitions,” says Mustafa Akyol, author of Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty . “Those ambitions come first, in other words, and peace is not very welcome when it does not serve [the AK Party’s] political purpose.”
Renewed hostilities worry Turkey’s allies—and complicate the U.S.-led efforts to combat ISIS. In Syria, Kurdish fighters known as the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, are the main bulwark against the expansion of ISIS—and have been receiving weapons, air and intelligence support from the United States. But with the YPG closely allied with the PKK, Ankara is deeply wary of anything that strengthens Syria’s Kurds, who also have begun establishing self-ruled cantons all along the border with Turkey. Ankara vigorously opposes these, lest the Syrian Kurds’ independence inspire their ethnic brothers in Turkey.
“Ideally,” says the Ankara-based Western diplomat, “the Turks would like to see [ISIS] and the Kurds fight each other into the ground—then come along and whack the winner.”
It’s hard to blame Erdogan for responding to PKK attacks. But though Kurd-bashing may suit the AK Party’s short-term political ends, it’s potentially disastrous for Turkey. In the years of Erdogan’s rule, Turkey’s gross domestic product has tripled, and the country has acted as a rock of stability as its neighbors, from Iraq to Greece, have been overwhelmed by turbulence. For the Erdogan generation, the old tribal differences between Turk and Kurd that saw the southeast of the country turned into a vast militarized zone in the 1980s—and millions of Kurdish villagers expelled from their homes—were set aside in favor of making money and pursuing the good life. Renewed war risks escalation into nationwide conflict that could derail everything Erdogan created—from Turkey’s prosperity and stability to his own legitimacy.
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Puerto Rico’s governor has declared its debts “unpayable” and is seeking the largest restructuring ever in the country’s municipal bond market. (Ricardo Arduengo/AP)
Debt-plagued Puerto Rico defaulted on a bond payment for the first time Monday, triggering what is likely to be a long battle with creditors as it seeks to restructure about $73 billion in loans.
The U.S. territory, whose governor has declared its debts “unpayable” and is seeking the largest restructuring ever in the country’s municipal bond market, paid just $628,000 of a $58 million payment owed by its Public Finance Corp. because the legislature didn’t provide enough money, according to the island’s Government Development Bank.
“Due to the lack of appropriated funds for this fiscal year the entirety of the PFC payment was not made today,” bank president Melba Acosta Febo said in a statement. “This was a decision that reflects the serious concerns about the commonwealth’s liquidity in combination with the balance of obligations to our creditors and the equally important obligations to the people of Puerto Rico to ensure the essential services they deserve are maintained.”
The default marks an escalation of the financial crisis on the island, which has been caught in a nearly decade-long recession that has crimped government revenues and triggered an exodus to the U.S. mainland.
Moody’s Investor Services, which tracks the bond market, said the default is likely the first of many to come. “This event is consistent with our belief that Puerto Rico does not have the resources to make its forthcoming debt payments,” Emily Raimes, a Moody’s vice president, said in a statement. “This is the first of what we believe will be broad defaults on commonwealth debt.”
In late June, Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla declared the island’s debts “unpayable” and called on creditors to come to the table to renegotiate repayment terms. Puerto Rico — unlike cities such as Detroit or Vallejo, Calif. — cannot seek protection under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. García Padilla has called on U.S. lawmakers to grant Puerto Rico’s state-run corporations, which are highly indebted and provide vital services from electricity to water, the right to file for bankruptcy. That would allow those corporations an orderly process to restructure their obligations.
The Obama administration has voiced support for allowing the island’s corporations bankruptcy protection, but it has continuously emphasized that there will be no federal bailout for Puerto Rico.
In a letter last week, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew told Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that Puerto Rico’s financial situation was “urgent” and said Congress should consider some orderly process to restructure the island’s debt.
Lew also voiced support for ongoing efforts on the island to devise a long-term fiscal plan that points to how the island would fix its fiscal problems and reignite the economy if some form of debt relief is extended. A group of policymakers is expected to present the restructuring plan by the end of this month.
Although some policymakers have embraced the idea of financial restructuring for Puerto Rico, many investors are opposed. They believe the island could continue to raise taxes, fees or utility rates, to pay what it owes. Moreover, they say, one reason they decided to loan money to the economically distressed commonwealth is precisely because it could not declare bankruptcy.
Public Finance Corp., a fiscal arm of Puerto Rico’s government, recently notified investors who hold appropriation bonds, typically those backed by funds set aside by the legislature, that it had not transferred money to a trustee to pay the debt due at the beginning of this month. The corporation said the legislature never actually appropriated the funds.
David Fernandez, a public finance attorney in New York, said he hopes that the default shifts the conversation about Puerto Rico’s debt away from the overall size of the obligation, to one that focuses on the level of debt — and ability to pay — exhibited by the individual issuers of bonds on the island. While the island’s electric utility has one set of problems, he said, perhaps other debt issuers are in better shape to pay. They might also face greater legal mandates to pay as well. For example, the island’s constitution says that general obligation bond holders should be paid even before government workers.
“It is the individual entities that have issued this debt. That is where the focus should be,” Fernandez said.
Michael A. Fletcher is a national economics correspondent, writing about unemployment, state and municipal debt, the evolving job market and the auto industry.
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The realist’s argument for the Iran nuclear agreement is that it is the least bad deal that a conflict-weary United States could secure. Now, with the nuclear issue parked (at least for a decade), we can get down to the business of strengthening friends in the Middle East and pushing back against Iran’s regional ambitions.
A variant of this position claims that the nuclear deal would actually weaken Iran’s strategic position. In this view, the regime, faced with sanction-caused economic ruin, was forced to give up the nuclear umbrella that would have acted as cover for its export of subversion. An Iran thus defanged is a fundamentally weak country, with little conventional military capacity. The $60 billion windfall Iran would net from the lifting of sanctions is paltry (the argument goes) compared with the strategic blow of giving up its nuclear ambitions. A “yes” vote on the agreement is therefore a contribution to containment.
Michael Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in The Post.
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In the administration’s attempt to secure support from a third of the Congress, the truth is likely to get its hair mussed. But it is rare for an argument to be this comprehensively wrong.
Over the past few decades — without a nuclear umbrella and without a world-class military — Iran has pursued a highly effective, asymmetrical campaign to spread its influence and destabilize its enemies. Early on, the Iranians noted that many Middle Eastern militaries are relatively weak. In some conflicts, the addition of several thousand well-trained, well-led militia members could have a disproportionate, even decisive, influence. So Iranian operatives — often through the Quds Force, created for this purpose — have set out to exploit local grievances, encourage sectarian solidarity and export their version of anti-American, anti-Semitic, revolutionary Islamism.
The idea that this is a spent strategy would come as a surprise to people in Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad. Iran’s first and best success was the organization of Lebanese Hezbollah into an effective instrument. Through it, Iran changed the regional balance of power by positioning perhaps 100,000 rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon aimed at Israel. Tehran is responsible for the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime, propped up at key moments by Iranian money and Hezbollah ground forces. Iran has gained effective control of Iraq’s public institutions, since Shiite militias (many allied with Iran) seem to be the only effective fighting forces in the country other than the Islamic State and the Kurds.
Not everything has gone the Iranian way. Assad really may be on his last leg, and there has been some blowback against Hezbollah’s involvement in foreign ventures. But on the whole — while lacking the military power to challenge the United States and its allies directly — Iran has made an effective play for regional hegemony through arming, training, funding, inciting and leading Shiite proxies.
How would the nuclear deal affect this? The agreement legitimizes Iran’s nuclear program, pretty much guarantees its ability to produce nuclear weapons in 15 years, and will make it a far wealthier country than it has been in three decades. The regime will have more money to demonstrate immediate economic gains, and access to international markets to make those gains permanent. It will have more money — coupled with the lifting of the arms embargo — to purchase weapons from Russia to challenge U.S. military access to the Persian Gulf. And it will have a lot more money to augment its asymmetrical capabilities.
Iran’s support for Hezbollah and the Assad regime, by some estimates, cost less than $10 billion last year. A $60 billion windfall — even after funding for bread and circuses (assuming the regime allows circuses) — would purchase a great deal of regional chaos.
When Obama administration officials talk of pushing back against Iranian influence, they are really proposing to augment the defenses of Israel and the Arab states against conventional attack. “They have no answer to the subversive activities of Iran in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen,” Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute told me. “The terms of the nuclear agreement itself make ‘push back’ very difficult, because the agreement says that any further sanctioning of Iran will blow up the agreement. So we have given Iran an instrument to blackmail us into not containing them.”
The Iran nuclear agreement may be defended as the best a tired nation can do. But members of Congress should vote with open eyes. This agreement will fund Iranian imperialism — while creating disincentives for the United States to confront it. The Iranians signed the agreement because it was a great deal — for them.
Read more from Michael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .
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Russia is seeking to demonstrate that two underwater features, the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev ridge, are natural geological extensions of the Russian continental shelf.
Russia first submitted its claim in 2001, but was told it had not supplied sufficient evidence.
In December 2014, Denmark submitted a similar claim for 895,000 square kilometres, arguing that the Lomonosov ridge, which runs 1,240 miles almost directly across the centre of the Arctic Ocean, is an extension of Greenland.
Norway and Canada are also expected to place claims for Arctic territory under the terms of the treaty. The United States, which is not a signatory but is an Arctic littoral power because of its possession of Alaska, may also make a claim.
Vladimir Putin has described the Arctic as a region of Russian "special interest," and has expanded Russia’s military presence in the high north to secure its claims in the region. The Russian government plans to spend £2.8 billion on Arctic development between 2015 and 2020.
But the scramble to secure resources in the high north as the Arctic ice melts has already produced international tensions.
In 2007, the then Canadian foreign minister Peter MacKay accused Russia of acting like a 15th century colonial power after an expedition planted a titanium Russian flag on the sea bed at the North Pole, which Canada has said it intends to claim in its own submission to the UN.
In April this year, Norway summoned the Russian ambassador after Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister in charge of defence and head of a new Arctic commission, defied a travel ban by visiting the Svalbard archipelago.
Mr Rogozin, who is subject to EU, US and Norwegian sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, flew unannounced to the Russian mining town of Barentsburg, which operates on the Norwegian islands under a 1920 treaty between the two countries.
By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto, and Fred Backus
Donald Trump (24 percent) leads a fractured Republican field in the race for the GOP nomination in the latest national CBS News Poll. Behind him are Jeb Bush (13 percent) and Scott Walker (10 percent).
Trump leads among a wide array of Republican primary voters. He appears to have tapped into public anger toward Washington: he holds a large lead among Republican primary voters who say they are angry. And 79 percent think Trump says what he believes, rather than what people want to hear, far higher than the other candidates tested.
Trump may be the top choice among a quarter of Republican primary voters, but there are other voters who would be less enthusiastic. At 27 percent, he tops the list of candidates Republican voters would be most dissatisfied with as the party's nominee.
Trump, Bush, Walker and Rubio are all viewed more positively than negatively, but Trump has the highest unfavorable ratings. His ratings among registered voters overall are especially negative.
Majorities of Republican primary voters are confident in Trump, Bush, Rubio and Walker to handle key issues. Trump does best on the economy and illegal immigration, while Bush does best on dealing with America's adversaries. Trump and Bush are seen as the candidates most likely to win a general election.
The Republican Race
Just days before the Republican presidential candidates square off in their first debate, Donald Trump is in the top spot among Republican primary voters nationally - 24 percent support him as the nominee. Trump is followed by Jeb Bush (13 percent), Scott Walker (10 percent), Mike Huckabee (eight percent), Ben Carson (six percent), Ted Cruz (six percent), and Marco Rubio (six percent). Further down are Rand Paul (4 percent) and Chris Christie (3 percent). Other contenders are below three percent. Nine percent of Republican primary voters say they don't know who they want as the nominee at this point.
Among Trump supporters, the most popular second choice candidates for the Republican party's nomination are Carson, Bush, Cruz and Rubio.
Trump appeals to many factions of Republican primary voters. He leads among conservatives, Tea Party supporters, evangelicals and both men and women. Among Republican primary voters who do not consider themselves Tea Partiers, the race is closer. Bush (21 percent) performs better among this group, edging out Trump (19 percent).
Also, Trump leads among Republican primary voters on both sides of the illegal immigration debate - those who support legal status for illegal immigrants in the U.S and those who think those immigrants should be required to leave the country.
Trump and Bush are also seen as the most electable in a general election. At this early stage of the campaign, 26 percent say Trump has the best chance of winning in November 2016, and 23 percent pick Bush as having the best chance. Walker comes in third here, with eight percent.
Trump may be the top choice among a quarter of Republican primary voters, but there are other voters who would be less enthusiastic about him as their party's nominee. Trump (27 percent) is the candidate Republicans would be most dissatisfied with as the party's nominee for president, followed by Bush (18 percent) and Christie (10 percent).
Twenty-five percent of voters who would be dissatisfied with Trump as the nominee are backing Bush, followed by Rubio (12 percent), Huckabee (11 percent), and Walker (10 percent).
Republican primary voters (42 percent) are more likely than their Democratic counterparts (25 percent) to be angry at how things are going in Washington, and the poll suggests that Trump has tapped into some of that anger.
Republican primary voters who are angry at Washington are currently supporting Trump (30 percent) for the nomination by a wide margin. The second most popular candidate in this category is Huckabee, with 10 percent.
Views of the Republican Candidates, Issues and Qualities
One of Trump's strengths may be the perception that he says what is on his mind. The poll finds 79 percent of Republican primary voters say Trump says what he believes, rather than what people want to hear - the highest of the GOP contenders asked about. Republican voters are also inclined to say that Rubio and Walker say what they believe (although to a lesser extent than Trump), but they are divided on Bush: 46 percent think he says what he believes, but nearly as many - 44 percent- think he mostly says what people want to hear.
Majorities of Republican primary voters nationwide express confidence in Trump, Bush, Rubio and Walker to make the right decisions on the economy, illegal immigration and dealing with America's adversaries. Seventy-one percent of these voters are confident in Trump on economic decisions, and 65 percent are confident in his ability to make decisions on illegal immigration. Sixty-eight percent of these voters are confident in Bush's ability to deal with America's adversaries. About one in five GOP primary voters don't know enough about Walker to rate him on these issues.
Bush, Rubio, Trump and Walker are all viewed more favorably than unfavorably among Republican primary voters, although Trump has the highest unfavorable rating - 38 percent - among these four candidates. He is also the most known to Republican voters - only 14 percent are undecided or don't know enough about him.
Rubio and Walker have lower unfavorable ratings and they are the least familiar to Republican voters - at this early stage in the campaign, many are undecided or haven't heard enough about each to have an opinion.
Most Republican voters' views of Trump haven't changed in the last month, but more say their opinions of him have become better (23 percent), than say worse (12 percent). However, the reverse is true among registered voters: they are more likely to say their views of Trump have worsened.
Still, among registered voters overall, both Trump and Bush are viewed more negatively than positively. Thirty percent view Bush favorably, and 40 percent do not view him favorably, and twenty-seven percent of registered voters hold a favorable view of Trump, while 59 percent hold an unfavorable view of him. Opinions on Rubio and Walker are split.
Trump's wealth could be a positive when it comes to money and politics. Voters nationwide are more inclined to prefer a candidate who uses their own personal wealth to fund their campaign (28 percent), rather than one who raises money through donations (13 percent). Views are similar across party lines. Still, for a majority of voters - 56 percent - it doesn't matter if a candidate uses their own money or donors' money to fund their campaigns.
While most registered voters view the Republican candidates as mostly attacking each other, 46 percent of Republican voters think the candidates are mostly explaining what they would do as president; thirty-five percent say they are mostly attacking each other.
Immigration
Fifty-nine percent of Americans think most immigrants to the U.S. (not specifically illegal immigrants) contribute to society rather than cause problems. Most Democrats and independents hold this view, while Republicans are divided, with 43 percent saying most immigrants contribute to the country and 42 percent saying that they cause problems.
Americans continue to think that most illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. should be able to apply for legal status, including 61 percent who support a path to citizenship. Among Republicans, more than half (55 percent) back legal status, but 41 percent think illegal immigrants should be required to leave the country.
When asked specifically about jobs, most say illegal immigrants generally take jobs that Americans don't want. Republicans (42 percent) are more likely than Democrats (18 percent) and independents (24 percent) to say illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans.
Most Americans think illegal immigrants are just as likely to commit crimes as U.S. citizens. Republicans, however, are somewhat more inclined to say illegal immigrants are more likely to commit crimes (33 percent) than U.S. citizens (11 percent).
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This poll was conducted by telephone July 29-August 2, 2015 among a random sample of 1,252 adults nationwide, including 1047 registered voters. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, PA. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of error for the sample of 408 Republican primary voters is 5 percentage points.
This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.
© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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