Russia Launches First Proton Rocket Since May Accident Friday August 28th, 2015 at 10:30 AM
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Russia has successfully launched a rocket carrier with a British satellite in the first such launch since an engine failure in May resulted in a commercialsatellite being destroyed.
British journalists detained, questioned by anti-terrorism police in southeast Turkey
The founder and CEO of the Ashley Madison extra-marital affair website, Noel Biderman, steps down, Avid Life Media says.
Both the pilot, co-pilot and a passenger on board the twin-engined Dash 8 aircraft (file picture), which can carry up to 78 passengers, spotted the drone near London City Airport in April.
The approach of a one-year deadline of the Minsk accord will force the EU to make weighty decisions over Ukraine.
Islamic State killed two senior Iraqi army commanders, officials and state media said, continuing the extremist group’s tactic of targeting military leaders to deplete morale among fighters.
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Even as the country projects a muscular image, a falling ruble and weaker economy has forced President Vladimir Putin to scale back ambitious plans to modernize the military.
Natalie Jaresko led months of tense negotiations with creditors, clocking thousands of air miles to reach a debt-relief deal that should help secure further bailout funds from the International Monetary Fund.
The former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic, who was under house arrest on charges of child abuse and possession of child pornography, has died, according to the Vatican.
Washington Governor Calls Fires 'Slow-Motion Disaster'by webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
Firefighters were keeping a wary eye Thursday on big wildfires that Gov. Jay Inslee described as a “slow-motion disaster.” The National Weather Service issued a red-flag warning for the largest wildfire, the Okanogan Complex, saying rising temperatures, falling humidity and increasing winds had the potential to spread the flames on Thursday afternoon. “The heat coming back on us early is going to be a problem,” said Rick Isaacson, spokesman for the fire that grew to 450 square miles on...
US Asks Uzbekistan to Join Anti-Islamic State Coalitionby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
The United States said Thursday that it had asked Uzbekistan to join the multinational coalition it leads against Islamic State, saying Central Asia's most populous state was free to choose a way of contributing to the fight against the militant group. "We have asked Uzbekistan ... to join the coalition," Daniel Rosenblum, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia, told reporters during a visit to the Uzbek capital. Uzbekistan, a mainly Muslim nation...
US National Security Advisor Meets With Top Chinese Officialsby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The U.S. national security advisor has begun holding meetings in Beijing with top Chinese officials on the first day of her two-day trip. Susan Rice met with China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi on Friday and is set to meet later in the day with President Xi Jinping. Rice's visit comes ahead of President Xi's visit to Washington next month. Her visit also coincides with the slowing Chinese economy that has panicked stock markets around the world. President Barack Obama...
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US, South Korea Hold Joint Military Drillby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The U.S. and South Korea have held their largest-ever joint military drill. The live-fire drill was held Friday near the border town of Pocheon. The joint military exercises follow days of tensions between North and South Korea. Such exercises in the past have infuriated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who often responds with strong threats to both Washington and Seoul. Kim on Friday said he credits his country's nuclear weapons, instead of its negotiating...
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called this week's accord between the rival Koreas "a landmark occasion" paving the way for defused military tension and improved ties, but said it was the strength of its armed forces that made the deal possible.
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets on Thursday to demand the resignation of President Otto Perez, who has refused to quit in the face of accusations by his attorney general that he was involved in a lucrative customs racket.
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's ruling AK Party is not seen winning enough votes to form a single-party government in a Nov. 1 snap election with 38.9 percent support, down from 40.7 percent in the June election, the latest survey from pollster Gezici indicated.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States stressed the positives in their complex relationship on Friday during meetings between U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Chinese officials ahead of a U.S. visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Success of a new international inquiry aimed at assigning blame for chemical weapons attacks during Syria's four-year-old civil war will require full cooperation of all warring parties, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday.
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TASHKENT (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it had asked Uzbekistan to join the multinational coalition it leads against Islamic State, saying Central Asia's most populous state was free to choose a way of contributing to the fight against the militant group.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians' concern about rising prices has eroded President Vladimir Putin's approval ratings but these remain extremely high, the daily Vedomosti reported on Friday.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Catholic former archbishop accused of child sex offences was found dead on Friday, the Vatican said, a month after he was hospitalized on the eve of his trial.
DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained two British journalists from Vice News for reporting from the predominantly Kurdish southeast without government accreditation, security sources said on Friday.
Afghan, Turkmen Leaders Discuss Cooperation In Kabulby support@pangea-cms.com (RFE/RL)
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has discussed trade, economic, energy, and transport cooperation with his visiting Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.
The United States has asked Uzbekistan to join the multinational coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
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A former Russian lawmaker has been sentenced to 17 years in jail for his role in organizing the high-profile killing in 1998 of lawmaker Galina Starovoitova.
Jozef Wesolowski in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 2009. Mr. Wesolowski, the former archbishop and papal envoy to the Dominican Republic, was found dead on Friday.
Susan E. Rice, the United States national security adviser, met on Friday in Beijing with Gen. Fan Changlong, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, which oversees the People’s Liberation Army.
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican's former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, who had been charged by church prosecutors with sexually abusing children in the Caribbean country, died Friday of apparent natural causes as he awaited trial, the Vatican said....
Phantom Terror by fredslibrary
Title: Phantom Terror
Author: Adam Zamoyski
Zamoyski, Adam (2015). Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848. New York: Basic Books
LCCN: 2014949601
Summary
- The French Revolution and the blood-curdling violence it engendered terrified the ruling and propertied classes of Europe. Unable to grasp how such horrors could have come about, many concluded that it was the result of a devilish conspiracy hatched by Freemasons inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment with the aim of overthrowing the entire social order, along with the legal and religious principles it stood on. Others traced it back to the Reformation or the Knights Templar and ascribed even more sinister aims to it. Faced by this apparently occult threat, they resorted to repression on an unprecedented scale, expanding police and spy networks in the process. This compelling history, occasionally chilling and often hilarious, tells how the modern state evolved through the expansion of its organs of control, and holds urgent lessons for today.
Contents
- 1. Exorcism — 2. Fear — 3. Contagion — 4. War on Terror — 5. Government by Alarm — 6. Order — 7. Peace — 8. A Hundred Days — 9. Intelligence — 10. British Bogies — 11. Moral Order — 12. Mysticism — 13. Teutomania — 14. Suicide Terrorists — 15. Corrosion — 16. The Empire of Evil — 17. Synagogues of Satan — 18. Comité Directeur — 19. The Duke of Texas — 20. The Apostolate — 21. Mutiny — 22. Cleansing — 23. Counter-Revolution — 24. Jupiter Tonans — 25. Scandals — 26. Sewers — 27. The China of Europe — 28. A Mistake — 29. Polonism — 30. Satan on the Loose.
Subjects
- Revolution (France : 1789-1799)
- 1789 – 1900
- Political persecution–Europe–History–19th century.
- Revolutions–Europe–History–19th century.
- Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
- Political persecution.
- Politics and government
- Revolutions.
- Europe–Politics and government–1789-1900.
- Europe–History–1789-1900.
- France–History–Revolution, 1789-1799–Influence.
- Europe.
- France.
Notes
- Originally published : Great Britain : William Collins, 2014.
Date Posted: August 27, 2015
Reviewed by Joseph C. Goulden.[1]
In the wake of the turbulent French Revolution at the turn of the 18th century, crowns rattled atop nervous royal heads throughout Europe. Was beheading monarchs to become a new continental pastime? Would democratic forces sweep aside regimes whose only claim to “legitimacy” was heritage?
One can quibble with Adam Zamoyski’s use of the word “paranoia” in his subtitle, because the threats facing European royalty were well-founded, and could be ignored only at the rulers’ peril. And let us be realistic: the reflexive response of any established government which is under attack, political or otherwise, is self-preservation, So, at a remove of two hundred years, one finds it difficult to quibble with the monarchs’ attempt at self-.defense.
But that does not equate with defending their methods. And Zamoyski documents, in indisputable detail, a system that relied on bumblers and fumblers, “security: agents” so inept as to make the Keystone Cops look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison. Further, the persons being oppressed often had legitimate economic and political grievances that their rulers would not address.
Perhaps the most repressive system, ironically, was in France, where the revolution had devolved into a de facto police state under Napoleon, with excesses exceeding even those of the deposed Bourbons. The responsible tyrant was police minster Joseph Fouché, who oversaw a surveillance system to insure that “people behaved themselves.” (Fouché insisted on “making vice contribute to the security of the state;” hence he heavily taxed gaming houses and brothels.)
But the spy system, under both Fouché and successors, was strikingly disorderly. Thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts—unreliable and unschooled, with scant political knowledge—were dispatched to ferret out subversion. These amateur sleuths crammed police files with thousands of “dossiers”—wearing the wrong color hat, for instance, could make a person a “subject of interest.” (The color might suggest “revolutionary tendencies,” you must understand.)
A multitude of agents were often dispatched to spy on the same subjects. An example: two agents, one working for the police, the other for military intelligence, unknown to one another, went to the same tavern to check out a “plot.” They stood drinks for one another and professed a longing for the Napoleonic era. Meetings followed with “role-players” on either side, with talk about overthrowing the government. In due course, the military officer was arrested and held for a month before his release could be secured.
And there were mishaps worthy of a comic opera plot. A French nobleman tasked police with investigating his mistress in hopes of finding romantic misbehavior which would warrant jilting her for an actress with whom he lusted. Ooops! The gumshoes confused the names and stalked the actress instead, and the nobleman was “presented with evidence of her infidelities to him.” End of romance.
In terms of spying on other countries, and keeping a watch on putative “enemies” abroad—self-exiled nationals, mainly—Austrian intelligence controlled an extraordinarily valuable asset: the European postal system. Vienna provided “the most efficient postal service throughout the Holy Roman Empire.” Even though the empire had collapsed, most of the mails carried through its former territory still went through Austrian sorting offices. The Austrian foreign minister, Prince Metternich, managed to expand coverage to Switzerland, “a natural crossroads as well as a meeting place for subversives of every sort.” Berne also handled mails between France, Germany and Italy, and made it available to Austrian authorities.
The French were by no means laggards in screening mail. Ignoring a National Assembly decree that postal workers must respect the privacy of correspondence, French security set up a system whereby agents could sort through the mails and select letters for scrutiny. As an admiring official marveled, “It was in vain that the arts of envelopes, seals and ciphers struggled to escape such intrusion.” Agents kept a sharp watch for persons who wore clothing “with revolutionary colors.” Even an old military button with an image of the deposed king could be considered evidence of disloyalty.
In Russia, the tsars Alexander and Nicholas displaced a tendency “not so much as to control the society they ruled over through suppression, as to mould it morally to the desired form.” But Nicholas bristled at reports that schools were “gangrened” with immorality and incorrect political attitudes. So he recruited a scholar named Sergei Uvarov to set things right. Thereafter scholars were fed a steady intellectual diet featuring the supremacy of the Orthodox faith and the “supreme and boundless authority of the tsar.”
Uvarov was a paradox. He wanted young men to read, “but only what he felt was good for them.” He abhorred the printing of cheap books on the grounds that they might “set the lower classes in motion.” Understandably, his minions at the working level often had trouble sorting out the acceptable from the forbidden, meaning that in the end censorship triumphed. As Zamoyski writes, the system was so pervasive that there were “more censors in Russia than books being printed.”
Great Britain, with all its flaws in the era, was perhaps the most responsive of all European nations to pressures for change, especially democratization. Suffrage was widely expanded. So-called “rotten boroughs,” parliamentary seats more or less owned by landed gentry, were gradually eliminated. Parliament gave the populace a voice—a reform that would have saved the crowned heads much grief
In a preface, Zamoyski congratulates himself for not suggesting “parallels between Prince Metternich and Tony Blair, or George W. Bush and the Russian czars.” Then, loyal to the current standard of European “intellectuals,” he takes the cheap shot anyway. A pity, for such nonsense distracts from his work of serious history.
[1] Goulden, Joseph C., “The Latest Intelligence Books,” The Intelligencer: Journal of U. S. Intelligence Studies (21, 2, Spring/Summer 2015, pp. 111-112). Joseph C, Goulden’s 1982 book, Goulden, Joseph C. (1982). Korea: The Untold Story of The War. New York: Times Books. [LCCN: 81021262], was published in a Chinese-language edition in 2014 by Beijing Xiron Books. He is author of 18 nonfiction books. Goulden is a long-time reviewer of espionage and spy books for The Washington Times, for AFIO’s Intelligencer, for law journals, and other publications. Some of the reviews above appeared in prior editions of The Washington Times or The Washington Lawyer (DC Bar Association) and are reprinted here by permission of the author. Joe Goulden’s most recent book is Goulden, Joseph C. (2012). The Dictionary of Espionage: Spyspeak into English. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications
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Forbes |
China's Importance To U.S. Stocks
Forbes China's economic slowdown has been blamed for the recent rise in volatility and decline in the global stock markets. One thing is certain, China's economy is slowing. After decades of increasing exports and a government that chose to build ghost cities ... and more » |
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USA TODAY |
Lawyers plan challenge to arrests based on secret cellphone tracking
USA TODAY Charles Grassley , R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee . Rep. Jason Chaffetz , R-Utah, the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said “secrecy surrounding the use of these devices fosters an environment ... |
Bloomberg |
Only Way Is Up for China Markets as Xi Prepares for WWII Parade
Bloomberg China's central bank strengthened the yuan's reference rate by the most in five months Friday, a move that suggests policy makers are trying to “save face” before the Sept. 3 parade, according to Brilliant and ... Policy makers want to stabilize ... China's Unhealthy Obsession With Looking GoodBloomberg View all 6 news articles » |
FBI: $1.2B Lost to Business Email Scams
Krebs on Security The FBI today warned about a significant spike in victims and dollar losses stemming from an increasingly common scam in which crooks spoof communications from executives at the victim firm in a bid to initiate unauthorized international wire transfers. |
National Review Online |
How Obama Officials Dodge the Freedom of Information...
National Review Online Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, says there is evidence that the Obama Justice Department and the IRS have known about the Toby Miles account for some time but chose not to tell the court. A House committee months ago urged that a criminal ... |
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Kenyan man nabbed by Miami FBI faces 15 years in terror plot
Miami Herald A Kenyan man caught in an FBI counter-terrorism operation could be sent to prison for 15 years at his sentencing in Miami federal court on Friday morning, after pleading guilty to supplying thousands of dollars to three U.S.-designated terrorist ... and more » |
China, Australia and the United Stateswill conduct a trilateral military exercise in Australia.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has wrestled control of five villages in Syria’s northern Aleppo province from rebel groups
A group of nearly 200 retired, high-ranking American military officials is urging U.S. lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear deal, arguing it will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Another day, another ISIL material support case involving people within the United States. Like most such cases, the story of Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal's alleged offense conduct involves social media. Right now all that is out there is the DOJ press release plus an indictment that is thin on factual description, but from I can gather the charges seem largely to stem from the defendant’s role in facilitating a New York City man’s travel to train with and join ISIL. It is not entirely clear just what forms the facilitation allegedly took, but for what it is worth, it seems from the DOJ description (see below) that it may have amounted to, mostly, introducing the guy from New York to a point of contact who could help him get to ISIL, and then providing further encouragement and unspecified travel advice thereafter. Thus we have not just standard 2339B material support charges, but also charges relating to the illegal receipt of military-style training from a designated foreign terrorist organization. From the press release:
WASHINGTON – Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal, aka Jammie Gammal, 42, of Avondale, Arizona, was indicted today for providing and conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization, as well as for aiding and abetting the receipt of military-type training from ISIL and conspiring to receive such training.…As alleged in the indictment returned today and the complaint unsealed yesterday in the Southern District of New York:In August 2014, a 24-year-old New York City resident (CC-1) learned via social media that El Gammal had posted social media comments that supported ISIL. Minutes later, CC-1 contacted El Gammal. Over the next several months, CC-1 and El Gammal continued corresponding over the Internet, although CC-1 deleted many of these exchanges.In the midst of these communications, in October 2014, El Gammal traveled to Manhattan, New York, where CC-1 was enrolled in college, and contacted and met with CC-1. While in New York City, El Gammal also contacted another co-conspirator (CC-2), who lived in Turkey, about CC-1’s plans to travel to the Middle East. El Gammal later provided CC-1 with social media contact information for CC-2. Thereafter, El Gammal and CC-2 had multiple social media exchanges about CC-1 traveling to the Middle East. In addition, CC-1 began communicating with CC-2, introducing himself as a friend of “Gammal’s.”In late January 2015, CC-1 abruptly left New York City for Istanbul. After CC-1 arrived in Turkey, El Gammal continued to communicate with him over the Internet, providing advice on traveling toward Syria and on meeting with CC-2. After CC-1 arrived in Syria, he received military-type training from ISIL between early February and at least early May 2015.On May 7, 2015, CC-1 reported to El Gammal that “everything [was] going according to plan.”El Gammal is charged with one count of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of receiving military-type training from a designated foreign terrorist organization, which carries a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison; and one count of conspiring to receive military-type training from a designated foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as the defendant’s sentence, if any, will be determined by a judge.El Gammal was arrested on Aug. 24, 2015, in Avondale, and presented in federal court in the District of Arizona, pursuant to a criminal complaint. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York....
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Libyan authorities were collecting the bodies of migrants who drowned off the coastal city of Zuwara, with some 200 feared dead on Friday in the latest disaster involving desperate people trying to reach Europe.
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A former Fort Carson solider convicted of stealing thousands of dollars in military equipment was sentenced Thursday to 4 ½ years in prison and required to pay a $35,000 fine.
The legal team representing Douglas Hughes who landed his gyrocopter on the Capitol’s West Front Lawn plans to“expose the lack of security” in the heavily restricted airspace over Washington if the gyrocopter case goes to trial.
In a letter urging Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to intervene, a congressman said Wednesday that the Army went too far in reprimanding and initiating actions against a Green Beret who shoved an Afghan police commander after he allegedly admitted raping a young boy.
Visiting on tidy porch stoops and dining at a thriving corner eatery, President Barack Obama paid tribute to New Orleans on Thursday as an extraordinary example of renewal and resilience 10 years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Police arrested three people in Hungary overnight in connection with the deaths of 71 migrants found in a refrigerated truck abandoned on Austria's main highway, a police official said Friday.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians' concern about rising prices has eroded President Vladimir Putin's approval ratings but these remain extremely high, the daily Vedomosti reported on Friday.
It cited a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation as showing that 72 percent of Russians would have voted for Putin in August, down from 76 percent in May.
Another poll, by the Levada Center, showed that in August 83 percent of Russians approved of the President's actions, down from an all-time high of 89 percent in May.
The paper quoted experts as saying the fall reflected public dissatisfaction about prices during the summer, when many regulated prices such as utility and transport charges are raised.
Putin's popularity ratings remain extremely high by both international and historical standards, boosted by his response to political upheaval in Ukraine last year. His annexation of Crimea and denunciation of Western actions stirred patriotic fervor in Russia.
According to the Levada Center's poll, Putin's approval rating in November 2013 was 61 percent, the lowest since 2000 when he was first elected President, but it surged above 80 percent early last year.
Consumer price inflation was 15.6 percent in July, having hit a 13-year high of 16.9 percent in March after a slump in the rouble caused by a collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict.
(Reporting by Jason Bush; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
- Politics & Government
- President Vladimir Putin
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Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a statement in the Kremlin on Wednesday. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)
On September 5, 2014, two days after President Obama visited Estonia to symbolize America’s commitment to its security, Russian agents crossed into Estonia and kidnapped an Estonian security official. Last week, after a closed trial, Russia sentenced him to 15 years.
The reaction? The State Department issued a statement. The NATO secretary-general issued a tweet. Neither did anything. The European Union (reports the Wall Street Journal) said it was too early to discuss any possible action.
Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly political column that runs on Fridays.
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The timing of this brazen violation of NATO territory — immediately after Obama’s visit — is testimony to Vladimir Putin’s contempt for the American president. He knows Obama would do nothing. Why should he think otherwise?
● Putin breaks the arms embargo to Iran by lifting the hold on selling it S-300 missiles. Obama responds by excusing him, saying it wasn’t technically illegal and adding, with a tip of the hat to Putin’s patience: “I’m frankly surprised that it held this long.”
● Russia mousetraps Obama at the eleventh hour of the Iran negotiations, joining Iran in demanding that the conventional-weapons and ballistic-missile embargoes be dropped. Obama caves.
● Putin invades Ukraine, annexes Crimea, breaks two Minsk cease-fire agreements and erases the Russia-Ukraine border — effectively tearing up the post-Cold War settlement of 1994. Obama’s response? Pinprick sanctions, empty threats and a continuing refusal to supply Ukraine with defensive weaponry, lest he provoke Putin.
The East Europeans have noticed. In February, Lithuania decided to reinstate conscription, a move strategically insignificant — the Lithuanians couldn’t hold off the Russian army for a day — but highly symbolic. Eastern Europe has been begging NATO to station permanent bases on its territory as a tripwire guaranteeing a powerful NATO/U.S. response to any Russian aggression.
NATO has refused. Instead, Obama offered more military exercises in the Baltic States and Poland. And threw in an additional 250 tanks and armored vehicles, spread among seven allies.
It is true that Putin’s resentment over Russia’s lost empire long predates Obama. But for resentment to turn into revanchism — an active policy of reconquest — requires opportunity. Which is exactly what Obama’s “reset” policy has offered over the past six and a half years.
Since the end of World War II, Russia has known that what stands in the way of westward expansion was not Europe, living happily in decadent repose, but the United States as guarantor of Western security. Obama’s naivete and ambivalence have put those guarantees in question.
It began with the reset button, ostentatiously offered less than two months after Obama’s swearing-in. Followed six months later by the unilateral American cancellation of the missile shield the Poles and the Czechs had agreed to install on their territory. Again, lest Putin be upset.
By 2012, a still clueless Obama mocked Mitt Romney for saying that Russia is “without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe,” quipping oh so cleverly: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” After all, he explained, “the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Turned out it was 2015 calling. Obama’s own top officials have been retroactively vindicating Romney. Last month, Obama’s choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security.” Two weeks ago, the retiring Army chief of staff, Raymond Odierno, called Russia our “most dangerous” military threat. Obama’s own secretary of defense has gone one better: “Russia poses an existential threat to the United States.”
Turns out the Cold War is not over either. Putin is intent on reviving it. Helped immensely by Obama’s epic misjudgment of Russian intentions, the balance of power has shifted — and America’s allies feel it.
And not just the East Europeans. The president of Egypt, a country estranged from Russia for 40 years and our mainstay Arab ally in the Middle East, has twice visited Moscow within the last four months.
The Saudis, congenitally wary of Russia but shell-shocked by Obama’s grand nuclear capitulation to Iran that will make it the regional hegemon, are searching for alternatives, too. At a recent economic conference in St. Petersburg, the Saudis invited Putin to Riyadh and the Russians reciprocated by inviting the new King Salman to visit Czar Vladimir in Moscow.
Even Pakistan, a traditional Chinese ally and Russian adversary, is buying Mi-35 helicopters from Russia, which is building a natural gas pipeline between Karachi and Lahore.
As John Kerry awaits his upcoming Nobel and Obama plans his presidential library (my suggestion: Havana), Putin is deciding how to best exploit the final 17 months of his Obama bonanza.
The world sees it. Obama doesn’t.
Read more from Charles Krauthammer’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
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Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.
IRAQ and SYRIA
An Islamic State suicide bomber killed two Iraqi army generals yesterday as they headed up forces against militant positions in the country’s restive Anbar province, outside of Ramadi, military officials said. [AP; New York Times’ Tim Arango]
The UN is moving forward with its plans to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria; Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council yesterday that he will set up a three person team to conduct the probe. [AFP]
The YPG has launched an offensive against ISIS into territory in northern Syria, testing the US and Turkey’s plan to establish a “safe zone” in the area which excludes Kurdish forces. [NOW]
Mosul’s top Iraqi army officer stayed on vacation last summer, despite repeated warnings that ISIS was intending to seize control of the northern city. An Iraqi parliamentary report also found that the officer’s units had under a third of the soldiers they were supposed to have on the day of battle, reports Loveday Morris. [Washington Post]
The UN’s humanitarian chief has called on the Security Council to do everything in its power to encourage a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria, describing the suffering of civilians there as “needless and immense.” [UN News Centre]
Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi ordered the military to make it easier for civilians to get into Baghdad’s Green Zone, a heavily defended district of the city, home to many official buildings. [Reuters]
The targeting of ISIS hacker Junaid Hussain “shows the extent to which digital warfare has upset the balance of power on the modern battlefield,” write Margaret Coker et al, discussing the important role the Briton played in the group’s cyber force. [Wall Street Journal]
Realistic predictions about the duration of the fight against the Islamic State are not well received by the White House or Congress; Dan De Luce explores whether America is “ready for an endless war” against the militant group. [Foreign Policy]
America might find that the price of using Turkish bases to launch strikes against ISIS in Syria “may well be too high in the long run,” opines Eric S. Edelman, adding that the US must use its leverage to pressure Turkish leaders if the country “is to avoid being sucked into the vortex created by a failed Syria policy and [President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s] dogged quest for absolute power.” [New York Times]
IRAN
Tehran appears to have built an extension onto its contentious Parchin military facility since May, a new report from the IAEA says. Any changes to the nuclear site since the UN watchdog last visited in 2005 may jeopardize the agency’s ability to verify Western intelligence alleging Iran carried out weapon tests there over a decade ago, reports Shadia Nasralla. [Reuters]
GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are teaming up to hold an upcoming rally at the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to oppose the nuclear accord. [Politico’s Seung Min Kim]
A “vitriolic divide” among American Jews has emerged over the Iran deal, with some commentators suggesting long-term damage to Jewish organizations, and potentially to US-Israeli relations, report Jonathan Weisman and Alexander Burns. [New York Times]
The fight in Congress over the Iran deal is “all but over” according to Eli Lake and Josh Rogin, who report that opponents are now focused on ensuring there is a vote on the agreement at all. [Bloomberg View]
Whether President Obama succeeds on the Iran deal “by filibuster or sustained veto” could make all the difference to the administration, with a Democratic filibuster constituting a “clear victory” for the president. [Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Burgess Everett]
The majority of Americans would oppose the Obama administration moving forward with the Iran nuclear deal without Congressional approval, a new poll, released by Secure America Now, has found.
If the accord goes through, Iran’s oil exports will resume, putting Tehran in a better position than the US where producers are still banned from doing so, considers Will Marshall. [The Daily Beast]
The Wall Street Journal editorial board discusses the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings, concluding that “Iran and its proxies have never hesitated to shed American blood.”
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
NATO opened a new joint training base in Georgia yesterday, aimed at reassuring the country of its allies’ support; it is unclear how far that promise goes however given some nations’ reluctance to bring Georgia into the organization, reports Julian E. Barnes. [Wall Street Journal]
The Taliban’s capture of Musa Qala district in Helmand province constitutes a significant propaganda victory for the insurgent group, even though control brings limited military advantage, reports Emma Graham-Harrison. [The Guardian]
The Obama administration is looking into building a new facility in the US to replace the prison at Guantánamo Bay; the Pentagon has only formally acknowledged that it is looking into US military prisons in Kansas and South Carolina. [Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg]
“The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki.” In an extended piece, Scott Shane describes the growing influence of the jihadi cleric, killed by a US drone strike in 2011, and asks whether there was another, better, way stop him? [New York Times]
GCHQ “revealed intriguing details about what it did and why” by forcing journalists at the Guardian to completely destroy the information on computers where secret documents provided by Edward Snowden were held, suggests Jenna McLaughlin. [The Intercept]
Democrats are ever-more frustrated with Hillary Clinton’s response to questions about her use of a private email server while in office as secretary of state, as concerns mount over voter doubts about her trustworthiness and honesty. [New York Times’ Patrick Healy et al] And David Ignatius writes that “experts in national-security law say there may be less” to Clinton’s use of a personal server than it appears, at the Washington Post.
Thousands are seeking refuge at the compound of the UN peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic following clashes between rival militias in that country. [UN News Centre]
Rebels and the army in South Sudan have traded accusations about attacks for the second time this week, barely a day after the country’s president signed a peace agreement with the insurgents. [Reuters]
Russia is being forced to scale back its plans for military modernization in the midst of a falling ruble and a weakened economy, writes Thomas Grove. [Wall Street Journal]
A mosque in southern Spain has come under scrutiny following last week’s foiled attack on a French train by a Moroccan man who had worshiped there, reports Raphael Minder. [New York Times]
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