Migrants Continue to Pour Into Austria, Germany Sunday September 6th, 2015 at 11:32 AM
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Thousands of migrants were still streaming across Hungary’s border with Austria on Sunday morning, more than 24 hours after German and Austrian authorities accepted one of the largest waves of displaced people since World War II.
Thousands of refugees are given food, drink and accommodation after completing exhausting journeys from Syria.
Men, women and children who have recently crossed the border into Hungary from Serbia are escorted to a new transit camp near the town of Röszke on Sunday. Groups of riot police surround the families, who spent the night at a petrol station near the border, and make them board buses to the camp. Many people try to avoid camps in Hungary as, once there, they will be made to register and cannot then claim asylum elsewhere in Europe
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 The Guardian |
Migration crisis tears at EU's cohesion and tarnishes its image
Economic Times BRUSSELS: Deep divisions over how to cope with a flood of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia pose a threat to the European Union's values and global standing and may diminish its ability to act jointly to reform the euro zone and ease ... Analysis - Migration crisis tears at EU's cohesion and tarnishes its imageReuters Africa Most Refugees are fleeing harm the UK helped to createHerald Scotland Misery of the migrantsBusiness Recorder (press release) (blog) Online Athens all 97 news articles » |
 Daily Mail |
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey calls for Britain to 'crush' Isis ...
Daily Mail Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has called on Britain to 'crush' ISIS in Syria in a bid to end the ongoing refugee crisis. The retired bishop, who was head of the Church of England from 1991 to 2002, has backed calls for British military ... The refugee crisis requires a pragmatic response, not emotionTelegraph.co.uk Cameron faces increasing pressure to crush ISIS as refugee crisis worsensBusiness Standard Britain signals move towards air strikes in SyriaReuters Al-Bawaba -Khaleej Times -New York Times all 1,663 news articles » |
Thousands of Migrants Streaming Into Germany, Austriaby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Germany and Austria are welcoming thousands of migrants within their borders Sunday. Most of the migrants have opted to seek refuge in Germany -- Europe's wealthiest country -- where an estimated 8,000 are expected to arrive by day's end. German officials have said they will accept as many as 800,000 asylum seekers this year. The asylum-seekers left Hungary Saturday for western Europe, traveling by bus, train or on foot. More refugees are passing through Hungary on...
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As Syrian refugees travel by the masses into Europe, they continue to stream out of the technically closed land border with Turkey. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/refugees-flee-across-turkish-border/2949834.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart on Saturday the United States was deeply concerned about reports that Moscow was moving toward a major military build-up in Syria widely seen as aimed at bolstering President Bashar al-Assad.
DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - Two policeman were killed and three others injured in predominantly Kurdish eastern Turkey's largest city when Kurdish militants clashed with security forces early on Sunday, government sources said.
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland may join forces with other NATO members such as Norway or the Netherlands to buy submarines in a bid to cut costs, instead of buying them alone, deputy defense minister Czeslaw Mroczek said on Sunday.
Kerry Tells Lavrov U.S. Concerned Over Reports Of Russian Military Move In Syria by support@pangea-cms.com (RFE/RL)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed concern over reports of "an imminent Russian military buildup" in Syria in a September 5 telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Unlike predecessors who traveled to the United States before rising to the papacy, Pope Francis has waited until age 78 to visit the country that thinks of itself as the center of everything.
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Migrants chant "We want bus!" as they walk along a road towards Austria, while another thousand cross into Hungary from Serbia. Report by Jennifer Cordingley.
Iraq’s ability to fight Islamic State extremists who control roughly a third of the country is hampered by a financial crisis that’s left the Baghdad government operating “hand to mouth,” Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily warned this week.
The inability to pay salaries on time to the soldiers and militiamen fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has hurt morale and hindered progress in operations to retake key hubs that were captured by the jihadists, Faily said in an interview Thursday. And belt-tightening measures such as consolidating government ministries threaten to exacerbate ethnic and sectarian tensions by upsetting the delicate power-sharing quota system that’s been in place since the U.S.-led occupation authority took charge following the invasion of 2003.
“This goes back to not making your support conditional,” he added, referring to Iraqi officials’ frustration with the Obama administration’s reluctance to bail them out last year unless Baghdad first made reforms to address the corruption and ingrained sectarianism that softened the ground for the extremist takeover of Mosul in the north and most of Anbar province in the west.
Faily, who belongs to the ruling Dawa Party, blamed the crisis chiefly on the plummeting price of oil – the government relies on exports for some 85 percent of revenue – though economists and foreign policy analysts say that decades of mismanagement and corruption also have contributed.
Faily acknowledged government fault, citing an overdependence on oil revenues and the slow pace of addressing graft such as the use of “ghost employees,” workers who exist only on paper so that supervisors can pocket the salaries.
Much of Iraq’s spending is defense-related as the country struggles simultaneously to rebuild the U.S.-trained military that collapsed during the Islamic State onslaught and to launch offensives to retake captured territories. And they’re doing this with a budget that was based on oil at $56 a barrel, though in recent weeks the fluctuating price has dipped to closer to $40 a barrel. A revenue-sharing deal between Baghdad and the mostly autonomous, oil-rich Kurdistan region has broken down, depriving the central government of another cash stream.
Ben Van Heuvelen, managing editor of Iraq Oil Report, which closely monitors the Iraqi oil sector, said a major cause of the crisis is that the previous administration of Nouri al Maliki “left zero financial buffer for the inevitable down cycle in commodity price.” He said that Maliki’s successor, Prime Minister Haider Abadi, has “made some good moves,” including painful spending cuts and exploring revenues outside of oil, but that he stands little chance of yanking the country back from the brink anytime soon.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because it involves sensitive diplomatic and defense matters, said the Obama administration has increased its military assistance to Iraq in recognition of the twin crises of the Islamic State presence and the severe financial strain due to collapsing oil prices.
The official acknowledged that “it is an increasing challenge” for the Iraqis to fight the Islamic State, “and that’s why we’ve put so many of our own financial resources” into the campaign.
Foreign military financing, which uses U.S. funds to procure weapons, included $300 million for Iraq for fiscal year 2014 and $150 million for 2015 before jumping again to $250 million in the current pending request for 2016. In addition, the official said, the U.S. military donated some surplus American equipment, including 300 MRAPs, mine-resistant armored vehicles.
“They need a bunch of things across the board, everything from anti-tank weapons to MRAPS to Humvees to arms and equipment,” the official said.
U.S. spending billions
As of Aug. 15, the official said, the total cost of U.S. operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is $3.7 billion, with an average cost of $9.9 million a day. The official said critics who question why the United States is spending so much in defense of one of the world’s most oil-rich nations are ignoring the broader consequences should Iraq lose more ground to the extremist group.
“You can’t look at this as an Iraqi fight,” the official said. “ISIL is a threat to the region, to the international community. It’s a mistake to look at this as an Iraqi or a Syrian fight. ISIL has shown the global implications they can have, and just their sheer brutality needs to be defeated. To characterize it as an Iraqi fight is wrong.”
Faily acknowledged the U.S. help and said that the Germans and Dutch, too, have contributed light weapons, equipment and anti-tank systems. But most battle-related costs, he said, are Iraq’s responsibility. That goes not just for the regular army and security forces, he said, but also for some of the Shiite Muslim militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.
“The actual fighting on the ground we’re financing ourselves,” Faily said. “Salaries, weapons, uniforms, equipment.”
But the budget crisis means that paychecks are late – “three months behind, four months behind,” Faily said – which, in turn, deals a blow to the morale of a fighting force that’s already much maligned for its evaporation during the Islamic State offensive that took Mosul, the second-largest city in the country.
“You want your professional army to deal with things professionally,” Faily said.
There’s also the risk, Faily said, of losing recruits to paramilitary groups, particularly the Iranian-funded militias that the U.S. government designates as dangerous “special groups.” Though just 35,000 special groups militiamen are part of the 120,000-person Shiite paramilitary structure, he said, the loss of manpower to them is a blow to the government’s effort to assert authority over all armed factions in the fight against the Islamic State.
Faily said Iraq’s finance minister is traveling to London and Washington next month in hopes of selling some $6 billion in Iraqi bonds, and that the Iraqi Cabinet is scrambling to cut spending in other areas, downsizing diplomatic outposts and halting some investment projects. Iraq also received a credit rating for the first time and secured a loan agreement from the World Bank.
Other budget trims have been more controversial, such as doing away with some high-ranking ceremonial positions and consolidating government ministries. The divvying up of official posts according to sect, ethnicity and political party was a longstanding tactic to appease the disparate groups that were jockeying for power after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
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Lina Khatib is director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Previously, she was the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The views expressed in this commentary are solely hers.
Turkey is genuinely concerned about the terror threat bubbling away on its border, but ISIS has also given President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a convenient cover to crack down on Ankara's long-time nemesis: Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK).
Erdogan is now waging parallel campaigns -- one against ISIS, and one against PKK rebels in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq. The strikes on PKK targets have brought an end to a two-year ceasefire between Turkey and Kurdish rebels, prompting the latter to cry foul.
Lina Khatib
Tension between the PKK and the Turkish government goes as far back as the 1980s, when the PKK demanded the setting up of an independent Kurdish state. Although the group later revised its goals to demand more Kurdish autonomy instead of independence, Ankara continues to regard the PKK as an enemy of the state -- and the two sides have been engaged in an intermittent cycle of violence for more than three decades.
But the deepening of the Syrian crisis presented Ankara with a fresh opportunity to renew the fight against Kurdish dissidents in the southeast. In 2012, Turkish troops used the pretext of its neighbor's civil war to attack Kurdish areas near the Syrian border. This pressure by the Turkish government pushed the PKK to agree to a ceasefire in 2013.
ISIS: "A convenient tool" to weaken the PKK
Since then, Turkey has seen ISIS as a useful way to put pressure on the PKK. Turkey mostly turned a blind eye to foreign fighters crossing its border to join ISIS and other jihadist groups in Syria --partly because it saw such groups as a convenient tool to weaken the PKK.
This strategy contributed to the strengthening of ISIS, and planted the seeds of a jihadist problem on Turkish soil. Turkey found itself unable to confront ISIS fully for fear of retaliation at home, while at the same time, some members of the Turkish government appeared to be sympathetic towards the jihadist group.
While Turkey lingered in the background of the Syrian conflict, the PKK stepped up and asserted itself as it began to protect Kurdish territories from ISIS.
The PKK's armed offshoot in Syria, the YPG, did the same in northern Syria -- notably in Kobani -- enabling the Kurds to drive the extremist group out of territories near Turkey's southern border that the YPG then took over.
The growing strength of the PKK at home and the YPG in Syria has become a cause of concern for Turkey. A suicide bombing by ISIS in the Turkish town of Suruc in July prompted the military to launch an offensive in the mostly Kurdish area. But Kurdish residents blamed the bombing on the government, accusing Ankara of facilitating the bombing in order to resume its campaign against the PKK. The government responded by raiding PKK areas and arresting hundreds of people -- including militants from the far-left DHKP-C group, which Turkey and the U.S. regard as a terrorist organization
The precarious Turkey-PKK ceasefire then collapsed. Now, seemingly retaliatory attacks have popped up in different areas around Turkey, including one outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul that the DHKP-C claimed responsibility for.
A Pandora's Box of headaches for Turkey
The attack on the U.S. consulate came hot on the heels of Washington's sending of six F-16 fighter jets to a Turkish airbase in the south, following months of U.S. pressure on Turkey to allow the coalition to use its airbases.
But at a time when Turkey is openly attacking the PKK, the U.S. jet shipment is being seen as an indirect endorsement of Turkey's actions by the Kurds, who are deeply suspicious of Ankara's ulterior motives in the fight against ISIS.
Turkey's opportunistic attacks on the PKK and the DHKP-C has therefore opened up a Pandora's Box of headaches for Ankara.
Instead of capitalizing on the PKK's fight against ISIS, Turkey's actions are pushing the PKK and the DHCP-C closer.
Meanwhile, America's signaling of support for Ankara over its PKK offensive is exposing Turkey to revenge attacks.
Everyone has a common enemy in ISIS. But Turkey's decisions, seemingly blessed by the U.S., are marginalizing the PKK -- creating another enemy that resources have to be diverted towards and ultimately jeopardizing the coalition's goal of eliminating ISIS.
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A group of retired military officials warn the United States will have a difficult time maintaining stability in the Middle East once the Iran nuclear deal goes into effect.
While the administration has sought to assure Gulf allies that the U.S. will maintain a robust military posture to counter a strengthened Iran, looming budget cuts could make the task difficult.
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The Pentagon facing $500 billion in cuts through 2021 known under budget caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act, on top of $487 billion of already planned cuts.
The retired officials warn in a new report that the nuclear deal would allow Iran to gain billions of dollars in revenue from lifted sanctions and increased oil revenues, while the U.S. defense budget would remain constrained under budget cuts known as sequestration.
"As Iran bristles with more and newer arms, the United States will have fewer and older ones to counter them," says the report from Retired Marine Gen. James Conway, Retired Air Force Gen. A Charles Wald, Retired Navy Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, Retired Army Gen. Lou Wagner, Retired Vice Adm. John Bird, Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, and Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Lawrence Stutzriem.
Already, the former officials pointed out, the U.S. Navy won't be able to maintain a carrier presence for approximately two months this year due to reduced availability of carriers under sequestration.
While Congress provided the Pentagon with budget relief in 2014 and 2015, defense experts are not hopeful the same will happen again for 2016.
Indeed, with an Oct. 1 deadline looming to fund the government, it is becoming increasingly likely that Congress will pass a short-term emergency spending measure that would leave the Pentagon with even lower levels of funding than under sequestration.
Former Pentagon comptroller Bob Hale earlier this week said that if Congress is unable to reach a budget deal by then, the next best option would be to appropriate funds at sequestration levels — something the administration and Democrats oppose doing.
Wald, a co-chair of the commission that produced the report, said the U.S. has no choice but to increase its presence in the Middle East in light of the Iran deal.
“We're going to have to be more committed, to a coalition involvement in the Middle East, to defend against what is inevitably going to be a growing Iranian threat," he said.
“This is not an advertisement for increasing defense spending, it's just the fact of the matter is it's contrary to the sequestration direction we're going,” he added.
Under the deal, Iran would begin to modernize its military and also have access to foreign military sales.
For example, the report said, Iran is slated to acquire advanced S-300 missile systems from Russia by the end of the year that would help blunt potential strikes by the U.S. or other nations.
“By the end of the year ... you could start to see the transfer of Russian anti-aircraft missiles that are probably the best in the world. So that alone will be a game changer in the region,” said Conway, the other co-chair and former Marine Corps commandant.
The report also warns that the capabilities needed to deter Iran’s “anti-access, area denial” or A2/AD strategy against the U.S., are the same ones that will be hit the hardest under the cuts.
“The capabilities that will be most important in confronting Iranian aggression and potentially preventing a nuclear Iran — long-range strike, standoff, forward staging and counter-A2/AD capabilities — are among those that will suffer the greatest decline,” it said.
If Iran decides to race for a nuclear weapon after the main provisions of the deal expires, the U.S. will be weaker militarily if sequestration remains the law of the land, Conway said.
"We believe the [deal] will in a sense unleash Iran in a conventional sense in ways that we have not previously seen," Conway said.
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The review process under the Corker law never began — by the law’s own terms.
To undermine President Obama’s atrocious Iran deal despite the Republican-controlled Congress’s irresponsible Corker legislation, it will be necessary to follow, of all things, the Corker legislation.
On Wednesday, Barbara Mikulski became the 34th Senate Democrat to announce support for the deal, which lends aid and comfort to a regime that continues to call for “Death to America.” Under the Corker Roadmap to Catastrophe, Mikulski’s assent ostensibly puts President Obama over the top. After all, the legislation sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and other Beltway GOP leaders reverses the Constitution’s presumptions against international agreements that harm national security. In essence, Corker requires dissenters from the Iran pact to round up a two-thirds supermajority opposition in both congressional chambers (67 senators and 290 House members). If the Constitution were followed, the burden would be on the president to convince either 67 senators to support a treaty, or majorities of both chambers to make the pact legally binding through ordinary legislation.
Mikulski’s announcement meant that dissenters would now be able to muster no more than 66 Senate votes against the deal. In fact, they won’t get that many. Additional Democrats, such as Cory Booker (N.J.) and Mark Warner (Va.), have dutifully trudged into Obama’s camp.
As things are trending, Democrats may even be spared the embarrassment of having to cast formal votes in favor of the appalling deal they gently describe as “flawed.” There are 46 Senate Democrats (including a pair of nominal “independents”). Only three Democrats — Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), and Ben Cardin (Md.) — have committed to voting “no.” Thus, Obama may well amass the 41 votes needed to filibuster Senate consideration of the Iran deal. He would then avoid the humiliation of having to veto a “resolution of disapproval” that would illustrate how intensely unpopular his deal is with Congress and the public.
So game over, right?
Wrong.
While maddening, the Corker bill is not an abject congressional surrender to Obama and Tehran. It is a conditional surrender. It would grant Obama grudging congressional endorsement of the deal in the absence of a now unattainable veto-proof resolution of disapproval, but only if Obama fulfills certain basic terms. Obama has not complied with the most basic one: the mandate that he provide the complete Iran deal for Congress’s consideration. Therefore, notwithstanding Washington’s frenzied assumption that the 60-day period for a congressional vote is winding down, the clock has never actually started to run. Congress’s obligations under Corker have never been triggered; the Corker process is moot.
Obama has withheld from Congress the Iran deal’s key inspection and verification provisions. As is his wont, the president is engaged in a fraud.
As I have previously outlined, Obama has withheld from Congress the Iran deal’s key inspection and verification provisions. As is his wont, the president is engaged in a fraud. He and his underlings repeatedly promised the public that there would be aggressive inspections and that Iran would have to come clean about its prior nuclear work so we could have an accurate baseline to determine whether the mullahs cheat in the future. But Iran was never going to agree to such terms.
Our legacy-hunting ideologue of a president naturally capitulated on this point, but he also understood that if his capitulation were obvious — if the inspection and verification terms were revealed to be a joke — even Democrats might abandon him. So Obama and his factotum, Secretary of State John Kerry, snuck these terms into a “side deal” that is purported to be strictly between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Notwithstanding that they are the crux of the deal from the American perspective, Obama takes the position that these terms may not be revealed to Congress, a stance the IAEA has dutifully backed.
Sorry, Mr. President, too-clever-by-half won’t get it done this time — or at least it shouldn’t, as long as Republicans follow the law they wrote and Obama signed.
The Corker legislation — formally known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 — is crystal clear. In its very first section, the act requires the president to transmit to Congress “the agreement. . . . including all related materials and annexes.” It is too late to do that now: the act dictates that it was to have been done “not later than five days after reaching the agreement” — meaning July 19, since the agreement was finalized on July 14.
Underscoring the mandate that all relevant understandings in the Iran deal — including, of course, the essential understandings — must be provided to lawmakers, the act explicitly spells out a definition of the “Agreement” in subsection (h)(1). Under it, this is what the administration was required to give Congress over six weeks ago in order to trigger the afore-described Corker review process:
The term ‘agreement’ means an agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran . . . regardless of the form it takes, . . . including any joint comprehensive plan of action entered into or made between Iran and any other parties, and any additional materials related thereto, including annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings,and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.
The act could not be more emphatic: To get the advantage of the favorable Corker formula that allows him to lift the anti-nuclear sanctions with only one-third congressional support, the president was required to supply Congress with every scintilla of information regarding verification. In particular, the act expressly demands disclosure of the terms pertinent to whether the IAEA is capable of executing aggressive inspections in Iran and has a plausible, enforceable plan to do so.
That is why, in conjunction with providing Congress the entire agreement, including any and all “side deals” between Iran and the IAEA, the act mandates that Secretary Kerry provide a “verification assessment report.” In it, the Obama administration must demonstrate not only how it (i) “will be able to verify that Iran is complying with its obligations and commitments” and (ii) will ensure the “adequacy of the safeguards and other control mechanisms” to ensure that Iran cannot “further any nuclear-related military or nuclear explosive purpose.” The administration must further explain:
the capacity and capability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to effectively implement the verification regime required by or related to the agreement, including whether the International Atomic Energy Agency will have sufficient access to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of covert nuclear-related activities and whether it has the required funding, manpower, and authority to undertake the verification regime required by or related to the agreement.
Nor is that all. In making this report, the administration is required to rebut a presumption, based on solid experience, that Iran will cheat. Specifically, it is to be presumed that the jihadist regime will “use all measures not expressly prohibited by the agreement to conceal activities that violate its obligations,” and that it will “alter or deviate from standard practices in order to impede efforts that verify that Iran is complying with those obligations and commitments.”
Understand: It is indisputable that (a) the administration has not provided the Iran–IAEA side deal; (b) the IAEA is not up to the inspection task; (c) the Iranian regime is drastically restricting the IAEA’s access to suspect sites, even to the point of insisting that it will “self-inspect” by providing its own site samples rather than permitting IAEA physical seizures, a point on which Obama and the IAEA have remarkably acquiesced; and (d) Obama claims the Iranian regime can be trusted despite his deal’s laughably inadequate verification standards. To the contrary, the act dictates that (a) the administration must provide the side deal, (b) the IAEA must be capable of doing credible inspections; (c) the IAEA must be permitted by Iran to do credible inspections; and (d) the Iranian regime must not be trusted and will presumptively cheat.
Do you sense something of a disconnect between what Obama has proposed and what the act requires?
It is not enough to say that Congress has no obligation to proceed with the Corker review process. It would, under the act, be impermissible for Congress to do so.
This is not a close call. To make it even simpler, even if the side deal were not critical to any assessment of the overall agreement (and it plainly is), the act explicitly required the administration to transmit it to Congress by July 19 (five days after the deal was reached). The side deal has never been provided. The administration’s failure to comply with the Corker legislation’s conditions means Congress’s reciprocal obligation to review the agreement and enable Obama to lift sanctions — in the teeth of massive majority opposition — has never been triggered.
It is not enough to say that Congress has no obligation to proceed with the Corker review process. It would, under the act, be impermissible for Congress to do so. This, by the way, is not just a straightforward legal fact; it is a matter of integrity.
Over deep opposition from the base voters who gave the GOP control of both houses of Congress, Republican leaders insisted on passing the anti-constitutional, Obama-backed Corker legislation on the (absurd) rationale that only by doing so could they make sure that the full agreement, every bit of it, would be revealed to Congress and the American people. This was a meager objective, since revelation of a disastrous deal is useless if, to get it, Congress had to forfeit its power to reject the deal. But regardless of where one stood in the intramural debate over whether achieving full exposure of Obama’s Iran deal was worth surrendering Congress’s constitutional advantages, the blunt fact is that full exposure has not been achieved.
The mandate that the Iran deal must be revealed in its entirety represents both a solemn political commitment by Republicans and an explicit legal requirement of the act. Obama has failed to comply with that mandate. Therefore, the Corker review process must not go forward.
There are many more things to be said about this. For example, it remains true, as I have previously asserted, that the Corker process should be deemed null and void because Obama’s indefensible deal is fundamentally different from the narrow nuclear-weapons pact that the Corker legislation assumed. Obama’s deal purports to relieve our enemies of restrictions against their promotion of terrorism and acquisition of ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. The Act prohibits this. Under its provisions, the Corker review process may be applied only to an agreement restricted to Iran’s nuclear program. See subsection (d)(7): “United States sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under an agreement.” (As we’ve seen, “agreement” is defined in subsection (h)(1) to relate only to “the nuclear program of Iran.”)
There is, moreover, a solid case, posited by Harold Furchtgott-Roth in Forbes, that Obama’s Iran deal effectively amends the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by dramatically altering Iran’s obligations under it. Because the Constitution makes treaties the law of the land, the legal equivalent of congressional statutes, a treaty can be superseded only by another treaty or an act of Congress. An executive agreement with minority congressional assent is insufficient.
The Corker review process, even if it were to go forward in contravention of the act’s terms, would apply only to the sanctions. It would not address the separate and profound question of whether Iran remains bound by its legal NPT obligations. That is a question the United States must resolve under our constitutional law, not based on bloviating by Obama, Kerry, or Iran’s foreign minister about purported dictates of international law.
Still, despite all the strong arguments to be made against the Iran deal, we must be realistic about what can be achieved here.
As I have been arguing for weeks, Congress must scrap the Corker process and treat Obama’s Iran deal as either a treaty or proposed legislation. Consequently, I could not agree more with my friend Jim Geraghty that the Senate should regard the deal as a treaty and vote it down decisively — as I’ve pointed out, senators don’t need the president’s cooperation to do this; their authority to review international agreements as treaties comes from the Constitution, not from Obama.
Yet I differ slightly with Jim on why it is important to do this. It is not for the purpose of influencing judicial consideration of the Iran deal. The courts are unlikely to referee a dispute regarding the relative power of the political branches to bind the nation to international agreements — even though the judges may have to get involved to the extent the sanctions affect the rights of private parties.
No, the reason to reject the Iran deal as a treaty is to lay the groundwork for the next president to abandon the deal. That involves putting other countries on notice, immediately, that the U.S. statutory sanctions are still in effect; that Obama is powerless to lift them permanently; that the next president is likely to enforce them; and that countries, businesses, and individuals that rely on Obama’s mere executive agreement as a rationale for resuming commerce with Tehran do so at their peril.
It is crucial to understand the state of play here. First, there is no stopping Obama from making an executive agreement with Iran, as long as the agreement does not violate the Constitution, federal statutes, and ratified treaties. He is the president, and he gets to conduct foreign policy as long as that is the case — but only while that is the case. Unlike treaties and statutes, Obama’s executive agreements do not bind our nation once he is gone. Second, because Congress never anticipated an Iran-friendly president like Obama, it provided presidents with authority to waive the existing sanctions — although not to lift them permanently. For now, this authority is Obama’s and he is entitled to use it, however reckless this may be.
Thus, Congress cannot “defeat” Obama’s Iran deal in the sense of eradicating it. As long as he is president, Obama can try to carry out his executive agreement even if Congress refuses to give it the force of binding law.
Congress can, nevertheless, delegitimize the deal by illustrating in a powerful way that it is merely an executive agreement between Iran and Obama. The sovereign — the American people — remains overwhelmingly opposed. The party to which the people have given a majority in Congress must make clear that the Iran deal is not the law of the land, and that the deal will be renounced the minute a new Republican president takes office.
Congress can delegitimize the deal by illustrating in a powerful way that it is merely an executive agreement between Iran and Obama.
To do this, a preliminary step must be taken: Congress must undo the Corker legislation’s damage.
The Corker legislation was a lapse in judgment because it gave congressional assent to the permanent lifting of U.S. sanctions absent a veto-proof majority for maintaining them — which Republicans should have known was unattainable. The fallout of this lapse could be significant if the Corker review process is allowed to proceed.
From a legal standpoint, by going forward with the review process despite Obama’s failure to comply with the Corker legislation’s terms, Congress could be seen as forgiving Obama’s default. If lawmakers then go ahead with the vote on the Iran deal that the Republican opposition must inevitably lose because of Corker’s “minority wins” process, there would be a very reasonable legal argument that the sanctions have been repealed.
Republicans cannot let that happen. If the sanctions were deemed repealed, then the next president’s position would be dramatically weakened: Not only would the sanctions have to be reinstated by new law; it would be much more difficult politically for the next president to renounce Obama’s deal. Other countries would forcefully contend that the U.S. double-crossed them — that they lifted their sanctions, and commenced commerce with Iran, in reliance on Congress’s Corker-skewed “approval” of Obama’s deal.
As I have demonstrated above, it would be a violation of law to proceed with the Corker review process because (a) the administration has not complied with the Corker legislation’s mandate that the entire Iran deal be supplied to Congress by July 19 and (b) the Corker review process is explicitly limited to Iran’s nuclear program, while Obama’s deal, by contrast, goes far beyond nukes, eliminating anti-terrorism, anti–ballistic missile, and anti-weapons restrictions that the Corker legislation requires to be kept in place.
So the preliminary step that must be taken is a resolution by Congress stating that (a) the Corker review process cannot proceed because the Obama administration has failed to comply with the Corker legislation’s express conditions; (b) therefore, under the legislation’s terms, Congress cannot proceed with an up-or-down vote on the Iran deal; and (c) the sanctions remain in effect, even if they are temporarily dormant because Obama won’t enforce them.
Yes, Obama would veto the resolution (even though it is undeniable that he has not complied). But his veto would be irrelevant. Congress’s resolution explaining why no vote was taken on the Iran deal, which would pass overwhelmingly, would stand as the definitive statement to Iran and the rest of the world of why Congress has not attempted to pass a resolution of disapproval under the Corker process: It is not a matter of not having the votes; it is a matter of the president’s default. The Senate could then immediately follow that up by deeming Obama’s Iran deal as a treaty and voting it down by a wide margin.
Of course Obama would go characteristically demagogic in response. He would pretend that his default never happened and insist that Congress’s failure to enact a resolution of disapproval under the Corker framework means the sanctions are lifted forever. He would declaim that, under international law, the Security Council resolution he orchestrated before going to Congress binds our country to his Iran deal — to his empowerment of our enemies — even if our own Constitution has been flouted.
Let him rant and rave. He will only be president for another 16 months. This is now about what happens when he is gone. Obama’s arrogance and overreach have given Republicans a golden opportunity to correct their Corker misstep. They can still preserve the sanctions, preserve the NPT, and clarify that Obama’s green light to Iran on terrorism promotion and military build-up will not be worth the paper it is written on once he vacates the Oval Office.
By doing so, the GOP would not only reclaim the mantle of national security leadership; they would tee the 2016 election up as a referendum on the deeply unpopular Iran deal: Whom should the nation trust, Republicans who would sweep the Iran deal aside or Democrats who favor giving material support to an incorrigible enemy braying “Death to America”?
Even today’s breed of Republican ought to see the sense in that.
— Andrew C. McCarthy is a policy fellow at the National Review Institute. His latest book is Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.
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Credit: Haidar Hamdani/Getty Images Iraqi men take part in a demonstration to show their support for the call to arms by Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the central Shiite Muslim shrine city of Najaf on June 13, 2014. 
WASHINGTON -- Iran has for years exerted tremendous influence over Iraq, turning it into essentially a Shiite-led client state under former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But a new protest movement in the country's Shiite-dominated south is a key sign that Tehran's power is waning, as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Maliki's U.S.-backed successor, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, make forceful moves to reclaim Iraqi independence.
Much of Iraq is no longer under the control of the central government in Baghdad. The Islamic State militant group rules large swathes of the Sunni region to the west, and Kurds control their own autonomous region in the northeast. In the Shiite-majority sections of Iraq, however, including Baghdad and the areas to its south and east, a political confrontation with Iran is underway just as the Islamic Republic is engaging the international community like never before through a historic nuclear agreement.
Iraq watchers believe that a popular protest movement calling on Abadi to better handle public services and government corruption is a subtle indication that Iraqis want to beat back Iranian influence in their country.
Sistani's position is a key indicator to follow, those watchers told The Huffington Post. U.S. officials have, in secret documents released in 2011 by Wikileaks, spoken of Sistani as the "greatest political roadblock" for Iranian operatives in Iraq. The Iranian-born ayatollah has unquestioned authority in Iraq and a very different approach to politics from his Iranian counterparts, disavowing their view of a theocratic government or "Wilayat al-Faqih," the rule of the Islamic jurist.
Sistani is based in Najaf, the spiritual capital of the Shiite branch of Islam. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, influence over the global Shiite community shifted from Najaf to Iran's chief religious center of Qom -- in large part because Iraq was ruled by a Sunni minority regime led by Saddam Hussein. But following the U.S. invasion in 2003, power -- and what's thought to be millions in funds from religious tourism and Shiite devotees around the world -- began to flow back to Najaf, historically the more significant site. Sistani and Iran have had a fragile alliance in the years since, one that's been threatened recently because the Iraqi ayatollah has implied that he blames the Iranian client Maliki for losing ground to the Islamic State.
An American source who has worked for years with the Iraqi government said that frustration with Iran helps to explain Sistani's groundbreaking decision last year to call up Shiite "volunteers" to join militias battling Islamic State forces. "One of the reasons Sistani called up the militias was to keep the Iranians out," the source told HuffPost. "He's also trying to push Iranians out of the governance structures."
Iran's clout manifests itself in many ways. They include Tehran's control of a number of the Shiite militias in Iraq, the role of top Iranian General Qassem Suleimani in providing arms for those militias and for the Iraqi army, and Iranian support for a number of top Shiite political figures.
For Sistani and other players in Iraq who would like to see that influence diminished, the protest movement has created an opening, according to an Iraqi government official who spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity.
"It's clear that Najaf is very determined to maintain its independence from Iran. Najaf felt it was an opportunity to ride off the back" of the protest movement, the official said.
Sistani called on Abadi last month to respond to the protest movement's demands in a message delivered in an important Friday sermon.
"The government listens to every word of what Najaf says very, very carefully. Every Friday, everyone is listening very closely" to Sistani's prayer message, the Iraqi official told HuffPost.
And Abadi has responded, eliminating a number of government positions -- including that of vice president, costing Maliki the job he gained after U.S. pressure and opposition at home led to his resignation last year. In the Iraqi parliament, there have been calls for Maliki to face trial over his loss of the city of Mosul to Islamic State forces.
Iran's powerful proxies in Iraq are pushing back. The leaders of two of the most powerful and brutal Shiite militias, the Iraqi Hezbollah and the Badr Organization, visited the chief judicial authority recently, reports Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War. "The Iranian-backed militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, the Badr Organization, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, all have a vested interest in thwarting PM Abadi’s reforms, especially the attempt to eliminate the vice presidential positions and thereby expel VP Nouri al-Maliki, who has been aligning himself with the militias for months," Kagan wrote in a Sept. 3 post.
Kagan, a former adviser to U.S. generals in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggested that the Iranian-backed militia leaders hoped to pressure Iraq's judiciary and its president into stalling the reforms.
But it looks like Sistani, Abadi and other Iran skeptics are gathering a loose coalition of their own to resist these efforts.
Not all of Iraq's Shiite militias support Iran, noted Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the founder of Jihadology.net. Many agree with Sistani in opposing the Iranian ideology of theocratic rule.
That presents an opportunity for the American military planners who are closely watching Iraq as they to identify which partners to work with against the Islamic State -- and who have for months been worried, U.S. officials told HuffPost, that their personnel in Iraq would be vulnerable not only to Islamic State forces but to Iran-backed militants."It wouldn't surprise me if those in the Department of Defense are looking to liaise if not offer some support for [militias] which are both truly Iraqi nationalist and are not proxies of Tehran," Smyth told HuffPost in an email.
The Iraqi population itself may now be galvanized by the latest protest movement to start thinking about the interests of their state rather than those of the various sects, said Iraqi-American activist Zainab Al-Suwaij.
As the executive director of the American Islamic Congress, Al-Suwaij runs conflict resolution centers in Iraq and is in touch with political actors on the ground.
"After the demonstrations in Baghdad and elsewhere throughout the country, the sectarian issue between the Sunnis and the Shiites has become less than before," Al-Suwaij told HuffPost. "It's not about feeling that the Shiites are in control -- the Shiites are also complaining about corruption."
Major political parties have been forced to bow to street pressure and rush to enact reforms, she noted. And she predicted that this time, unlike in the past, Iran will not be able to protect them from popular dissent.
"Iran is no longer as strong as they used to be," Al-Suwaij said.
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Will Egypt become new Ukraine for Russia?
During his meeting with Egyptian leader Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, in Moscow on Aug. 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Eurasian Economic Union and Egypt could create a free trade zone and switch to national currencies in mutual trade in the future.
The internet news outlet Svobodnaya Pressa writes that Moscow is interested in the Middle Eastern market and in moving away from the dollar in foreign trade transactions.
“Trade – and nothing else. There is no mention of any union or strategic rapprochement at all in the words of the Russian president, contrary to the Soviet era,” the publication writes.
Al-Sisi has conceived the “construction of the century” – the expansion of the Suez Canal – for which he needs financial support. Egypt has a poor credit history and the West is not giving any money for the project, so al-Sisi is appealing to Russia.
But today’s Moscow is not going to repeat the mistakes of Nikita Khrushchev, who lent money to Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, only for his successor to then fail to return the debt and take a completely opposite course – toward forging closer ties with the United States.
Egypt is also unable to become a sincere friend of Russia because of its huge debts, which have made it totally dependent economically (like today’s Ukraine) on the West.
No sign of ‘Parmesan’ emigration boom
The daily tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda has decided to find out whether the fall of the ruble and food embargo caused a new wave of emigration. The newspaper reports that the “creative class” felt a desire to leave and the liberal media became flooded with information about the next brain drain, the so-called “Parmesan emigration.”
According to the state statistics agency Rosstat, 170,684 people left Russia in the first half of 2015 (compared to 203,000, who left Russia in the last seven months of the previous year). However, it turns out that 85 percent went to CIS countries, especially Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, meaning that this is labor migration, and not a brain drain, writes Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“In total, 278,000 came to Russia from abroad in the first half of the year against 170,000 who left, i.e. a migration increase of more than 107,000 people!” exclaims the newspaper.
Meanwhile, the number of people who left to Germany, the U.S., Canada and Finland this year exceeds those who arrived from there only by 786 people. Last year’s figure was higher by 1,862 people.
Belarusians oppose Russian air base in the country
Russia has reminded Minsk of its plans to establish a Russian air base on Belarusian territory, where a regiment of Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets would be deployed, the news website Gazeta.ru reports.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced on Sept. 2 that the government would consider proposals for the creation of an air base, which aims “to ensure joint protection of the external border of the Union State in the air.”
“This is an unpleasant moment for [Belarusian President] Alexander Lukashenko; Belarus is now in the midst of a presidential election in which the head of state has positioned itself as the only guarantor of independence,” writes Gazeta.ru.
The publication writes that a significant part of the Belarusian population is scared by the events in Ukraine and does not want the appearance of “little green men” wearing Russian uniforms on their land. Like the Belarusian opposition, Lukashenko is against any foreign military presence in the country.
His opposition to the construction of the Russian air base puts Lukashenko in quite a favorable position ahead of the election. However, if it refuses, Belarus risks losing the economic support of Russia, which by some estimates amounts to 20 percent of Belarusian GDP.
Gazeta.ru also quotes Belarusian political analyst Sergei Martselev, who said, “And here we must note that Russian aircraft in Belarus will threaten not only Ukraine, but also Poland.”
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MADRID – The recent nuclear deal concluded by six major world powers and Iran represented a triumph of multilateralism. If those same powers – the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany – showed the same will to work together to resolve other disputes, the world might enter a new era of cooperation and stability.
Unfortunately, such a scenario seems farfetched. From China’s activities in the South China Sea to the Islamic State’s continued advance in the Middle East, competition and conflict are threatening long-standing regional orders. But perhaps the most critical conflict – the one whose resolution has implications for all the rest – is in Ukraine, a country that has become central to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions.
Russia’s unilateral annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine have ruptured its relations with the West, and Putin has intentionally recreated a Cold War atmosphere by touting Russia’s “conservative values” as an ideological counterweight to the American-led liberal world order. Nonetheless, key issues – the carnage in Syria, the fight against the Islamic State, nuclear non-proliferation, and conflicting interests and competing claims in the Arctic – cannot be resolved without Russia’s involvement.
That is why, as hard as it may be for Western powers, some efforts to appease Russia are unavoidable. The United States should be less dismissive of Russia’s sensibilities as an important power and a major civilization, and Russia’s legitimate security interests concerning its borders with NATO countries must be addressed, not least to keep Ukraine out of a rival military alliance. The Ukrainian parliament’s endorsement, despite strong international opposition, of autonomy for the pro-Russia separatist regions – a solution initially proposed by Putin – is exactly the kind of concession that is needed to restore peace.
Ultimately, however, it is up to Russia to change its ways. Propaganda-driven nostalgia for the Soviet Union’s Cold War-era “great power” status is obscuring the lessons of that time. The Soviet Union was an unsustainable empire; if it could not survive at a time when isolation and bipolarity were the order of the day, it certainly could not be recreated within today’s interconnected multipolar global system.
Russia already is in no position to confront the West: Its economy is withering, and it lacks solid alliances capable of countering US power. Putin is hoping that Russia and its BRICS partners (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) will become “the future leaders of the world and the global economy,” as he put it in July, at the conclusion of the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization summits
But the plain truth is that neither the BRICS nor the SCO is remotely close to being a cohesive bloc capable of insulating Russia from the consequences of its behavior in Ukraine. The differences in values and strategic interests within the groupings are no less acute than the disagreements that their various members have with the West.
Russia’s bilateral relationship with China is no different. It is a relationship founded largely on Chinese dependence on Russian energy supplies, mutual support for “spheres of influence” as the conceptual foundation of an alternative world order, and joint naval exercises in the Black Sea. But the two countries have conflicting interests in Central Asia, where China is pursuing major investments to expand its influence in countries that Russia views as its “near abroad.” When Putinquestioned Kazakhstan’s independence last year, China was quick to support the country’s sovereignty. China’s potential encroachment on Russia’s unpopulated Far East borders – which, in China’s view, were stolen, much like Hong Kong and Taiwan, during its “century of humiliation” – is another source of anxiety in the Kremlin.
More important, China’s economy depends on continued access to Western – and especially US – markets. At a time when a slowing economy is creating greater uncertainty for China, it cannot afford to provoke tensions with the US over anything that is not in its direct interests, such as its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Despite Russia’s weak alliances, Putin seems undeterred. Beyond his boastful talk about Russia’s nuclear arsenal, his government has recently announced a new naval doctrine – one that amounts to an alarming echo of Germany’s naval challenge to Britain prior to World War I. If no diplomatic détente is brokered, Putin may well continue on this path, bringing his country ever closer to a full-blown conflict with NATO.
Even if no such conflict erupts, Putin’s attempts to restore Russian influence across Eurasia (by whatever means necessary, if his actions in Ukraine are any indication) will be highly damaging. It should be no surprise that Kazakhstan and Belarus are as wary of Russian expansionism as Ukraine.
Putin has discarded former President Dmitri Medvedev’s concept of a “partnership for modernization” with the West. But a Eurasian customs union among post-Soviet and other countries is not the road to modernization for Russia; nor is an effort to make the defense industry the engine of industrialization. That, in a nutshell, was the Soviet model, which failed once and would fail again.
If Putin is serious about diversifying and strengthening Russia’s commodities-based economy, thereby improving the lives of his country’s people, he must attract advanced technologies and foreign investment, especially from the West. For that, he must pursue democratic reforms, institutional regeneration, and renewed diplomatic ties with the West.
Russia is in no position to create an alternative international system; but, if Putin continues to pursue an outdated and antagonistic foreign policy, it can undermine the existing one. At a time when the world is facing so many destabilizing challenges, this would not be good for anyone.
The West should seek to mollify Russia on core strategic questions like NATO expansion. But that will not help Putin to overcome the source of Russia’s weakness, which lies in his inability or unwillingness to see the Soviet Union for the failure that it was.
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On Tuesday, we celebrated Lawfare’s 5th birthday, and in traditional fashion, we observed the day with a cake for the handmaidens of power. In all seriousness, we’d like to extend a very sincere thank you to all those who have helped Lawfare develop and grow over the last half decade!
The biggest news of the week came when Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) announced her intentions to support the Iran nuclear deal, assuring that Congress will be unable to override President Obama’s veto should it pass a resolution of disapproval. After the announcement, I linkedto Senator Mikulski’s letter of support, which explained why she thinks the deal was the best way to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
On Monday, I linked to the final Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order authorizing the extension of the NSA’s collection of bulk telephony metadata under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Later in the week, Ben discussed the rather persistent “standing” confusion in Obama v. Klayman, which was vacated and remanded back to the D.C. Circuit on Friday.
Apropos of the NSA, Wells shared the video of a debate between former NSA Director Keith Alexander and Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept on privacy and security.
The former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ International Law Department, Daniel Reisner, completed his three-part series on the UN Commission of Inquiry Gaza Report (the first part can be found here). His second post explored who exactly was the target audience of the report, while his third piece examined the clash between human rights and law of war specialists.
Aaron Zelin brought us the latest Jihadology Podcast on Turkish jihadism at home and in Syria, featuring the folks from North Caucasus Caucus.
Ben linked to Brookings senior fellow William McCants’s excellent profile of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, who McCants describes as a “true believer.”
Speaking of true believers, Ben also shared this week’s Rational Security Podcast with Shane Harris and Tamara Wittes. The gang discusses McCants’s new piece on al Baghdadi, General David Petraeus's plan to prompt the Al Qaeda awakening in Syria, and New York Times reporter Scott Shane’s new book on Anwar al Awlaki.
In dealing with radicalized folk on the homefront, the Justice Department has employed one tool above all others: indicting them before they depart for the battlefields of the Middle East on charges of material support for terrorism. Seamus Hughes wrote this week’s Foreign Policy Essay on the use of material support to prosecute radicalized young people in the United States, asking if there isn’t a better way to stem the tide of foreign fighters flowing into Iraq and Syria.
Don’t know much about Wu Tien Lu-Shou v. United States? Eugene Kontorovick explains what the case means for the political question doctrine as it relates to non-traditional military operations such as anti-piracy.
In the final Kyiv Dispatch, Stephanie Leutert described the rising challenges presented by Ukraine’s “volunteer battalions,” many of whom are ferociously nationalistic and almost as prone to attack government police as they are Russian-backed separatists.
This week saw yet another lame leak that the Obama administration is contemplating sanctions against China for its role in cyber espionage. In response, Jack shared his thoughts on the “harmful public hand-wringing on possible sanctions against China for cyber theft,” which instead strengthening U.S. deterrence is “devastating to our public and private security.”
Speaking of Chinese hacks, Paul Rosenzweig asked the Office of Personnel Management, “where’s my letter?” Paul is offended because he is yet to receive notification from the federal agency that his information has been compromised, let alone any support for securing his identity and personal information.
Carrie Cordero shared her story of standing atop the World Trade Center fourteen years ago, explaining that her experience in the days following 9/11 shaped her desire to “ensure that the nation addresses security threats directly, proactively, and thoughtfully.”
Ben also posted the week’s Lawfare Podcast, featuring a special summer re-airing of a previous discussion on a crucial legal question: how to legally prepare for an imminent zombie apocalypse. Do we need a prior AUMF for the un-dead? How else can we demonstrate our determination to not go quietly into the night?
Matt Waxman provided a review of his Lawfare-ish summer reading. His recommendations includeDead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, The Officer and the Spy, and The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789.
Finally, we’ve that seen bears get anxious around drones, and that eagles will fight one to the death. This week, we learned that kangaroos take no drone junk; instead they just box them out of the sky.
And that was the week that was.
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By Julia Smirnova September 6 at 7:00 AM
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a love of military parades.
Both Russian and Chinese presidents appreciate the symbolic meaning of tanks and missiles rolling and soldiers marching through squares, showing their domestic and international audience that they are fully in control and their countries are superpowers.
On Thursday, Putin visited Beijing to celebrate with Xi Japan’s defeat in World War II. He watched Russian soldiers marching together with Chinese, and Russia also staged its own parade – on a much smaller scale – on the same day in the far eastern city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Putin’s visit to Beijing is also symbolic as part of Russia’s declared pivot to Asia after its conflict with the West over Ukraine and Western sanctions. The sanctions “encourage our domestic business to develop stable business ties with China," Putin said in an interview with Russian and Chinese state news agencies before the visit. “Russian-Chinese ties have now probably reached a peak in their entire history and continue developing.”
Putin brought several dozen officials and businesspeople to Beijing who signed contracts with Chinese companies. The head of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, said his company signed contracts with China worth $30 billion. It included an agreement on joint development of two oil fields together with the China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec). Sinopec also agreed on buying a minor share in the Russian petrochemical company Sibur.
Russia is looking for new allies — political and economical — outside of Western countries. China has been treated as its most important strategic partner for more than a year, in hopes that Chinese investments and imports of Russian commodities would help the Russian economy survive under sanctions.
"Moscow had excessive expectations," Alexander Gabuyev, a Russian expert on China from Carnegie Moscow Center, told The Washington Post. "They thought that the Chinese investors would come and flood Russia with money." The economic data show, however, that these hopes didn't play out.
In fact, the bilateral trade volume between the two countries went down by 31.4 percent in the first half of 2015 due to the falling oil prices, the overall economic downturn in Russia and the dropping Chinese demand for commodities. Chinese investments in Russia dropped by 20 percent during the same time, according to Gabuyev. Considering China’s slowdown, the outlook is not rosy. Depending too much on exports to China can put an economy at risk, as Brazil's example shows.
Last May, China and Russia signed a deal for gas from East Siberia to be shipped to China starting in 2019. According to Russian authorities, the deal was worth $400 billion, but the price was linked to the oil price, which dropped significantly since May 2014. The pipeline for these gas supplies is yet to be finished, but Russia didn't agree with China on advance payments it hoped for to finance its construction.
In November 2014, Russia and China signed a memorandum for a second deal for gas from western Siberia. The contract was supposed to be signed during Putin's visit in Beijing, but it didn't happen. "It is not a favorable environment to sign off another gas deal" for China, Keun-Wook Paik, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in London, told Bloomberg in August.
Western sanctions are another factor causing problems for Russian-Chinese cooperation. Apart from slowing down the Russian economy, they make Chinese investors cautious.
But even if Chinese interest in investing isn't as overwhelming as Moscow had hoped, it still exists for some infrastructure projects. Russia and China agreed on building a high-speed rail line from Moscow to Kazan in June, for instance.
After the Beijing visit, Putin headed off to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where Russian authorities and companies are trying to attract Asian investors to its far eastern regions. Until now, China hasn't been investing much in this sparsely populated part of Russia. In Primorsky Kray, where Vladivostok is the capital city, China invested only $31 million in 2013, less than Japan or Germany.
Several Russian media outlets reported on the chaos during the first days of the forum, with transportation problems and participants and media waiting for their lost accreditation badges. China sent Deputy Prime Minister Wang Yang, but major Asian investors are rare guests in Vladivostok.
Gabuyev had bought a ticket to Vladivostok, but sold it after talking to his Asian contacts, who wrote to him that they were not planning to attend, and explained the reasons. "It's an event where Russian officials would talk to other Russian officials," he said. "I don't need to go to Vladivostok to talk to them."
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The recent hack of Ashley Madison reminds us just how vulnerable society is to cyber attacks. Big companies such as Target, Home Depot, Michaels, P.F. Chang’s and JP Morgan fell victim to data breaches in 2014, and the attacks have continued this year.
Cyber attacks not only compromise the personal information and sensitive data of consumers, but pose tremendous threats to businesses, governments and militaries. The global balance of power and billions of lives are dependent on keeping computer infrastructure safe.
To combat attacks, interest in cyber security companies is heating up and heavy investment is following. Cyber-security companies are hiring by the droves, with some creating hundreds or thousands of jobs every year alone.
"This year we are hiring hundreds of employees for development and deep technology positions," says Dorit Dor, vice president of product at Check Point, a prominent IT security firm.
Related: Ashley Madison CEO Is Stepping Down
To support this exploding industry, several cyber-security ecosystems have developed around the globe, consisting of companies, venture capitalists, talent and expertise concentrated in small areas. These are the top places in the world for cyber security:
1. Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is home to the vast majority of leading cyber-security companies. There is a great deal of venture capital being poured into anti-virus, anti-spamming and anti-hacking software in the area.
Data protection is an exploding area as well, where threats are mounting not only from external hackers, but also internally. For example, according to McAfee founder John McAfee, the recent Ashley Madison data breach was caused by a lone female employee of the site, he wrote in a recent International Business Times op-ed.
Data theft from internal threats is yet another area Silicon Valley firms are protecting clients against.
Silicon Valley’s overall authority and dominance in the tech industry makes it a natural place for cyber-security startups to spring up. Corporations, military and government are turning to the area for protection from hackers and terrorists. In April, the Department of Defense announcedpartnership initiatives with Silicon Valley companies to prevent data breaches. Companies such as Cylance, Ionic Security and Symantec are headquartered in Silicon Valley.
Startups in Silicon Valley continue to launch, innovate, merge and change along with the demands of the tech industry, and there’s no doubt that founders in the area see cyber security as a huge opportunity.
2. Israel
The combination of Israel’s booming startup scene, severe security threats and large talent flow from military-intelligence units has led to the state becoming a global cyber-security superpower. In the last several years, a cyber-security synergy has formed between startups, multinational tech giants, academia, the military and government.
“There is a governmental focus on making Israel a cyber leader, and the prime minister is very involved. I’m optimistic that Israel can become one of the top two cyber-security hubs in the world,” says Nadav Zafrir, founder of team8, an unconventional VC firm in Tel Aviv that invests in innovative cyber-security companies.
Zafrir, a former commander of Israel’s famed intelligence corps, Unit 8200, told me that the conscripted Israeli military experience has become a major generator of entrepreneurial skills, as people are trained fast, learn how to cope with failure and how to innovate by achieving the impossible because lives depend on it.
There are more than 200 cyber-security companies in the small country, mostly in Tel Aviv and also Jerusalem, with more than $3 billion in annual cyber exports. Leaders include Check Point, CyberArk,Imperva and illusive networks.
3. New York City
The financial district and wealth of businesses in New York City create a large need for improved cyber security in the Big Apple.
To address these needs, security companies have popped up around the city. Many of these companies are focused on protecting the stock market against bank and financial fraud. There’s a good amount of capital going into cyber security in the city overall, but it’s unique position as a financial epicenter have increased data-security activity in this area.
Top startups include identity-verification company Socure, incident-response-solution provider UpLevel and data-breach-prevention firm Third Party Trust.
4. Boston
Boston is home to MIT and Harvard. That wellspring of talent has created math geniuses, tech specialists and engineers -- and a blossoming hub of cyber security.
Leading companies including major defense contractor Raytheon, secure-password-solution provider SQRL and security-analytics startup Rapid7 call the Boston area home and continue to raise millions of dollars in funding.
Newcomers in the area are also seeing success. BitSight Technologies announced in June that it closed $23 million in series B financing and Barkly secured $12.5 million.
5. London
Cyber-security activity in London trails behind the other cities on this list, but for Europe, it’s the strongest by far.
CyLon, or Cyber London, is Europe’s first cyber-security startup accelerator. The company aims to help businesses develop information-security technology and products, helping to grow the cyber-security scene in London. CyLon’s members include CyberLytic, Intruder and Sphere Secure Workspace.
In addition, the U.K. government has launched campaigns and programs to tackle cyber crime and increase knowledge and awareness of the subject.
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According to U.S. officials cited by the L.A. Times, China and Russia are cross-indexing the mountain of data stolen in the Office of Personnel Management hack earlier this year with other major data breaches, including stolen airline bookings and the Ashley Madison subscriber database, to identify intelligence officials, their agents, and assets.
By searching this cross-indexed data for certain patterns, it becomes possible to pick out individuals whose behavior and interaction with known intelligence agents suggests they might be spies, or contacts for secret agents. The enemy can also use this data to target American assets that could be susceptible to recruitment or blackmail.
“A foreign spy agency now has the ability to cross-check who has a security clearance, via the OPM breach, with who was cheating on their wife via the Ashley Madison breach, and thus identify someone to target for blackmail,” explained Peter W. Singer of the New America Foundation. Top-shelf spy agencies conduct this sort of data analysis all the time, but they do not usually have the sheer volume of information fed to them by the OPM hack – the Rosetta Stone that will help them interpret, and weaponize, the data exposed in many lesser breaches.
When the Times asked counter-intelligence chief William Evanina if these data-mining weapons had already been used against American operatives, he replied, “Absolutely.”
Other officials cited in the article stated that “at least one clandestine network of American engineers and scientists who provide technical assistance to U.S. undercover operatives and agents overseas has been compromised.”
It is also stated that some private engineering and technical contractors have been compromised by the cross-indexed data, interfering with their ability to provide vital support services for U.S. diplomatic and intelligence operations. A distinct increase in the volume of training materials to help government employees resist overtures from suspiciously friendly foreigners has been noted.
These officials are also said to have “seen evidence that China’s Ministry of State Security has combined medical data snatched in January from health insurance giant Anthem, passenger records stripped from United Airlines servers in May and the OPM security clearance files.”
The L.A. Times article quotes U.S. officials who say China and Russia are playing similar plausible-deniability games, using secretive black-ops cyber-warfare units who hire, or quietly sponsor and organize, “outlaw” hacker gangs to do their dirty work. The Chinese used private software companies to analyze the stolen data, keeping “the government’s direct fingerprints off the heist and the data aggregation that followed.”
The financial damage from the OPM hack is considerable, and could lead to further compromises for American intelligence and military efforts. Paying for credit monitoring and identity theft protection for 22 million people is going to cost a lot of money.
A post at the Defense One website recently noted that the cost for the Defense Department to provide such services for military personnel and dependent children is estimated at $132 million, with over 40 percent of the total coming out of the Army’s budget. The Defense One article further states that the Army will get its funding from “reductions in expected cost-of-living adjustments, separation payments and housing allowance payments,” so the cost of the Obama Administration’s negligence will come straight from the pockets of our troops.
Perhaps the most unsettling part of the L.A. Times article is the very first line, which states that “foreign spy services, especially in China and Russia, are aggressively aggregating and cross-indexing hacked U.S. computer databases.” Especially in China and Russia? Who else has been given this trove of dangerous data, and what are they doing with it?
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In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on Friday, Panetta, a Californian who also served as head of the CIA, says that “the Iran deal provides the United States with an opportunity to define a policy of strength, not ambivalence, in the Middle East.”
Yet President Barack Obama has done the opposite, using the Iran deal as an way to cement Iran as a regional power, in pursuit of what he calls a “new equilibrium.”
Panetta’s argument is for a dramatic shift in Obama’s stance.
He concedes that critics of the Iran deal are right:
In itself, the Iran deal would appear to reward Tehran for defying the world, make funds available for its extremist activities and generally make it stronger militarily and economically. Although the agreement provides for a temporary delay in Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability, it allows Tehran to retain its nuclear infrastructure and obtain sanctions relief. The risk is that Iran could become an even bigger threat to the region.
He adds: “Let’s face it, given the situation in the Middle East, empowering Iran in any way seems like a dangerous gamble.” The deal, he says, is motivated by the fear of war, not sound strategy.
However, the deal could work if Obama would “make clear that the fundamental purpose…is not just to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions but to build a strong coalition that will confront both Iran and terrorism in the future.”
To that end, Panetta advocates several steps. First, the deal should be enforced harshly. Second, the U.S. must keep a strong military presence in the region. Third, the U.S. should expand its intelligence capabilities. Fourth, the U.S. should “[m]ake clear that force is an option.” Finally, the U.S. should build ties with regional allies.
The problem: Obama is explicitly opposed to most, if not all, of these steps. Panetta’s argument is really for a tougher president.
Disturbing: Is this evidence Obama is building his own military unit?
During the Vietnam War it was common knowledge that President Johnson was selecting and approving bombing targets from the Oval Office – the height of micromanagement. One of the concerns I have in prosecuting combat operations against Islamic jihadists is the belief that drones are the panacea for everything.
Let me be clear, drones are not a strategy, although they do create nice talking points of one guy killed here, five guys killed there, oops, an American and Italian hostage killed here. But what I find most interesting about the Obama administration reliance on drone usage is that the liberal progressive left would be going apoplectic if a Republican presidential administration were using similar tactics.
As reported by the Washington Post,
“The CIA and U.S. Special Operations forces have launched a secret campaign to hunt terrorism suspects in Syria as part of a targeted killing program that is run separately from the broader U.S. military offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said. The CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are flying drones over Syria in a collaboration responsible for several recent strikes against senior Islamic State operatives, the officials said.Among those killed was a British militant thought to be an architect of the terrorist group’s effort to use social media to incite attacks in the United States, the officials said. The clandestine program represents a significant escalation of the CIA’s involvement in the war in Syria, enlisting the agency’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) against a militant group that many officials believe has eclipsed al-Qaeda as a threat. Although the CTC has been given an expanded role in identifying and locating senior Islamic State figures, U.S. officials said the strikes are being carried out exclusively by JSOC. The officials said the program is aimed at terrorism suspects deemed “high-value targets.”
“These people are being identified and targeted through a separate effort,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the operation, referring to the British militant, Junaid Hussain, and others killed in a recent weeks. Spokesmen for the CIA and the U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees JSOC, declined to comment. Other officials would discuss the program only on the condition of anonymity.”
Imagine, if you may, a Republican president running a “secret” drone program which was uncovered in the news media. Heck, I think we all remember the days of Abu Gharaib front page stories and pictures of U.S. troops killed and the death count – when was the last time you saw that despicable practice? I can tell you, it ended when their guy entered the White House.
Here is the issue. There are a couple of principles of war – unity of command and unity of effort. Now, a “secret” drone program violates those two maxims because it’s not a part of an overall strategy to defeat ISIS. Then again, we need a strategy in the first place. And the wanton killing of a social media guru means little if the overall capacity of the enemy is not being degraded – that is a violation of unity of effort.
Sadly, the Obama administration has failed to realize that killing a guy here and a guy there doesn’t stop a vile, savage, and barbaric ideological foe. If that were the case, al-Qaida would have collapsed with the killing of Osama bin Laden, and it has not. Is there a place for drones on the battlefield? Absolutely, but they need to be implemented at the operational and tactical levels – not from far away.
These drones need to be coordinated with the on-the-ground commander and his intent for the combat theater of operations – then again, who is in charge on the ground leading the effort against ISIS? After all, at last count nearly 3,000 troops have been committed to…well, I don’t know what to call it in Iraq.
So is President Obama trying to create his own little military unit that he can control and make sure they’re carrying out his politicized objectives? Has Obama via General Valerie Jarrett and Susan Rice developed a formation to carry out orders coming directly from the White House – and not from U.S. Central Command led by Army General Lloyd Austin?
As WashPo states,
“The decision to enlist the CIA and JSOC reflects rising anxiety among U.S. counterterrorism officials about the danger the Islamic State poses, as well as frustration with the failure of conventional strikes to degrade the group’s strength. Against that backdrop, the Obama administration has turned again to two of its preferred weapons against terrorist groups: the CTC, which pioneered the use of armed drones and led the search for Osama bin Laden, and JSOC, which includes the elite commando unit that carried out the raid that killed the al-Qaeda chief.”
So in lieu of a comprehensive strategy, have the CIA and JSOC become Obama’s personal Praetorian guard dedicated to carrying out his plans that in essence provide a facade over his failures to contend with the ISIS issue?
It cannot be debated that President Barack Obama made what will be one of history’s greatest strategic blunders in withdrawing all American forces from Iraq. This is a result of associating one’s campaign rhetoric and political ideology with national security and foreign policy – a serious no-no. And Obama will not admit his error but has to maintain an appearance of doing something – but that something must be highly controlled. Remember the definition of the Obama administration foreign policy is “don’t do stupid s!@t.” Too late!
Obama’s “secret” drone program is less about being effective against the enemy (officials said the secret drone program so far accounts for only a handful of strikes, a tiny fraction of the more than 2,450 conducted in Syria over the past year. That broader U.S.-led assault, which also includes an additional 4,000 strikes in Iraq, has relied on conventional bombs to dislodge the Islamic State from territory it has seized) as it is about presenting the appearance of doing something when actually little is being done – hence a falsified intel report from US CENTCOM. The hypocrisy continues in what the progressive left will allow “their guy” to do – imagine a President George W. Bush “secret” drone program?
Once upon a time, erstwhile MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann – anyone heard from him lately? – referred to JSOC and U.S. Navy SEAL Team VI as Vice President Dick Cheney’s assassin squad. So what has changed in that characterization? Simple, now Obama is using them.
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
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LeRoy Goldman, GUEST COLUMNIST 12:41 p.m. EDT September 4, 2015
Leroy Goldman(Photo: Courtesy photo)
By the time a president reaches the last couple of years in office, his attention inevitably turns to his legacy. A president’s legacy, whether good or ill, is built upon accomplishments, not rhetoric. Therefore, it’s not hard to identify what this president would point to as the legacy bookends of his eight years in office. At the front end is the enactment of Obamacare. At the back end is the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Presidential scholars, political pundits, and the American people will debate and disagree regarding the worthiness of both of these two monumental undertakings. You can be certain that when the Obama Presidential Library opens in Chicago it will make the case that healthcare was reformed by Obamacare, and the world was made safer by the Iran Nuclear Agreement. Alternatively, it’s entirely possible that the voters in 2016 and beyond will make the countervailing argument.
But regardless of history’s assessment of Obamacare and the Iran Nuclear Deal, there is another part of the Obama legacy that he won’t acknowledge and that is too little discussed. Obama has virtually destroyed the Democratic Party. And the Democrats, like lemmings, have been willing accomplices in their own demise.
It was opposition to Obamacare that produced the enormous gains the GOP made in 2010 and 2014. Rather than delaying health care reform in the face of an imploding economy in 2009, Obama chose to ram it through Congress with only the support of Democrats. It was a catastrophic blunder.
The numbers are staggering. In 2010, the GOP captured the House by gaining 63 seats. In 2014, they took control of the Senate. And the damage has been just as ruinous for the Democrats at the state level. The Republicans now have 31 governors and fully control 30 state legislatures.
In a recent column in Politico entitled, Democratic Blues, Jeff Greenfield says, “In fact, no president in modern times has presided over so disastrous a stretch for his party.”
Having painted himself into corner, it’s not surprising that President Obama basically chose to attempt to govern as if he were the only decision-maker. In his first Cabinet meeting in 2014 Obama said, “We’re not going to just be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”
There is no better current example of Obama’s go-it-alone, go-for-broke approach to governance than the Iran Nuclear Agreement now pending before Congress. It’s his foreign relation’s version of Obamacare. Not surprisingly, it has spawned the same kind of bitter partisan rancor on the Hill and across the nation as did Obamacare.
The Iran Nuclear Agreement aims to prevent or at least delay Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon. In addition, it lifts the severe sanctions on Iran that have been in place for years. The Obama Administration assumes that Iran will become less menacing and easier to deal with as a consequence of the Agreement. In fact, the day after the deal had been reached, the President falsely argued that the choices now facing this nation are to accept the deal or go to war. He said, “Either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through a negotiation or it’s resolved through force, through war.”
Virtually all Republicans on Capitol Hill and a majority of the American people as measured by national polls do not agree with President Obama’s assessment, and they do not agree with the tortured way the agreement is being presented to Congress so as to make it next to impossible for it to be rejected.
Instead of submitting the deal as a treaty that would have required a two-thirds vote in the Senate, it takes the form of an agreement. Congress will almost certainly reject the agreement, but Obama will veto their disapproval and Congress will not have the votes to override his veto.
Former Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, puts Obama’s scheme in proper perspective. He says, “if the majority of Americans continue to oppose the deal, it will ultimately be rejected...An agreement, as distinguished from a treaty does not have the force of law. It can simply be abrogated by any future president.”
Obama has decimated the Democratic Party. What remains is a geriatric joke: Hillary 69, Sanders 74, Biden 74, Kerry 73, Warren 66, Reid 75, and Pelosi 75. A political party, unwilling to challenge its president when necessary, deserves its ignominious fate.
LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock. He was a member of the federal government’s senior executive service for many years.
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Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in next year's presidential primary, has been pitching voters on his experience in business.
"I'm running for office in a country that's essentially bankrupt, and it needs a successful businessman," he told Rolling Stone.
Yet Trump has not done nearly as well as other American business magnates, or even a typical middle-class retiree following sound financial advice, as a review of the numbers over the past four decades shows. He is a billionaire today despite this poor performance because when he started his career, his father had already built a colossal real-estate empire. And the wealth Donald Trump has accumulated since then has at times come at the expense of taxpayers or the banks and investors who have lent him money.
[Read more: A secret to Donald Trump’s success that you simply can’t replicate]
Citing data from Forbes, The Associated Press estimates that Trump's net worth quadrupled from $1 billion to $4 billion between 1988 and today. That's an impressive gain, but it's nothing compared to the wealth produced by investors such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Gates's wealth increased from about $1 billion to $80 billion over the same period. Buffett had about $2.5 billion in 1988, and has $68 billion today.
Citing data from Forbes, The Associated Press estimates that Trump's net worth quadrupled from $1 billion to $4 billion between 1988 and today. That's an impressive gain, but it's nothing compared to the wealth produced by investors such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Gates's wealth increased from about $1 billion to $80 billion over the same period. Buffett had about $2.5 billion in 1988, and has $68 billion today.
Yet perhaps the most telling comparison is between Trump and his golf buddy, Richard LeFrak. The LeFraks and the Trumps have been rivals in New York's real estate business for generations. LeFrak's father, Samuel LeFrak, took a no-nonsense approach to the business. He focused on minimizing risk and making money, according to a 1992 profile in Business Week, before the magazine became Bloomberg Businessweek.
"He might be strutting around like a peacock today, but he's gonna be a feather duster tomorrow," the elder LeFrak told Business Week when asked about Trump.
Over time, the LeFraks came out ahead of their competitors. LeFrak is worth $7 billion today, and he's 181st on Bloomberg's list of the world's richest people. Bloomberg puts Trump's wealth at just$2.9 billion -- far less than Forbes's estimate. He doesn't even make the list.
The LeFraks are a family with long experience in a very competitive industry, but Trump's returns are less even than those of an ordinary investor saving for retirement.
'I'm really rich': 10 essential lines from Trump's announcement
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Real estate mogul and reality television star Donald Trump spoke about his personal wealth, China, Secretary of State John Kerry's bike accident and more in the top moments from his presidential announcement. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
Experts on personal finance generally recommend that people saving for retirement or to pay for a child's college education buy and hold in index funds -- mutual funds that are invested in a wide range of stocks or bonds. The price of the funds will go up and down with the market, but over time, these investments will generate a reliable return as long as the investor avoids the temptation to sell in a financial panic.
[Read more: It’s time to take a look at the index card with all the financial advice you’ll ever need]
Citing an independent evaluation, Business Week put Trump's net worth at $100 million in 1978. Had Trump gotten out of real estate entirely, put his money in an index fund based on the S&P 500 and reinvested the dividends, he'd be worth twice as much -- $6 billion -- today, according to thecalculator maintained by the blog Don't Quit Your Day Job.
Citing an independent evaluation, Business Week put Trump's net worth at $100 million in 1978. Had Trump gotten out of real estate entirely, put his money in an index fund based on the S&P 500 and reinvested the dividends, he'd be worth twice as much -- $6 billion -- today, according to thecalculator maintained by the blog Don't Quit Your Day Job.
(In this scenario, Trump doesn't quit his day job. The calculation above does not include any allowance for living expenses, so if he had put all his money in index funds, he would have had to live off the dividends or find some other source of income.)
Trump disputes the independent appraisals of his wealth by Forbes, Business Week (now Bloomberg) and others. He says he is worth about $10 billion today.
Using Trump's preferred estimates of his wealth, he has still performed worse than our hypothetical Main Street retiree. He told The New York Times he was worth $200 million in 1976, an amount that would be worth $12 billion today.
"That a purely unmanaged index fund’s return could outperform Trump’s hands-on wheeling and dealing calls into question one of Trump’s chief selling points on the campaign trail: his business acumen," writes S.V. Dáte in National Journal.
In a way, though, all of these comparisons are misleading. Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, built his real-estate business on federal subsidies, as The Washington Post's Emily Badger has reported. Financing from Uncle Sam isn't available to the typical investor (although homeowners do benefit indirectly from federal subsidies and can deduct interest they pay on their mortgage from their tax bill). The younger Trump has continued that strategy, boasting about his ability to secure taxpayer dollars from local officials, as the Los Angeles Times has explained.
At other times, Trump has relied not on taxpayers but on banks and private concerns. Firms under his control have gone bankrupt on four occasions, but those catastrophes aren't fully reflected in Trump's net worth today, since his lenders absorbed the losses. The LeFraks, by contrast, have avoided imposing losses on their creditors, while still finding a way to turn a profit.
Trump is running for president on his business acumen, but over his long career in real estate, he just hasn't been able to put up the numbers.
Max Ehrenfreund writes for Wonkblog and compiles Wonkbook, a daily policy newsletter. You can subscribe
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. Before joining The Washington Post, Ehrenfreund wrote for the Washington Monthly and The Sacramento Bee.
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US voices concern to Russia over latest military moves in Syria
Reuters-20 hours ago
The State Department pointed to media accounts suggesting an "imminent enhanced Russianmilitary build-up" in Syria. "The secretary made ...
Russia sends men and arms to prop up dying Assad regime in Syria
Blog-The Australian (blog)-Sep 2, 2015
Blog-The Australian (blog)-Sep 2, 2015
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
Russian military officers are now in Damascus and meeting regularly with Iranian and Syrian counterparts, according to a source with close contacts in the Bashar al-Assad regime. “They’re out in restaurants and cafes with other high officials in the Syrian Army,” the source told The Daily Beast, “mainly concentrated in Yaafour and Sabboura, areas that are close to each other, and in west Mezze,” referring to a district in the capital where Assad’s praetorian Fourth Armored Division keeps an important airbase. “The Russians aren’t in uniform, but they’re constantly hanging out with officers from the Syrian Army’s central command.”
Other Syrians claim to have seen Russians in uniform.
One family that recently traveled from Aleppo to Damascus by taxi before emigrating by plane to Turkey says it saw a small contingent of Russian troops embedded with Syrians at a military checkpoint in the capital. “We were near the Shaghour district when we noticed two soldiers who were not Syrian,” a family representative said. “They were tall, blond and blue-eyed and wore different fatigues from the Syrians and carried weapons. I’m telling you, they were Russian.”
The opposition-linked website All4Syria seems to corroborate such eyewitness accounts. Many residents of Damascus, it claimed, have “observed in the first three days of September a noticeable deployment of Iranian and Russian elements in the neighborhoods of Baramkeh, al-Bahsa, and Tanzim Kfarsouseh.” The Venezia Hotel in al-Bahsa “has been turned into a military barracks for the Iranians.”
Such news comes amid a flurry of reports that Russia has made plans for a direct military intervention in Syria’s four-year civil war and may actually have started one already. The New York Times reported Saturday that Russia has sent prefabricated housing units, capable of sheltering as many as 1,000 military personnel, and a portable air traffic control station to another Syrian airbase in Latakia. That coastal province, the Assad family’s ancestral home, has already seen Russian troops caught on video operating BTR-82 infantry fighting vehicles against anti-Assad rebels, atop rumors that Moscow may be deploying an “expeditionary force,” including Russian pilots who would fly combat missions.
They may already be doing so. A social media account affiliated with the al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra posted images of what appeared to be Russian Air Force jets and drones flying in the skies of Syria’s northwest Idlib province. They were, specifically, the Mig-29 Fulcrum, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, the Su-34 Fullback, and the Pchela-1T drone. These images were analyzed as credible by the specialist website The Aviationist, which also noted that “during the past days, Flightradar24.com has exposed several flights of a Russian Air Force… Il-76 airlifter (caught by means of its Mode-S transponder) flying to and from Damascus using radio call sign ‘Manny 6,’ most probably supporting the deployment of a Russian expeditionary force.”
“The Russians are clearly setting themselves on the ground in regime areas. … This, ironically, reinforces the Obama administration’s position.”
ISIS isn’t in Idlib; the terror army that calls itself the Islamic State was driven out of the province completely. As one U.S. intelligence official put it to The Daily Beast, “The question is, what are Russia’s underlying motivations? Are they really there to fight [ISIS], or just to prop up Assad?”
The concern is that Russia could use military strikes against ISIS as a kind of cover or feint for attacking rebel forces as well, including non-Islamist groups. The U.S. sees these forces as a potential bulwark against ISIS. But they also have as one of their primary goals overthrowing Assad—an effort that Washington has been unwilling to support.
The White House has fallen back on its customary posture of wait-and-see as proof mounts that the Russians are coming. Spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters this week: ”We are aware of reports that Russia may have deployed military personnel and aircraft to Syria, and we are monitoring those reports quite closely. Any military support to the Assad regime for any purpose, whether it’s in the form of military personnel, aircraft supplies, weapons, or funding, is both destabilizing and counterproductive.” Another unnamed U.S. official told Britain’s Daily Telegraph, ”Russia has asked for clearances for military flights to Syria, [but] we don’t know what their goals are.”
Actually, their goals aren’t terribly hard to discern, nor do they necessarily contradict implicit White House policy, whatever Josh Earnest says.
Photographs circulated on social media showing what appeared to be Russian soldiers in Zabadani, a city 45 kilometers north of Damascus, which has changed hands several times during the civil war. For months rebels have been fending off a scorched-earth assault by the Syrian army, Hezbollah and Iranian forces, which the U.N. assesses to have led to “unprecedented levels of destruction.” So the injection of Russian legionnaires into a multinational cocktail of combatants duking it out in Zabadani would make perfect sense. The city is considered the sine qua non of Iran’s “strategic corridor” in Syria, which runs from the capital to Lebanon and up along the Mediterranean coastline. The formidable Islamist rebel brigade Ahrar al-Sham knows who’s in charge here—it has even negotiated an ultimately unsuccessful ceasefire directly with the Islamic Republic rather than with Assad.
“The Russians are clearly setting themselves on the ground in regime areas, planting the flag in ‘Alawistan,’ as it were,” says Tony Badran, a Syria expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, referring to the Alawites, the schismatic Shia sect to which the Assad clan and the more powerful Syrian regime elites belong. “This, ironically, reinforces the Obama administration’s position, which has drawn a clear line around the regime enclave: The opposition is not to enter Damascus and the coastal cities. So the Russian deployment actually fits well with the administration’s approach.”
Right on cue, then, came Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement Friday that Syria would soon hold new parliamentary elections and inaugurate a power-sharing government with what he deemed a “healthy” opposition. He did not specify what he considered the diseased opposition, although this would almost certainly include Free Syrian Army fighters the CIA and Pentagon has been recruiting as U.S. proxies.
While Putin dismissed the existence of any Russian combat forces in Syria as “premature,” he did allow that he was “looking at various options” for militarily involving himself in the war. Coming from someone who only admits to Russian invasions after the fact, such a signposting of motive should not be ignored.
Moscow’s close coordination with Tehran, both in Damascus and internationally, is also no coincidence. Iran is now busy shopping a new international “peace plan” for Syria, one that goes beyond the parameters of the previously inked Geneva II protocol.
Intriguingly, just weeks after Iran agreed to a deal to control its nuclear program in exchange for international sanctions relief, Major General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of its own expeditionary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force, flew to Moscow for talks with Russian officials, violating the international travel ban related to his terrorist activity. No doubt solidifying Russian backing for whatever he has planned for Syria was high up on Soleimani’s agenda.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time since the Syrian war broke out that there’s been chatter about Russian troops in Damascus.
In May 2013, sources close to the Kremlin suggested that Putin had dispatched the Zaslon special forces detachment to the Syrian capital. Formed in 1998, and conceived as a clandestine unit combining the purviews of America’s Delta Force and Secret Service, Zaslon consists of a mere 280 highly trained operatives. It answers to Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and is tasked with protecting high-value Russian officials in uncertain conditions and sometimes even conducting assassinations. It was rumored to have killed Iraqi insurgents in 2006 after the latter had captured and executed Russian diplomats.
As Mark Galeotti, a New York University-based specialist on Russia’s military and security forces,observed two years ago: “According to one Russian report, two Zaslon elements were also deployed to Baghdad in the dying days of the [Saddam] Hussein regime. Their mission was to seize or destroy documents which Moscow would have found embarrassing had they ended up in U.S. hands. Given the scale and depth of Russian support for Assad, it could similarly be that they are also in Syria to cover Moscow’s tracks or else ensure that sensitive military technology—including new surface-to-air systems—does not end up in foreign hands.”
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Under the present circumstances, it is now likely that any Russian soldiers in Damascus are there to fortify and ring-fence another spent Baathist regime, if not to join in a war that is fought increasingly by “foreign hands.”
— With additional reporting by Shane Harris
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Barney Frank: Email issue lingers, but it will fade
Press Herald As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in 1998, I had the chance to question Kenneth Starr for five minutes – the amount of time allotted under House rules. Usually this is too little time to establish an important controversial point. But in ... Hillary Paid Her State Department IT Guy On The Side To Manage Private ServerDaily Caller House Benghazi Probe Leader: Former Top Clinton Aide Mills 'Answered All of ...GovExec.com Former Clinton aide expected to plead the 5th in response to email inquiriesCNN Washington Post -Fox News -Stars and Stripes all 2,146 news articles » |
Ilan Berman’s new book refutes the claim that Iran is entertaining an enlightened rapprochement with the rest of the world. His central argument is simple: Iran’s nature—a revolutionary theocracy with a global mission—precludes peaceful democratic coexistence.
Berman believes that, for all the talk now of rolling back sanctions, economic restrictions on Iran have long been ineffective. The West, in Berman’s view, has given Iran just enough relief over the years to allow it to avoid major economic hardship, thus defeating the purpose of the exercise. (This may be true, though he underestimates the effect of sanctions in fostering pressure on the regime from Iran’s middle class.) Berman also provides a useful overview of the economic activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The author’s quantitative research makes clear how far the Guards have wormed their way into the heart of Iran’s economy. This is a fact worth remembering in the context of Iran’s looming sanctions relief. We’re left with the clear impression that European, Chinese, and Russian trade with Iran will lead to many billions in new capital for this 125,00-strong band.
Berman notes that Iran has three main guiding agendas: expanding the ideological frontiers of its Shia guardianship ideology; rivaling Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies for pan-Islamist leadership; and presenting itself as the regional guarantor of the oppressed—a kind of political Robin Hood. On this last point, the ‘presentation’ is far more important than the reality. Iran’s assistance to Bashar al-Assad in his enforced starvation and barrel bombing of hundreds of thousands of Syrian Sunnis is hardly defending the weak. From supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to arming the Houthi rebels in Yemen to mobilizing Shia protest movements in Bahrain, we see Iran’s penchant for allies of all stripes. Though Iran is on an ideological mission, it will work with a wide range of ideologically disparate groups if it believes that doing so will help its ultimate agenda.
Uniting Iran’s disparate strategic goals is its desire to weaken America and the West in the Middle East. As Berman notes in relation to Iran’s military support for the Taliban, “The goal of these efforts wasn’t success for the Sunni Taliban, which Shiite Iran saw as both a regional rival and strategic competitor. Rather, Iran sought to blunt the coalition’s political impact and lessen its chances for strategic success.” Even with various Shia political leaders in the Middle East, serious tensions exist with Iran. Noting the role of Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Berman decries the West’s neglect of more-moderate Shia leaders who, with new diplomatic avenues, might serve as a counterweight to Iran.
From its relationship with the nations of Central Asia to its military and nuclear deals with Russia, Iran, as Berman shows us, is flexible in its attitude toward the nature of its partners. Berman is particularly interesting when discussing the shameful nature of the EU’s dealings with Iran and the Islamic Republic’s evolving relationship with China. Berman explains that “China provides Iran with a necessary energy lifeline in Asia—one that has withstood, and even expanded in the face of, Western sanctions.” Even more concerning, we see how Iran has cultivated military ties with North Korea, including on issues such as ballistic missile technology. We also learn about Iranian aggressive alliances with various anti-American regimes in Latin America and its coveting of African energy supplies—most notably, uranium—and its support for war criminals such President al-Bashir of Sudan.
All this, and terrorism too! Berman outlines the various terrorist plots in which Iran has been involved in recent years, concluding that “the Islamic Republic’s founding principles, and its strategic culture, preclude a real rapprochement with the West in any meaningful long-term fashion.”
It is its detailed, thorough argument that sets this book apart. There is research here, not a rant. While the author would have done well to spend more time on Iranian political strategy in Lebanon beyond Hezbollah, as well as the youth bulge in Iranian society, this book is a welcome and worthwhile survey of Iran’s dark vision of the future.
The post The World’s Iran Problem appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
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Russian town besieged by hungry bears by Alec Luhn in Moscow
Shortages of nuts and berries have driven animals into towns to search for food, roaming the streets and scaring residents
Dozens of hungry bears have besieged a small town in Russia’s far east, roaming the streets and attacking residents.
In the past month, more than 30 bears have entered inhabited areas in Russia’s Primorsky region, located between China, North Korea and the Sea of Japan. Local authorities have had to shoot at least two animals.
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Edward Snowden attacks Russia rights curbs in award acceptance speech
ABC Online "It's wrong in Russia, and it would be wrong anywhere," said Snowden, 32, who sought asylum inRussia two years ago after Washington filed a warrant for his arrest for having leaked documents that revealed the vast scale of US surveillance programs. Snowden criticises Russia for approach to internet and homosexualityThe Guardian Edward Snowden has some harsh words for the country that gave him asylum Business Insider Snowden: Russia 'wrong' to limit human rightsThe Hill (blog) Sky News Australia-CTV News all 83 Hindustan Times all 85 news articles » |
Friendship Between Putin and Xi Becomes Strained as Economies Falter by By JANE PERLEZ and NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Slowdowns in Russia and China have put energy deals between the countries in question, affecting the once-vaunted relationship between the two leaders.
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The Kremlin’s aggressive tactics in Ukraine have caused experts and Western military leaders to sound the alarm over the threat Russia poses toward the NATO member states in the Baltic region. But would Russia’s military have the upper hand in a Baltic conflict with the West? Journalist and military analyst Matthew Bodner breaks down the two sides’ assets and determines that Russia would face a tall task in confronting NATO.
August 28, 2015
Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for August 21-28, 2015.
In Beijing, 12,000 troops staged a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
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