We need to get to the bottom of this one and fast

Steve Hayes chooses about as timely a topic as he could have for his initial outing at The Dispatch. It's entitled "Anatomy of a Screw-Up: The Story Behind the Letter Withdrawing Our Troops."

You may be aware of the basics, but here's Hayes's succinct account:

In a letter dated January 6, Brigadier Gen. William Seely III, the commanding general of Task Force Iraq, wrote to his Iraqi counterpart with big news: The United States military was preparing to leave Iraq. Two days earlier, the Iraqi Parliament had unanimously passed a non-binding resolution calling for U.S. troops to depart. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a leader with close ties to the Iranian regime, had made the same demand. Their calls came less than 72 hours after a U.S. drone strike killing Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, the leading Iranian exporter of terror and havoc in the region. 

Seely wrote: “Sir, in due deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CJTF-OIR will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement.” He closed the letter: “We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.” The letter was quietly delivered to Iraqi military officials. 

And there it was. After nearly 17 years of war—intense combat and difficult diplomacy over there, difficult debate and lasting division here, with frustration and heartbreak in both places—Americans would be leaving Iraq. 

Iran and the radical Shiite element in Iraq began having a heyday with it. It started making its way into the US media.

But - hold the phone!

It would prove definitive for less than an hour. The posting of the letter online unleashed a mad, behind-the-scenes scramble at the Pentagon, the White House, and on Capitol Hill, as elected officials, policymakers, military advisers and journalists sought to understand whether the letter intended to communicate what its plain language suggested. 

Was the United States really moving to remove its remaining troops from Iraq? Nobody seemed to know. President Trump had told reporters on Air Force One Sunday night that he wouldn’t be pushed around by the Iraqis. “If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever,” Trump said in a surprise warning. “It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.” He added: “If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers and staff seeking clarity on the letter reached out to contacts in the Trump administration. At 3:46 p.m., Annie Dreazen, a staffer in the Pentagon policy office, responded to an email inquiry from the House Armed Service Committee, writing that she’d consulted advisers with Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the name of the task force charged with fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. She, too, had big news: The letter that had captured the attention of Washington, D.C., was phony and likely part of an effort to sow information chaos.

“OIR has confirmed with us at the working level that this is active disinformation,” Dreazen wrote, noting that the Pentagon was “fairly certain that this is a fake.” It’d be a big deal if the letter had been fabricated by Iran or another malign actor and humiliating if the U.S. fell for such misdirection. And this assessment suggests some OIR officials believed the prospect of a U.S. withdrawal was so problematic that America’s enemies had an incentive to create an information operation around that possibility. As word began to circulate on Capitol Hill, Mark Esper, the secretary of defense, and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with reporters. 

They didn’t declare the letter a fake but they couldn’t offer much of an explanation of its provenance or meaning, either. Esper pleaded ignorance. “I don't know what that letter is,” he said. “We’re trying to find out where that’s coming from, what that is. But there has been no decision made to leave Iraq, period.” He declined to confirm its authenticity. “No, I can’t.”

Gen. Milley couldn’t verify that the letter was real, either. “I do know that it's not signed,” he said. “But I just looked at it right there; it's not signed.”
If neither of America’s top military officials could speak to the letter’s authenticity, they both downplayed claims that the U.S. was leaving Iraq. “With regard to that letter, which I've read once, I can't tell you the veracity of that letter, and I can tell you what I read,” said Esper, shortly before ending the press availability. “That letter is inconsistent with where we are right now.”

A few minutes later, Milley returned and announced that the whole thing had been a screw-up. “It was an honest mistake,” Milley explained. “That letter is a draft, it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released.”

Determining exactly how the letter was crafted and sent to the Iraqis, and its nature - whether it was disinformation from a hostile force or just a draft that somehow drifted outside internal consideration - needs to be done quickly, and along with the inherent challenges in straightening the situation out, none of us knows what the Tweeter-in-Chief will throw into the mix.

 

The VSG pattern: do something good and right and then sully its effects with a flurry of idiotic tweets

Noah Rothman at Commentary has an important piece today about the Very Stable Genius's behavior in the aftermath of the strike on Suleimani.

He reminds us just what a monster Suleimani was:

The suggestion that the opportunity to strike Soleimani was undertaken extralegally ignores the fact that this was the commander of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization operating on third-party soil where America is actively engaged in counterterror operations at the request of the host government. It also dismisses the active threats to U.S. personnel across the region, which Reuters indicates were in the operational stages. You don’t have to accept U.S. intelligence assessments at face value to believe; you only have to believe your own eyes. Since last spring, Iran has been responsible for a campaign of piracy and sabotage in the Strait of Hormuz, the downing of U.S. military assets, a brazen attack on a Saudi oil facility, a campaign of deadly rocket attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq (including Baghdad’s Green Zone), and the siege on American diplomats in the U.S.’s Baghdad-based embassy.

He quotes several Democrats who have rushed to try to paint the move in a negative light. With regard to the move itself, their castigations ring hollow. But then there's the Trump Factor. We can't separate the move from the person who ordered it:

And yet, Democratic concerns about the president’s capacity to manage this grave foreign crisis—the first of its kind during Trump’s presidency—are not without merit. Donald Trump has not made a single public statement since ordering last Thursday’s operation that has not been either unhelpful or counterproductive.
In the wake of the strikes on Soleimani and a variety of Shiite militia groups loyal to Iran, for which Tehran promised retaliation, Trump tweeted a threat to respond against targets “important to Iran & the Iranian culture.” When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted the president was not interested in executing counter-value attacks that would incense even Iranians hostile toward their theocratic regime, Trump confirmed that his chief diplomat didn’t know what he was talking about. “They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites,” Trump fumed. “It doesn’t work that way.”

In response to the U.S. operation against Soleimani, the Iraqi government—a body composed of an abnormal concentration of Iranian catspaws—cast a symbolic vote objecting to the American presence on Iraqi soil. The legitimacy of the Iraqi government is presently in doubt. Only weeks ago, after popular anti-Iranian protests in Iraq were violently put down, the Iraqi Prime Minister was compelled to resign. Iraq’s president rejected an overtly pro-Iranian candidate as his successor in the effort to appease anti-Iranian sentiment. When Soleimani was neutralized, Iraqis floodedBaghdad’s streets in celebration. Donald Trump would be better served by nurturing these sentiments, but he has instead reacted to the toothless Iraqi vote to expel U.S. troops with typically directionless ire. “We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever,” the president said of Iraq. “It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.” Such needlessly provocative statements only aggravate tensions in Iraq while yielding no appreciable tactical benefits to the U.S.

“These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” read one of the president’s bizarrely imperious tweets. “Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!” Indeed, Trump is right; his tweet served no legal or political purpose other than to inflame his domestic opposition at a time of heightened national tension.

This was the moment that Trump-skeptical Republicans always feared, and their concerns have not yet been proven groundless. Even Republicans who applaud the president’s decisive, if belated, counter-force strike against an Iranian terrorist commander with American blood on his hands must confront how unsuited the commander-in-chief is to this moment. The best anyone can say about Trump’s spasmodic conduct is that it won’t matter, but conservatives who are being honest with themselves must confess that this is more hope than analysis. Serious moments demand sober and rational minds at the helm, and the president’s behavior so far does not inspire confidence. 

There is no point to this kind of bluster. It undermines his Secretary of State's credibility, unnecessarily inflames Iranian and Iraqi public opinion and goes in the opposite direction from a stronger alliance with Iraq.

I don't envy anybody who works for this guy.

Monday roundup

Sorry for the absence. I was an assistant table leader at a jail-ministry weekend called Residents Encounter Christ. To say it was powerful would be to woefully understate the impact. I gained brothers. I saw hearts turn. I saw families begin the process of repair. I may compose a post about it at some point.

It was healthy to leave my devices at home. There is indeed more to life than social media, news aggregates and opinion sites.

But developments continue to transpire, don't they?

Let's have a look at some.

Claudia Rosett at PJ Media offers an on-the-ground look at Sunday's massive protest in Hong Kong.

I could be mistaken about this, but I don't think Beto has come up with a winning campaign theme with "our country was founded on racism and is still racist today."

Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in Baghdad:

Baghdad (AFP) - Hundreds of Iraqi teenagers clapped along exuberantly to techno beats pumping across a makeshift dance hall on Friday night, a scene their capital had not witnessed in decades.

Neon red, yellow and white stage lights helped transform the basketball court in the People's Stadium in central Baghdad into a club for the "Summer Festival", the first celebration of its kind in the city.

The party started at noon with a car show: classic cars, souped-up four-wheelers and motorcycles with proud owners revving their engines.

As the DJ took the stage, boys and girls alike swayed and sang along to Western tunes, alternated with popular Iraqi hits.

Though there were only a few young women among the 1,000 or so revellers, their presence was notable in a country where public spaces remain conservative.

"I love this type of music," said Layan, a 19-year-old woman in a leather black top and full makeup.

"I hear a lot of people say that we're influenced by the West. Fine, there's no difference to me -- the important thing is I don't have to listen to this music at home in secret anymore," she said, pumping her fist into the air.

Just a few years ago, the sound of staccato gunfire or the echo of car bombs was more common in Baghdad than the resounding bass of electronic music.

Iraq has been hit by nearly four decades of conflict, from a devastating war with Iran in the 1980s to the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Sectarian warfare followed, then the onslaught of the Islamic State group in 2014, only defeated territorially in late 2017.

Friday's festival was the latest indication that Iraq is entering a phase of relative stability, with blast walls and checkpoints coming down across the capital.

Restaurants are again abuzz with families and coffee shops full of young people watching cover bands late into the night, something that not so long ago was considered too dangerous because of the risk of suicide bombers.

Greg Weiner, writing at Law & Liberty, says that Mary Ann Glendon is exceptionally well-suited to lead Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's Commission on Unalienable Rights.

Oh, sheesh. The Business Roundtable now repudiates its former position that the a corporation's primary purpose for existing is to show its owners a return on their investment. It's issued a statement saying that the corporation has a "responsibility" to some wider array of "stakeholders." Ain't that nice?

Suit yourself, exterminators of fetal Americans:

Planned Parenthood will be foregoing as much as $60 million annually from a federal family planning program that will carry new anti-abortion rules. 

"Planned Parenthood is still open. We are continuing to fight this rule in court," said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of Planned Parenthood, said in a call with reporters Monday. She said the organization would do everything it could to make sure that clinics could stay open. 

The Trump administration is giving healthcare providers until midnight to comply with a new rule that says organizations that accept federal family planning grants cannot directly provide patients with an abortion referral. Critics of the rule call it a "gag rule" because they say the government is forcing them to keep information from patients.

A group of Chicago Teachers Union members go to Venezuela and go all Walter Duranty.  

Just getting out doesn't make the threat from these places go away

Abe Greenwald at Commentary has a piece entitled "Yes, Our Unpopular Wars Are Worth It." He summarizes the argument thusly:

The counter-arguments are too familiar: It’s no business of ours what happens in places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Small improvements in the security conditions of lawless countries aren’t worth the cost in American blood and treasure.

Those who believe such things also have to believe that the U.S. did the right thing in staying out of Afghanistan for years after the Soviets were driven out and the Taliban offered up the country as an operations base for al-Qaeda. They must think that President Obama was wise to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2011 and allow jihadists to reconstitute as ISIS. They’ll presumably stay mute if al-Qaeda, ISIS, or some other group launches an attack on America that’s been planned in one of the countries from which we’re now withdrawing. And surely they’ll not be concerned when the next wave of fleeing refugees hits the West.

David French at NRO spells out the five reasons:

First, there exists a jihadist enemy of our nation and civilization that doesn’t just seek to harm our national interests, it actively seeks to kill as many Americans as possible, as publicly as possible — with the goal of so thoroughly destabilizing and demoralizing our nation that we make room for the emergence of a new jihadist power.

Second, this enemy exists not because of immediate and recent American actions (though it can certainly use some of those actions to recruit new followers) but because of an ancient, potent systematic theology. Never forget that one of the grievances Osama bin Laden listed as justifying his attack on America was the Christian Spanish reconquest of Muslim Spain. That event occurred almost 300 years before the American founding.

Third, while it is difficult to predict any given terrorist attack, this much we can say — when terrorists obtain safe havens, they become dramatically more dangerous. The creation of a safe haven escalates the threat and renders serious attacks a near-inevitability.

Fourth, for reasons too obvious to outline, terrorist safe havens are always in nations and locations that are either hostile to the United States or in a state of fractured chaos. Terrorist cells may operate in places like France, but a true safe haven cannot thrive in functioning, strong allied territory.

Finally — and this is critically important — the national obligation of self-defense is permanent. No functioning government that abdicates its duty to protect its citizens from hostile attack can remain legitimate. Preferably self-defense is maintained by deterrence. But when deterrence fails, a failure to engage the enemy doesn’t bring peace, it enables the enemy to kill your people.

Michael Ledeen at PJ Media offers the wider perspective:

How often have you heard warnings that the withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan will make war more likely? They don’t seem to realize that the war is on, right here and now. Nor do they see that it’s a global war, and that we face a coalition of radical Islamist and radical Leftist regimes, from China and North Korea and Cuba to Russia, Iran, Turkey and Venezuela. Our enemies, who fear and despise freedom, are well aware that this is a big war.

That's why signals such as all this withdrawal talk will have consequences.

 

Tuesday roundup

The fear that artificial intelligence is going to render human activity obsolete is mostly based on hype:

CEOs dreaming of replacing their whiny, vacation-taking, sick-day-using human employees with a sleek fleet of never-complaining robots powered by artificial intelligence are going to be disappointed to learn AI is far behind the evolution of human development.

“The public thinks we know how to do far more than we do now,” Raymond Perrault, a scientist at SRI International, told the New York Times.

Artificial intelligence may be smart enough to learn the game of chess or fliphamburgers in a fast-food restaurant. But when it comes to common sense and decision-making skills, AI is way below the bar compared to adult human beings.

The “AI Index” released by Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SRI International, and other research organizations shows artificial intelligence produced in the United States is no smarter than a five-year-old. And Yann LeCun, the head of AI for Facebook, said even the most advanced artificial intelligence systems are no sharper on the uptake than vermin.

Andrew McCarthy at NRO does some exhaustive drilling down on the matter of the Steele "dossier," the conversation between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok in Andrew McCable's office, and the general inclination of the FBI and the Justice Department to pass on looking into the ample evidence of Clinton-campaign misbehavior - the kind detailed in Comey's July 2016 announcement, right before he said he'd decline to recommend indictment - even as it regarded the "dossier" as an "insurance policy" in the event - heaven forfend! - that Madame Bleachbit lose the election and DJT win it.

Iraqi Christians are understandably gleeful about returning to their towns and cities, recently liberated from ISIS, but have new safety concerns, particularly the Shiite militias that have the official backing of the government. There's already some harassment going on. The Christians did have fine Christmas celebrations throughout the country, though. Santa Claus was sighted in Mosul. At the link, check out the photo of the 30-foot Christmas tree in Baghdad.

Beautiful and glorious: Nikki Haley announces a $235 million cut to the US budget for the UN.

From the final-stages-of-higher-education's-rot file:

Terms like ‘boys and girls’ are frowned upon. Why must the left exert control over such simple aspects of life?

Campus Reform reports:

College pronoun FAQ: regularly ask for others’ pronouns

A resource guide at Bard College encourages students, faculty, staff, and visitors, to avoid using “gender binary” language.

The Pronoun FAQ, found on the school’s Office for Gender Equity resource webpage, encourages community members to “avoid using gender binary language such as ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ ‘boys and girls.’” Instead, they are urged to use “‘everybody,’ ‘folks,’ or, ‘all people.”

The guide also states that simply asking another person about gender identity once is insufficient.

“If I ask someone their pronouns once, is that enough?” the guide asks. “No, the best practice is to ask regularly because gender identity is not always fixed and static, and some people may change their pronouns.”

The top of the Pronoun FAQ states that the document is meant “to help community members educate themselves so that we can grow and evolve as a community,” and lists a few common pronouns, including gender-neutral alternatives such as “ze,” “zim,” “zir,” “zirs,” and “zirself.”

The pronoun guide also seeks to educate readers on questions such as, “What are gendered pronouns?” and “what are non-gendered or non-binary pronouns?”

In a section dedicated to “Suggestions for Faculty,” the guide concedes that “[i]n large classes, faculty may be unable to learn every student’s name and pronouns.”

We'll be mining evidence of what a national treasure Antonin Scalia was for some time to come:

Scalia had advice for young Christians—“to learn early and remember long” that [quality] of ‘differentness’; to recognize that what is perfectly lawful, and perfectly permissible, for everyone else—even our very close non-Christian friends—is not necessarily lawful and permissible for us.” Further, “that the ways of Christ and the ways of the world—even the world of Main Street America—are not the same, and we should not expect them to be.” Scalia emphasized that “it is only if one has that sense of differentness ... that one has a chance of being strong enough to obey the teachings of Christ.”

The great justice was well aware of which realm had permanence and which one was merely a passing parade:

Scalia was so bold as to touch on what are called the “two kingdoms” in theological circles. He quoted what Jesus said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would have fought that I might not be delivered to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” This thought, said the justice, pervades the Gospels and is in the early church. He recalled the famous observation of a second century church father writing to one Diognetus:

“Though residents at home in their own countries, their behavior is more like that of transients. They take their full part as citizens, but they also submit to everything as if they were aliens. For them, any foreign country is a homeland, any homeland is a foreign country.” 

House Republicans re singing a different tune from Senator McConnell's I-foresee-us-moving-on-from-Obamacare-repeal position. 

The continuing shift in Middle Eastern dynamics

Saudi Arabia is front and center among the players of interest at the moment. The crown prince is shaking things up in un precedented ways, and seems unconstrained by family ties:

Saudi Arabia’s future king has tightened his grip on power through an anti-corruption purge by arresting royals, ministers and investors including billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal who is one of the kingdom’s most prominent businessmen.

Prince Alwaleed, a nephew of the king and owner of investment firm Kingdom Holding 4280.SE, invests in firms such as Citigroup (C.N) and Twitter (TWTR.N). He was among 11 princes, four ministers and tens of former ministers detained, three senior officials told Reuters on Sunday. 

The purge against the kingdom’s political and business elite also targeted the head of the National Guard Prince Miteb bin Abdullah who was detained and replaced as minister of the powerful National Guard by Prince Khaled bin Ayyaf. 

News of the purge came early on Sunday after King Salman decreed the creation of an anti-corruption committee chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, his 32-year-old favorite son who has amassed power since rising from obscurity three years ago.

A particularly jarring cultural shift is in the works as well. As of next June, Saudi women will have the right to drive automobiles.


Then there's the ballistic missile intercepted over Riyadh.  The Houthis, which at one time might have been properly called a Yemeni rebel group, but which now control the portion of Yemen that includes the capital Sanaa, have forthrightly claimed responsibility:

"We previously warned that capitals of countries attacking Yemen will not be safe from our ballistic missiles," Houthi spokesman Mohammed AbdulSalam said. "Today's missile attack comes in response to Saudi killing innocent Yemeni civilians."

The Houthis like to downplay ties to Iran, but there is proof that such ties exist and are deadly:

Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement, stepping up support for its Shi‘ite ally in a civil war whose outcome could sway the balance of power in the Middle East, regional and Western sources say.

Iran’s enemy Saudi Arabia is leading a Sunni Arab coalition fighting the Houthis in the impoverished state on the tip of the Arabian peninsula - part of the same regional power struggle that is fuelling the war in Syria. 

Sources with knowledge of the military movements, who declined to be identified, said that in recent months Iran has taken a greater role in the two-year-old conflict by stepping up arms supplies and other support. This mirrors the strategy it has used to support its Lebanese ally Hezbollah in Syria. 

Lebanese prime minister Saad al-Hariri, who comes from a prominent family in that country's politics (his father was assassinated via a bombing), is stepping down to avoid being a casualty in Iranian proxy activity:

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on Saturday, saying he believed there was an assassination plot against him and accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.

His resignation, a big surprise to Beirut’s political establishment, brought down the coalition government and plunged Lebanon into a new political crisis. 

It thrust Lebanon into the front line of a regional competition between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi‘ite Iran that has also buffeted Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain. A Saudi government minister said Hariri was in Riyadh to ensure his safety. 

Hariri, who is closely allied with Saudi Arabia, alleged in a broadcast from an undisclosed location that Hezbollah was “directing weapons” at Yemenis, Syrians and Lebanese.

And US policy in Iraq has not adequately considered the marginalization of the Kurds, the world's biggest ethnic group without its own nation-state, and how it serves Iran's hegemonic aims in its neighboring country:

The success of Trump’s strategy for containing Iran now depends entirely on an Iraqi government and military that is closely allied with Iran. In a day, the same Iraqi government that already sent forces to fight for Assad can close the Fishkhabour crossing and thus facilitate Assad’s victory against the most substantial portion of Syrian territory not under his control. The Kurdistan Region in Iraq—much diminished in territory and economic resources, and no longer in control of its borders—does not now have the capacity to counter Baghdad or Tehran. If the US objects to Iraq’s pro-Iran policies, the Iraqis always have the option of asking the US to leave. But that is not in Iran’s interest right now. Speaking as an American, the ousted governor of Kirkuk Najmaldin Karim observed: “The US has already spent trillions to accomplish Iran’s objectives in Iraq. As long as we keep doing it, why would Iran want us to leave?”

So it seems that a Saudi Arabia that sees the benefit of loosening its internal strictures and looking beyond its oil for opportunities for long-term business viability, is one pole of the region's balance of power, and Iran, which remains bent on subjugating as much of the Middle East as possible, so as to rid it of anything even faintly smacking of Western influence, is the other.

These motivations should be at the forefront of US strategic thinking. The second pole mentioned above is fiercely determined to impose its dehumanizing ideology wherever it can. That should give America a strong indication as to what kinds of signs of encouragement to particular players in the region are going to further its interests.

 

 

The Iran deal in the overall context of Iranian hegemonic designs

At LITD, we like to keep things simple. Murkiness inevitably begets problems.

Consider the JCPOA. The consensus, at a minimum, seems to be that just tearing it up and walking away would create massive diplomatic confusion amongst US allies, economic upheaval, given that lots of Western nations have cemented deals with Iran for supplying all manner of goods and services. The argument then goes that Iran would be more motivated than ever to resume its nuclear program and accelerate its pace.

But consider the cost to American stature in the world in the way the agreement was arrived at. (You can refresh your memory by scrolling through LITD posts in such categories as "Iran," "John Kerry," and "Appeasement of Rogue States.") Iranian foreign minister routinely humiliated Kerry and Wendy Sherman at their meetings in Vienna and Geneva. Iran made no effort to scale back its alliances with Hezbollah, the Houthis, North Korea, or any of the other bad actors it supports and shares technology with.

How pathetic did the obsequiousness get during the hammering out of the deal?

The United States and its negotiating partners agreed "in secret" to allow Iran to evade some restrictions in last year's landmark nuclear agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief from economic sanctions, according to a report reviewed by Reuters.

The report is to be published on Thursday by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said the think tank’s president David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and co-author of the report. It is based on information provided by several officials of governments involved in the negotiations, who Albright declined to identify.

Reuters could not independently verify the report's assertions.

"The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran," Albright said. 

Among the exemptions were two that allowed Iran to exceed the deal's limits on how much low-enriched uranium (LEU) it can keep in its nuclear facilities, the report said. LEU can be purified into highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.

The exemptions, the report said, were approved by the joint commission the deal created to oversee implementation of the accord. The commission is comprised of the United States and its negotiating partners -- called the P5+1 -- and Iran.

One senior "knowledgeable" official was cited by the report as saying that if the joint commission had not acted to create these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the deal by Jan. 16, the deadline for the beginning of the lifting of sanctions.

And, as we know, the humiliation didn't stop once the patty-cake culminated in the deal. In fact, on the one-year anniversary of having (on the day of Obama's 2016 State of the Union Address) seized the crew of two US naval vessels and lifted the data from the crew's phones and laptops, the Khomeini regime put up a huge billboard in Tehran sporting the photograph of the sailors kneeling with their hands behind their heads.

And, as is always the case in this ever-churning world, events keep unfolding.

Yes, it's wonderful that ISIS is collapsing across Iraq and Syria. But Iranian-backed-and-trained militias are now incorporated into the official Iraqi army, and they are routing the Kurds, the player in all this that has been most aligned with US aims, from the region where they live - and have been enjoying relative stability throughout the turmoil that has roiled Iraq for the last couple of decades:

One of the anomalies of the fight against ISIS is that our strategic monomania on suppressing one of the frequent millennia cults that arise in Islam (Christianity has them too, they just don’t kill people–at least on the industrial scale–and tend sit on empty hilltops awaiting the Second Coming) is that we found ourselves allied with a state sponsor of terror: Iran. Today, the Iranian militias we trained and equipped rolled over an ostensible US ally, the Kurdistan Regional Government, began what looks like a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk and topped it all off with the beheading of captured Kurdish peshmerga.

This is the result of a lack of thorough housecleaning of foreign-policy employees of the US government from the previous administration:

In all fairness, this strategy was developed by the Obama administration and it was developed without any real complaints out of CENTCOM. And the monomaniacal focus on the destruction of ISIS made partnering with the IRGC inevitable, never mind their track record of blowing up American installations. This policy has continued under the current Defense Secretary and National Security Adviser because they were pretty much co-opted by the status quo when they came on board. We’ve kept on staff Brett McGurk–the nimrod who screwed up Iraqi SOFA negotiations while sleeping with a Wall Street Journal reporter (FEMALE, THANK HEAVEN!!) and getting blow jobs from a State Department staffer (FEMALE, THANK HEAVEN!!) on the roof to the US embassy in Baghdad–who has seen this plan through to its unfortunate, though logical and foreseeable, consequences.

The pro-JCPOA argument I referenced above has as its bottom line the view that, while it does nothing to stop Iranian permeation of most, if not all, Middle East hot spots, nor curb Iranian missile development, it delayed the most existential threat of all by a decade.

But a regime that behaves as Iran has since 1979 and continues to is not going to miss any opportunities to thwart and harm the US, its declared number-one enemy.

Yes, our European allies would feel confused and betrayed if we abruptly tore up the JPCOA.

But how do you think the Kurds feel today as Kirkuk falls?

 

You can always count on the Middle East to present the world with the thorniest challenges

This one will really whack the hornet's nest, but no one can say it comes out of left field. The Kurds have been arguably the most stable demographic in the area where Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey converge. Life goes remarkably smoothly there. But they realize it would go yet more smoothly if they had their own country. And so it will come to a referendum:

Forget the Fourth of July — mark your calendars for September 25thfor some real fireworks. After years of attempting to work within the US-built federal system in Iraq, the Kurds in the northern region have decided they like autonomy so much that they want to make it official. The president of the regional government announced on Twitter today that they will hold a referendum on independence — and a rather bland statement from Baghdad makes it sound like they won’t put up much of a fight:

SEE ALSO: Video: Obama warns against following certain unnamed populist opportunists in Montreal speech

The referendum on whether to secede from Iraq will be held in the three governorates that make up the Kurdish region and in the areas that are disputed by the Kurdish and Iraqi governments but are currently under Kurdish military control.

It is not clear whether a ‘yes’ vote, which is expected to be the result, will lead to the declaration of independence. The Iraqi government has so far not reacted to the announcement. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in April that he respects the Kurdish right to vote on independence, but he did not think the timing was right for the move.

Iraq’s Kurdish region, with a population of about 5 million, already enjoys a high degree of autonomy, including its own parliament and armed forces. But relations with the central government in Baghdad have nosedived in recent years over a range of issues. These include the sharing of oil revenues and the control of some areas that are technically part of federal Iraq but have come under Kurdish control since 2014 during the war against the Islamic State group.

And you thought the Qatar crisis could create a bombshell in the Middle East. Both Turkey and Syria have suppressed separatist Kurdish movements for decades, and Turkey in particular opposes even the autonomy under which the Iraqi Kurds have operated since the 1991 Gulf War, and officially so since the 2003 Iraq War finally deposed Saddam Hussein. This was one of the outcomes Turkey predicted from having the US back the Kurds on both occasions and in the Syrian fight against ISIS.

Turkish president Erdogan and prime minister Yildrim are both on record indicating that such a move could trigger a war. And Baghdad would surely object to losing the peshmerga element in its military.

Ironic that a move to go sovereign by the most level-headed party in the area would be so volatile.

Then there is the sudden switcharoo by Squirrel-Hair on Qatar:

The Associated Press reports that President Donald J. Trump offered Wednesday to personally broker a resolution to the Persian Gulf’s escalating diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its Arab neighbors:

In a phone call with Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani, Trump said he wanted to help Qatar and its Arab neighbors resolve the row that has upended any sense of Gulf unity, suggesting a possible White House summit among leaders. Though Trump again said countries must eliminate funding streams for terror groups, the White House said he focused on the need for the region’s various U.S. allies to stick together.

That’s a yuge reversal from President Trump’s position, tweeted on Tuesday, that Qatar enables terrorism.

So let's say he gathers them all at the White House for a summit. Who among the invitees is going to set store by anything said there? It's clear to Arab-state leaders, like it is to everyone else, that any damn thing is liable to fly out of S-H's mouth at any damn time.

The Jared factor

How comfortable are you with the outsized role DJT's son-in-law has been given in this administration?

It appears that, dozens of reports to the contrary notwithstanding, the old man wasn't all that miffed about the Aspen ski trip as the non-repeal-and-non-replace health care bill faltered. Kushner's portfolio has done nothing but expand.

There was the weekend trip to Iraq with the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair. Three's the assignment to be The Guy Who Finally Brokers Peace Between Israel and the Palestinians. He's been assigned another time-worn chestnut as well - making government operate efficiently like a business! How many administrations have tried to push that rock up the hill?

Like his wife, he comes from a family of real-estate developers going back to his grandfather. In 2007, he set a record for the most expensive property purchase in US history, plunking down $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue.

The family's not without scandal. His father, Charles Kushner, spent two years in federal prison on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegally donating to political campaigns. (The prosecutor was Chris Christie. Could there be anything to the timing by which Christie was eased out of the Trump circle as Jared was given his high profile?)

But it's the hints of left-of-center leanings that unsettle me - that and the fact that DJT sometimes heeds his input:

Ivanka Trump and her husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, intervened to get a pending executive order stripped of language critical of an international climate agreement signed by President Barack Obama.

Kushner and Ivanka “intervened to strike language about the climate deal from an earlier draft of the executive order,” sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Ivanka and her husband “have been considered a moderating influence on the White House’s position on climate change and environmental issues,” WSJ reports. Now, the executive order will have no mention of the so-called Paris agreement.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign two executive orders in the coming days to begin dismantling Obama’s Climate Action Plan and other costly environmental regulations. The orders reportedly target the Clean Power Plan (CPP), a moratorium on new coal mining leases, and the “Waters of the U.S.” rule.

Trump promised to withdraw from the Paris agreement and stop global warming payments to the U.N. while on the campaign trail. But Trump’s opposition to Obama’s climate agenda seems to be running up against his daughter’s plans.

WSJ noted the “move is the latest sign of influence Mr. Trump’s daughter and Mr. Kushner have in a White House that has seen internal divisions on a variety of issues, including foreign policy.”

What is going to happen now that  new EPA head Scott Pruitt as well as new Energy Secretary Rick Perry are taking decisive measures to move environmental policy away from the fiction of a climate in some kind of trouble due to human activity?

Quite obviously, not everyone in this new administration is on the same page about everything. The question is, as it all moves forward, who gets to determine the page from which folks are reading?

Friday roundup

Northern and western Africa are awash in jihadist arms:

A report issued this month tracking the flow of weapons across Libya and the Sahel revealed that terror groups operating in West Africa are getting much more than just inspiration from terror hubs in Iraq and Syria.

The study by UK-based Conflict Armament Research, an independent organization that tracks the flow of conventional weapons and materiel, found that weapons stockpiles remaining from the nearly 42-year dictatorship of Moammar Gadhafi have migrated as far as Mali and Syria.

But investigators found that the unstable country awash in more than 100 militia groups with around 125,000 fighters -- some support the unity government, some don't -- is not the only source of illicit weapons in the region.

"The profile of illicit weapons in the region reflects the consequences of other state crises, particularly in Mali, and of weak control over national stockpiles in the Central African Republic and Côte d’Ivoire," states the report. "The prevalence of Ivorian-origin small arms across the region is a particularly unexpected finding of this investigation."

And even through the flow of weapons out of Libya has been decreasing, importation of arms and ammunition into Libya has been increasing -- particularly from Sudan.

The report highlighted "a new set of weapons" now in use among Islamist armed groups in the southern Sahel, noted when al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Mourabitoun attacked hotels, restaurants and resorts this year and last, killing Americans among other foreigners and locals, in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast with "a common set of small arms unlike any previously documented in the sub-region."

"These include Iraqi-origin assault rifles and a batch of Chinese rifles manufactured in 2011 whose serial numbers interleave with matching rifles that Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) seized from IS fighters in Syria in 2015. These findings indicate that the Islamist groups responsible for the Sahelian attacks have a common source of supply or constitute a single cell, and point tentatively to possible links or commonalities of supply sources between Islamist fighters in West Africa and those operating in Iraq and Syria."

The report says the weapons used in the high-profile attacks —AK-pattern Type 56-1 assault rifles— "are a type which are readily available from local sources in the region but which seem instead to have been sourced transnationally." The Chinese government had not yet responded to trace requests by UN and CAR investigators.

Informative Washington Post piece about an underground radio station in Mosul, Iraq the call-in shows of which give trapped residents a chance to speak out about day-to-day, moment-to-moment conditions.

Robert Tracinski at The Federalist offers five ways for #NeverTrump folks to move forward now that the deal is done: take what we can get, remember that the federal Congress and most state legislatures are in Pub hands, don't make partisan excuses for Squirrel-Hair, be the loyal opposition, and be the mustard seed. That last one has to do with preserving "the powerful mustard seed of liberty . . even when nobody else cares. Especially when nobody else cares.

Jonah Goldberg at NRO says it was the lefties that populate the MSM who "normalized" Trump:

Throughout the primaries, Trump’s conservative opponents complained bitterly that the mainstream media was normalizing Trump. No one listened, for three reasons.

Trump was good for ratings (and got billions worth of free media as a result). CBS honcho Les Moonves said that Trump’s success “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

Second, the mainstream media and numerous liberal pundits loved Trump’s impact on the GOP for the same reason bored teenagers like to throw lit matches into dumpsters: Garbage fires are fun to watch.

The third reason is closely related to the second: The media thought Trump was more likely lose to Hillary Clinton. (And so did the Clinton campaign itself, as we learned from WikiLeaks.)

In February, Jonathan Chait, a writer for New York magazine and the author of a forthcoming book explaining how super-terrific Barack Obama’s presidency was, wrote a piece titled “Why liberals should support a Trump Republican nomination.” He listed three reasons: Trump would lose, Trump would wreak havoc on the GOP, and Trump would be better than the other Republican candidates.

“If he does win,” Chait wrote, “a Trump presidency would probably wind up doing less harm to the country than a Marco Rubio or a (Ted) Cruz presidency. It might even, possibly, do some good.”

The day after the election, Chait declared on Twitter “This is the worst thing that has happened in my life.”

Okay, then.

Shortly after the election, Slate’s Jamelle Bouie wrote a piece titled “There’s no such thing as a good Trump voter,” likening some 60 million Americans to a racist lynch mob. Last year, Bouie penned an article with the headline “Donald Trump is actually a moderate Republican.”

Of course, Chait and Bouie are not alone. Progressive figures such as Paul Krugman, Matt Yglesias, Robert Borosage, Amanda Marcotte, and Bill Maher all said during the primaries that Trump was less scary than, say, Rubio or Cruz. (See Warren Henry’s excellent survey in The Federalist for details.)

Isn’t it awfully late to be decrying the normalization of Trump when you were an early adopter of normalization because you thought the horrible Democratic nominee would have an easier time beating him?

The dating app Tinder now offers users 37 gender choices.

The list includes “Agender,” “Gender Fluid,” “Gender Nonconforming,” every variation of “Trans” and “Transgender,” and “Two-Spirit.”

Another option is “Pangender,” a gender that can transcend sex and time.

“Pangender (and/or Omnigender) is a non-binary gender experience which refers to a wide multiplicity of genders that can (or not) tend to the infinite (meaning that this experience can go beyond the current knowledge of genders),” according to Nonbinary.org. “This experience can be either simultaneously or over time.”

The climate-change hustlers of the current post-American regime are in Morocco, trying to make haste regarding putting concrete details on the recent Paris accord. They and the rest of the attendees are making very little progress. 

And what of Madame BleachBit's foreign-policy chops, such as they are?

A comprehensive - and grim - look at the trail of disaster BB has wrought across the globe:

Many conservatives hold out hope that, as president, Hillary Clinton will be okay on foreign policy and national security issues. A few even plan to vote for her for this reason, seeing Donald Trump as worse than Clinton on these matters.

Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General and adviser to the Trump campaign, demonstrates that hopes for a sound foreign national security policy can only be founded on wishful thinking and dislike of Trump. They find no support in her record. 

Kellogg begins with Iraq. Clinton voted for that war. Was this a mistake? Clinton says it was.

It certainly was a major mistake to vote (as Clinton did) against the surge that turned the tide in Iraq, and to ridicule Gen. Petraeus, the surge’s architect. And it was a major mistake to pull out of Iraq when President Obama came to office. (The excuses for the pullout have been debunked by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times).

Kellogg blames Clinton for not being able to negotiate a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government. The evidence suggests that Obama didn’t want to reach an agreement and I believe that this, not poor negotiating by Clinton, is why we didn’t get one. But Clinton was part of the team that gave away our hard-won gains (gains she tried to prevent by opposing the surge) in Iraq.

Kellogg next considers Libya. There can be no Clinton finger pointing when it comes to the disasters that have occurred there. She was the architect of our Libya policy, which, email traffic shows, her team considered her greatest achievement as Secretary of State.

Some achievement. As Kellogg points out:

When [Qaddifi] was overthrown, there was no plan for follow-up governance. The result was instability, a huge refugee flow into southern Europe and the Islamic State gaining a foothold in Libya.

Worse was the eventual loss of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens in the Benghazi terrorist attack. It was the first killing of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty since 1979. The response from our secretary of state? She claimed his killing was the result of an anti-Islamic video.

Clinton’s Russian reset began badly. As Kellogg reminds us, Clinton couldn’t even get the translation on the idiotic reset button correct: The Russian word emblazoned on the button actually meant “overload.” 

Since the reset, Russia has taken Crimea, invaded main portions of Ukraine, strongly supported Syrian President Bashar Assad, conducted airstrikes against civilians in Aleppo, Syria and significantly increased its military and political presence in the Middle East.

It’s ironic that Clinton is winning the debate over Russia. Yes, Clinton talks tougher than Trump about Russia. But, as Trump likes to say, it’s all talk. 

Egypt is a case in point. In 2009, she called Mubarak a family friend. But when he came under attack, she supported his overthrow and then backed the Muslim Brotherhood government. Now, she denounces the U.S. friendly government as “basically a military dictatorship.”

As for Iran, Clinton backs the great giveaway known as the nuclear deal. We can be confident that in a Clinton administration, Iran will get away with violation after violation. 

What further debacles can we look forward to when she succeeds the Most Equal Comrade as the architect of post-America's doom?

Jihad never sleeps - today's edition

The Jayvee team strikes again, this time not too far from the boundary of its own caliphate:

A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district Sunday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq's capital.

The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week's holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group's control.

The bombing also wounded more than 180 people, security officials said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for the perpetrators, his office said.

Abadi's office later announced three days of mourning for the victims.

The blast set buildings ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 12 hours later.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as emergency personnel worked at the site.

This violent extremism stuff is getting nearly as bad as climate change.

The folly of complete withdrawals from still-festering hot spots

It turns out that the indigenous forces in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't ready for prime time.

Don't look for the home team to retake Mosul any time soon:

The highly anticipated offensive towards Mosul by the Iraqi combined coalition came to a grinding halt  just after the first few days of fighting.  Once again, Iraqi government troops ordered a full retreat from an offensive that started sometime last week when the ISIS opposition pushed back according to Fox News.  

The Iraqi army, which was heavily criticized for abandoning posts -- and weapons -- as ISIS moved in on Mosul in June 2014, had begun taking small villages on the outskirts after Baghdad announced the campaign March 24.  

"The Iraqi Army commenced an assault on ISIS strongholds around Mosul, but when ISIS fired back, the Iraqi Army ran away and the assaults ended," a western, Iraq-based security and defense specialist told FoxNews.com of last week's failed offensive. "So now they are regrouping and rethinking their next options."

U.S. Army Maj. Jon-Paul Depreo, said some of the Iraqi army troops were unfamiliar with the territory which is why they made the decision to call off the campaign.  "These [Iraqi army] forces aren't from that area necessarily, so they're learning the area," Depreo told reporters in Baghdad.

And Helmand province is once again a nest of jihad and chaos:

Eighteen months ago, the US and UK conducted a formal ceremony in Afghanistan’s Helmand province for our official withdrawal. We handed over two bases to Afghan security forces, lowered the flags for the final time, and duly exited one of the most dangerous zones of the Af-Pak theater. The Obama administration made sure to bring in journalists from around the world so that our commitment to withdrawal from the conflict could be seen in this concrete action, and noted for posterity.

Today, the message is … never mind:

The last time the U.S.-led coalition brought a group of journalists here to Helmand province was in October 2014 to document the withdrawal of American and British troops, on a trip designed to signal that U.S. involvement in the war really was ending.

This week, coalition officials brought journalists back, as a way of saying, “Never mind” — and to make the case that the United States may want to consider staying on.

After what was supposed to be a withdrawal from one of Afghanistan’s most restive provinces, about 500 soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division rushed back into Helmand in February. The Afghan army, left on its own, had failed to live up to expectations. Now, once again, U.S. forces are in place, trying to toughen up a force that remains too timid.

It’s not just the unreadiness of Afghan security forces that forced the US back into Helmand. The vacuum left behind by the pullout of Western forces allowed ISIS to fester and metastasize along with the Taliban. Now Helmand has turned into a completely new, and even worse, conflict — at least in Afghanistan.

Now the US military wants to send a much different message than that coming from the White House:

As Obama weighs what course to follow, the U.S. military has suddenly become more candid in framing its participation in the war, giving journalists greater access and attempting to more closely link the threat posed by al-Qaeda to the broader campaign against the Taliban insurgency.

At a news conference in Kabul, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, chief of communications for the U.S.-led coalition, warned that coalition forces are seeing increased “linkages” between al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s new leader, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. The Taliban is also working more closely with the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based militant group responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks of the war, Cleveland said.

What a shock. The US and UK withdrew, and the radical Islamists united to overthrow Afghanistan’s government. Whodathunk?

This is what you get when your goal is to "end" a war.