| Gina Miller to Sue Government If Johnson Suspends Parliament Posted: 14 Jul 2019 04:01 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Follow @Brexit on Twitter, join our Facebook group and sign up to our Brexit Bulletin.Gina Miller is ready to take the U.K. government to court again if Boris Johnson tries to suspend Parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit.The anti-Brexit campaigner said on Sunday that she would begin immediate legal action if such a step is attempted, citing concern about upholding Britain's constitution.Miller, who already used the courts to force the government to get Parliamentary approval before beginning Brexit talks, said she's assembling the same team to counter Johnson if he becomes the leader and attempts to shut down Parliament."It would be an abuse of his powers to close Parliament" and "limit the voice of the representatives that we all elect," Miller said, speaking on the "Ridge on Sunday" show on Sky. Her team would be "actively defending Parliamentary sovereignty, because it is the cornerstone of our constitution," she said.Johnson, the favorite to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May in Conservative Party voting this month, has pledged to take Britain out of the European Union with or without a deal on Oct. 31. He's refused to rule out proroguing -- or suspending -- Parliament to fulfill that pledge.Johnson's rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, has ruled out taking such a step. Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd, who backs Hunt, said on Sunday that suspending Parliament would be "the wrong thing to do and I would always argue against it."She also elaborated more on her recent reversal of opinion on a no-deal Brexit, which some say shows she's vying for a position in any Johnson-led cabinet."I'm no longer saying that I will lie down in front of the bulldozers if it arrives," Rudd said, speaking on the "Andrew Marr Show" on the BBC. "No deal is not easy, it'll be something that will challenge us, but if we have to do it we have to have it there as a backstop, to use a coin of phrase, at the end of October."Former Prime Minister John Major has already said he would be ready to take the government to court if the incoming leader tries to suspend Parliament in order to force through a no-deal exit, a position Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has also backed.Johnson, who has previously called Major's intervention "very odd," could still find some support among Conservative Party lawmakers."This should not be about the semantics of Parliament or proroguing Parliament, we now have to get behind a new government that is very clear in a future determination now, which is to get out of the European Union come what may," former cabinet minister Priti Patel said on Sky.The power to suspend Parliament lies with the monarch at the request of the prime minister, which could leave Queen Elizabeth in a tricky situation. One of the long-standing goals of both Buckingham Palace officials and government civil servants has been to keep the monarch out of any political controversy.To contact the reporter on this story: Jill Ward in London at jward98@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| REFILE-UK's Johnson would meet Trump to negotiate trade deal after becoming Prime Minister- The Times Posted: 14 Jul 2019 02:58 PM PDT ![REFILE-UK's Johnson would meet Trump to negotiate trade deal after becoming Prime Minister- The Times]( "REFILE-UK's Johnson would meet Trump to negotiate trade deal after becoming Prime Minister- The Times") Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to become Britain's next prime minister would want to meet U.S. President Donald Trump within the first two months of becoming prime minister to negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal, the Times newspaper reported on Sunday citing an ally of the former London mayor. If we get a trade deal with America we will be very quickly in the market for other deals.
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| German Jewish group says news article 'fuels anti-Semitism' Posted: 14 Jul 2019 01:16 PM PDT ![German Jewish group says news article 'fuels anti-Semitism']( "German Jewish group says news article 'fuels anti-Semitism'") Central Council of Jews in Germany President Josef Schuster was commenting on an article Spiegel magazine published Saturday about a German parliament resolution denouncing the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement targeting Israeli occupied territories. The Spiegel story suggests two Jewish groups, WerteInitiative and Naffo, used "aggressive lobbying methods" to get lawmakers to vote for the resolution in May. The non-binding resolution compared the BDS campaign's economic boycott of Israel and Israeli products to campaigns in Germany against Jewish-owned businesses before the Holocaust.
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| Sudan protesters delay signing deal with army for 2nd time Posted: 14 Jul 2019 01:00 PM PDT ![Sudan protesters delay signing deal with army for 2nd time]( "Sudan protesters delay signing deal with army for 2nd time") Sudan's pro-democracy movement postponed a scheduled meeting with the country's ruling generals for a second time on Sunday, saying "further consultations" were needed before they would sign a power-sharing deal with the military. Activists also said paramilitary forces had opened fire on demonstrators in a southeastern town, killing at least one protester and wounding seven others. Members of the military council and the Forces for Declaration of Freedom and Change, which represents the protesters, were supposed to meet Sunday night to finalize and sign the agreement.
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| Iran says ready to negotiate if US lifts sanctions Posted: 14 Jul 2019 12:48 PM PDT ![Iran says ready to negotiate if US lifts sanctions]( "Iran says ready to negotiate if US lifts sanctions") Iran's president says his country is ready to negotiate with the United States if Washington lifts its economic sanctions. Regional tensions have spiked a year after the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers. The U.S. has since re-imposed harsh sanctions on Tehran's oil exports, exacerbating an economic crisis that's sent its currency plummeting.
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| UK says seized Iranian oil tanker could be released Posted: 14 Jul 2019 11:21 AM PDT  Britain will facilitate the release of a seized Iranian tanker if Iran can provide guarantees the vessel would not breach European sanctions on oil shipments to Syria, Britain's top diplomat said, as European nations called for new talks to ease tensions in the Persian Gulf. The comments by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt late Saturday could help de-escalate tensions that have spiked in recent days. In apparent retaliation for the seized tanker, Iranian paramilitary vessels tried to impede the passage of a British oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, only turning away after receiving "verbal warnings" from a British navy vessel accompanying the ship, the British government said.
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| Syria says militant attack shuts down gas pipeline Posted: 14 Jul 2019 11:07 AM PDT ![Syria says militant attack shuts down gas pipeline]( "Syria says militant attack shuts down gas pipeline") Militants targeted a gas pipeline in government-controlled central Syria, putting it out of order Sunday, according to state media. The area in the central Homs province is close to where remnants of the Islamic State group are still holed up after losing all the territory they once held in the country. Separately and hours later, insurgents in the country's northwest fired missiles at the government-controlled city of Aleppo, killing seven civilians and injuring 25 others, the state-run al-Ikhbariya TV said.
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| Italy: Salvini aide behind lobbyist presence at Putin dinner Posted: 14 Jul 2019 11:04 AM PDT  The Italian premier's office on Sunday distanced itself from a lobbyist who is under investigation for allegedly seeking Russian money for Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's pro-Moscow League party, saying the man attended a recent dinner for visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin only because a Salvini adviser intervened on his behalf. Premier Giuseppe Conte's office issued the statement after it said it was flooded with requests for information about the presence of Gianluca Savoini at a dinner the Italian leader hosted for Putin on July 4 at a Villa Madama, an exclusive hilltop government palazzo designed by Renaissance artist Raphael in the 16th century. Savoini has been under investigation in Italy for allegedly seeking millions of dollars in financing for the League since the Italian newsweekly L'Espresso reported that he had discussed the plan with Russian officials in Moscow last year, a few months after the League became a partner in Conte's populist government.
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| UPDATE 1-U.S. grants visa to Iran's Zarif for UN meeting this week -sources Posted: 14 Jul 2019 10:47 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-U.S. grants visa to Iran's Zarif for UN meeting this week -sources]( "UPDATE 1-U.S. grants visa to Iran's Zarif for UN meeting this week -sources") The United States has granted a visa to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to attend a U.N. meeting in New York this week, two sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday, saying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had approved the decision. Had Pompeo not approved giving a visa to Zarif, Iran's top diplomat and nuclear negotiator, it could have been a signal that the United States was trying to further isolate the Islamic Republic and perhaps closing the door to diplomacy.
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| Israeli minister's remarks on gays widely condemned Posted: 14 Jul 2019 10:43 AM PDT  Israel's new education minister's remarks in favor of "conversion therapy," a controversial technique that seeks to turn gays into heterosexuals, came under widespread criticism and led hundreds to protest Sunday. Rafi Peretz, who leads a small religious nationalist party, said in a televised interview over the weekend that he supports conversion therapy and has performed it. It was Peretz's second major controversy in just a month on the job.
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| French Missile Claim Hints at Role in War, Libya Minister Says Posted: 14 Jul 2019 10:07 AM PDT ![French Missile Claim Hints at Role in War, Libya Minister Says]( "French Missile Claim Hints at Role in War, Libya Minister Says") (Bloomberg) -- France's admission that it owned sophisticated U.S.-made missiles found at a Libyan base seized from strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces indicates it backs his offensive to seize the capital, the interior minister of Libya's internationally recognized government said.The Javelin anti-tank missiles were uncovered when government forces retook Gharyan from Haftar in late June, a surprise setback for the eastern commander who'd been using the city as a forward operating base for his campaign to take Tripoli. After wide-ranging speculation over who'd supplied the weapons, France last week acknowledged ownership and said the missiles were left behind by one of its counter-terrorism teams and were no longer operational.Speaking in an interview in the Libyan city of Misrata, Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha disputed France's claim that the missiles were inoperable and said his government has asked experts from the United Nations and U.S. to examine the weapons to confirm they are in working order."The dung leads to the camel," Bashagha said, quoting an Arab proverb. "France implicated itself when it said the Javelins were with a French security team. If the Javelins belonged to a French security team, that means France has admitted it was present militarily and officially in Gharyan to support Haftar."Haftar's campaign has ground to a halt on Tripoli's outskirts, with the fighting leaving at least 1,000 people dead and regional powers backing either side in the Middle East's latest struggle for supremacy.Splintered CountryLibya splintered in the aftermath of the NATO-backed overthrow of dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011 and two rival administrations and myriad militias are vying for control. Haftar's eastern-based forces swept through the south earlier this year before setting their sights on the capital.France's Defense Ministry told Bloomberg on Sunday that it was "not going to react through the press to this or that reaction." It then repeated last week's statement that the weapons "were intended for the self-protection of a French detachment deployed for counter-terrorism intelligence purposes."France, while seen as supportive of Haftar, also recognizes the UN-backed government in Tripoli and has signed security pacts with its interior ministry. The discovery of the Javelins had initially raised questions over whether a U.S. ally had broken a sales agreement with Washington by transferring the missiles directly to Libyan fighters.Bashagha said a French counter-terrorism team had been present in western Libya and cooperating with a military commander from the Tripoli-based government. The team left with all its equipment shortly after Haftar began his offensive in early April, he said.Another French team left by sea, and both groups took all their weapons, Bashagha said. France had denied having any military presence in Gharyan.(Updates with comment from French Defense Ministry in seventh paragraph.)\--With assistance from Helene Fouquet.To contact the reporter on this story: Samer Khalil Al-Atrush in Tripoli at skhalilalatr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Michael GunnFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| U.S. grants visa to Iran's Zarif for UN meeting this week - sources Posted: 14 Jul 2019 09:34 AM PDT ![U.S. grants visa to Iran's Zarif for UN meeting this week - sources]( "U.S. grants visa to Iran's Zarif for UN meeting this week - sources") The United States has granted a visa to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to attend a U.N. meeting in New York this week, two sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday, saying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had approved the decision. Had Pompeo not approved giving Zarif, Iran's top diplomat and nuclear negotiator, a U.S. visa it could have been a signal that the United States was trying to further isolate the Islamic Republic.
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| Leaked UK memo says Trump axed Iran deal to spite Obama Posted: 14 Jul 2019 09:20 AM PDT  A U.K. newspaper has published more leaked memos revealing a British ambassador's blunt assessments of the Trump administration, including one in which the envoy to Washington claimed President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal to spite predecessor Barack Obama. Darroch wrote the memo after then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Washington in a failed attempt to persuade the United States not to abandon the 2015 nuclear agreement.
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| Qatar opens biggest coast guard base Posted: 14 Jul 2019 08:46 AM PDT  Qatar inaugurated its largest coast guard base Sunday as a standoff between Iran and the United States continues to boost tensions in strategic Gulf waters. Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani and commander of US Naval Forces in the Middle East Vice Admiral Jim Malloy attended the ceremony at the Al-Daayen naval base in Semaisima, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Doha on Qatar's eastern coast. Qatar, a key US ally in the region, is home to Washington's largest Middle East military base.
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| European leaders fail to grasp 'hardening' of UK view on Brexit, Latvia warns Posted: 14 Jul 2019 08:27 AM PDT  A hard Brexit could be made more likely because European Union leaders have failed to grasp the hardening of opinion in Britain, Latvia's foreign minister has warned. Edgars Rinkēvičs, who has served as the Baltic state's chief diplomat for eight years, said a mutual gulf of understanding between London and Brussels means revising the Withdrawal Agreement before the October 31 deadline will be "extremely difficult." And he warned that Boris Johnson's plan to use hard Brexit as a "credible threat" in negotiations was based on a false assumption about the European position and the speed with which the EU can move. Speaking during a visit to London, Mr Rinkevics said: "I think that in the European Union we sometimes do not grasp that the UK, after three years of this very tortuous process, has a very hardened stance," he told the Telegraph. "But there is another dynamic that is not well understood here in London, which is very important for me as a representative of a small member state: it is also very important that the unity and solidarity of the European Union is not just words. "When you have a situation where your key national interests are at stake, you count on the support of all the other 26 members. There are key national interests of Ireland at stake here - I don't think anyone can deny that - and I believe that a very similar situation other member states would be counting on the support on all of them," he said. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the candidates in the Conservative leadership race, have both said Britain must leave the European Union by October 31. That will give the new prime minister just three months to negotiate a new Withdrawal Agreement after a winner is declared on July 23. Both candidates have said the threat of a no-deal Brexit should be used to push the European Union to make concessions on controversial areas including the Irish backstop. Mr Rinkēvičs said: "I do not think the [withdrawal agreement] can be revised in just a couple of weeks." Incoming EU leaders | Their views on Brexit Latvia is considered a close ally of Britain inside the European Union. They both take a hard line on Russian sanctions and increasing Nato defence spending, and Mr Rinkēvičs said Riga remains anxious for the EU to maintain the closest possible cooperation on security and law enforcement. A crash-out Brexit on October 31 would jeopardise both European and British security if it also took Britain out of the European Court of Justice, undermining the work of European arrest warrants and cooperation via Europol and Eurojust, the pan-European policing and legal agencies. Britain's absence from the European Union may also raise questions about the endurance of the sanctions regime imposed against Russia following the annexation of Crime and war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Several countries including Hungary and Italy have publicly criticised the sanctions regime. Latvia and neighbouring states were alarmed when the Council of Europe, a human rights body unrelated to the European Union, voted to restore Russia's voting rights last month. Mr Rinkevics said it was widely acknowledged that there will be a "change in dynamic" in the formation of EU foreign policy after Britain leaves, but said it was too early to predict how it would develop. "There are some members states - I don't want to single out any - that could raise [lifting sanctions on Russia]," said Mr Rinkēvičs. "In that case I believe so the consequences are going to be really damaging for the credibility of the European Union," he said. "If we give in, the implications for the security and stability in the neighbourhood will be quite grave."
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| UPDATE 3-Rouhani says Iran ready to talk to U.S. if sanctions lifted Posted: 14 Jul 2019 08:10 AM PDT ![UPDATE 3-Rouhani says Iran ready to talk to U.S. if sanctions lifted]( "UPDATE 3-Rouhani says Iran ready to talk to U.S. if sanctions lifted") DUBAI/PARIS, July 14 (Reuters) - Iran is ready to hold talks with the United States if Washington lifts sanctions and returns to the 2015 nuclear deal it quit last year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration says it is open to negotiations with Iran on a more far-reaching agreement on nuclear and security issues.
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| Rouhani says Iran ready to talks to U.S. if sanctions lifted -TV Posted: 14 Jul 2019 07:49 AM PDT ![Rouhani says Iran ready to talks to U.S. if sanctions lifted -TV]( "Rouhani says Iran ready to talks to U.S. if sanctions lifted -TV") Iran is ready to hold talks with the United States if Washington lifts sanctions and returns to the 2015 nuclear deal it exited last year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Sunday. "We have always believed in talks ... if they lift sanctions, end the imposed economic pressure and return to the deal, we are ready to hold talks with America today, right now and anywhere," Rouhani said. Tension has heightened between the longtime foes since U.S. President Donald Trump last year withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers and reimposed sanctions on Tehran that had been lifted under the pact.
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| How Iran Might Fight a War Against America (Thanks to Russia) Posted: 14 Jul 2019 07:41 AM PDT  KYIV, Ukraine—The recent military tension between the U.S. and Iran underscores a new era of conflict, some military officials and analysts say, in which a country's power on the world stage is no longer measured solely by economic clout, military force, or even diplomatic sway. Rather, the audacious use of misinformation to shape public opinion at home and abroad allows countries like Iran and Russia to punch well above their hard and soft power weight classes in shaping world events. To that end, experts say Iran has put into practice lessons in hybrid warfare that Moscow field-tested on the battlefields of Ukraine and later unleashed against Western democracies."Iran's attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf resemble, in their intent, Russia's hybrid warfare operations that we have seen in Ukraine and elsewhere," said Nataliya Bugayova, Russia research fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank."Russia and Iran use hybrid warfare operations to advance their broader aims while trying to obfuscate reality on the ground and prevent the West from taking action to defend its interests," Bugayova said, adding that Iran "has a history of learning from Russia on the battlefield."In this new era of hybrid warfare, adversaries are able to threaten American security interests and undermine the U.S.-led democratic world without resorting to direct military action. Instead, by shifting the burden of conflict escalation onto the U.S., practitioners of hybrid warfare test whether American leaders are willing to retaliate against nonlethal, "gray zone" activities with lethal military force.
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| Emmanuel Macron calls for 'Europe of defence' at show of force on Bastille Day Posted: 14 Jul 2019 06:25 AM PDT  Emmanuel Macron presided over a show of European force at France's annual Bastille Day military parade on Sunday, calling for a "Europe of defence" alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders from the continent. The French president has argued for greater military co-operation in the bloc as the US cannot be relied upon to guarantee security under Donald Trump. Three British Chinook helicopters and a Eurofighter were among more than 100 aircraft from 10 EU countries that flew over Paris as soldiers, police and firefighters marched down the iconic Champs-Elysées avenue. German, Spanish, Portuguese and Finnish soldiers also took part. Theresa May was represented by the Cabinet Office minister David Lidington, her de facto deputy, after she cancelled a plan to attend. Credit: AFP Credit: Rex Credit: Reuters Credit: AFP "Never, since the end of the Second World War, has Europe been so important," Mr Macron said in a statement issued to mark July 14, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress and prison by revolutionary forces in 1789. "The construction of a Europe of defence, in connection with the Atlantic Alliance ... is a priority for France. It is the theme of this parade," Mr Macron said. The centrist French president has promoted the European Intervention Initiative as a step towards the "true European army" which he says is needed. The aim of the 10-country grouping is to undertake military missions outside existing structures such as Nato. The Patrouille de France passes over the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel Credit: Rex "Acting together and strengthening our ability to act collectively is one of the challenges that the European Intervention Initiative, along with other key European projects, wants to address," Mr Macron said. He is maintaining his policy of tightening European defence cooperation despite Brexit, political turbulence in Germany and his recent disagreements with Ms Merkel over the nomination of senior EU officials. "Our security and our defence pass through Europe," he said. Those who attended the parade and a lunch at the Elysée Palace included Charles Michels, the Belgian prime minister and president-elect of the European Council, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of Nato, Jean-Pierre Juncker, the outgoing president of the European Commission and Anti Rinne, prime minister of Finland. Mr Macron stood in an open-top command car as he inspected the forces and waved to crowds of spectators. French soldiers demonstrate NEROD F5 anti-drone rifles during the parade Credit: Rex There was no rain despite overcast skies but the president was jeered by "yellow vest" protesters whose weekly, often violent demonstrations appeared on the verge of toppling his government during the winter. The protests have since dwindled and Mr Macron's approval ratings have risen, but he is now facing renewed accusations of elitism and cronyism following revelations of his environment minister's extravagant lifestyle, funded by French taxpayers. Police detained at least 150 protesters on Sunday including two prominent members of the "yellow vest" movement. Mr Macron has so far held off sacking Francois de Rugy despite mounting anger over reports he hosted opulent lobster and £500-a-bottle vintage wines. A high point of the festivities was a demonstration of a futuristic "flyboard" by Franky Zapata, a French inventor and entrepreneur, who soared over the assembled leaders on the Champs-Elysées. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, French President Emmanuel Macron attend the annual Bastille Day military parade Credit: Rex Some 5,000 police were deployed across France amid painful memories of the 2016 Bastille Day terror attack in Nice and accusations that lax security had left families vulnerable. The famed Fouquet's restaurant on the grand avenue, trashed by the "yellow vests" in March, reopened on Sunday.
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| How China's crime crackdown has spooked expats used to wilder living Posted: 14 Jul 2019 06:02 AM PDT  Amid flashing lights and pounding music, foreigners had their pick of drugs – marijuana, cocaine, ketamine, meth, fentanyl. Nightlife ran wild here for years in Xuzhou, a lush pocket of eastern China dotted with lakes and ringed by mountains. "Back then we would go into clubs and just go table to table, drinking for free," said one expat, declining to give a full name. As few foreigners were willing to come for study or employment in this small city – accessible only by rail or road – expats said they were able to get away with this kind of freewheeling behaviour. But a broad crackdown in China against corruption and crime has finally stretched from big cities like Shanghai to smaller locales like Xuzhou. And the authorities are emboldened to nab foreigners at a time of rising tensions between China and Western nations, including the US, UK and Canada. "The ability and desire to catch foreign companies and foreigners operating illegally in China is higher now than it has ever been," said Dan Harris, founder of Harris Bricken, a US-based law firm that specialises in China. Last week, a group of 16 foreigners - thought to include four Britons - were arrested after a drug bust based on what Xuzhou police said was a tip. One is under criminal detention, which is typically followed by formal arrest and conviction – China's murky courts, controlled by the ruling Communist Party, have a 99.9 per cent conviction rate. The remaining foreigners are in administrative detention, and could spend up to 15 days in jail before being deported, though they aren't blocked from future criminal charges. Foreigners in Xuzhou drinking in bars like this one did not want to talk to journalists Credit: Sophia Yan Government officials have clamped down on foreigners working on improper visas, and are conducting raids in office buildings and bars, mandating everyone to submit hair and urine samples. Even if a substance, such as marijuana, was legally consumed outside of China, anyone failing a drug test inside the country could face extreme trouble. Drug offences carry hefty penalties in China, including the death sentence for trafficking. The crackdown in Xuzhou has shaken the small expat community, mostly English teachers and students studying subjects including Mandarin, medicine, and mechanical engineering. Local bars popular with foreigners were empty over the weekend, while social media groups fell silent. Everyone was extremely tight-lipped; almost none were willing to exchange even basic pleasantries with the Telegraph. Two teachers from EF Education First, whose colleagues were among those arrested, dashed for the basement of a bar when the Telegraph approached. Another said he had been instructed not to speak with anyone, including media. An Education First school in Xuzhou Credit: Sophia Yan On Saturday, angry parents poured out of a meeting with management at one EF Xuzhou branch, demanding tuition fees be refunded, and blaming the institute for hiring teachers of poor integrity. Swiss-based EF, which runs a global chain of institutes including 300 branches in China, is the largest English education chain in Xuzhou, and has said it is cooperating with the local authorities. Brunswick, the global public relations firm representing EF, didn't respond to a request for comment for this story at the time of publication. Government propaganda has seized on the incident to promote nationalism and anti-Western sentiment. A state media editorial on Friday headlined "Keep toxic foreign teachers away from kids" blasted institutes like EF for failing to have higher employment standards "instead of blindly seeking profits." While it remains to be seen how the Xuzhou arrests pan out, recent cases in China involving foreigners have been widely seen as politically motivated. Canada was targeted after Beijing made clear it was upset with Ottawa for arresting a Chinese tech executive on a US extradition request. In January, a Canadian arrested in 2014 who had been given a 15-year sentence for alleged drug trafficking was put on a rushed one-day retrial and slapped with the death penalty. The month before, China arbitrarily detained Canadians Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a business consultant, on suspicion of endangering national security. China has also more recently used exit bans to prevent foreigners, including Americans who aren't facing formal charges, from leaving the country. And Beijing has become more vocal against the UK in recent weeks as British officials, including prime minister candidate and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, have blasted China for eroding freedoms in Hong Kong. More than 40 British nationals were detained in China in the first four months of this year, triple the number over the same period in previous years. "China is using these arrests to send a message to unfriendly countries. They are essentially saying, we operate by our own rules so you had better not mess with us," said Mr Harris. They're "killing the chickens to scare the monkeys." One of the anti-crime banners in Xuzhou which reads: "Fight crime and eradicate vice; Stay clear of porn, gambling and drugs" Credit: Sophia Yan For the Xuzhou authorities, the broader crackdown has been touted as a political success. Authorities boasted in May that they had arrested 4,286 suspects, recovered assets worth 3 billion yuan (£347 million), and awarded 16 informants for reporting illegal activity. Community police stations dot street corners and park entrances, and taxis are equipped with cameras – the same ones used in the far western Xinjiang region on lockdown where the United Nations estimates more than one million Muslims are detained in internment camps. And lest anyone venture out for a bit of fun, reminders that the authorities are looking for even the slightest hint of suspicious activity are never far. Signs advertise hotlines encouraging residents to report on each other, and public toilet entrances are equipped with facial recognition cameras. One nightclub, E11, is flanked with giant red anti-crime propaganda banners: "Fight crime and eradicate vice; Stay clear of porn, gambling and drugs." Additional reporting by Yiyin Zhong
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| Israel threatens 'crushing' response to any Hezbollah strike Posted: 14 Jul 2019 03:28 AM PDT  Israel's prime minister says it will deliver a "crushing" strike against Hezbollah if the Lebanese militant group attempts to attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reacting to comments made by Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In an interview Friday, Nasrallah boasted that his group is much stronger than during the 2006 war and is capable of striking anywhere in Israel.
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| Donald Trump 'vandalised' Iran deal to spite Barack Obama, say latest leaked cables Posted: 14 Jul 2019 02:05 AM PDT  Britain's ambassador to the US said Donald Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal in an "act of diplomatic vandalism" because it was agreed by his predecessor Barack Obama, according to the latest leaked cables. The Mail on Sunday published details of the dispatch from Sir Kim Darroch, despite a warning from Scotland Yard that journalists who released further details of the ambassador's communications could be in breach of the Officials Secrets Act (OSA). The warning prompted a furious row over press freedom, with Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt lining up to defend the right of the media to publish leaked government documents. The latest memo to be disclosed was said to have been written by Sir Kim in May 2018 following a visit to Washington by Mr Johnson - who was then foreign secretary - in a last ditch attempt to persuade the Trump administration not to abandon the Iran deal. Under the terms of the agreement - still supported by Britain, France and Germany - international sanctions on Iran were eased in return for Tehran accepting curbs on its nuclear programme. Donald Trump last week said the ambassador had 'said some things that were pretty nice', in an apparent reversal of his angry outburst Sir Kim told Mr Johnson: "The outcome illustrated the paradox of this White House: you got exceptional access, seeing everyone short of the president; but on the substance, the administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons - it was Obama's deal. "Moreover, they can't articulate any 'day-after' strategy; and contacts with State Department this morning suggest no sort of plan for reaching out to partners and allies, whether in Europe or the region." On Friday, the Metropolitan Police said that it was launching a criminal investigation into the leak to the Mail of Sir Kim's dispatches. It followed the announcement Sir Kim had decided to quit, saying his position had become "impossible" following the publication of cables in which he described the Trump administration as "inept" and "dysfunctional". At the same time, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu issued a warning that any further publication of the cables could constitute a criminal offence and called on journalists to return any leaked government documents. Iran nuclear deal | Key details His comments were roundly condemned by politicians and senior journalists, who accused the Met of the kind of "heavy-handed" approach more usually associated with totalitarian regimes. In a further statement on Saturday, Mr Basu insisted the Met had "no intention" of trying to prevent the publication of stories in the public interest. He said the focus of the inquiry by the counter terrorism command - which investigates breaches of the OSA - was "clearly on identifying who was responsible for the leak". However, he said they had been advised any further publication of the cables "now knowing they may be a breach of the OSA" could also constitute a criminal offence - to which there was no public interest defence. "We know these documents and potentially others remain in circulation. We have a duty to prevent as well as detect crime, and the previous statement was intended to alert to the risk of breaching the OSA," he said. In a statement, a spokesman for The Mail on Sunday said it was publishing the latest leaked details - despite the threat of prosecution - because "a free press is vital to our democracy". "The media must be free to publish such information, in the public interest, as long as it does not endanger lives or national security," the spokesman said. Diplomatic Leaks | Read more "Our readers across the globe now have important information about how Britain tried, but failed, to stop President Trump abandoning the Iran nuclear deal. "What could be more in the public interest than a better understanding of how this position was reached, which may have serious consequences for world peace?" In response to the latest leak, a Foreign Office spokesman said: 'A police inquiry into the totally unacceptable leak of this sensitive material has begun. The perpetrator should face the consequences of their actions. "It's not news that the US and UK differ in how to ensure Iran is never able to acquire a nuclear weapon; but this does underline that we do not shy away from talking about our differences and working together."
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| How a Modified Iraqi Falcon 50 Business Jet Nearly Destroyed a US Frigate Posted: 14 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Following a series of training flights, on the morning of May 17, 1987 Suzanna's crew received the order to load two Exocets and then transfer to Wanda AB for an operation over the Persian Gulf.All through 1985 and early 1986, director of the Iraqi Air Force (IrAF) Intelligence Department, Brigadier-General Mudher al-Farhan, was collecting intelligence about the work of the Iranian tanker-shuttle ('shuttle tankers' were oil tankers equipped with upgrade fire-fighting equipment operated by specially trained crews, they made way in convoys of four ships escorted by warships of the Islamic Republic if Iran Navy). Every day at 1800hrs, he would brief Major-General Sha'ban about related developments.
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| Leaked no-deal Brexit contingency plans reveal Britain is not prepared for an October exit Posted: 14 Jul 2019 12:35 AM PDT  Contingency measures put in place for a no-deal Brexit in March have not been extended to cover a no-deal in October.
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| Oliver Stone’s Latest Piece of Pro-Putin Propaganda May Be His Most Shameless Move Yet Posted: 13 Jul 2019 09:15 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Getty / RevealingUkraine.comWhen Oliver Stone announced at the end of June that he would be premiering a new documentary, Revealing Ukraine, at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, not many people noticed. That's not itself so surprising given his slide over recent years from producing acclaimed Hollywood blockbusters into bootlicking hagiographies of dictators with axes to grind against the United States. The only media that did take an interest was controlled by either the Russian government or a certain Ukrainian businessman.The trailer for Revealing Ukraine is a mess. Half-finished lines of dialogue are cut with sinister, dramatic music as if they are of great importance when they often seem to be cut from the middle of phrases, leaving them incomprehensible. The promotional material on the film's website is exceptionally embarrassing, with grating Ringlish abundant:In the move the main speaker—heavyweight Ukrainian politician, opposition leader—Viktor Medvedchuk is being interviewed by the filmmaker Oliver Stone. Oliver Stone also sit with Russian president Vladimir Putin to ask him a questions about Ukrainian crisis.The re-use of so many elements from Stone's previous documentary, Ukraine on Fire, screams of a bargain-bin production. In fact the promotional poster for Revealing Ukraine even uses the exact same photo of Stone from that of Ukraine on Fire—and in the same position no less.Stone's opening line in the trailer is: "Good morning Mr Medvedchuk, I'm Oliver Stone."Viktor Medvedchuk has remained an ominous figure in Ukrainian politics, despite a period lying low after the 2014 Maidan revolution, during which his office was raided by activists who discovered, inter alia, a portrait of the man often dubbed Ukraine's prince of darkness in full, Napoleonic-era imperial military regalia.'The Putin Interviews': Oliver Stone's Wildly Irresponsible Love Letter to Vladimir PutinStephen Colbert Grills Oliver Stone Over Putin: 'An Oppressive Leader of His Country'Medvedchuk's reputation dates back to 1980 when, just before the Olympic Games were due to be held in Moscow, the Ukrainian dissident poet Vasyl Stus was arrested for "anti-Soviet activity" and the young lawyer was appointed his state defense attorney, against Stus's own requests. During his closing speech at the trial, Medvedchuk denounced his client and said that all of Stus's "crimes" deserved punishment and further claimed that his serious health problems did not affect his ability to work. Stus was sentenced to 10 years of forced labor in the notorious Perm-36 Gulag camp where he died, while on hunger strike, in 1985. Notably, Medvedchuk also defended Viktor Bryukhanov, director of the Chernobyl nuclear power station, during the 1987 trial that served as the climax of HBO's recent television series.Having entered business and politics in the '90s, Medvedchuk made a fortune, estimated by various sources as between 270 and 800 million U.S. dollars. In 2002, he was appointed head of Kuchma's presidential administration—this in spite of his known criminal record for violently assaulting a student while a member of the volunteer Druzhina militia in the 1960s, and accusations of having been an agent of the KGB, operating under the codename 'Sokolovsky.' Leaked tape recordings of conversations between Kuchma and the heads of the Ukrainian Security Service and Interior Ministry confirm that Kuchma was made aware of these reports, but considered Medvedchuk's influence too great to dislodge him.In 2004, as future president Viktor Yushchenko was campaigning against Kuchma's intended successor Viktor Yanukovych, Medvedchuk was accused of orchestrating a rally for an openly neo-Nazi "virtual party," the Ukrainian National Assembly, during which the party leader Eduard Kovalenko declared his support for Yushchenko. Notably Kovalenko reappeared in 2017, this time as an ostensibly pro-Russian activist, a strange turn for supposed Ukrainian nationalist.After the 2004 Orange Revolution which saw Yushchenko defeat Yanukovych, Medvedchuk founded the amorphous Ukrainian Choice organization, which funded everything from political candidates to holiday camps across the country. Ukrainian Choice was an ideologically flexible outfit, utilizing language of both the left and the right, but their propaganda generally stuck to anti-European and pro-Russian lines. Some of this veered directly into the far-right, such as an article published on the organization's website that espoused the classic tropes of Soviet-era anti-Semitism, claiming that prominent politicians opposing Viktor Yanukovych during the Maidan protests all had "secret Jewish surnames." Ukrainian Choice also played upon homophobic attitudes by campaigning against the Association Agreement with the European Union with billboards declaring that the deal would lead to gay marriage.Medvedchuk's relationship with the Russian state is close, to say the least. Vladimir Putin is godfather to his daughter, Darya, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's wife Svetlana is her godmother. When Putin addressed the annual Kremlin-organized showpiece conference in Valdai in 2016, Medvedchuk was seated front and center in the audience, next to the Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.When the U.S. imposed sanctions in March 2014, after Russian troops occupied the Crimean peninsula, Medvedchuk was on the list, highlighted for:...threatening the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for undermining Ukraine's democratic institutions and processes. He is also being designated because he has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support to Yanukovych.But following the outbreak of war between Russia's thinly disguised forces and Ukraine in the east of the country months later, Medvedchuk emerged as a key player in prisoner exchanges, with Putin negotiating directly with him rather than the Ukrainian government itself. In connection with this, he received a seat on the Minsk peace talk team, led by his former boss Kuchma. Medvedchuk was most notably central to the release of Nadia Savchenko, a Ukrainian officer and former pilot who was captured in 2014 and finally released following a long hunger strike and trumped-up conviction for murder in 2016. Savchenko herself returned a hero but soon became more erratic and was transformed into a pariah after making anti-Semitic statements and holding unauthorized meetings with Russia-backed separatists across the front line. In 2018, she was arrested and charged with plotting an armed coup d'état. Ukraine's prosecutor-general, Yuriy Lutsenko, said that he suspected Medvedchuk of involvement in the alleged plot. Nothing came of this aspect of the investigation and Savchenko has still yet to face trial, though was recently released and allowed to return to parliament in April this year. In March, Lutsenko announced that he had opened a criminal case against Medvedchuk and another pro-Russian politician, Yuriy Boyko, for illegally traveling to Moscow to meet with government officials. In spite of all his public censure, Medvedchuk has leveraged this position to stage something of a comeback over the last year, worming his way back into front-line politics as leader of the "For Life" party which, following a schism in the Opposition Bloc, made up of former members of Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions, has now formed an umbrella alliance of pro-Russian MPs with 27 seats in the current parliament.He has also gone on a spree buying up media outlets, taking control of them either directly or via loyal associates. In the last 18 months he has taken over the 112, Zik and NewsOne television channels, swiftly changing their output to his favor, with rumors of moves on at least two other major broadcasters in the works.Ihor Krymov, a broadcast editor at Zik, told the independent Hromadske TV channel that channel bosses had banned coverage of protests against the registration of pro-Russian candidates for upcoming parliamentary elections as they were "not interesting." Krymov defied the order and relayed Hromadske's own coverage of the protest on the channel. He has since been taken off air.While the Ukrainian government and several other parties in parliament have roundly condemned Medvedchuk's growing influence on the media, some Western politicians have ridden to his aid, most notably members of the UK Independence Party, which has often sided with Russia in international affairs. Another interesting Western connection of Medvedchuk's emerged in 2017, when Reuters was told by officials familiar with the FBI investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign team and Russia that Medvedchuk was one of those contacts, something Medvedchuk himself denies.Vladimir Putin and Viktor MedvedchukGettySo is Medvedchuk's star role in Stone's new film simply a reflection of his rising prominence or is it his own PR vehicle? The fact that his wife, a former X Factor Ukraine presenter with a suspicious history of Russian business connections herself, Oksana Marchenko, receives title billing as a "journalist" certainly indicates the latter. Indeed 112 and NewsOne have been running indulgent reports on the lavish festival, broadcasting footage of Medvedchuk and Marchenko ostentatiously delivering a bouquet of flowers to Nicole Kidman, and attending a soiree with Stone and Domenico Dolce, whose garments Viktor apparently wears exclusively, and who considers him a "friend."Apart from the Medvedchuk family and President Putin, the other names attached to this film are pretty low-grade. Director Igor Lopatonok (Stone is the star and executive producer but was not behind the camera for this venture) has little to his name than his previous work on Ukraine on Fire, several colorized remasters of Soviet-era films and a quantity of real-estate videos. Lopatonok demonstrated either spectacular ignorance or mendacity regarding one of his subjects when he recently claimed on Facebook that Putin was never an agent of the KGB, something the Russian president has often publicly reminisced about.The other "stars" listed on the film's IMDB page are Ivan Katchanovski, an academic promoting conspiracy theories claiming that the protesters shot dead on the Maidan in 2014 were the victims of a "false flag" operation, and Lee Stranahan, an American host on the Russian state-owned Radio Sputnik and former Breitbart journalist. Stranahan was profiled in a 2016 New York Times piece for his role in spreading racially charged misinformation around the yogurt company Chobani in Twin Falls, Idaho.Revealing Ukraine will receive its public premiere on Medvechuk's 112 channel on July 13, with Russian state media already highlighting choice, if rather boring, lines from Stone's interview with Putin. At Taormina, the film received the Best Documentary prize, despite the presence of Stone on the festival's feature film competition jury. This whole affair looks sordid for Stone, who has for some time gone out of his way to bat for any regime as long as they are an opponent of the United States, but had hitherto refrained from quite so obviously doing the bidding of a private businessman.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Why Can’t the Most Lethal Military in History Win its Wars? Posted: 13 Jul 2019 08:32 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettySince the end of World War II, the American military has been described so often by defense analysts, military historians, and U.S. presidents as the most lethal armed force in history that it's become a cliché. During the Cold War, Moscow claimed with some validity to have military capabilities on a par with the United States. But since the demise of the Soviet Union and America's crushing victory over Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War of 1990-1991, no serious student of military affairs of whom I'm aware disputes the reality of American military supremacy. The most capable military in history is also by far and away the most expensive. The United States will spend at least $650 billion on defense this fiscal year, which is more than the next seven nations' spending combined.All of this begs an awkward but important question: Why can't the most lethal military establishment in history win its wars?The military's scorecard since the world-changing victory in 1945 has been, in a word, underwhelming. In Korea, an ill-prepared American army was almost driven off the peninsula in its first few months of combat in 1950. Ultimately, the American-led U.N. army did oust communist forces from South Korea, but it was driven to the brink of defeat (again!) before it did so. In November 1950, the Chinese People's Army entered the fray and drove the U.N. army out of North Korea, frustrating its goal of unifying the two Koreas under a pro-Western government.D-Day at 75: What the Hell Happened to the Spirit That Saved Europe?After assuming the burden of the fighting from the South Vietnamese in 1965, the U.S. military found itself bogged down in a long, bloody, and indecisive war against the North Vietnamese regular army and Vietcong guerrillas. After eight years of inconclusive fighting, the United States had dropped more bombs on Vietnam than it did on Germany and Japan in World War II. The Communists, however, wouldn't give up. The Americans withdrew, leaving the South Vietnamese to certain defeat at the hands of their communist adversaries.In the Lebanese civil war of the early '80s, American forces were withdrawn soon after a Jihadist terrorist set off a truck bomb, blowing up a Marine barracks and killing 241 U.S. Marines.The lightning-fast victory in the Gulf War of 1990-1991 resurrected the U.S. military's prestige from the ashes of Vietnam and ushered in an entirely new way of war. As the strategist Andrew Marshall put it soon after victory, "the information dimension has become central to the outcome [of modern conflicts]… Long-range precision strike weapons coupled with systems of sensors and a command and control system will come to dominate much of warfare."Yet many historians today view the Gulf War not as the great victory it appeared to be in 1991 but rather as the first campaign in a long, ultimately unwinnable civil war in Iraq that has never truly ended.In the wake of the Gulf War, a new foreign policy consensus emerged. America, said Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's secretary of state, was the "world's indispensable nation," with both a right and an obligation to enforce the rules-based international order and take out bad guys. Between 1990 and 1997, the military was deployed on more than 30 operations of bewildering variety—peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian relief, and traditional combat missions. Most of these deployments came up short of their objectives. The most infamous was the effort to stabilize the failing state of Somalia. That led to an undeclared war between Somali warlord Mohamed Aidid and U.S. forces, culminating in the Battle of Mogadishu. Eighteen American soldiers were killed in furious combat; American corpses were dragged through the angry streets. Soon after the battle, President Clinton withdrew all American forces from Somalia. Then came 9/11 and the global War on Terror.Early and dramatic success in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was soon followed by year after year of frustrating, inconclusive operations and political setbacks. The Taliban today is stronger than it was when American forces first deployed to Afghanistan in 2001. When Obama withdrew American forces from Iraq in December 2011, the country was awash in sectarian violence, and any hope of establishing a pro-Western, democratic regime there had vanished. Iraq was a war, writes journalist George Packer, "conceived in deceit and born in hubris, a historic folly that took the American eye off Al Qaeda and the Taliban, while shattering Iraq into a million bloody pieces."What explains this unenviable record of achievement?Some analysts locate the problem within the military's culture. Most of America's opponents in operations since World War II, and particularly since the end of the Cold War, have been non-state actors and insurgents highly skilled and resourceful in taking on conventional military forces in "asymmetrical warfare." American forces have been trained, organized and indoctrinated in conventional operations using high-tech weaponry, so they have been fighting with a considerable handicap.Certainly, this issue was in play during Vietnam, and in the Iraq War, when the Army found itself out of its depth in confronting a complex insurgency after seizing Baghdad with relative ease. The United States military hasn't done well with counterinsurgency, which always involves political as well as military conflict, and it would do well to stay clear of them in the future. Firepower, mass, maneuver, and advanced technologies—the sine qua non of the American way of war—are not effective weapons against lightly armed insurgents.Other students of recent American wars see hubris as a major factor in explaining military failure. Policymakers and generals alike have consistently underestimated their enemies, particularly their staying power. As the political scientist Dominic Tierney quipped, "We have the power. They have the willpower."Yet, according to an increasingly influential chorus of foreign relations scholars and historians such as Andrew J. Bacevich, Barry Posen, and Stephen Walt, the fundamental problem lies not in the military itself, but in the realm of American politics and grand strategy. One administration after another has engaged in imperial overreach, trying to reshape societies and entire regions of the world about which, despite the vast intelligence assets they command, they remain fundamentally ignorant.After the catastrophe in Vietnam, the military and the foreign policy establishment were determined to stay clear of foreign entanglements where America's vital interests were not clearly at stake. According to the Weinberger Doctrine—named for Ronald Reagan's secretary of state, Caspar Weinberger—the U.S. military should only be deployed when policymakers could define clear and attainable objectives, and only as a last resort. As these scholars see it, the Weinberger doctrine went into sharp decline after the Gulf War and vanished into thin air with the arrival of the global War on Terror. Since the early '90s, one president after another, Republican and Democrat, has pursued an overly militarized foreign policy agenda, deploying forces instead of seeking solutions through the country's other instruments of influence: diplomacy, soft power, and economic incentives.This new creed of military interventionism began in the aftermath of the "stunning" victory in the Gulf War. It was hubristic and idealistic at the same time, and drew on a tradition of American exceptionalism as old as Puritan John Winthrop's "City upon a Hill" sermon of 1630. Americans were a unique people, with a special role to play in world affairs.A cadre of prominent neoconservatives, spearheaded by Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, and William Kristol, spread the gospel of U.S. military intervention as a kind of panacea for all sorts of international problems and crises. "Military strength alone will not avail," counseled Kagan, "if we do not use it actively to maintain a world which both supports and rests on American hegemony."Just after victory in the Persian Gulf in March 1991, a very wise MIT foreign relations expert named Barry Posen had cautioned foreign policy decision-makers, "Don't get the idea it will always be this easy. The terrain was favorable to our high-tech weapons, and we were up against a second-rate gangster. We must not confuse what we did here with using military power to redirect the domestic politics of a society."Posen's warning fell on deaf ears in Washington.Even presidents who've promised to act with restraint in foreign affairs have fallen prey too often to the allure of wielding the Big Stick. "The Obama approach to national security preserved far more than it changed," writes Bacevich, "and much of what it was preserving was deeply problematic." Shortly after taking office, Obama committed an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, expanded the war on terror to new theaters, and increased the use of drone strikes in the Middle East and Africa.Donald Trump vowed to get America out of the nation-building business during the presidential campaign, but in practice, according to policy experts Robert Malley and John Finer (among others), the Trump administration is carrying out more military operations than its predecessor, against a wider array of adversaries, with looser rules of engagement. "Washington has become addicted to quick military fixes," write Malley and Finer in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs. "Sometimes what's needed is a far broader approach that would entail, where possible, engaging [adversaries] in dialogue and addressing factors such as a lack of education or employment opportunities, ethnic or religious discrimination, the absence of state services, and local government repression. These problems are hard to assess and require political, as opposed to military, solutions—diplomacy rather than warfare."In short, American presidents since George H. W. Bush have routinely neglected the wisdom of former secretary of defense William Perry, who once said "We field an army, not a Salvation Army."Andrew Bacevich joins noted journalist James Fallows in believing the yawning gap between the American military and the general public—only 1 percent of whom have served in the military—has given interventionists in Washington essentially free reign to commit the military to one misconceived operation after another. A few years ago, Fallows published a long, influential article in The Atlantic, "The Tragedy of the American Military," in which he argued that while Americans have a deep and abiding respect for the military as an institution, they have become utterly indifferent to what it does in their name all around the world. Americans, he writes, are "reverent but disengaged."It's hard to dispute his point. How many Americans closely follow what their military is up to out there in the wider world? Very few, surely. Professor Bacevich, I'm sure, would agree. As he writes in The New American Militarism, "a people untouched by war are far less likely to care about it. Persuaded that they have no skin in the game, [the American people] will permit the state to do whatever it wishes to." Bacevich believes the professional military no longer belongs to the American people, but to a national security establishment that deploys it too often, in the wrong places, at the wrong times. The American people, he says, need to reclaim ownership of their military if they want to get out of the permanent war rut. To do so, they must revive the citizen-soldier tradition. If more Americans were tied to the military through their own experiences or those of close family members, Washington would doubtless be forced to defend its inclination to deploy armed force much more cogently than it has done over the past few decades. Many veterans agree. Seth Moulton, the Massachusetts congressman, democratic candidate for president, and Marine veteran of Iraq, has said that if more people in Congress had close connections to the military in 2003, the Iraq War probably never would have happened.Admiral Mike Mullen, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Obama administration, thinks the size of the full-time military should be significantly reduced, so that in a national crisis, the reserves would have to be called up. "That would bring America in. America hasn't been involved in these previous wars [i.e., Afghanistan and Iraq]. And we are paying dearly for that."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Will Further Trump Sanctions Really Make Iran Cry Uncle? Posted: 13 Jul 2019 07:30 PM PDT  This week the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convened at the request of the Trump administration to discuss Iran's nuclear activities. There is no action that, according to the IAEA's charter and terms of reference, can or should come out of this discussion. The IAEA's board is not the forum to discuss compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal. That is the role of a joint commission established by the JCPOA, but the United States has not been a part of that body ever since the administration reneged on U.S. obligations under the JCPOA and decided it didn't want anything to do with the agreement. The IAEA board would be the proper forum to discuss any problems regarding Iran living up to its commitments to the agency on nuclear safeguards, including providing international inspectors with agreed access. But there are no such problems; all indications are that Iran is in full compliance with its commitments regarding international inspections and monitoring of its program.The administration went to the IAEA board because it wants to be seen doing something about an Iranian nuclear issue the administration itself has stirred up, and it has no better ideas on what to do. It is flailing in trying to get out of a box of its own making, and it sees no way to get out—other than the way it refuses to admit, which would be to reverse its own action that built the box in the first place. Everything else that has ensued in what has become perceived as a nuclear crisis with Iran is clearly, wholly, directly, and unsurprisingly the result of the Trump administration reneging on U.S. obligations under the JCPOA. Before that action—and even for a year after that action—Iran was fully complying, as IAEA inspectors have certified, with the agreement's strict limitations on its nuclear program.
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| We Now Know Why Russia Never Got Around to Building a Ton of Aircraft Carriers Posted: 13 Jul 2019 04:00 PM PDT  The Soviet Union made several efforts at developing aircraft carriers early in its history, but a lack of resources, combined with a geography that emphasized the importance of land power, made serious investment impossible. Historically a land power, the Soviet Union grappled with the idea of a large naval aviation arm for most of its history, eventually settling on a series of hybrid aircraft carriers. Big plans for additional ships died with the Soviet collapse, but Russia inherited one large aircraft carrier at the end of the Cold War—that remains in service today. Although many of the problems that wracked the naval aviation projects of the Soviet Union remain today, the Russian navy nevertheless sports one of the more active aircraft carriers in the world.Recommended: Air War: Stealth F-22 Raptor vs. F-14 Tomcat (That Iran Still Flies)Recommended: A New Report Reveals Why There Won't Be Any 'New' F-22 RaptorsRecommended: How an 'Old' F-15 Might Kill Russia's New Stealth FighterHistory of Russian Naval Aviation
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| Russia's Real Reasons for Partnering with Iran Posted: 13 Jul 2019 02:01 PM PDT  Will Iran crack under American pressure? Don't count on it. Iran has grown accustomed to living under America's recent economic sanctions and continues to pursue its own policies at home and abroad despite the restrictions associated with the latest U.S.-Iranian crisis. Tehran can rely on substantial domestic support and has a large army—including auxiliary paramilitary Basij forces—with access to air fleet, heavy forces and undersea arms. It also has revolutionary guards trained in unconventional warfare. Despite the impact of U.S. sanctions on the Iranian economy and the discontent among the citizenry, there has been no legitimate challenge to the country's theocracy. In fact, the tension between the United States and Iran may drag on, which would require both regional and international players to permanently remain on alert. For example, due to Iran's proximity to its borders, Russia has a vested interest in the state of affairs in Western Asia; it has tried its best to contain the impact that the U.S.-Iranian crisis could have on its own national security. As a result, the foreign policy Russia has applied toward the crisis can be divided into three main areas of focus.
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