ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

Rex Tillerson

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Obama’s Iran Deal May Come to an End But Not For Now

No one even knows what’s in this “deal”

Obama’s Iran deal lives on – but its days are numbered

Iran-deal supporters rejoice: President Trump is signaling that his predecessor’s signature foreign-policy legacy is unassailable.

Or is he?

The Trump administration reported to Congress on Monday that Tehran is complying with the pact, just as it did back in April. Why? Two years ago, Congress passed legislation requiring the secretary of state to announce every 90 days whether he or she can say with certainty that Iran is complying.

Under President Barack Obama, certification was automatic. But Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to “rip up” the deal, calling it a “disaster.”

Yet as the deal marks its two-year anniversary, Trump has for the second time certified Iranian compliance, thereby blocking Congress from imposing nuclear-related sanctions. The administration can’t start renegotiating, or telling allies it’s time to “snap back” to those international sanctions the Iran deal erased.

So the deal lives — temporarily.

According to numerous press reports, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary James Mattis won an internal debate against Special Adviser Steve Bannon, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Trump. The latter group wanted — at the least — to say they can’t certify Iranian compliance, putting the deal in limbo and opening Iran up to nuclear sanctions without quite tearing up the whole thing.

The winning camp advised caution, reasoning that while Iran is certainly violating the deal’s spirit, it abides by its letter and raising fears of a clash with our global allies. In the end, while certifying compliance, the administration announced new sanctions on Iran for various non-nuclear offenses.

Both sides in the internal debate are right, says the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano, who has advised Trump on world affairs during the transition period.

As Trump says, it’s a “bad deal,” Carafano told me. Yet the administration is yet to devise a “full regional strategy” to replace it. And yes, “our friends and allies clearly need to see where we’re going.”

The administration, indeed, is said to be working on an Iran policy “review” that’s due to be completed this summer. Afterwards, in three months — or six, or nine — it may well start to paint Iran’s deal violations in darker colors.

And those “marginal” violations, as they’ve been so far described, are numerous. Iran has habitually produced more uranium and heavy water than the deal allows. It has procured dual-use materiel and tested nuclear-capable missiles.

Meanwhile, Iran continues its aggressive behavior, attacking US ships in international waters and holding Americans hostage. It helps fuel regional wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and arms and bolsters Lebanese and Palestinian terrorists.

The reason the mullahs do all that with impunity is that we have few tools left to confront them. We gave them everything — unfrozen assets, sanctions relief — up front. All we asked in return was that they do their part — nuclear restrictions, periodic on-site inspections — during a dozen-year stretch.

So Iran could decide to just pocket those perks and walk away now, declaring that America is violating the deal. In fact, they’ve already started the process.

The smarmy Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told CNN on Sunday that Trump is in “violation of not the spirit, but of the letter” of the deal. As the extreme anti-American wing of the all-powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps gains confidence, it may well force a collapse of the deal it’s been opposed to from the outset.

Problem is, some of our allies, and certainly China and Russia, may well buy the argument that America is at fault for the collapse.

Either way, far from the unassailable piece of state craftsmanship that the deal is widely advertised to be, Monday’s qualified certification indicates that its shaky foundations are beginning to crumble.

If so — and considering that, internal debates aside, the Trump administration is full of Iran hawks — Washington better soon start moving away from the Iran deal. It’s best we, not the mullahs or their global allies, control the process of its demise.

http://nypost.com/2017/07/18/obamas-iran-deal-lives-on-but-its-days-are-numbered/

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Trump Plans Military Action on Syria. Why Is This Our Business?

It’s none of our business. Build the wall. Lock her up.

World View: President Trump Plans Military Action on Syria After Nerve Gas Attack on Civilians

  • President Trump plans military action on Syria after horrific nerve gas attack on civilians
  • President Trump declares that he’s changed his mind about military action
  • Marco Rubio says Trump’s policy emboldened Bashar al-Assad
  • John McCain and Lindsey Graham advocate cruise missiles and safe areas

President Donald Trump on Wednesday made it clear that he is planning some sort of action against Syria. Although he did not specify what kind of action, saying that he did not want to telegraph his plans, he did imply that military action is planned.

The change of mind was triggered by a horrific chemical nerve gas attack on Syrian civilians on Monday, indiscriminately killing dozens of people. The pictures of children being killed apparently particularly affected Trump. The nerve gas was delivered in bombs on warplanes, which could only have been warplanes from the regime of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad. After the nerve gas attack, another missile attack struck the hospital where nerve gas attacks had been taken, effectively putting the hospital out of service. There was clearly an intent to kill as many people as possible, including women and children.

Syrian state media denied that that Syria was responsible:

The government of the Syrian Arab republic categorically denies the allegations and false accusations about the use of poisonous, chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab army in Khan Sheikhoun region against Syrian civilians who are besieged by the armed terrorist groups as human shields there, Syria also affirms that the Syrian army doesn’t possess any kind of chemical weapons and it has not used them and it won’t use them in the future.

The above statement contains known lies. Syria has provably used Sarin gas and chlorine gas in bombs in the past. No part of the above statement is credible, in view of the evidence. ARA News (Syria) and SANA (Damascus)

President Trump declares that he’s changed his mind about military action

At a news conference on Tuesday, Trump commented on Monday’s nerve gas attack in Syria, explaining why he changed his mind:

Yesterday, a chemical attack – a chemical attack that was so horrific, in Syria, against innocent people, including women, small children, and even beautiful little babies. Their deaths was an affront to humanity. These heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerate…

Well, I think the Obama administration had a great opportunity to solve this crisis a long time ago when he said the red line in the sand. And when he didn’t cross that line after making the threat, I think that set us back a long ways, not only in Syria, but in many other parts of the world, because it was a blank threat. I think it was something that was not one of our better days as a country. …

I now have responsibility, and I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly, I will tell you that. It is now my responsibility. It was a great opportunity missed…

It crossed a lot of lines for me. When you kill innocent children, innocent babies — babies, little babies — with a chemical gas that is so lethal — people were shocked to hear what gas it was — that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line. Many, many lines.

In 2013, Bashar al-Assad launched a Sarin gas attack against civilians, after President Barack Obama has said that doing so would “cross a red line.” At that time, Trump tweeted the following:

AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

However, Trump has now reversed those sentiments, and is blaming Obama for not intervening in 2013. However, he’s not calling it “a flip-flop,” instead ascribing it to flexibility:

I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don’t have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way, I don’t change. Well, I do change and I am flexible, and I’m proud of that flexibility. And I will tell you, that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me — big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that.

And I have that flexibility, and it’s very, very possible — and I will tell you, it’s already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much. And if you look back over the last few weeks, there were other attacks using gas. You’re now talking about a whole different level.

He says that he will not reveal his plans, but implies that the plans are military (as opposed to, say, sanctions):

Well, one of the things I think you’ve noticed about me is, militarily, I don’t like to say where I’m going and what I doing. And I watched past administrations say, we will attack at such and such a day at such and such an hour…

I watched Mosul, where the past administration was saying, we will be attacking in four months. And I said, why are they doing that? Then a month goes by, and they say, we will be attacking in three months, and then two months, and then we will be attacking next week. And I’m saying, why are they doing that? And as you know, Mosul turned out to be a much harder fight than anyone thought, and a lot of people have been lost in that fight. I’m not saying I’m doing anything one way or the other, but I’m certainly not going to be telling you, as much as I respect you, John.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/04/06/6-apr-17-world-view-president-trump-plans-military-action-on-syria-after-horrific-nerve-gas-attack-on-civilians/

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Breaking News! Rex Tillerson Confirmed

Run tell that! Democrats cower when the GOP makes them. Tillerson is confirmed.

WASHINGTON — Rex W. Tillerson, the former chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday in a 56 to 43 vote to become the nation’s 69th secretary of state just as serious strains have emerged with important international allies.

The many votes against Mr. Tillerson’s confirmation made his selection among the most contentious for a secretary of state in recent history, and he takes his post just as many traditional American allies are questioning the policies of President Trump. In the past 50 years, the most contentious confirmations for secretary of state were those of Condoleezza Rice in 2005, who passed by a vote of 85 to 13, and Henry Kissinger in 1973, who was confirmed 78 to 7.

Mr. Trump is the most unapologetically nationalistic president of the modern era who has questioned the value of many of the alliances and multilateral institutions that the United States has nurtured since World War II to keep world order.

How Mr. Tillerson’s translates Mr. Trump’s vow of “America First” into the kind of polite diplomatic parlance that will maintain vital alliances will be a significant test.

Among his other challenges are dealing with Mr. Trump’s promises to recast relations with China and Russia, move the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, and re-examine an international nuclear deal with Iran.

A Texan, Mr. Tillerson, 64, earned an engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin, got a job at Exxon in 1975 and climbed his way to the top, leaving only last year. Neither a diplomat, soldier nor politician, he is an unconventional choice for the job, but has vast international experience.

With operations on six continents, Exxon Mobil is in some ways a state within a state. As its chief executive, Mr. Tillerson struck deals with repressive governments — in at least one case, against the advice of the State Department. Environmentalists largely opposed his nomination

But his views on international affairs are in many ways more conventional than those of Mr. Trump, which is why even Democratic-leaning foreign affairs experts said they welcomed his selection in hopes he would bring ballast to a turbulent administration.

“Rex Tillerson will have the most demanding and complex agenda to face a secretary of state in a very long time,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a Harvard professor and career foreign service officer.

Another crucial question will be how much influence Mr. Tillerson has on Mr. Trump. All cabinet secretaries must compete for power with White House aides who have long personal relationships with and frequent access to the president. But Mr. Trump’s reliance on a close circle of advisers to write and vet executive orders while keeping departments that must implement them largely in the dark is without precedent.

Mr. Trump invited Mr. Tillerson for a private lunch at the White House on Wednesday, the first time Mr. Tillerson has appeared on the president’s official schedule.

Mollifying vital allies infuriated by Mr. Trump’s orders could be a full-time job. A ban on refugee arrivals and entries from seven Muslim countries, for instance, has enraged Iraqi officials whose cooperation is vital in the fight against the Islamic State — a top administration priority. It has also infuriated many European leaders crucial to efforts not only in Syria, but Afghanistan and Libya as well, and it has tarnished what had been viewed as a successful trip by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, who on Monday said she opposed the ban.

Relations with Mexico have plunged to their lowest level in decades after Mr. Trump insisted he would build a border wall regardless of Mexican opposition, and his administration proposed slapping a 20 percent tariff on Mexican imports to pay for it. President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a planned meeting, although the two spoke by phone.

The relationship with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, already tense from Mr. Trump’s repeated denunciations of the European Union for which she is a principal guardian, threatened to become toxic after Peter Navarro, the director of Mr. Trump’s new National Trade Council, denounced the relatively low value of the euro as an unfair currency advantage for Germany.

“Tillerson faces the most difficult task of any secretary of state in the postwar era in trying to reconcile President Trump’s intention to make a radical break from decades of bipartisan consensus U.S. foreign policy leadership with the reality that, if he succeeds, such a break could lead to global chaos,” said Ryan C. Crocker, who served as the United States ambassador to five Muslim countries.

Mr. Tillerson may also face difficult internal hurdles. Much of his department’s top leadership has departed — many because the Trump administration, like others before it, refused to keep political appointees. But the Trump transition team has been so short-handed and the pickings among Republican foreign policy veterans who had not criticized Mr. Trump so slim that dozens of positions are likely to remain empty for some time.

More worrisome, morale among the department’s rank-and-file career officers has plunged, with a dissent memo against the administration’s refugee and entry bans being submitted on Tuesday garnering more than 900 signatures, an extraordinary number.

Whether Mr. Tillerson meets these challenges with defiance or moderation will be a telling indication of his leadership.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said Monday that foreign service officers “can get with the program or they can go.”