http://www.argusmedia.com/news/article/?id=1440687 11 Apr 2017, Washington, 11 April (Argus) — The US administration’s new focus on crises in Syria and North Korea is highlighting a full retreat from President Donald Trump’s pledge to rescind the nuclear agreement his predecessor signed with Iran.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson today reaffirmed support for the multilateral agreement — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — that lifted restrictions on crude exports from Iran in January 2016. The EU, Russia and China also are parties to the agreement.
The G7 foreign ministers, meeting in Lucca, Italy, in a statement hailed the agreement’s “important contribution to the non-proliferation regime.” Implementation of the agreement will “build confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful in nature,” the ministers said.
The US’ approach to Iran so far has not departed greatly from the path former president Barack Obama’s administration paved following the lifting of the nuclear-related sanctions, even though Trump still denounces the deal. Trump imposed new sanctions on Iran following tests of ballistic missiles, just like his predecessor did. And the Pentagon continues to view Iran as a threat to US interests in the Middle East, including the freedom of navigation in the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb.
Iran since the lifting of the nuclear-related sanctions increased production by more than 900,000 b/d to 3.8mn b/d in February.
Senior White House officials contend that Iran’s missile tests are evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program. Iran says its program is defensive in nature.
The US administration promised to push for a stronger international response to the missile tests than Obama did. But today’s G7 statement only expresses “deep regret” over the tests.
The need to coordinate sanctions programs with the EU is likely a key driver in the new administration’s approach. EU officials also persuaded US senators to delay advancing a widely supported bill to expand the scope of sanctions on Iran over the missile tests. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will wait until after the Iranian presidential election on 19 May to schedule a vote on the bill, committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) said.
The G7 statement calls on Russia and Iran, as allies of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, to ensure Syria’s compliance with the UN convention banning the use of chemical weapons. But the US is directing the bulk of its criticism over Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians at Russia.
April 14, 2017
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The Impact of the Iran Nuclear Agreement http://www.cfr.org/iran/impact-iran-nuclear-agreement/p39032
Zachary Laub, Senior Copy Editor/Writer April 11, 2017
Introduction
Iran has dismantled much of its nuclear program and given international inspectors extensive access to sensitive sites under an agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under its terms, the United States, European Union, and United Nations have lifted sanctions that had crippled the Iranian economy, but more than year after the accord took effect, Iranians have yet to see the recovery that President Hassan Rouhani had promised. Meanwhile, as the Trump administration has vowed a more aggressive approach to Iran and the U.S. Congress considers levying new sanctions, international businesses, sensing uncertainty, have largely held back from investing in the country.
What are the terms of the JCPOA?
The JCPOA, which was signed in July 2015 and went into effect the following January, imposes restrictions on Iran’s stockpiles of uranium and its ability to enrich it. The so-called P5+1—that is, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and United States) and Germany—negotiated the agreement with Iran over nearly two years. During this period, the Obama administration said its intent was to set back Iran’s nuclear program so that any decision to sprint toward producing fissile material for a weapon—an indicator known as “breakout times”—would take at least a year, up from just a few weeks.
Nuclear restrictions on Iran. To extend that breakout time, the agreement requires that uranium enrichment at Fordow and Natanz be restricted and a heavy-water reactor, at Arak, have its core rendered inoperable; its plutonium byproduct, the P5+1 countries feared, could have been reprocessed into weapons-grade material. These facilities are now being repurposed for research, industrial, or medical purposes, and subjected to inspections by monitors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The accord imposes limits on the numbers and types of centrifuges Iran can operate, as well as the size of its caches of enriched uranium. (Mined uranium has less than 1 percent of the uranium-235 isotope, and centrifuges increase that isotope’s concentration. Uranium enriched to 5 percent is used in nuclear power plants, and at 20 percent it can be used in research reactors or for medical purposes. High-enriched uranium, at some 90 percent, is used in nuclear weapons.) The JCPOA also aims to guard against the possibility that Iran could develop nuclear arms in secret at undeclared sites.
Many of the JCPOA’s nuclear provisions have expiration dates. After ten years, for example, centrifuge restrictions will be lifted, and after fifteen years, so too will limits on the low-enriched uranium it can possess, as well as the IAEA’s access to undeclared sites.
Monitoring and verification. Among the open-ended provisions, Iran is bound to implement and later ratify an “additional protocol” to its safeguards agreement with the IAEA, which gives IAEA inspectors unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. (As a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, Iran has committed to never pursue nuclear weapons, but it is entitled to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.) The agency’s director-general issues quarterly reports to the IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council verifying Iran’s implementation of its nuclear commitments.
The JCPOA established the Joint Commission, with the negotiating parties all represented, to monitor implementation of the agreement. That body, chaired by Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, is charged with dispute resolution, and a majority vote of its members can gain IAEA inspectors access to undeclared sites they consider suspect. It also oversees the transfer of nuclear-related or dual-use materials.
Sanctions relief. In exchange for these limitations on its nuclear program and opening up access to international inspectors, the EU, UN, and United States all committed to lifting sanctions that they had imposed on Iran for its nuclear program. While the United States has only suspended extant nuclear sanctions, it pledged in the JCPOA to remove specified entities from sanctions lists and seek legislation to repeal the suspended sanctions within eight years, as long as the IAEA concludes that Iran’s nuclear activities remain peaceful in nature.
Still, other U.S. sanctions [PDF], some dating back to the hostage crisis in 1979, remain in effect. They cover matters such as ballistic missile production, support for U.S.-designated terrorist groups, and domestic human rights abuses. The United States has stopped enforcing its sanctions on oil exports, freeing Iran to trade on international markets again, but restrictions on financial transactions remain in place. Many banks and other companies, including foreign subsidiaries of U.S. businesses, are wary of doing business in Iran for fear of incurring fines or being barred from dealing on Wall Street. A major exception to U.S. primary sanctions allows Boeing to sell aircraft to Iranian airlines.
New Security Council resolutions are periodically needed to keep UN sanctions suspended, so, by alleging a major violation, any one of the P5 members can veto a new resolution. This “snapback” mechanism is set to remain in effect for ten years, after which point the UN sanctions are set to be repealed.
Has Iran upheld its obligations?
Implementation Day, on which sanctions were lifted, came once the IAEA certified that Iran had met preliminary requirements, including taking thousands of centrifuges offline, rendering the core of the Arak heavy-water reactor inoperable, and selling excess low-enriched uranium to Russia. Since then, the IAEA has mostly found Iran in compliance with the JCPOA’s requirements. Iran twice exceeded the amount of heavy water that it is allowed under the agreement, the IAEA reported, but quickly resolved it.
“Monitoring is a physical act, but verification is a political act.” —Christopher Bidwell, Federation of American Scientists
The challenge inspectors face is that they are “looking to prove the negative,” says Christopher Bidwell, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. “IAEA reports talk about where Iran is compliant, but then are silent on known rough issues,” he says, highlighting military sites, for which inspectors must seek access from Iranian authorities or adjudication by the Joint Commission. Also omitted from the public record, the International Crisis Group notes, are reports on Iran’s caches of low-enriched uranium and research on centrifuges. “Monitoring is a physical act, but verification is a political act,” Bidwell says. “How sure are you that what you’ve monitored has told you what you want to know?”
Have the P5+1 countries upheld their obligations?
The United Nations, European Union, and United States all repealed or suspended the sanctions that the JCPOA specified be lifted on Implementation Day, and since then the United States has also unfrozen or delivered to Iran certain seized funds. (Liquid assets freed up in European and Asian banks might have totaled some $50 billion, according to a U.S. Treasury official; in addition, the United States refunded $1.7 billion delivered for an arms deal that was signed before the 1979 revolution but never fulfilled.) Most significantly, the United States is no longer enforcing secondary sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, which has allowed Iran to ramp up its oil exports to nearly the level it had been prior to sanctions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated in October [PDF] that Iran’s GDP was growing at 4.5 percent in 2016 as it boosted its oil production to 3.6 million barrels per day.
How is Iran’s economy performing?
Iranians have not seen as robust an economic recovery as many had expected to follow the JCPOA’s implementation. A morass of U.S. sanctions unrelated to the nuclear program has discouraged major international banks from investing in the country and made many companies wary of expanding into Iran. They fear being held liable for transacting with the numerous sanctioned entities associated with, for example, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is ubiquitous in some industries. Uncertainty over whether the nuclear sanctions might be restored persists.
But factors unrelated to sanctions are also hampering the recovery. Corruption, mismanagement, and aging infrastructure are widely acknowledged barriers to industry, and, at about $50 a barrel as of April 2017, oil is trading at less than half the price it was five years earlier, so the revenues to be made from export don’t go as far. The IMF projected that Iran’s growth would “taper sharply” [PDF] in 2017 as it would have trouble surpassing its pre-sanctions level of oil production, and in March 2017 Iran said it would limit its oil production to 3.8 million barrels per day if OPEC members’ agreement to cap their production—a bid to raise oil prices—holds.
With the economy underperforming compared to what Rouhani had promised, some Iranian politicians have accused the United States of dealing in bad faith. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has expressed ambivalence about the JCPOA, criticized the faltering recovery. But so too has Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who negotiated the agreement. He said at CFR in September 2016, “it takes a lot to change the global climate that is afraid of the United States taking action against any bank that does any business with Iran.” Referring to U.S. Treasury regulations, he added, “there is one sentence that it’s OK to do business with Iran and about five pages of ifs and buts,” discouraging banks from entering the market.
Do U.S. politics jeopardize the JCPOA?
On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to dismantle or renegotiate the nuclear agreement, echoing the criticisms made by some members of Congress as the agreement was being finalized. Many objected to sanctions relief on the grounds that it would enrich Iran and allow it to expand its influence in regional conflicts like the Syrian civil war. Critics also said that monitoring provisions in the JCPOA offered no guarantee that Iran could not covertly develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump could reimpose waived sanctions or add new ones by presidential prerogative, enact statutory sanctions passed by Congress, or allow the presidential waivers of nuclear sanctions to lapse when they come due for renewal. Any of those measures could be perceived by either Iran or other members of the P5+1 as the United States reneging on its commitments.
After Iran tested ballistic missiles in late January 2017, the administration extended sanctions to twenty-five individuals and entities associated with either the missile program or the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force. (Though ballistic missiles could be used to deliver nuclear weapons, they are beyond the scope of the JCPOA; the UN Security Council resolution that codified the JCPOA contains only nonbinding language on the matter.) “It wasn’t a drastic departure from previous policy, including from the Obama administration,” says Ariane M. Tabatabai, a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
A bill cosponsored by the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee could prevent the president from fulfilling the U.S. obligation to delist certain entities within eight years of implementation; it could also be construed as impeding the benefits Iran can accrue from sanctions relief. That would “threaten the ongoing implementation of the nuclear deal,” says the Arms Control Association, an independent Washington-based nonproliferation group.
Do Iranian politics jeopardize the JCPOA?
The JCPOA is contentious in Iran as well. Rouhani is running for reelection on May 19, and “the main thing he’s being judged on by the electorate is the economic recovery,” Tabatabai says.
“The Rouhani government oversold its ability to generate economic recovery following the sanctions relief,” she says, “and so now it is dialing back expectations of what is realistic.” The government is now arguing that the recovery will take more time, and that its lag cannot be attributed to sanctions alone.
Hard-liners in Iran argue that the United States is angling to keep the Iranian economy depressed and that Rouhani was hoodwinked into unfavorable terms, a view they say is bolstered by extreme rhetoric from some members of the Trump administration and Congress. They argue that Iran has “redesigned its nuclear facilities while the sanctions have only been suspended,” and so the United States can reinstate sanctions with relative ease even as the Iranian nuclear program has been permanently set back, says Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service
While some U.S. lawmakers continue to criticize the JCPOA, the other members of the P5+1 are firmly behind it. Many close watchers of the accord say that if the United States were to reinstate sanctions without presenting clear evidence of Iranian cheating, its negotiating partners would be unlikely to follow suit and resurrect the global regime that drove Iran to the negotiating table. “Iran’s goal is to create a gap between the U.S. and EU,” says Tabaar, so Iran likely won’t renege on its nuclear commitments. Instead, he says, hard-liners might push back against the United States in areas beyond the scope of the JCPOA, such as testing ballistic missiles or boosting its support for its clients in Iraq, Syria, or Yemen.
More on this topic from CFR
April 14, 2017
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As N. Korea threatens nuclear attacks, U.S. calls on China ‘to take additional steps’ By World Tribune on April 11, 2017 by WorldTribune Staff, April 11, 2017
As North Korea warned it has its “nuclear sight focused” on the United States, the Trump administration said it has called on China “to take additional steps” to rein in the Kim Jong-Un regime.
President Donald Trump tweeted on April 11: “I explained to the President of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem!”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in an interview with ABC News on April 10, said: “I think we need to allow them (China) time to take actions and we will continue to be in very close discussions with them,” adding that the conversations between the two countries have been “very candid.”
North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the country was prepared to respond to any aggression by the United States.
“Our revolutionary strong army is keenly watching every move by enemy elements with our nuclear sight focused on the U.S. invasionary bases not only in South Korea and the Pacific operation theatre but also in the U.S. mainland,” it said.
Pyongyang issued the warning as a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group sailed towards the western Pacific……http://www.worldtribune.com/as-n-korea-threatens-nuclear-attacks-u-s-calling-on-china-to-take-additional-steps/
April 12, 2017
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North Korea threatens U.S. with #nuclear strike as Navy warships approach https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/north-korea-threatens-nuclear-attack/ David Gilmour—\Apr 11 2017, North Korea this week threatened to launch a nuclear attack on the United States at the first sign of aggression from the U.S. Navy strike group that President Donald Trump ordered to the Korean peninsula.
The warning came on Tuesday via the dictatorship’s state-run media channels.
“Our revolutionary strong army is keenly watching every move by enemy elements with our nuclear sight focused on the U.S. invasionary bases not only in South Korea and the Pacific operation theater but also in the U.S. mainland,” it said.
A furious Trump lashed back on Twitter, urging the Chinese government to help mitigate the escalating tensions:…
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week and reportedly discussed the “North Korean problem” at length. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that both leaders agreed that the country’s nuclear program had reached a “very serious stage.”
On Monday, Seoul officials announced that, following meetings, China and South Korea had both agreed to tougher sanctions on the North. China imposed an import ban on North Korean coal in February, despite this being its poverty-stricken neighbor’s most significant export.
Talk of new sanctions on Monday came with news that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its support ships have been ordered to the western Pacific as a show of force, despite having been scheduled to travel to Australia.
Tensions had been rising over North Korea’s ongoing nuclear and ballistic missile tests for years, but following Trump’s military strike against the Syrian governmentlast week, in response to a devastating regime chemical weapons attack, officials have ventured that similar action is on the table for dealing with North Korea.
The country is expected to be preparing its sixth nuclear test at the moment, working to develop long-range nuclear missiles capable of reaching the U.S. western seaboard.
North Korea quickly criticized the American strike group’s move as an example of the Trump administration’s “evermore reckless moves for a war” and slammed the cruise missile strike against Syria.
“We never beg for peace but we will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms,” the statement continued.
South Korea, considered alongside Japan to be a diplomatic ally of the U.S. in the region, was keen to tame the fiery war of words.
“We’d like to ask for precaution so as not to get blinded by exaggerated assessment about the security situation on the Korean peninsula,” the country’s defense ministry spokesperson said.
April 12, 2017
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Chinese tabloid warns N.Korea against test http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/north-korea-warns-of-nuclear-strike/news-story/27dbacebb5390d5c95245bd82d538925 APRIL 12, 2017 North Korea should halt any plans for nuclear and missile activities “for its own security”, a Chinese newspaper says, warning that the US is making clear it doesn’t plan to “co-exist” with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang.
April 12, 2017
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China’s Xi Outshines Trump as the World’s Future Energy Leader, Failure by the two presidents to discuss climate change leaves China ahead, based on actions if not words, Scientific American By David Biello on April 11, 2017 “……Trump and China’s Pres. Xi Jinping apparently ignored climate change at their inaugural meeting last week. Although the two leaders apparently found time to discuss everything from North Korea’s nuclear capability to a potential reset of trade relations, climate change was never mentioned, even though Trump might have wanted to take the opportunity to directly fact check his Tweet from last year that China invented climate change to cripple U.S. manufacturing.
The silence was not a surprise, however, even if the focus of the summit was meant to be “global challenges around the world.” As Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the U.S. State Department, predicted, “I don’t think that [climate change is] going to be a major part of the discussion in Florida.”
That’s too bad, because China and the U.S. remain the two biggest polluters when it comes to greenhouse gases. Cooperation on climate change provided a rare area of agreement between China and the U.S. during the Obama administration. And it was in large part due to the efforts of China and the U.S. that the nations of the world agreed to combat climate change in Paris in 2015.
It is also too bad for the U.S.—because, ironically, the silence leaves China as the world’s future energy leader. As many see the Trump regime abandoning U.S. leadership in the fight to restrain global warming, China seems willing to step up, at least in rhetoric. “What should concern us is refusing to face up to problems and not knowing what to do about them,” Xi said in a speech to the World Economic Forum in January. “The Paris Agreement is a hard-won achievement which is in keeping with the underlying trend of global development. All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.”
At the same time, the Chinese have taken the lead in producing clean energy—from topping the world in the production and installation of solar power to building an entire new series of nuclear power plants, making use of the latest technology. Trump’s avoidance of the climate change problem could leave U.S. industry at a competitive disadvantage……..
Trump has already signed an executive order forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw the Clean Power Plan, which would have cut pollution from power plants. He is rolling back other federal efforts to combat climate change, such as reducing methane pollution from oil and gas pipelines as well as promoting a budget that could eliminate funding for clean energy research. All of which undercuts any serious effort to meet the U.S. commitment under the Paris agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
Xi’s China, by contrast, plans to implement a national cap-and-trade system to reduce CO2 pollution this year. And there are already signs that decades-long growth in China’s coal burning has slowed or even stopped, potentially fulfilling the country’s Paris pledge to reach a peak in its pollution by 2030. This change of course is not just aimed at fending off climate change but also at reducing unhealthy air pollution that even government leaders in Beijing cannot avoid breathing…….
Nowhere remains safe from climate change. The U.S. is already feeling the effects, such as weird weather upsetting the plans of American farmers. Those effects will only get worse if nothing is done to stop dumping CO2 into the sky, much less to begin to reduce concentrations that have now reached more than 400 parts per million in the air—higher than that breathed by any members of our fellow Homo sapiens in the last 200,000 years. The global warming challenge is also intimately connected to the global challenges of feeding more than seven billion people, providing drinkable water as supplies dwindle and supplying electricity to billions of people who still do not have it. None of these challenges can be solved in isolation but rather require solutions like clean energy supergrids and microgrids that address energy poverty and reduce climate change pollution at the same time.
This also holds true even for the items that were on the U.S.–China agenda at Mar-a-Lago, such as the future of war-torn Syria after Trump ordered a cruise missile strike in response to that nation’s use of chemical weapons in its civil war. A shortage of water and food in Syria helped start the horrendous conflict there, forcing refugees to flee the war and the nation—in other words, a deadly fight and flight exacerbated by climate change. The conflict in Syria may serve as a warning from a future in which Trump continues to deny the facts about global warming. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-xi-outshines-trump-as-the-worlds-future-energy-leader/
April 12, 2017
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Trump’s Options for North Korea Include Placing Nukes in South Korea, NBC News 7 Apr 17 by WILLIAM M. ARKIN, CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, KEVIN MONAHAN and ROBERT WINDREM The National Security Council has presented President Donald Trump with options to respond to
North Korea’s nuclear program — including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un, multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials told NBC News.
Both scenarios are part of an accelerated review of North Korea policy prepared in advance of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.
The White House hopes the Chinese will do more to influence Pyongyang through diplomacy and enhanced sanctions. But if that fails, and North Korea continues its development of nuclear weapons, there are other options on the table that would significantly alter U.S. policy.
The first and most controversial course of action under consideration is placing U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. The U.S. withdrew all nuclear weapons from South Korea 25 years ago. Bringing back bombs — likely to Osan Air Base, less than 50 miles south of the capital of Seoul — would mark the first overseas nuclear deployment since the end of the Cold War, an unquestionably provocative move.
“We have 20 years of diplomacy and sanctions under our belt that has failed to stop the North Korean program,” one senior intelligence official involved in the review told NBC News. “I’m not advocating pre-emptive war, nor do I think that the deployment of nuclear weapons buys more for us than it costs,” but he stressed that the U.S. was dealing with a “war today” situation. He doubted that Chinese and American interests coincided closely enough to find a diplomatic solution………http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-s-options-north-korea-include-placing-nukes-south-korea-n743571
April 10, 2017
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North Korea says US air strikes on Syria vindicates decision to develop nuclear weapons, ABC News 9 Apr 17 North Korea has said US missile strikes against a Syrian airfield were “an unforgivable act of aggression” that showed its decision to develop nuclear weapons was “the right choice a million times over”.
Key points:
- North Korea says US strikes vindicates decision to strengthen its military power
- Kim Jong-un has exchanged pledges of friendship and cooperation with Bashar al-Assad
- Mr Trump earlier spoke of an “outstanding” relationship with North Korea’s ally China
The response by North Korea’s foreign ministry, carried by the official KCNA news agency, was the first since US warships launched dozens of missiles at a Syrian air base which the Pentagon says was involved in a chemical weapons attack earlier in the week.
“The US missile attack against Syria is a clear and unforgivable act of aggression against a sovereign state and we strongly condemn this,” KCNA quoted an unnamed spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry as saying……….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-09/north-korea-calls-us-syria-air-strikes-unforgivable/8428398
April 10, 2017
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TRUMP’S CONFUSING STRIKE ON SYRIA, If President Trump broadens his aims against Assad, he will enter the very morass that Candidate Trump warned against.New Yorker, By Steve Coll APRIL 17, 2017, “……. despite having previously seen similarly horrifying pictures, Trump had been skeptical of military action in Syria. In 2013, Assad’s forces attacked civilians and rebels near Damascus with sarin, a banned nerve agent, killing more than a thousand people. Trump advised President Obama, via Twitter, “Do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside.” (Obama had called Assad’s use of chemical arms crossing a “red line,” which might lead the U.S. to take military action, but he did not strike. Instead, Russia helped broker an agreement by which Assad gave up many—but evidently not all—of his chemical arms.)]
Trump has said, “I’m very capable of changing to anything I want to change to.” In the case of Syria, however, he seems to have acted without a clear plan in place. During the campaign, he promised to “bomb the shit out of” isis, which holds territory in Syria, but he also said that it was foolish to become mired in the civil war, or to target Assad, who has opposed isis—at least, rhetorically.
As recently as March 30th, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Assad’s future would be “decided by the Syrian people,” words that signalled a sharp departure from Obama’s insistence that Assad must leave office. Then, last Thursday, Tillerson seemed to shift direction, saying that “it would seem there would be no role” for Assad in Syria’s political future. But he later said, “I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or our posture relative to our military activities in Syria today.”……..
If President Trump broadens his aims against Assad, to establish civilian safe havens, for example, or to ground Syria’s Air Force, or to bomb Assad to the negotiating table, he will enter the very morass that Candidate Trump warned against. He would have to manage risks—military confrontation with Russia, an intensified refugee crisis, a loss of momentum against isis—that Obama studied at great length and concluded to be unmanageable, at least at a cost consistent with American interests……..
once started, even limited wars upend initial plans and assumptions, violence produces unintended consequences, and conflicts are much easier to begin or escalate than to end.
Canadian, European, and Middle Eastern allies, as well as some sections of the Washington foreign-policy establishment, applauded Trump for his strike, pointing out its narrow scope, and noting that Assad had brought it on himself. Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s continual search for approval seems to contribute to his unpredictability. Perhaps he will soon rediscover his inclination to proceed cautiously in Middle Eastern wars. Given his bombast, his inconsistency, and his preference for gut instinct over policy knowledge, he always seemed likely to be a dangerous wartime President. The worry now is that he will also be an ambitious one. ♦http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/trumps-confusing-strike-on-syria?mbid=nl_TNY%20Template%20-%20With%20Photo%20(155)&CNDID=46508601&spMailingID=10785187&spUserID=MTcxNTIwODYzMTU2S0&spJobID=1140615112&spReportId=MTE0MDYxNTExMgS2
April 10, 2017
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US warns of more Syria attacks during UN Security Council meeting, news.com.au , APRIL 8, 2017 Sarah Blake, in New York, staff writers, wires News Corp Australia Network THE US ambassador to the United Nations has said that the US is prepared to take further action in Syria.
April 8, 2017
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Syrian bombing: US and Russia ‘one step away from combat’, Paul McGeoug, The Age, 8 Apr 17, “…..Donald Trump’s response to Tuesday’s sarin gas attack was visceral, heartfelt and entirely understandable. But don’t get carried away – this is the same guy who, when a voter asked about Syrian refugee children coming to the US, during a rally in Mew Hampshire last year, said: “I can look in their faces and say ‘You can’t come.’ I’ll look them in the face.”
But And in contradicting his every tweet on the madness of Washington being drawn into the Syrian civil war, Thursday’s missile barrage raises as many questions as it triggers alarms.
War is theatre – and in this case, audience reaction and the reviews are unsettling. Washington is unbowed. Describing the attack as “a measured step”, US UN ambassador Nikki Haley warned a Security Council meeting on Friday: “We are prepared to do more, but we hope that would not be necessary.” Blasting Syria’s sponsors Russia and Iran, she drew a new red line: “Bashar al-Assad must never use chemical weapons again”.
Moscow is furious. On Facebook, Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev declared the relationship with Washington to be “completely ruined” and warned that the two countries were just one step away from combat.
And Moscow is doing something about it. Already a dangerous place, the Syrian airspace in which the US and Russian air forces are fighting different wars, became more risky with the Kremlin shutting down a risk-minimising channel, through which both air forces swapped information on their air movements, and “significantly increasing” the risk of confrontation.
Moscow promised too to bolster Syria’s air defences to “protect the most sensitive Syrian infrastructure facilities”. But that prompted analysts to observed that despite a 60 to 90-minute warning of Thursday’s attack, Moscow did not activate its own sophisticated missile defence systems in Syria against the incoming American salvo.
The Chinese are saying little, but no doubt are fuming. Beijing has backed Syria by joining Russia in thwarting action against it in the UN Security Council, and it won’t take lightly how the timing of Trump’s missile strike overshadowed a highly orchestrated Florida meeting between Trump and President Xi Jinping, or the provocative message it sent……..
there’s a danger now that Trump has had this early taste of war – mission creep. There are quibbles in Congress about his failure to seek its authority, but there’s also broad political and media support for his missile strike and given Trump’s desperate need for approval, he’ll be tempted to do more.
“If Mr Assad persists in the use of chemical or biological weapons, it will take extraordinary discipline to avoid falling into an escalation trap that leads from justified punitive strikes to a broader, and riskier, US intervention,” Blinken writes in The New York Times……….
Trump is taking a huge gamble. What was left of his wish for rapprochement with Moscow has been battered; to the extent that there is popular criticism of the attack, much of it is coming from his most ardent fringe-dweller followers; and, despite his endless rhetoric, he might just have delivered the US to the threshold of another Middle East war.
It’s all part of the amazing contradiction of Trump. Skeptics will says that demolition, death and dislocation will continue apace in Syria.
And cynics will wonder about motivation, the President’s historically rotten ratings and a Trump tweet back in October 2012, in which he said: “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.”
But Trump has sent a signal to the world – he’s got a feel for American military power and he is not afraid to use it. http://www.theage.com.au/world/syrian-bombing-us-and-russia-one-step-away-from-war-20170407-gvgmdw.html
April 8, 2017
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politics international, USA |
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But Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said the decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis.
“The US missile attack on a Syrian government airbase risks escalating the war in Syria still further,” he said. “Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account.”
Syria airstrikes: UK offers verbal but not military support to US Defence secretary backs US response to gas attack but says Britain is not committed to military action against Assad, Guardian, Anushka Asthana, 7 Apr 17, The British
government was not asked to provide military support to the US attack on Syria but believes it was a “wholly appropriate” response to the deadly use of chemical weapons on civilians, the defence secretary has said.
Sir Michael Fallon said the UK would not get directly involved in action with combat troops or aircraft in Syria without parliamentary approval. But while he made clear that the decision to launch dozens of missiles on to a Syrian airbase in the early hours of Friday was a US one, he said Britain believed it was the right move. “We fully support this strike, it was limited, it was appropriate, and it was designed to target the aircraft and the equipment that the United States believe were used in the chemical attack and to deter President [Bashar al-]Assad from carrying out future chemical attacks,” Fallon said.
He urged Russia to learn a lesson from the action, suggesting President Vladimir Putin was the key figure to end the war. “It is Russia that has the influence over the regime that can … bring this slaughter to a stop.”
He said his American counterpart, James Mattis, had phoned him to share the US assessment of the regime’s culpability, and that the UK was later informed of Trump’s final decision to take action.
The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, also expressed his support on Twitter, writing: “Fully support US action after deplorable chemical attacks.”
The position was supported by a number of Conservative backbenchers and the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, who wrote in the Guardian that the UK “cannot shy away from proportionate military intervention”
But Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said the decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis.
“The US missile attack on a Syrian government airbase risks escalating the war in Syria still further,” he said. “Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account.”
Corbyn said there was a need to “urgently reconvene the Geneva peace talks and unrelenting international pressure for a negotiated settlement of the conflict”. Any intervention ought to be judged on its contribution to the outcome, he said.
Corbyn’s call to “urge restraint on the Trump administration” was backed up by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, but contradicted by the party’s deputy leader. ….https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/07/syria-airstrikes-uk-offers-verbal-but-not-military-support-to-us
April 8, 2017
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politics international, UK |
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Tillerson to chair U.N. meeting on North Korea nuclear program, Reuters By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS, 7 Apr 17,
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a United Nations Security Council meeting on North Korea on April 28 to discuss how the body can combat Pyongyang’s banned nuclear and missile programs, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Monday.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions aimed at impeding the development of its nuclear and missile programs since 2006. The 15-member council has strengthened sanctions following each of North Korea’s five nuclear tests.
“We do need to talk about it in terms of what are we as a council are going to do to deal with North Korea and how do we push that forward. So we hope that we get as many foreign ministers to come as possible,” Haley told a news conference to mark Washington’s presidency of the Security Council for April…….http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-un-usa-idUSKBN1752LC
April 8, 2017
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North Korea Has Nuclear Weapons So It Won’t End Up Like Libya, The National Interest, Edward Chang, 6 Apr 17, North Korea has learned from the Qaddafi regime the importance of maintaining its nukes.
As many experts have predicted, North Korea is trending to become the Trump administration’s first major foreign-policy crisis. The latest developments continue to reinforce that trend.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Donald Trump threatened to take unilateral action to stop the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s nuclear program unless China stepped in to address the issue. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, echoed that stance not long after Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis indicated that he views the DPRK as the gravest threat to America. The week prior to that, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that the Obama-era strategy of “strategic patience” was over and warned that military action was an option if North Korea did not unilaterally disarm.
While the early post-war time period occasionally involved troubling acts of violence that resulted in the deaths of Americans, the United States and North Korea have since avoided such encounters (the same cannot be said for South Korea). And while no American president ever dismissed force as an option, Trump is unique in the blunt and direct manner he has used to challenge the reclusive regime. Which begs the question—has a clash between the United States and North Korea become inevitable?………
Like U.S.-North Korea relations, U.S.-Libyan relations were fraught with tension from the beginning, following the 1969 coup that brought Qaddafi to power. Like North Korea, Libya earned the reputation of “rogue state,” defying international norms and engaging in destabilizing behavior in the region……..
“Reagan’s undeclared war” against Libya hints at one possible future in Trump-era relations with North Korea. Both presidents have assumed unambiguously confrontational postures, employing rhetoric that previous presidents have attempted to avoid. Much like Reagan singled-out Qaddafi after focusing elsewhere during the election, Trump has now focused most of his attention on Kim Jong-un, after initially emphasizing threats like ISIL as the more pressing issue………
Conventional wisdom holds that Trump will behave in a manner consistent with his predecessors for one simple reason—the stakes are too high………
Perhaps the most useful lesson to learn from Reagan’s war with Qaddafi is that it was ultimately inconclusive. The Libyan problem spanned the entirety of Reagan’s two terms; by the administration’s end, Qaddafi was still in power. Nearly a full decade of sanctions and overwhelming force notwithstanding, the U.S.-Libya saga demonstrated decisive actions do not necessarily lead to decisive results……..
As his national security staff completes its North Korea review, it is hoped that “the Donald” will learn the hard line leads to uncharted territory. More importantly, the forty-fifth president would do well to accept there are no obvious solutions to this crisis; using force does not always lead to the desired outcome. Regardless of which path he takes, Trump may very well be dealing with Kim through the totality of his presidency. ……http://nationalinterest.org/feature/north-korea-has-nuclear-weapons-so-it-wont-end-libya-20060
April 8, 2017
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Another month in UK’s failing new nuclear programme nuClear News No.94 April 2017 The ongoing collapse of the Moorside nuclear project has hit the headlines. But the French nuclear industry continues to be mired in scandal as EDF starts pouring nuclear safety critical concrete at Hinkley. And now we learn that the chief executive of Wylfa Newydd developer Horizon Nuclear Power says he needs to raise cash or the Anglesey project will not go-ahead.
Moorside Collapse On 29th March 2017, Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of Japanese company Toshiba and the largest historic builder of nuclear power plants in the world, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. (1)
Toshiba owns 60% of the NuGen consortium which is planning to build 3 AP1000 reactors at Moorside next to Sellafield in Cumbria. Senior figures in the UK nuclear industry told the Financial Times that Westinghouse’s bankruptcy has crystallised doubts about the project. There is now considerable doubt about whether NuGen will be able to find a new source of funding. (2)
As we reported last month the owner of 40% of the NuGen Moorside consortium, French company Engie (33% owned by the French Government) declared last December that it would like to abandon the project. (3) Now the Company has exercised its right under the NuGen consortium agreement to sell all of its shares to Toshiba in the “event of a default”. Toshiba’s decision to place Westinghouse – into bankruptcy protection qualifies as such an event. Toshiba said it would pay around $138.7m for Engie’s stake. Under its agreement with the French utility, it is required to pay at least the amount that Engie invested to acquire the stake. (4)…….
Engie is the seventh international energy utility to give up on UK new nuclear build. Over the past decade, on top of Toshiba, E-on (Wylfa), RWE Npower (Wylfa), Iberdrola (Moorside), SSE (Moorside), and Centrica (Hinkley Point) have all pulled out of developing new nuclear reactors in the UK. (6)
This leaves a very limited field of companies for the UK to approach in its hunt for a new partner for the Moorside scheme. South Korea’s KEPCO remains the most likely suitor, but Reuters reports that the giant utility won’t be rushed. It is one of few utilities remaining with global nuclear ambitions, but despite the fact that the AP1000 reactor has now received approval from the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, may still want to use its own technology – the APR1400. This would delay the development by a further four to five years No2NuclearPower nuClear news No.94, April 2017 3 whilst the South Korean reactor is put through its Generic Design Assessment by UK Regulators. Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, was in Seoul for talks at the beginning of April, but offered no evidence of concrete progress in the negotiations. (7)
KEPCO would also want to know more about the causes of the problems with two new nuclear projects in the US, involving AP1000 reactor designs which brought Westinghouse to its knees. Were the problems specific to the AP1000 reactor or a classic big project issue of not having done your homework before you start digging? (8)…….
KEPCO is unlikely to be tempted into taking over the troubled Moorside nuclear project without some sort of public financing, says former energy minister and chairman of New Nuclear Watch Europe, Tim Yeo. He says they will also be hesitant to step in and save the development unless it can use its own reactor technology. “I’ve been arguing for some time that we should look at providing during the construction phase some government finance.” Yeo said this would have to be on the basis of repayments beginning as soon as the plant is generating. (10) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo94.pdf
April 8, 2017
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business and costs, politics, politics international, UK |
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