News Items August 4 2018

Compiled by Dr. Don Ward

Trump staffs up Mideast team for peace plan rollout

https://www.apnews.com/099069cecd5244b8b766fa77e264b58b/Trump-staffs-up-Mideast-team-for-peace-plan-rollout By Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller

The National Security Council last week began approaching other agencies seeking volunteers to join the team, which will work for President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace pointmen Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, according to the officials. The team, which is being set up to organize the peace plan’s public presentation and any negotiations that may ensue, will comprise three units: one concentrating on its political and security details, one on its significant economic focus and one on strategic communications, the officials said.

The creation of a White House team is the first evidence in months that a plan is advancing. Although Trump officials have long promised the most comprehensive package ever put forward toward resolving the conflict, the emerging plan has not been described with even a small amount of detail by Kushner, Greenblatt or any other official.

Timing on the release of the plan remains undecided. The State Department, Pentagon, intelligence agencies and Congress have been asked to detail personnel to the team for six months to a year, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The agencies declined to comment but an NSC official said that Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations, “are expanding their team and the resources available as they finalize the details and rollout strategy of the peace initiative.”

White House officials say the plan will focus on pragmatic details, rather than top-line concepts, that will be able to easier win public support.

Yet the Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the Trump administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias, notably after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. Since the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas broke off contact after the Jerusalem announcement, the U.S. negotiating team has been talking to independent Palestinian experts.

The White House expects that the Palestinian Authority will engage on the plan and has been resisting congressional demands to fully close the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington because Greenblatt and Kushner want to keep that channel open. But officials have offered little evidence to back that up.

Palestinian alienation has continued to grow as millions of dollars in U.S. assistance remains on hold and appears likely to be cut entirely. With just two months left in the current budget year, less than half of the planned $251 million in U.S. aid planned for the Palestinians in 2018 — $92.8 million — has been released, according to the government’s online tracker, www.foreignassistance.gov.

The remaining amount is still on hold as is an additional $65 million in frozen U.S. assistance to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon.

In addition, Israel’s response to the plan is far from certain. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of Trump’s top foreign allies, it remains unclear if he will back massive investment in Gaza, which is run by the militant Hamas movement.

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For the plan to succeed or even survive the starting gate, it will need at least initial buy-in from both Israel and the Palestinians as well as from the Gulf Arab states, which officials say will be asked to substantially bankroll its economic portion. Arab officials have thus far adopted a wait-and-see approach.

Officials say there will never be a perfect time for the roll-out, but that they are laying the groundwork now for when an opportune time becomes apparent. The plan is not done, but is being finalized, including an economic development proposal for the Palestinian people that foresees major infrastructure and industrial work, particularly in Gaza.

The officials believe that the hope of a better economic future for the Palestinians coupled with progress on that front, the Palestinians may be willing to delay or modify what have been intractable and to-date unresolvable demands from Israel. Those include the right for Palestinian refugees to return to lands they abandoned or were forced from, the recognition of east Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestine.

And, they plan to appeal to all sides of the conflict not to let the disagreements of the past hold back their children’s futures, according to the officials.

China Forces All Religious Buildings to Fly Communist Flag

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/08/02/china-forces-all-religious-buildings-to-fly-communist-flag/ by Francis Martel

AP Photo/Andy Wong

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China’s state-run newspaper Global Times derided critics in the West Thursday for condemning a new initiative forcing all religious buildings to fly China’s red flag as a means to “enhance the concept of nation.”

The newspaper claimed the move was necessary because, without imposing the government’s wishes on individual religions, the nation could “lurch toward war.”

Requiring religious institutions to fly the national flag, a symbol of the nation’s embrace of communism in 1949, is necessary because “religions are exclusive” and the government has a responsibility to work on “strengthening people’s national and civic consciousness,” the Global Times argued.

According to the state newspaper, the proposal to make all buildings fly the flag came from “the country’s major religious associations.” China recognizes only five religions legally—Protestant Christianity, Catholic Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism—and has established government-recognized “patriotic” institutions that govern each. Chinese citizens who wish to worship outside of government institutions are considered criminals. Beijing has increased its persecution of unofficial “house” churches and home worship under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

“The country’s major religious associations on Tuesday proposed an initiative demanding that all religious venues raise China’s national flag to strengthen awareness of respect for the flag and preserve the flag’s dignity,” the Times noted, adding that “some Western media outlets” condemned the move as stifling religious expression.

“A national flag is a symbol of the country that should be respected by all citizens,” the Global Times insisted. “The display of national flags is not only recognition of national sovereignty, but also a manifestation of love for the country.”

The propaganda outlet argued that, without “national identity,” allowing religious freedom leads to war.

The Global Times announced the initiative on Tuesday, citing Chinese “experts” who applauded the move “for seeking to assimilate religion into a socialist society and as progress for religious development.” At the time, the newspaper once again expressed the belief that Beijing has a responsibility to teach religious people to “better practice socialist core values.”

The move follows orders from the government leaders of the five religions to local churches, temples, and mosques, to “Sinicize” the religion fully—to make each religion more “Chinese.” To do so, according to a white paper the government released titled “China’s Policies and Practices on Protecting Freedom of Religious Belief,” religious leaders “must conduct religious activities in the Chinese context, practice core socialist values, carry forward the fine traditions of the Chinese nation, and actively explore religious thought which conforms to the reality in China.

The Chinese Communist Party has expressed particular concern regarding the activities of Christians around the country who do not attend government-organized services, Uighur Muslims in western Xinjiang province, and Tibetan Buddhists following the Dalai Lama in Tibet. Part of the campaign to “Sinicize” religion involved banning children from religious services. Most recently, the government decreed that children in Tibet are not allowed to participate in any religious activities during the summer. Parents of children in the province were forced to sign documents promising not to expose their children to religion. A similar decree was passed in Xinjiang months earlier.

According to the U.S. State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report, Xinjiang is experiencing some of the most brutal religious repression in the world. The Chinese government is forcing hundreds of thousands of Muslims into “political re-education camps,” where they are often tortured and forced to violate their beliefs, sometimes by being forced to eat pork. The Chinese government does not deny that it is “re-educating” Muslims in the region—the Global Times boasted of the program promoting “the correct political stance and excellent moral traits” this month. It has nonetheless dismissed criticism from the rest of the world, particularly the United States.

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“We call on the United States to respect the facts, mind its own business, and stop using the religion issue to intervene in other countries’ internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters following the publication of the 2017 State Department International Religious Freedom Report.

'Death to the dictator!' Violence on streets of Iran as police use tear gas on furious protesters, including chador-clad women, demonstrating against 'corrupt regime' ruining the country while waging ideological war abroad

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6022673/Violence-streets-Iran-police-use-tear-gas-furious-protesters.html By Khaleda Rahman For Mailonline and Afp

Protests have broken out in a number of cities against Iranian regime this week 

Comes after the dramatic drop of Iran's currency and other economic problems

'The nation is forced to beg while the leader lives like God,' protesters chanted 

Iran entered its third day of protests as furious citizens took to the streets to rail against the regime they blame for devastating the country's economy.

Protests have broken out in a number of cities this week over the dramatic drop of the country's currency and other economic problems ahead of the imposition of renewed US sanctions. 

Videos shared online purportedly show some furious Iranians burning tyres and setting fire to police vehicles as demonstrations spun out of control.

Referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, many chanted 'death to the dictator' at protests.

'The nation is forced to beg while the leader lives like God,' was also among the furious chants against the Iranian regime at protests, according to the National Council of Resistance (NCR) of Iran. 

Iran entered its third day of protests as furious citizens took to the streets to rail against the regime they blame for devastating the country's economy. Pictured, protesters were reportedly seen burning tyres during demonstrations against the regime

On Tuesday and Wednesday, about 200 people demonstrated in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, Iran's state-run news agency IRNA reported.

Police said the demonstrators had attempted to damage public buildings, but were unable to.

In videos circulated on social media and purporting to have been taken in the town of Gohardasht, a suburb of Karaj, dozens of demonstrators can be seen in the streets, setting fire to police vehicles and shouting 'death to the dictator.'

Another video purportedly from Isfahan in central Iran showed protesters setting tyres ablaze in a bid to evade arrest.  

'Scattered protests' of a few hundred people were reported by state news agencies on Thursday, which police had brought under control.

About 100 people took to the streets in the northern city of Sari, as well as unspecified numbers in the cities of Shiraz, Ahavz and Mashhad, IRNA said.

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Videos posted on social media have shown days of demonstrations in Isfahan and minor protests in the capital on Thursday night.

So far, they have not been on the scale of the violent unrest that gripped dozens of towns and cities in December and January.

Another video purportedly from Isfahan in central Iran showed protesters setting tyres ablaze in a bid to evade arrest, bringing traffic on Khomeini Highway to a halt

But anxiety is everywhere, especially over the collapse of the rial, which has lost nearly two-thirds of its value in six months.

'We are seeing protests and they will continue,' said Adnan Tabatabai, head of the CARPO think tank in Germany.

'The establishment knows they are legitimate but my biggest concern is they will be hijacked by groups inside and outside the country and turn violent.' 

All protests had taken place without official permission and were subsequently broken up by police, the agency said.

A video from Shiraz, a city in south-central Iran, showed a seven-year-old boy who had reportedly had tear gas fired in his face by police.

M. Hanif Jazayeri, with the NCR, who shared the video on Twitter, also shared clips of angry chants from protesters in Karaj.

'Mullahs must answer for wasting Iran's wealth on terror,' he added.

Maryam Rajavi, NCR's president-elect, has said that Iran's economy will not recover until the regime is toppled.

According to the NCR, the Iranian regime spent billions funding war in Syria and conflicts across the Middle East - as well as funding terrorism and supporting proxy groups 'that carry out criminal activities on its behalf.

Protests have broken out in a number of cities this week over the dramatic drop of the country's currency and other economic problems

Mrs Rajavi says the disastrous state of the economy in Iran is a direct result of the regime's policies. 

'Protesters will not rest until the Iranian people and the nation are free,' she said.

She added: 'Iran's risen and revolting cities are joining the protests, one after the other.

'The cry for freedom is becoming louder, and the uprising is expanding more and more every moment.

'There is no force more powerful than the united force of young people.' 

After protests broke out on Tuesday, she said: 'Today, the world can see that the voice of Iranians cannot be silence despite massive repression, and their uprisings are carrying on until victory.

'These are the blazing flames of resistance with over 100,000 martyrs, flaring up in the streets after forty years.'

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The Iranian rial has dropped to a new record low amid growing concerns of renewed American sanctions, due to kick in on Monday.

'Death to the dictator' and 'the nation is forced to beg while the leader lives like God,' were among the furious chants against the Iranian regime at protests

Earlier, Iranian protesters had clashed with police outside parliament as the plunging rial triggered three days of protests last month in Tehran. 

Iranians are hunkering down for the return of US sanctions with a run on gold and hard currency as they scramble to protect their savings, and sporadic protests over the already troubled economy. 

Many wealthy Iranians are leaving the country, while others have been gripped by a bunker mentality, stocking up on provisions, dollars and gold in order to ride out the storm.

Customers were cheek-to-jowl in the narrow alleys of Tehran's Grand Bazaar this week.

'People are worried that if they don't buy things today, they won't be available tomorrow,' said Ali, who runs a kitchen store in the bazaar, adding that wholesalers were hoarding new stock while they waited to see how the crisis unfolded. 

Multinational firms that rushed to cash in three years ago - such as France's energy giant Total and carmakers Peugeot and Renault - are already packing up.

A decision to fix the exchange rate in April and arrest unlicensed currency dealers backfired spectacularly and triggered a boom in the black market.

About 100 people took to the streets in the northern city of Sari, as well as unspecified numbers in the cities of Shiraz (pictured)

The consequences have sometimes felt absurd. One expat described having to meet a trader under a bridge in central Tehran to change $2,000 (1,700 euros).

'He told me to wear a red scarf and came up to me whispering: 'Show me the money' like we were in a spy film,' she said. 

The US walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal in May and is bringing back 'maximum pressure' sanctions for most sectors on August 6, and the energy sector on November 4.

In May, President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a multilateral deal with Iran that was meant to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Trump denounced the deal, concluded before he took office, as one-sided in Iran's favour.

The US is bringing back 'maximum pressure' sanctions for most sectors on August 6, and the energy sector on November 4.

But on Monday, he declared that he would be willing to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with 'no preconditions.'

Trump said that as renewed sanctions kick in, he expected Iran would call and offer to return to the negotiating table, and that 'we're ready to make a real deal.'

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Cars drive by a poster depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Tuesday

Former President Barack Obama held a brief phone call with Rouhani in 2013, as the talks that led up to the nuclear deal were getting underway.

It was the first time the presidents of the two countries had spoken since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the storming of the US Embassy, which led to the severing of diplomatic ties.

Although Iran reacted skeptically to Trump saying that he's willing to negotiate with his Iranian counterpart 'anytime,' top officials did not reject a sit-down out of hand.

Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, a senior cleric and member of the influential Expediency Council, said Trump's suggestion that he would be willing to meet with Rouhani should not be categorically rejected.

'It should be discussed in the Supreme National Security Council,' said Nategh Nouri, who is also a former aide to the Supreme Leader.

Nategh Nouri said 'we have to contemplate' the gesture, but also cautioned 'we should not rejoice over this offer and not get excited.'

Iranian Guards naval buildup at Hormuz: US monitors, Israel warns

https://www.debka.com/iranian-guards-naval-buildup-at-hormuz-us-monitors-israel-warns/

Shortly before a new round of US sanctions, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) navy is building up maritime forces at the Strait of Hormuz, ready to launch an “exercise” at 48 hours’ notice. The warships, poised outside the northern opening of the waterway, demonstrate that Iran can, if it so decides, block the vital waterway for Gulf oil exports. Thursday morning, Aug. 2, the US Central Command issued the following statement: “We are aware of the increase in Iran naval operations within the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and ‘Gulf of Oman. We are monitoring it closely, and will continue to work with our partners to ensure freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce in international waterways… We also continue to advocate for all maritime forces to conform to international maritime customs, standards and laws.”DEBKAfile notes that CENTCOM chose to refer to the Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” which Tehran sees as a national affront.Wednesday night, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that any Iranian attempt to interfere with shipping sailing through another vital regional waterway, the Bab al Mandeb Straits, would encounter an international coalition, including Israel with a full array of its military capabilities.Our sources liken the current climate surrounding a possible US-Iranian summit to that which led up to President Donald Trump’s Singapore meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. That too was preceded closely by a dramatic rise in war tensions, while quiet preparations for the big event continued without interruption.

Russia’s 8 military Golan positions – problematic for Israeli security. Hizballah creeps ever closer

https://www.debka.com/russias-8-military-golan-positions-problematic-for-israeli-security-hizballah-creeps-ever-closer/

The Russian decision to set up 8 military positions along the Syrian-Israeli Golan border will impede rather than help consolidate security on Israel’s northern front – in more ways than one:

The positions will be manned by Chechen recruits in Russian uniforms. (By the law of Chechnya, nationals are barred from fighting in foreign wars.)

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They will serve alongside UNDOF monitors in the buffer zone without legal status. The presence of foreign forces is not covered in the 1974 Israel-Syrian disengagement agreement which created the buffer zone. The agreement was extended by the UN Security council a month ago.

This may be a mere formality until they are called into action. How and on behalf of which party they respond are moot questions.

What will Israel’s government and military decision-makers do if the Russian orders to their unit run contrary to Israel’s security interests – or, still worse, impede Israeli operations against aggressors? The Israeli Air Force, for instance, may be tied down from striking terrorists in the buffer zone by fear of Russian policemen getting in the way.

And what will happen if the IDF needs to cross into the buffer zone to terminate illicit Hizballah or pro-Iranian Shiite militia incursions? DEBKAfile’s military sources stress that these are not just hypothetical situations; they are already real, although Israel’s national leaders are keeping their intrusion under wraps. This is because they accepted the Russian police monitors without stipulating the prior removal from the buffer zone of all Hizballah and Shiite forces deployed there by Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers.

On Aug. 1, Russian Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev sold Sputnik News a fairy story. In deference to Israel’s concerns, he said “We have managed to achieve the pullback of Iranian units to within 85km from the border.” World media parroted this tale as solemn truth without checking its authenticity. DEBKAfile’s military sources can assert after investigation that the Russian envoy was not only wide of the mark, but in the 48 hours since he spoke, Shiite and Hizballah forces have crept further west and taken up new positions that are several meters closer than before to the Israeli border.

Since Vladimir Putin’s senior adviser on Syria is so free with falsehoods, how can Israel risk entrusting its security in the Golan buffer zone to the hands of a Russian military police force?

Archaeologist Uncovers Biblical Bethsaida’s Unique Gate

https://www.prtradingresearch.com/simple-options-guide-1.php?afid=google-gdn-simpleoptions-AGENCYdondrapersimpleoptions-20180801&utm_source=google&utm_medium=gdn&utm_campaign=simpleoptions&utm_term=&utm_content=&agency=dondraper By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

Professor Rami Arav, has uncovered an enormous city gate, after digging at the Biblical city of Zer in the Golan Heights.

Arav, a professor at the University of Omaha, has been digging in the region for nearly 30 years and this season, his efforts were rewarded. Arav and his team,speculate that King David probably passed through this gate seeking a bride.

The archaeological potential at Zer is enormous, justifying Arav’s efforts. The unexplored ruins dating back to the eighth century BCE cover 20 acres, setting it as one of the largest ancient cities in the region.

“So far, I have only found monumental remains: the palace, the fortifications, the storehouses,” Arav told Breaking Israel News. “I have only explored about four percent of the site. I am planning on leaving a challenge for the next generation.

This season, Arav and his team focused their digging on the city’s gate. It is massive, the largest and the best-preserved city gate found in the region. Arav believes the gate was in use from the 11th century BCE to 920 BCE, when the settlement was destroyed. After 50 years of lying vacant, the city was reinhabited after 875 BCE.

The site also displays a Jewish community in the Hasmonean and Herodian periods, occupation in the Early Roman period, settlement in the Mamluk period, and a village in the late Ottoman period.

In addition to the city gate, the excavation revealed a massive fortification system that included two parallel city walls and towers. This is the earliest appearance of towers in the military architecture of this region.

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In addition to its enormous archaeological significance, the site has massive Biblical relevance.

“The city, under different names, was referred to in the Bible, in the New Testament, and even in the Talmud,” Arav said. “It was clearly important throughout many periods.”

The city was referred to as Zer until the First Temple period and is mentioned as such in the Bible.

Its fortified towns were Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Chinnereth, Joshua 19:35

In the Second Temple period, the city was a major Aramean urban center of the kingdom of Geshur, also mentioned in the Bible.

But the Israelites failed to dispossess the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and Geshur and Maacath remain among Yisrael to this day. Joshua 13:13

The gate dates to 1000 and 550 BCE, the period of the biblical kings David and Solomon. Arav guesses that it is most probable that  David entered this gate to meet Talmai, king of Geshur, prior to requesting the hand of his daughter.

His second was Chileab, by Avigail wife of Naval the Carmelite; the third was Avshalom   son of Maacah, daughter of King Talmai of Geshur; II Samuel 3:3

The city of Bethsaida is mentioned several times in the New Testament as a place Jesus frequented and as such, the archaeological dig is a popular destination for Christian tourists.

“The New Testament places several stories about Jesus in Bethsaida but is not really a Christian archaeological site,” Arav told Breaking Israel News. “There are no Christian artifacts since there was never really a Christian population in Bethsaida. There are no churches or anything from the Byzantine period. From the Second Temple period, it was connected with the life of Jesus, but as most people know, Jesus was born, lived, and died a Jew. Everything around him was Jewish. Christianity as an independent religion only came several centuries after the death of Jesus. By the time the Christian population arose in the fourth century, Bethsaida was already abandoned due to a major earthquake.”

Caroline Glick: Trump’s Offer to Talk to Iran Was Shrewd Move in Complicated Showdown

https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/08/02/caroline-glick-trumps-offer-to-talk-to-iran-was-shrewd-move-in-complicated-showdown/

President Donald Trump’s offer Monday to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani caught senior administration officials as well as U.S. allies off guard. Many wondered what Trump could possibly be thinking.

Trump’s offer needs to be seen in the context of events in Iran. Iran is in the throes of rapidly growing, country-wide protests which may be the largest it has seen since the 1979 revolution. And worse is yet to come.

Beginning next week, U.S. will begin reimposing sanctions suspended by the Obama administration. Iran’s economy, already in a tailspin, stands a good chance of collapsing.

Trump made his offer in the context of an overall U.S. policy towards the Iranian regime. That policy was set out explicitly by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech in May and in another last month.

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In May, Pompeo told an audience at the Heritage Institute that the U.S. sanctions against Iran would remain in place until the regime abided by twelve U.S. demands. The major demands require Iran to end all of its nuclear activities and come clean about its past nuclear operations; end its sponsorship of terrorism regionally and worldwide; respect the human and civil rights of the Iranian people; and end the aggression it is carrying out against its neighbors both directly and through its terror proxies.

In July, Pompeo spoke explicitly in favor of the Iranian people now protesting against the regime. He signaled clearly that the U.S. supports efforts by the Iranian people to overthrow the regime in Tehran.

So when Trump offered to meet with Rouhani without preconditions, it did not mean that he does not expect Iran to change its behavior. It meant that he was willing to meet with Rouhani while leading a policy whose goal is the fundamental transformation of Iran (to borrow a phrase from Barack Obama).

Trump would be happy if that transformation comes in the framework of a massive change in regime behavior. He would also be happy if it comes through a revolution that overthrows the regime.

As for the Iranians, their behavior in recent days probably gave Trump reason to believe they may be desperate enough to at least consider the former option.

On Sunday, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council reportedly decided to free the country’s two top political prisoners from house arrest.

Hossein Karroubi, the son of Mehdi Karroubi, told the Kalameh website in Iran that the council had decided to free his father and Mir Hossain Mousavi from house arrest. The two have been confined to their homes since 2009, when they led the Green Revolution in the wake of Iran’s 2009 presidential elections. The two men each won far more votes than the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But in a mark of the regime’s contempt for the public, and for the very concept of democracy, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. The mass countrywide protests that followed the stolen election represented the gravest threat the regime faced since the 1979 revolution.

To save itself, the regime sent its Basij paramilitary forces into the crowds of hundreds of thousands of protesters that gathered throughout the country demanding its overthrow. The Basij forces brutally repressed the protesters. Mousavi, his wife, and Karroubi were confined to their homes. Then President Obama, who was keen to reach an accord with the regime, refused to back   the protesters.

The regime’s decision to free its top political prisoners is not a sign that it is willing to admit its crimes or make amends to the Iranian public. It is a sign of desperation.

With each passing day, the size of the crowds in the streets protesting against the regime, and the number of cities in Iran that are experiencing major protests, grows. The slogans they shout are not limited to demands that the regime bear down on corrupt officials and lower inflation. Protesters are calling for the overthrow of the regime.

Throughout the country, protesters are calling out, “Death to the Dictator,” meaning “supreme leader” Ali Khamenei. In Isfahan on Tuesday, protesters shouted out, “Reza Shah, may your soul and spirit be happy!”

Reza Shah was the founder of the dynasty that was overturned in the 1979 Islamic revolution. It is also the name of the Shah’s son in exile.

Protesters also insisted that they are done with the regime as a whole. They called for the death of both “reformists,” and “hardliners.”

As for Mousavi and Karroubi’s announced release, although the movement they led in the wake of the 2009 presidential election morphed into an attempted revolution that was brutally suppressed, Mousavi and Karroubi are not revolutionaries themselves. They are reformists deeply embedded in the regime.

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In the 1980s, Moussavi served as prime minister and foreign minister, and Karroubi served as speaker of the parliament.

Khamenei and his advisors no doubt view the two men as a bridge to the protesters in the streets, who can moderate their demands and so stabilize the regime. But the fact that the protesters are now insisting there is no distinction between reformers like Mousavi and Karroubi and hardliners like Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Al Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani indicates that the regime may be a day late and a dollar short.

It isn’t just that the protesters want revolution and not reform. They also want America. They hate the regime more than they hate the United States.

In Karaj, outside Tehran, anti-regime protesters were filmed shouting, “Our enemy is here, they are lying when they say it is America.”

Under the circumstances, attempts by regime officials to blame Iran’s economic problems on the U.S. are doomed. After failing to convince the Europeans to bypass U.S. sanctions, the only way the regime can save even a semblance of a normal economy is to beat a path to Washington.

And so, over the past week, Suleimani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif beat a path to Muscat, Oman, in the hopes of working something out. Muscat served as a mediator between the Tehran regime and the Obama administration in the early stages of their contacts, so it was a natural place for the Iranians to turn to renew contacts with Washington today.

Immediately after his meetings with Zarif and Suleimani, Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah flew to Washington for meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

The Iranians deny that they are using Oman as a mediator. But the confluence of meetings makes it difficult to accept their claims. It is all the more difficult to take their position seriously when Trump made his offer to meet with Rouhani during bin Abdullah’s visit to Washington.

This, then brings us to the purpose of Trump’s offer, and what it tells us about Trump’s view of how to achieve the American goal of fundamentally transforming the regime — either by coercing it to abide by Pompeo’s twelve conditions or by supporting a popular revolution.

Only time will tell if Zarif’s and Suleimani’s attempts to open channels of communication with Washington signalled regime willingness to consider such a transformation. The fact that Pompeo repeated the U.S. position on CNBC after Trump made his offer for talks suggests that the administration thus far has not been lured by the regime into changing its policy.

Although the media portrayed Pompeo’s statement as contradicting Trump’s assertion that there are no preconditions for negotiations, Pompeo simply restated the administration’s position when he told CNBC that the Iranians need to accept the basic parameters of the U.S. position set out in his speech at the Heritage Institute as a basis for negotiations.

One of the things that distinguishes Trump from Obama, as well as from George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is how he views negotiations. When his predecessors sought diplomatic channels with Iran and North Korea, they willingly discarded all the other levers of statecraft, including military and economic pressure.

The Bush administration took North Korea off the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism and withdrew economic sanctions on Pyongyang. Clinton provided North Korea with fuel and food. The Bush administration downplayed Iran’s role in fomenting and maintaining the insurgency against U.S. forces in Iran and Afghanistan, and Iran’s role in the September 11 attacks. And Obama gave Iran an open road to regional hegemony in the Middle

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East through a host of economic, military, and political concessions at the expense of U.S. allies and interests throughout the Middle East.

Trump, in contrast, uses diplomacy in tandem with economic and military pressure to foment a change in behavior in his opponents. As Breitbart News’ Joel Pollak explained, the difference between Trump’s offer to negotiate with the Iranians and Obama’s offer to negotiate with them is that Trump’s offer was made from a position of strength while Obama’s offer was made from a position of weakness.

If Trump senses that the Iranians are willing to make a deal along the lines set out by Pompeo — that is, if the regime is willing to agree to curtail its sponsorship of terror and mayhem and end its nuclear program without war — he would be a fool not to pursue it. Assuming he handles them properly, if the talks fail, the Iranian public will be more than willing to blame the regime.

That said, there are two major risks to holding negotiations. First, the Iranian people may view such negotiations as a signal that the U.S. will sell them out. To mitigate that risk, it is imperative that any talks be conducted publicly. The regime will use secret channels as a means to signal that like the Obama administration, the Trump White House supports it against the Iranian public.

The second risk is not unique to discussions with Iran, but is a risk in all negotiations between Western democracies and authoritarian tyrannies.

All negotiations have a tendency to create a dynamic in which reaching a deal – any deal – becomes more important than achieving the goals that brought the parties to the negotiating table in the first place. Western leaders, who are subject to media scrutiny and election pressures, are more susceptible to the pressure to achieve a deal than leaders of dictatorial regimes like those in Iran and North Korea.

As a consequence, the dynamic of negotiations works against the interests of the Western powers and favors the interests of the authoritarians they face at the table. In the current context of U.S.-Iranian relations, we will know that we should be concerned about this dynamic if and when the administration diminishes its public support for the anti-regime protesters in Iran.

On Wednesday, U.S. Central Command warned that Iran is about to launch a massive military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz. Suleimani and other regime leaders have threatened repeatedly in recent weeks to seal the maritime choke point through which 20 percent of world oil shipments transit if the U.S. blocks Iranian oil exports.

This Iranian move, like the missiles its Houthi proxies shot at two Saudi oil tankers in the Bab el Mandab choke point in the Red Sea least week, shows that the Iranians also know how to talk and shoot at the same time.

Obviously, it is too early to know where Trump’s offer will lead. But what is clear enough is that Trump’s offer to negotiate with Iran is no fluke. It is a shrewd, albeit high-risk move made in a complex and highly dynamic and dangerous standoff between the U.S. and its allies — and a lethal, menacing regime whose back is up against the wall.

Iran Continues to Push Buttons With MASSIVE War Game Planned

https://constitution.com/iran-continues-to-push-buttons-with-massive-war- / By Andrew West

Donald Trump may at times appear a bit brutish, particularly when addressing the mainstream media, there are undoubtedly those out there who would test his mettle, given the chance.

For a while, we believed that Kim Jong Un of North Korea would be the first to feel the full wrath of what Donald Trump yields, given that Bashar al-Assad of Syria was lucky to get out with 59 Tomahawk Cruise missiles at an airfield that pretty much saw it coming.

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Cooler heads prevailed, however, with a number of massive sanctions and threats doing their diplomatic duty in keeping the dainty DPRK dictator in check.

Now, form the Middle East, a new challenger has emerged, hoping to draw The Donald into a duel of sorts, and they are wasting no time in pushing the limits of his patience.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard is expected to put 100 gun boats in the Persian Gulf sometime in the next 48 hours to practice “swarm” tactics simulating actions which could potentially shut down the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly 10 percent of the world’s oil passes through each year, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Iran normally conducts its annual “swarm” exercise in the fall, but officials said the event has been moved up likely due to recent threats made between President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in recent days.

In a statement about the exercise, Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said: “We are aware of the increase in Iranian naval operations within the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman. We are monitoring it closely, and will continue to work with our partners to ensure freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce in international waterways.” The Arabian Gulf is also known as the Persian Gulf.

This action comes just days after President Trump issued a stern message to Iran on Twitter, letting them know in no uncertain terms that any continuation of aggression toward the United States would not find good favor with the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military on the planet.

And if that doesn’t get the Iranian regime back in step, I’m not sure if anything will.

North and South Korea Hold Military Talks as US Detects Missile Activity in North Korea

https://www.newsmax.com/headline/north-korea-south-korea-meet-missile-factory/2018/07/31/id/874622/

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also vowed during his separate summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore last month to work toward denuclearisation, but there has not been a concrete agreement to accomplish that goal.

Kim Do-gyun, the South's chief negotiator who is in charge of North Korea policy at the defence ministry, told reporters before leaving for the DMZ that he would make efforts to craft "substantive" measures to ease tensions and build trust.

The two sides are expected to discuss a possible cut in firearms and personnel stationed at the DMZ, as well as a joint excavation of the remains of soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea's defence ministry said last week it plans to reduce guard posts and equipment along the heavily fortified border as an initial step to implement the agreement.

Ahn Ik-san, the general leading the North Korean delegation at the military talks, noted South Korean news reports suggesting that he might try to persuade the South to push for a joint declaration with the United States to formally end the war. "Before determining whether it is true or not, I realised the people of the North and South regard our talks as important," Ahn said at the start of the meeting.

"And it also emphasised the sense of duty of the times, and the role given to the military in the efforts of the North and South for peace and prosperity."

The Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the U.S.-led United Nations forces including South Korea technically still at war with the North.

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Pyongyang sees an official end to war as crucial to lowering tensions. It accused U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of making a "gangster-like" demand for denuclearisation during his visit to Pyongyang earlier this month, while rejecting its wish to discuss declaring an end to the conflict.

The U.S. State Department has said it is committed to building a peace mechanism in place of the armistice when the North denuclearises.

Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi had traveled to South Korea “not long ago” and held talks with Chung Eui-yong, Director of the National Security Office, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing on Tuesday,

The two discussed various bilateral issues, officials said, but neither Beijing nor Seoul confirmed whether they discussed a declaration ending the war.

A senior official at South Korea's presidential Blue House said Seoul is open to China's involvement in any peace agreement, but said no decisions had been made.

On Monday, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that U.S. spy satellites had detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced the country's first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Pompeo said last week that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs.

Trump declared soon after his summit with Kim that North Korea no longer posed nuclear threats, but Pyongyang has offered no details on its plan to denuclearise and subsequent talks have not gone smoothly.

The North's state media has in recent days chastised the South for failing to move more swiftly to improve inter-Korean relations while paying too much heed to Washington.

The Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's official party newspaper, on Tuesday accused Seoul of "wasting time" waiting for sanctions to be lifted only after denuclearisation is completed, without "taking a single action" on its own.

It called for steps to facilitate a restart of the previously jointly-run but now closed programmes, such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex and tours to the North's Mount Kumgang resort.

Seoul has said those projects can be resumed when there is progress on Pyongyang's denuclearisation and sanctions are eased.

North Korea's propaganda website Uriminjokkiri also criticised South Korea for its stance of keeping sanctions on Tuesday, saying "sanctions and conversation cannot exist side by side."

Chinese Media: U.S. Marines in Taiwan Would Be ‘Invasion of Chinese Soil’

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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/07/31/chinese-media-u-s-marines-in-taiwan-would-be-invasion-of-chinese-soil/

China’s displeasure at the notion of U.S. Marines guarding the American diplomatic mission in Taiwan reached fever pitch on Tuesday, as China’s state-run Global Times denounced the security detail tantamount as an “invasion of the U.S. military of Chinese soil.”

The United States does not have a formal embassy in Taiwan, but a facility known as the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) serves that purpose in effect. China is extremely sensitive to any measures that treat Taiwan as an independent nation, including steps that would make the AIT look like a real foreign embassy instead of a “de facto” consulate.

The U.S. State Department requested a Marine Security Guard detachment for the AIT before the Fourth of July holiday this year, prompting immediate Chinese warnings to “exercise caution” and “avoid affecting overall bilateral ties.”

Beijing stressed the importance of respecting the “One China” policy, which states that Taiwan is largely autonomous but remains an inseparable part of China. In practice, One China means Taiwan must avoid declaring complete independence and preserve the possibility of peaceful reunification at some future date–and other countries must refrain from helping Taiwan become fully independent.

The American Institute in Taiwan recently completed a $250 million expansion and increased its staff to about 450 people, so enhanced security seemed a reasonable request. The State Department kept its deliberations quiet and generally refused to discuss the details with reporters to avoid provoking China.

The Taipei Times reported on Sunday that Marine security guards are on the way to protect the new AIT complex when it commences operations in September. A similar report made the front page of the Chinese-language Liberty Times of Taiwan.

There was little official confirmation for the Taipei Times report, which relied on “sources familiar with the matter” who said the Marines “could be considered a representation of how much the U.S. values its relationship with Taiwan.” The possibility of bringing Taiwanese military police to facilities in the United States as a reciprocal gesture of cooperation was also mentioned by these sources.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times wrote a furious editorial warning Taiwanese “pro-independence activists” not to portray the hypothetical Marine detachment as proof that Taiwan is an “independent sovereign country.”

“The separatist forces in Taiwan have suffered from multiple strikes from the Chinese mainland recently. They are hoping to lift the morale of their camp through hyping topics related to the AIT,” the Global Times editorialists muttered.

By “strikes” they meant “setbacks” such as several countries rescinding diplomatic recognition for Taiwan under intense pressure from Beijing. China has not launched military strikes against Taiwan yet, although Beijing has a fondness for intimidating military exercises and provocative violations of Taiwan’s airspace.

Some of China’s “strikes” against Taiwan are remarkably petty but have psychological value as demonstrations of Chinese economic influence, such as China successfully bullying foreign airlines into changing the way their websites refer to Taiwan. That was most likely the great victory the Global Times had in mind when it crowed about the flagging morale of Taiwanese independence activists.

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The Global Times editorial was very concerned about what the Marines prospectively sent to guard the AIT would be wearing. Several times during the piece, it is made clear that Marine uniforms bother Beijing more than the Marines inside them (emphasis added):

If the US Marines publicly station at the AIT in their uniforms, that would be treated by Beijing as a severe subversion of the one-China policy or even an invasion of the US military of Chinese soil. The AIT would also be regarded as a primary stronghold for the US invasion of China. Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen’s administration would be defined as a traitorous group.

That being said, from a strategic perspective, the AIT would become the most insecure place in Taiwan and a blasting fuse for clashes.

The AIT has never been a real non-governmental institution. Many US people who stationed there are diplomats, intelligence staff, military officers and experts. The new AIT complex is larger and will play a more important role in a tough China strategy by the US. But there is still a difference between offending openly and not doing so.

The status of Taiwan and posture of China-US relations are not shaped by a few petty tricks.

This lecture about petty tricks comes from a Communist Chinese newspaper that puts the name of every Taiwanese government agency in quotation marks, such as the “Ministry of National Defense,” to imply they are all just make-believe ministries on an island that only pretends to be an independent state.

The American Institute in Taiwan sought to downplay controversy over the weekend by insisting that no major changes or provocative displays are planned for the new facility.

“As is the practice at AIT’s current location, a small number of American personnel detailed to AIT, along with a larger number of locally hired employees, will provide security for the new office building, in cooperation with local authorities,” an AIT spokeswoman said.

Taiwan News noted on Tuesday that this statement could be interpreted to mean U.S. military personnel in plain clothes have been protecting AIT facilities all along, which would displease Beijing but avoids the public display of sovereign respect that would enrage it.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also downplayed the suggestion that Taiwanese military police would be sent to America in a reciprocal gesture for the arrival of U.S. Marines at AIT, pointing out that Taiwan’s use of military police at facilities in the U.S. have nothing to do with symbolic reciprocal gestures. The MOFA noted Taiwan has employed private security personnel at its facilities in the U.S. since 2004.

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