If Tillerson remains as Sec.of State, Trump may be influenced in the wrong direction. Tillerson is an oil man, has many friendships among the Arab Oil Nations but he is also a very cautious man and events may outrun his own policies. Stay tuned.
As The Saudis transition to a semblance of democratic normalcy they will need to seek common ground with Israel. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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My old associate and former Director of Research at Burnham and Co., Wally Stern, was a very bright man and headed up the Hudson Institute at one time. Hudson is one of the brainiest and best of its kind.
This article confirms my own view that Trump is Churchillian but lacks the eloquence. (See 2 below.)
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I am leaving my position on the Skidaway Island Republican Club at the end of the year. My job has been to obtain speakers and I am glad to have been able to arrange the following to be guest speakers on President's Day : Kim Strassel, John Fund, Allen West, Bernie Marcus, John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams and on February 19, 2018, Amb. John Bolton.
I will stay active as a SIRC member and help in obtaining speakers but it is time to move on and allow others to bring their talents onboard
I am, however, in touch with two speakers and am trying to work out the economics, timing etc. If such can be arranged they would be part of our True Perspectives Meetings which are open to all and whose purpose is to inform.
One is Melanie Phillips, who I do not know but whose op eds I often publish. I have read several of her books. She is a very talented British author. She would be coming as part of a book tour talking about her newest book. (Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, author, and public commentator. She started on the left of the political spectrum, writing for The Guardian and New Statesman.
- June 4, 1951 (age 66), Hammersmith, London, England, UK
- British
- Joshua Rozenberg (m. 1974-present)
- The other potential speaker is a dear friend who has a book coming out in February. Avi spoke for me when I began The JEA Speaker Series which ran for 5 years and then Lynn put her foot down .
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Finally, the mass media and liberals were delirious when Trump was fighting with some of the Republican renegades and then Brazille came along and revealed how dysfunctional the Democrat Party was/is and broke to boot, and we hear very little from the lefties.
Liberals are a strange and hypo-critic crowd. They want illegals to enter the country and many support them even if they break our laws and commit heinous crimes. Yes, they enter as criminals because they come illegally and, in doing so, are breaking our laws. That makes them criminals no matter what their intent.
Then, when it comes to Americans wanting to defend themselves, liberals want to take away their fellow citizen's constitutional rights. Meanwhile, liberals are the ones doing so much of the random killing. They are either radicalized Islamists or insane nut cases like the Democrat who attacked the Congress persons playing baseball, the liberal who attacked Sen. Rand and the list is numerous of Democrat registrants out killing fellow citizens.
Every time a liberal kills a conservative, Democrats scream for gun control as if taking away guns would stop the perpetrators.
Politics attracts many strange characters. The ranks of both parties are full of them. Hypocrisy is not limited to liberals. Liberals just stick out more because they take holier than thou positions that are inconsistent with sound principles, sheer logic and common sense.. Most of their ideas are impractical and have proven to be so.
I give liberals credit for appearing to care but then the cover -ups like Harvey Weinstein occur and rip away their two faced masks. Hillary is the personification of what I am suggesting. Her book is a monument to self -aggrandizement.
There is a saying that 'some ideas are so stupid only liberals would embrace them.' I believe there is considerable merit in this statement because, with the passing of each day, they tend to prove this view to be credible.
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Dick
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1)
Iran and al-Qaeda: Best of Frenemies
The Obama administration's selective releases portrayed Tehran as an enemy of the extremists. There's more to it.
Trump linked Tehran to al-Qaeda. Was that just a convenient way to smear Iran?
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Last month President Donald Trump caused a minor stir in his speech on Iran policy by discussing that regime's connection to al-Qaeda. He said "Iranian proxies" provided training to al-Qaeda operatives involved in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He said Iran hosted high-level al-Qaeda operatives after the Sept. 11 attacks, including Osama bin Laden's son.
His critics pounced. Former Obama administration Middle East policy coordinator Philip Gordon wrote that the president "stretched the evidence" to portray Iran as a partner of al-Qaeda. Paul Pillar, the former senior intelligence analyst who signed off on the U.S. conclusions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction programs, dismissed Trump's claims as based on the fact that some al-Qaeda operatives resided in Iran under house arrest.
It turns out Trump was closer to the mark than his detractors. On Wednesday the CIA released hundreds of thousands of documents captured in the 2011 raid that killed bin Laden, al-Qaeda's founder.
Ryan Trapani, a spokesman for the CIA, told me Thursday: "Documents collected during the bin Laden raid, which have been declassified, indicate Iran and al-Qaeda have an agreement to not target each other. The documents indicate bin Laden referred to Iran as the 'main artery' for al-Qaeda to move funds, personnel and communications."
Some of this was known before. The U.S. government has sanctioned members of al-Qaeda's network in Iran going back to the Obama years. The State Department's annual reports on terrorism also touch on this.
Nonetheless, it's understandable why many observers would dismiss the notion of an Iran-al-Qaeda connection. Earlier releases of the bin Laden files under the Obama administration emphasized the Iran-al-Qaeda rivalry. All the while documents that showed cooperation remained classified.
Take for example the 2012 release, the first time the intelligence community declassified files captured in the 2011 raid on bin Laden's bunker in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Those documents publicized al-Qaeda's tense negotiations with Iran to return members of bin Laden's family, following al-Qaeda's taking an Iranian diplomat as hostage.
The new releases tell a more nuanced story. Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, the founders and editors of the Long War Journal, got early access to the latest bin Laden files this week. They say the latest information shows two wary rivals, willing to cooperate against America.
They focus on a 19-page document from a senior al-Qaeda operative that gives an early history of the relationship. It began on friendly terms in the late 1990s. They write that the author of the document, who is not named but appears to be well connected, "explains that Iran offered some 'Saudi brothers' in al-Qaeda 'everything they needed,' including 'money, arms' and 'training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.' Iranian intelligence facilitated the travel of some operatives with visas, while sheltering others."
Like most deals between thugs, the relationship at times soured. Al-Qaeda operatives for example wrote a letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, demanding he release members of their operatives' families. The Iranians too considered in 2003 a possible deal with the U.S., offering up some al-Qaeda operatives in exchange for members of the People's Mujahadin, an anti-Iranian group supported by the not-yet-deposed Iraqi tyrant, Saddam Hussein. Nothing ever came of the offer.
The 19-page document says that an al-Qaeda operative named Abu Hafs al-Mauritani negotiated the arrangement for some al-Qaeda operatives to enjoy safe haven in Iran after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of al-Qaeda's leadership fled to Pakistan, but bin Laden's and his deputy's wives and children went to Iran, along with a handful of others.
Initially the deal required Iran's al-Qaeda guests to keep a low profile. They did not keep their end of the bargain though, according to the document. The author says al-Qaeda's operatives began using cell phones, which the Iranian regime prohibited on the grounds that the U.S. would find out about it, according to a rough translation of the document shared with me by Joscelyn. "They began to buy cars and they began to move the way they like and gathering with people, and relationships with Sunnis in the city and other places," the 19-page document says.
Joscelyn told me this week that his journal, which is part of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, will be combing through the thousands of new documents and translating them. He said he would be looking for more on the relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda, along with more insights into al-Qaeda's relationship with Pakistan, the role bin Laden played in day-to-day operations and the history of his terror network.
For now the release of the files from the CIA is itself a victory for anyone who was frustrated by the slow pace of declassifications from the Obama administration. That would include Obama's Defense Intelligence Agency director, Michael Flynn, who became Trump's first national security adviser. He wrote in his book about the bin Laden documents and said there was ample evidence of al-Qaeda-Iranian cooperation against the U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has also pressed the government to declassify the documents, going so far as to require the document release in the bills that authorize spending for the intelligence agencies.
Current and former Trump administration officials tell me the declassification of the documents was a priority for the new president's team. The former senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, pressed the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify the bin Laden documents. He met with resistance because translations, vetting the documents and providing official analysis would sap resources from higher priorities, according to these current and former officials. In the end, the CIA released most of the documents on Wednesday without translations and analysis, in hard-to-download zip files.
In the coming days and weeks, outside analysts and experts will be able to see for themselves the extent of Iran's cooperation with al-Qaeda. What's already emerging though is a more complex relationship than ideologues on either side of this issue would care to admit. Al-Qaeda and Iran were not exactly allies. They were not enemies either.
1a)The Saudi Cauldron
Weekend events show the Middle East conflicts to come.
By The Editorial Board
Authoritarian governments tend to be most vulnerable when they are trying to change, so the weekend events in Saudi Arabia are worth watching for more than the usual royal family Kremlinology. They reflect the drive for Saudi reform and the contest between the Saudis and Iran for regional influence.
Saudi authorities made a wave of arrests Saturday, including members of the royal family and cabinet members. The targets include Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, a billionaire investor in Apple and Twitter and once a major investor in the Journal’s parent company,News Corp .
The arrests are being advertised as part of an anti-corruption campaign endorsed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to consolidate power as the heir apparent to his father, King Salman. The Crown Prince has been making enemies among royals no longer in favor and the arrests are a sign that he is brooking little dissent as he tries to reform the Kingdom’s economy and even some of its social mores. While the U.S. has a stake in the Kingdom’s successful evolution, the arrests are a sign that the transition will be rocky.
All the more so given that Iran will try to exploit any instability. That’s the message sent by the resignation of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri Saturday on a trip to Saudi Arabia. He said he feared an assassination plot and he blamed Iran for causing “devastation and chaos.” Iran and its Hezbollah militia in Lebanon blamed the Saudis and U.S., and the resignation ends the alliance between the Sunni Muslim Mr. Hariri and the Shiite Hezbollah. Israel welcomed the resignation, and one reading is that this will open the way for Israel or Saudi Arabia to attack Hezbollah to reduce its growing influence in Syria and the Levant.
Meanwhile, the Saudis shot down a missile aimed at Riyadh that was fired from Yemen by Houthi rebels allied with Iran. The missile launch shows the Houthis are far from defeated in their war with a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
Behind all this is the effort by Iran, backed by Russia, to exploit the opening created by the fall of Islamic State to dominate the region. Israel and Saudi Arabia can’t let that happen, and with the U.S. seemingly on the sidelines, expect more conflict to come.
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2) Trump Brings a New Seriousness With Him to Asia
At least when it comes to security policy, the president has his priorities straight.
By Kenneth R. Weinstein
Donald Trump’s 12-day trip to Asia—on Monday he will be in Japan, followed by stops in South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines—is the longest presidential visit to the region in a generation. That’s no accident: Although many in Washington see only Mr. Trump’s disruption, Asian leaders know his administration has brought a new seriousness and a nuanced agenda to Pacific policy.
The immediate problem is North Korea’s nuclear adventurism. The broader challenge is China’s growing power and ambition. The overarching goal is managing Asia policy in a way that enhances the security and prosperity of the U.S. and its allies.
The Trump administration begins with a hardheaded view of deterrence. Mr. Trump has rattled some Americans with his threat “to totally destroy North Korea” in “fire and fury” if it attacks the U.S. or an ally. But there is no ambiguity in the message this sends Kim Jong Un. To whatever extent North Korea can be deterred, Mr. Trump has done the job by laying down a clear marker of what war will cost Pyongyang: everything.
Previous presidents’ policies toward North Korea were naive in the extreme. Neither the Agreed Framework in 1994 nor the “six party talks” last decade prevented Pyongyang from getting nuclear weapons. Mr. Trump rightly believes rushing into new negotiations would further enable North Korean deception and stalling, while the regime would continue to develop a nuclear-armed missile capable of hitting the U.S. Negotiating holds the most promise when it is done from a position of American strength.
The White House rightly believes that the best chance of shifting Mr. Kim’s course is with pressure from the Chinese. Although Mr. Trump often invoked China as a nemesis during the presidential campaign, he has since dealt deftly, winning unexpected Chinese support for a Security Council resolution this past September imposing stiff sanctions on Pyongyang. Far from having a rancorous relationship, Mr. Trump has reached out regularly to President Xi Jinping.
Increased cooperation from Beijing isn’t the product of any newly benevolent view of America. On the contrary, pressure from the U.S. has helped to cause the turnaround. The Chinese have heard Mr. Trump’s sharp criticisms of their trade and currency policies. But despite his previous threats, the administration so far hasn’t labeled China a currency manipulator. “Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem?” Mr. Trump cagily tweeted in April. “We will see what happens!” When Mr. Trump stops in Beijing on Wednesday, expect blunt talk urging specific promises from China to further tighten the screws on North Korea.
Beyond cooperation on North Korea, the White House sees the longer-term challenge posed by China’s rise. Here the key is America’s alliances in the Pacific—another central element of the presidential tour. Mr. Trump’s closest friendship with any foreign leader is the one he has quietly cultivated with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two speak almost weekly. Mr. Trump has made clear that a strong Japan improves regional stability, and Mr. Abe continues to increase military spending significantly.
Mr. Trump’s personal relations with South Korea’s recently elected left-wing president, Moon Jae-in, have been far rockier. Mr. Moon’s preference for dealing with Pyongyang is dialogue. But he has overridden—however reluctantly—the wishes of his political base to say that the U.S. remains central to South Korea’s security. Mr. Moon understands that extends well beyond threats from its immediate neighbor.
Vietnam wants assurances from Mr. Trump that the U.S. will not tolerate Chinese hegemony in the South China Sea. The increased tempo of American patrols through those waters has not gone unappreciated in Hanoi. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte appears to respect Mr. Trump, in contrast to his disparagement of President Obama.
Both countries, though, pose problems: Vietnam remains under the unflinching control of its Communist Party, and Mr. Duterte has earned condemnation for his government’s extrajudicial killing of drug traffickers. Mr. Trump should speak up on these matters but probably won’t. Nevertheless, his administration is right in seeing Vietnam and the Philippines (a treaty ally) as essential to containing China.
The wild card on this trip is trade. To the disappointment of Japan and Vietnam especially, Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-nation trade deal negotiated under President Obama. Then in April he called the 2012 Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement “a horrible deal.” But at least when it comes to security policy, the president has his priorities straight.
Mr. Weinstein is president and CEO of the Hudson Institute
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3)Thou Shalt Innovate
How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World
Avi Jorisch
Thou
Shalt Innovate profiles wondrous Israeli innovations that are
collectively changing the lives of billions of people around the world and
explores why Israeli innovators of all faiths feel compelled to make the world
better. This is the story of how Israelis are helping to feed the hungry, cure
the sick, protect the defenseless, and make the desert bloom. Israel is playing
a disproportionate role in helping solve some of the world’s biggest challenges
by tapping into the nation’s soul: the spirit of tikkun olam –
the Jewish concept of repairing the world.
There is
no single narrative that fully describes the State of Israel. But there is also
no denying that Israel has extraordinary innovators who are bound together by
their desire to save lives and find higher purpose. Thou Shalt Innovate introduces
the reader to Israelis who exude light in the face of the darkness, people who
have chosen hope and healing over death and destruction. In a world that has
more than its share of darkness, these stories are rays of light.
Key Points
· Features
fifteen astonishing Israeli inventions that are changing the world, plus
Israel's top 50 innovations since the founding of the State.
· Examines
the driving force behind Israel’s outstanding contributions to technology,
science, agriculture, water management, and defense.
· Based on
extensive research and over one hundred personal interviews.
· Written
by a Middle East insider.
Avi
Jorisch is a seasoned entrepreneur and Middle East expert. He is a
Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and founder of IMS, a
merchant processing company that services clients nationwide. Mr. Jorisch is a
member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Entrepreneur’s Organization.
A thought leader in exploring global trends in the Arab world, radical Islam, counter-terrorism, and illicit finance, Mr. Jorisch served as a policy advisor
at the Treasury Department’s office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. He
holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Binghamton University and a master’s
degree in Islamic history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also
studied Arabic and Islamic philosophy at the American University in Cairo and
al-Azhar University, the preeminent institution of Sunni Islamic learning. His
articles have appeared in influential outlets including the New York
Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, and Al-Arabiya.net.
3a) Israel, Where the Baby Boom Lives On
Dear Reader,
There are many factors that contribute to the West's general economic malaise. The biggest and most intractable though is aging demographics. The cost of care for the elderly (especially health care) takes up an increasingly larger percentage of resources as the population ages.
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have grown to make up about half of the US federal budget. This is the only part of the federal budget, other than debt service, that is growing in proportion to the total.
At the same time, the number of people paying into the system is falling due to sub-replacement birthrates. There appears to be no viable political solution to this quandary.
It is difficult if not impossible to solve this problem by increasing taxes or cutting spending. Higher taxes take resources from the private sector, which slows economic growth in the long run. On the other hand, spending cuts prompt political outrage. As a result, the US and many other countries are engaging in deficit spending to fund rising age-related costs. But that resultant debt must be serviced, which reduces current and future spending. The result, once again, is political outrage.
While I'm doubtful that a political solution exists, I'm confident that there is an answer. It comes from biotech.
The cost of aging can be significantly reduced by emerging medical technologies. The balance between the old and the young can be restored by treating aging itself. Since most people are forced to retire for health reasons, people will choose to be productive longer as health spans are extended.
The stakes are enormous. The West is headed for a financial cliff caused by aging. There is one notable exception, however.
Here’s Why Israel Is Known As the Startup Nation
Israel has its share of problems, but population aging isn't one of them. This is a remarkably young and vibrant country. It is also a country focused on health and health care. I've read that Israel has more doctors per capita than any other nation. If it's not true, I'd be surprised.
I’m in Tel Aviv, Israel, at the moment. The reason is that I was invited to visit the world-renowned Weizmann Institute of Science. I was willing to travel halfway around the world to get additional sources of information about Israeli biotechnology.
For the most part, biotechnology is a North American game. Europe and Asia have some great scientists, but the leading research centers are concentrated on the coasts of the US. Nature has ranked the most important scientific groups based on their overall impact on the process of science. The Weizmann Institute is the only organization outside the New World that consistently ranks among the top.
In my lifetime, Israel has shifted from an agricultural to a tech economy. Orange groves have been replaced by research groups for many of the world's most important companies. It is symbolically appropriate that the Weizmann Institute is named for the country's first president, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a biologist himself. It says something about the values of a country that its first president was a scientist.
Though its population is less than 9 million, Israel is a powerhouse of science and technology today. Called the “startup nation,” Israel lags behind only the US and China in numbers of newly established companies. Similarly, it ranks number three in hosting the largest NASDAQ-listed companies.
So I’m not here for tourism. If there's a gene allele for enjoying exotic faraway locations, I don't have it. Travel interferes with my workouts, and I hate airports. Nevertheless, I will travel to meet the right people, and there are people here I want to know.
Israel has important scientists, but the country's demographics are also important. Its fertility rate of more than 3 children per woman makes it the single most notable exception to the rule of the demographic transition.
That rule is simple. Birthrates fall as populations live longer and grow wealthier. The US, Canada, Europe, and Scandinavia all have birthrates below 2.1 children per woman, which is below replacement rate. So the developed world is depopulating. Japan and Singapore are now shrinking by half per generation.
Israel, on the other hand, is growing by half per generation. This holds across Israeli society, regardless of ethnicity, religious conviction, or lack thereof. You can see it in the baby carriages on the sidewalks of Jerusalem and the teeming nightclubs of Tel Aviv.
As a result, the percentage of young workers to older retirees is high in Israel. The burden of the aged is borne by a growing number of younger workers, so capital is available for other uses, including research, innovation, and startups.
In fact, Israel’s economy has outperformed most of the world for the last five years. GDP growth last year was 4% despite serious over-regulation. Israel has the talent, energy, and desire to play a key role in the war on aging.
Already, I've met people working on the bleeding edge of quantum computing, computational biology, and synthetic biology. In this column, I'm not going to go into any detail on any of these fields. But I promise that I'll have much more to report from Israel in the future.
One breakthrough that I do want to tell you about involves a company that appears to have the ability to cure most forms of blindness. But I'll save that for another time.
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