Nice Work If You Can Get It

Sure, this would be a great solution:

"One Country, Two Systems." This ostensibly continues to be the semi-official motto of Hong Kong. At the British hand-over to China in 1997, the hope for the West was that China would gradually become more like British-lead Hong Kong. Today in 2019, the reality for Hong Kong, by force from Beijing if necessary, is to become more like an increasingly autocratic China. The goal of U.S. national security strategy should be to flip this narrative.

So I guess the only hitch in that solution is getting China's brutal communist rulers to go along with it.

Still, for Taiwan which otherwise might need nukes at one point to deter a Chinese invasion, flipping the narrative might be the only option Taiwan has in the long run to avoid being conquered and absorbed by a communist dictatorship.

And Hong Kong, too, might find that its only salvation.

To speak nothing of the large Chinese population. They are no doubt grateful for the vast improvement in standards of living. But eventually that will wear off as memories of dirt poverty wear off, perhaps among their children who never knew that poverty. Then desires for more freedom might grow.

Perhaps Taiwan and Hong Kong democracy advocates should get together on that League of Democracies that I suggested.

Also, that initial article says China is going to surpass America's economy. Maybe. Maybe not. And if so maybe not for long.

UPDATE: China's communist tyranny continues to try to discredit the protesters:

In mid-August 2019 Twitter and Facebook announced that they had shut down hundreds of accounts that were being used by China to spread false and disparaging news about the millions of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. ... This effort to find and cripple the Chinese Information War operation on Twitter and Facebook confirmed earlier estimates that about half a million Chinese were working for this Information War operation. The Chinese effort was not just directed against the Hong Kong protestors but also sought to boost China’s image among the worldwide Chinese speaking social media users.

Don't fall for Chinese misinformation efforts.

What Does It Take to Admit Iran Wages War on the West?

While I don't think we need to take a direct role in any Saudi retaliation for Iran's big strike on Saudi oil export capacity, knowing our options is a good thing and lets Iran know that their further escalation by them will bring in the big guns.

This is prudent:

In a White House meeting, the president will be presented with a list of potential airstrike targets inside Iran, among other possible responses, and he also will be warned that military action against the Islamic Republic could escalate into war, according to U.S. officials familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Iran says any retaliation will spark all-out war but they know that would be really bad for Iran. They want the freedom to strike at will and face no consequences.

But again, I think the Saudis are fully capable of hitting Iran. The Saudis may need to shift forces from Yemen to do it, but the Saudis are fully capable of waging an air and naval campaign against the Iranians.

The Saudis would need our logistics and intelligence support plus perhaps air defense help with assets in the region--and an offensive back up in case Iran does some more real damage--but odds are we don't need to pull any triggers in this.

But we should help. We don't import oil from the region but the rest of the world does and our economy needs the rest of the world to be healthy trading partners. What happens there happens to America, too, even now.

Meanwhile, after our enemy Iran conducts an act of war against our ally Saudi Arabia (and yes, they are our ally as problematic as they are--they are at least the enemy of our enemy and they do seem to be getting better slooowly), our Congress continues to be unable to pour water out of a boot when the instructions are written on the heel. There are arguments against a unilateral strike, arguments against helping the Saudis, and arguments for restoring the horrible Iran nuclear deal as if it actually slowed Iran's drive for nukes.

And Tulsi Gabbard's comments disgusted me when I made the mistake of leaving news on too long to hear her shameful and wrong remarks about the crisis. She should know better. If she doesn't she's an idiot.

Iran is waging war across the Middle East and beyond. And they want nukes. Yet even with Iran's strike on the Saudis, people want to make excuses for mullah-run Iran.

Still our Congress is influenced by Iranian propaganda? After everything we've endured from the mullahs from the hostage crisis to killing hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, to lying about the nuclear program, to plotting to bomb a restaurant in Washington, D.C., to taking American sailors hostage, to knocking out half of Saudi Arabia's oil export capacity, there are Americans who still want to make excuses for Iran's rulers?

I did warn that economic sanctions effective enough can lead the target to resort to military action. And so I say to our military in CENTCOM again, check ammo and double the watch.

Iran is at war with us. One day they'll do something that even our Congress can't ignore.

UPDATE: Trump has increased sanctions on Iran. Which seems appropriate given that this is our strongest weapon to use against the mullahs:

Speaking in the Oval Office Friday during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Trump said: "We have just sanctioned the Iranian national bank."

But what's up with this?

Iran denies being involved in the attack. The attacks and recriminations are increasing fears of an escalation in the region.

The attacks by Iran and the discussion of Iran's responsibilities are increasing fears of escalation?

Iran's attack that knocked out (temporarily) half of Saudi Arabia's oil export capacity is the damn escalation! Doesn't anyone notice that?

I feel like I'm on crazy pills.



UPDATE: We will help fill gaps in Saudi and UAE air defenses. After noting recent Iranian aggression, our DOD stated:

In response to [Saudi Arabia's] request, the president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces, which will be defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense. We will also work to accelerate the delivery of military equipment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to enhance their ability to defend themselves.

This will involve additional US forces--in the hundreds range rather than thousands. Which may telegraph that any offensive operations in retaliation will await their deployment.

The Iranians seem to be making a classic mistake by threatening to attack anybody involved:

Any country that attacks Iran will become the "main battlefield", the Revolutionary Guards warned Saturday after Washington ordered reinforcements to the Gulf following attacks on Saudi oil installations it blames on Tehran.

Their definition of "attacks" may be overly broad if the Iranian statement is in reaction to our defensive deployment announcement.

Which is the classic Sicilian Expedition mistake of neglecting to focus on the immediate enemy and instead attacking friends of your enemy to make those friends of your enemy an ally of your enemy.

Iran is pretty weak. They can't match their boasts and know if they provoke a full conflict they will feel it pretty badly.

UPDATE: Chutzpah in action:

President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday denounced the presence of foreign forces in the Gulf and said Iran will put forward a peace plan, after arch-foe the United States ordered reinforcements to the tinderbox region.

"Foreign forces can cause problems and insecurity for our people and for our region," Rouhani said before a massive military parade marking the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran just attacked Saudi Arabia's oil export industry. But other people are at fault for tensions?

Unless that peace plan consists of Iran halting its military actions in that tinderbox region, I don't know what good it will be.

UPDATE: Speaking of Iran--Patriots to the Gulf.

Just Following Programming

Are robots the ultimate loyal minions able to follow a tyrant's orders to kill civilians without hesitation?

But imagine what might have occurred had those soldiers been not human beings but robots, lacking in any sympathy or humanity, ready, willing, and able to reliably massacre anyone the authorities chose to be their targets.

This is the threat posed by the emerging technology known as “autonomous weapons.”

I did note this in regard to "tank man" at Tiananmen Square:

No doubt the Chinese have made more progress given that armed UGVs would have made this encounter end far more quickly and differently[.]

Of course, the rebellious civilians will have robots, too. And guns and IEDs. With less resistance to destroying robots than killing police and soldiers.

And can the tyrants count on the programmers or maintainers of or factory staff who make the robots being loyal?

And will the rest of the people accept the deaths of fellow citizens/subjects at the "hands" of robots?

Further, will foreign powers operating on responsibility to protect (R2P) be able to send in their own robots--even "little green robots" with no admitted ownership--to fight the tyrant's robots?

Robots are a danger to civilians. But I think it is way more complicated than remorseless terminator killing machines doing the bidding of absolute tyrants.

Mullahs Want Nukes

Netanyahu continues to expose Iran's fraudulent claim that they've never had a nuclear weapons program. Does it matter?

This is good to know:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week offered fresh reason why the Iran nuclear deal was never good enough — namely, new proof that Tehran has been cheating on its nuclear promises for years.

Specifically, Bibi revealed the existence of a secret nuke-research site that Iran never revealed, even after it promised to suspend its nuclear program in the 2015 accord.

The photos show major activity at the site in the early 2000s — and then, more recently, the same cluster of buildings reduced to rubble. “This is the site after they understood that we were on to them,” Netanyahu explained.

His effort is being tarred by the usual suspects as just a campaign effort. One, that seems relevant for Israeli voters to know. And two, so what? Is he right or is he wrong on the charge? That's what is relevant for us, no?

The question is did the Iranians destroyed that facility because they ended the line of inquiry or because they moved it elsewhere? The way the 2015 nuclear deal limits where (and how, and when) the IAEA can inspect, I suspect the latter is almost surely the explanation. But at least it is a real question (and you could even ask whether the facility was actually a nuclear facility rather than an obsolete widget factory).

Simply dismissing such a question about Iran's motivations because Netanyahu is in a reelection campaign is ridiculous.

What Netanyahu has done is expose the utter fallacy of the Obama administration's basic view of what an Iran nuclear deal would look like:

Well of course a deal is possible! Duh. All Iran has to do is pretend to end their drive for nuclear weapons and all we have to do is pretend to believe Iran. Simple, no?

I have no doubt that this administration and our Western allies would be willing to pretend to believe an Iranian false promise to halt nuclear weapon work. Let the next governments worry about the future while they bask in the glory of a deal that promises peace for our time.

Actually, I underestimated the level of pretending that would happen. Iran pretended they never had a nuclear program and we pretended that was just fine to believe.

Trump ended the Iran nuclear deal. Good. But Iran, the Europeans, and the Obama alumni are trying to save it. And I don't think Netanyahu could say anything to pierce that shield of pretending that allowed the deal.

And honestly, I worry that Trump will sign a rebranded Iran deal that continues the pretending. Despite the revelations that Iran pretended they didn't have a nuclear weapons program.

Have a super sparkly day.

UPDATE: And given that Iran carried out an act of war with that attack on Saudi oil production, pray tell what will they be willing to do when they have the shield of nuclear weapons that they might believe protects them from any consequences?

Dressing Up Defeat as a Strategy

Nigeria's military not so long ago seemed to have beaten down the Boko Haram threat in the north. Now Nigeria is losing.

This is not good. Not good at all:

Nigerian soldiers had left the town earlier that month under a new strategy of withdrawing to “super camps” that can be more easily defended against insurgents the army has been struggling to contain for a decade.

That withdrawal into large bases is by definition going to leave areas outside the big bases open to enemy operations:

The army’s withdrawal into large bases has coincided with a string of insurgent raids on newly unprotected towns and has left the militants free to set up checkpoints on roads as they roam more freely across the countryside, according to three briefing notes from an international aid and development organization, two security officials and residents.

And this is just wishful thinking:

The new military strategy announced by President Muhammadu Buhari in July to concentrate soldiers in big bases is designed to give troops a secure platform from which they can respond quickly to threats in the region and raid militant camps.

Without the hope of friendly eyes and ears outside the bases--because the government has abandoned those people to the tender mercies of the jihadis--forays into the countryside or urban areas will just be blind lunges that wreck things as the jihadis harass and avoid decisive contact.

In theory, having secure bases is a good first step to spreading out from those bases in order to control more people. You either protect your civilian allies from the enemy or you prevent your civilian foes from helping your enemy.

Pulling back to bases as described is just abandoning the people in the countryside and urban areas away from bases. This is a way to lose the war, as I warned against doing in Afghanistan:

If--and it is a big if--Afghan forces truly are contracting their area of control in order to move on the offensive, this is good.

Otherwise, the Afghan security forces are simply abandoning the countryside and allowing the Taliban to eventually put the urban areas under siege, perhaps reliant on aerial resupply or heavily guarded ground convoys to sustain their resistance. If that happens and Afghan security forces collapse even for a moment under constant Taliban attacks as the security forces hunker down and just take attack after attack with no end in sight, there will be no place to withdraw to and we will have a massacre of Afghan security forces and a Taliban victory that might shake the foundation of the Afghan security forces in general.

Nigeria's strategy will end the ability to atomize the jihadis and allow the jihadis to step up the insurgency ladder to build larger forces--which makes it even harder to control territory and people because the Nigerian military will be less able to spread troops out in smaller units to do that. Because those small units will be wiped out.

This has happened before.

This is bad. And Boko Haram will gain strength until the Nigerians change their strategy.

Asymmetric Warfare

Iran continues to be aggressive, and Trump will respond to Iran's kinetic aggression against our allies.

Trump is using our best weapon against Iran's aggression:

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is hitting Iran with new economic sanctions over an attack on Saudi Arabia oil facilities.

"I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!" Trump tweeted.

Good. I'm not in the camp that says responding to enemy attacks with our own military action is exactly what an enemy wants. I've always said that ineffective military responses are what our enemies want. That rallies allies. Al Qaeda did not expect the ass-kicking we inflicted on them after 9/11. That response kills allies and can discourage them if done energetically enough for long enough.

Sadly, as my initial post links shows, our Congress won't allow us to use effective military power against Iran.

On the other hand, that Congressional opposition may be moot. After some pondering after Iran shot down an American drone, I believe our economic measures are the most effective weapon we have against Iran's mullahs at this point. So let's continue with this weapon.

Iran's kinetics likely mean that our economic warfare is as effective as kinetics for their harm inflicted on Iran, so Iran might as well use force in response. We need to watch out for Iran really upping their military options as our economic warfare escalates.

If the Saudis want to hit Iran directly over this very serious attack, they can do something. And America should back them. The Saudis are justified in retaliating. I'd suggest bombing Kharg Island oil export facilities as an option.

UPDATE: Although the Saudis might want to close gaps in their missile defenses before replying in kind.

UPDATE: From Geopolitical Futures, America's military options are problematic because none can really be decisive and basically rely on Iran agreeing to end hostilities when we finish with our military operations. Or they count on Iran not striking a blow that gets through our defenses, such as in a long blockade.

Remember, the Tanker War in the late 1980s was ended when Iran essentially broke in the Iran-Iraq War and agreed to a ceasefire with Iraq. Our operation leading Western navies was not done in isolation.

So George Friedman has good points. Which is one reason why Saudi Arabia should be the one retaliating. The act of war was against them--not America.

We should definitely help the Saudis. But the Saudis should do the deed. A sizable strike on Kharg Island would probably be the best bet. The question is whether strikes on Iranian anti-aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles need to be added to the primary targets.

UPDATE: Huh:

Air raid sirens were tested across the Saudi Arabian capital on Thursday as the country prepared for a possible escalation with Iran after a weekend attack on its oil fields raised the stakes in the conflict.

You almost have to admire the chutzpah of the Iranians:

Iran’s foreign minister warned that any U.S. or Saudi strike on his country in response to the attacks on the kingdom’s critical oil facilities would lead to “all-out war.”

So Iran would like the freedom to strike Saudi Arabia without any kinetic response. Well there you go. That certainly would be nice from Iran's point of view.

Good Practice

The Navy is sending the escorts for the carrier Truman to sea without the carrier. That's good practice for losing a carrier, I say.

This is supposed to be a bad thing, I guess:

Surface escorts from the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group left their homeports today to kick off an overseas deployment.

Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) did not.

After the carrier was sidelined at the end of August with a malfunction in the ship’s electrical distribution system, engineers continue to assess the problem. “The aircraft carrier’s repairs are progressing, and all efforts are being made to deploy the carrier and air wing as soon as possible,” according to a Navy statement to USNI News.

The timeline for diagnosing the problem and fixing it remains unclear.

In the meantime, the surface ships in the strike group are forming their own surface action group and deploying with neither the carrier nor the air wing.

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Lassen (DDG-82) and USS Farragut (DDG-99) departed Mayport, Fla., today, and will be joined by Norfolk-based USS Forrest Sherman (DDG-98) and Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60) in the coming days.

Good. I assume an attack submarine is part of the SAG because it would normally be part of a carrier strike group. This deployment will be excellent practice for how to fight if the carrier is sunk or mission-killed.

Indeed, I think we should practice how to fight with a "kill web" without the carriers by design.

And while I'm at it, why not send the carrier air wing overseas to operate from a land base? Could the air wing support crew do their jobs on land with equipment that replaces what is built into the carrier? Truman is sidelined and not her air wing, right?

I'd rather practice a fighting SAG now with a carrier malfunction than have to learn during a war while leaving a burning hulk of a super carrier behind as the rest of the strike group continues the fight.

From Smart Diplomacy to Brilliant Diplomacy?

Congress will use the Saudi-UAE split as an excuse to try to end our help to the anti-Iran side in the Yemen civil war:

The rapidly escalating fight between Yemen’s Saudi-supported government and the United Arab Emirates-backed southern separatists has renewed Congress’ determination to buck President Donald Trump and pull the United States out of the war.

This is simply falling for Iran's propaganda effort to give Iran a victory in a war they are slowly losing.

What is the problem. We keep saying we want our allies to pull their weight in the fight against our enemies! In Yemen we have our allies pulling their weight to fight our common enemy Iran which seeks to leverage their help to the Houthi rebels into a new vassal state in service of Iran.

Yet Congress wants to end our help to that effort:



We don't want Iran dug in at the southern end of the Red Sea. Or is this kind of launching pad funded and directed by Iran just fine with you?

Drones claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco early Saturday, sparking a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies.

While the small drones didn't do lasting damage, it was quite broad (tip to Instapundit):

Coordinated drone strikes on the heart of the Saudi oil industry forced the kingdom to shut down half its crude production on Saturday, people familiar with the matter said, potentially roiling petroleum prices and demonstrating the power of Iran’s proxies.

The Saudis hoped to be fully on line by Monday. What if larger weapons had been used?

You have to admit that destroying the oil production reduces Iran's need to interdict the exports.

But no, Orange Man Bad so Congress should stop Trump. Is it any wonder the mullah nutjobs think Allah is on their side?

Trump at least knows who is behind this:

A top White House official is downplaying the threat of imminent action against Iran after President Donald Trump said the U.S. is "locked and loaded" following a drone attack on Saudi Arabia that cut into global energy supplies.

And of course we are "locked and loaded" all the time in that dangerous region. Stop the frantic objections to what we say. You yawn at "Death to America" so why get frantic if we state the obvious? I'd sack commanders who aren't figuratively if not literally locked and loaded and risk getting hit first.

One wonders what Iran has to do to convince Congress and our media that Iran is the problem.

UPDATE: The damage is greater than I thought:

Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Tuesday that more than half of its daily crude oil production that was knocked out by a weekend attack had been restored and that full production is expected by the end of the month.

But then again the strike was bigger than I thought--and quite possibly a direct Iranian act of war against Saudi Arabia:

The United States believes the attacks that crippled Saudi Arabian oil facilities last weekend originated in southwestern Iran, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, giving an assessment that further increases tension in the Middle East.

Three officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the attacks involved both cruise missiles and drones, indicating that they involved a higher degree of complexity and sophistication than initially thought.

While America should support the Saudis with intelligence and logistics, the Saudis are fully capable of blowing of Iranian things.

UPDATE: And can you imagine the impact of taking half of Saudi Arabia's oil production offline before the fracking boom?

UPDATE: Earlier drone attacks look like practice for the latest missile/drone attack.

UPDATE: While America should certainly intensify the fight against Iran after the Iran-backed (if not an actual Iranian) strike on Saudi oil facilities a week ago (and were they missiles and not drones?), I don't think America needs to strike back. Or should.

This was a Saudi facility and Saudi Arabia is fully capable of launching a military retaliation if the two of us think that would be better than tightening the economic screws even more using the strike on the Saudis as diplomatic leverage.

And then maybe our Congress would get a clue about who our ally in the Gulf is and is not.

All Unquiet on the More Western Front

Will Israel go to war with Hezbollah to disarm it of precision rockets and missiles?

In early September, Israel’s military shelled a series of Hezbollah factories and installations in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The strikes represented the most significant Israeli operation against the terrorist group since the 2006 Lebanon War. It also marked the start of what could well become another military conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shia militia. ...

[Notwithstanding the Israeli strike campaign against Iran in Syria], in recent weeks, the Israeli-Iranian front has shifted further west to Lebanon. There, Israeli experts say, Iran is assisting Hezbollah with what amounts to a major industrial project designed to improve the accuracy and precision of its extensive arsenal of short-range missiles and rockets. In turn, this “precision project” represents a grave threat to Israeli security, because it has the potential to qualitatively alter the missile threat facing the Jewish state.

Well, I've long thought (at least 9 years now) Israel would go to war with Hezbollah over masses of unguided rockets.

As I've noted, Israel's Iron Dome defenses can be overwhelmed by massed unguided rocket attacks and the defensive system can run out of anti-missiles long before Hezbollah runs out of rockets. The quoted article above doesn't appreciate the ability of mass "dumb" rockets to overwhelm Israel's defenses. But it is right that precision missiles are a whole new level of threat.

Which is why I've assumed that war would essentially be a giant Israeli ground raid deep into Lebanon to rip apart Hezbollah and its infrastructure.

I've been wrong a long time connecting dots on that issue.

And there is this:

The United States navy destroyer USS Ramage docked briefly in Lebanon, the US embassy in Beirut said on Sunday, amid heightened regional tensions.

The Arleigh-Burke-class vessel, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, stopped Saturday for a "one-day goodwill visit on the sidelines of its participation in ongoing efforts to ensure freedom of navigation and free-flow commerce in the eastern Mediterranean", a statement from the US embassy said.

Ramage could conceivably stand off shore and help intercept Hezbollah long-range missiles in case of war. Just saying.

More broadly I hope this visit could be a dot signalling that the Lebanese military will stay out of the way of a Israel-Hezbollah war that takes place on nominally Lebanese territory--and that Israel won't deliberately try to punish Lebanon for being unable to control Hezbollah.

Will the addition of precision weapons in Hezbollah's terror arsenal raise the incentive for Israel to really tear apart Hezbollah while Syria and Iran are too weak to stop Israel? I think so.

But I've been wrong a long time. All I'll say now is that it makes sense for Israel to go in on the ground to tear up Hezbollah.

UPDATE: Electoral paralysis may freeze the possibility of any military action until the leadership issue is decided:

In an apparent setback for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, exit polls show the Israeli leader has fallen short of securing a parliamentary majority with his hard-line allies.

Who knows when this will be resolved.

Oops, We Did It Again

Obviously, a prop-driven simple close air support plane (A-29 and AT-6) can't operate in a high-threat environment. They are meant to operate against insurgents and terrorists. So come on Air Force.

This is not shocking:

U.S. Air Force’s slow fielding of propeller-driven attack planes to support ground troops, one lawmaker raised the possibility of putting the project under Army control.

“My frustration is almost palpable at why it is taking so long to get this platform out to where the warfighters need it,” Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., said Wednesday at a Mitchell Institute event.

The House has already given U.S. Special Operations Command the authority — if not yet the appropriations — to buy such planes. But Waltz said the need is so great that perhaps the Army should also be given such authority.

Over the past 12 years, the Air Force has waffled about whether it wants propeller-driven planes.

My view is that the Air Force only wanted those cheaper prop planes as long as it thought it could pretend to want them as a replacement for the A-10.

But the Air Force was forced to keep the A-10.

And now the Air Force has to figure out how to get rid of a second dedicated close air support plane after talking it up as a cost effective solution to get rid of the A-10.

Weekend Data Dump

Algerian protesters continue to come out. So far the corrupt ruling elite looks like it will engineer an Egypt outcome of another dictator, but without the interim Islamist ruler that Egypt suffered under. The Arab Spring does not look like it will revive in Algeria. To add to the problems, the Polisario rebels that Algeria long sponsored to battle Morocco seem to be leaning toward jihadi views as they continue to lose against Morocco. Ask Assad how supporting jihadis against your foreign enemies works out when the foreign enemy defeats them.

Explain to me how making it more difficult for law-abiding people to own guns has any effect on this killer and the people who did nothing to stop him? Tip to Instapundit.

Because I can I'll link my Downfall parody about Hitler discovering Pelosi won't impeach Trump.

Please, it is easy to explain why the IAEA found uranium traces at that secret nuclear warehouse that Israel revealed. The horrible Iran nuclear deal that allowed Iran to continue nuclear weapon work subcontracted enforcement to the IAEA which was only allowed to inspect places that Iran allowed to be inspected, in a manner that Iran approved of. The real question is why on Earth did Iran allow the IAEA in that warehouse? Somebody has some 'splaining to do to the nutball mullahs who run Iran.

The A-10 is getting upgrades to keep it flying and allow it to strike from stand-off ranges (tip to Instapundit). Like I've said, the Air Force has a point when it says that the 1970s-era A-10 has a whole new problem with modern low-level air defense systems. But the answer isn't to disband the only aircraft squadrons dedicated to close air support for ground troops, as the Air Force long wanted to do with its A-10 squadrons. The plane won't be stealthy, but it will be safer in a high-intensity battle while retaining the low-level capabilities that ground forces learned to love. Perhaps in an enemy breakthrough, in a friendly pursuit, or in a meeting engagement when enemy air defenses aren't set the plane can wreak havoc with the gun the plane is built around.

You know, there's a lot of time to choose between staying in Afghanistan "forever" and leaving soon. Further, "staying" even a long time doesn't mean the troops will always be fighting. See Japan, Germany, Italy, and South Korea. Silly me, I think it is our interests to prevent Afghanistan from being a sanctuary for jihadis to strike us at home--again. Of course, if you think (via Instapundit) we spent the 18 years since 9/11 creating the most effective security shield for our airports, by all means it is safe to leave Afghanistan and risk letting it return to a Taliban-run sanctuary for international jihadis.

All is not quiet on the Southern Front in Syria. Note too that Iran is on its way to replacing its Shia foreign legion and Hezbollah with local surrogates to entrench their presence in Syria. Assad can't be happy with that aspect of his victory.

China says America is to blame for the "tensions" over Iran's nuclear program. Well, China is right. We don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon program, which Iran obviously has. China doesn't want tensions that get in the way of trade and knows they won't be on any mullah target list.

Saudi Arabia wants to enrich uranium for nuclear power purposes. Just like Iran. Hahahahahahahaha! Oh. I think I peed my pants laughing so hard. Hey, if Iran can pretend to have a peaceful nuclear program, we can expect Iran's enemies to pretend, too. Are we having fun yet? Do Obama's supporters still want to pretend that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is working any better than the 2013 Syria chemical weapons deal? Sorry, I'm all out of laughter. Have a super sparkly nuclear proliferation in the Middle East day.

I don't really have anything to say about this article on possible revised Russian military doctrine, but the idea that Russia is a "rising power" is laughable. Right now it is experiencing a "dead cat bounce." Russia will be a regional power in regard to strength, but with continents-spanning defense needs that far outstrip their ability to generate conventional power. Good luck with that while pointlessly painting NATO as a threat--which with Poland now a major anchor of NATO in the east means that Poland is still one of the three sources of Russian weakness.

Yes, once again, Prime Minister Johnson is trying to save democracy in Britain--not undermine it--by making the British government carry out the promise made to the people of Britain that it would faithfully carry out the wishes of the British people voting in the 2016 Brexit referendum.And if leaving the European Union is such a horrible mistake as the Remainers claim, surely the obviously bad results will lead the British people in not too many years to clamor for re-entry into the organization notwithstanding its proto-imperial nature. Are Remainers actually convinced leaving the EU will not harm Britain? Or that Europe will not want Britain back after the EU put obstacle after obstacle in the way of Britain leaving?

So Hong Kong police have adopted the practice of tossing a (tear gas) grenade into a room street before entering it just to be sure. Tip to Instapundit.

I just finished reading Andrew McCarthy's Ball of Collusion. If he is even partly right about the assault on rule of law and democracy that Democrats and their allies in the government carried out to investigate Trump, a lot of those Democrats and allies need to go to prison. And the media that peddled the fiction should be shunned by anyone that values journalism as a news profession rather than the stenographers for one party.

I have no idea why I got a lot of hits on this post. It is the top result for the title but why is anyone searching that? There's a not-funny meme that is very close, but are people really interested in that?

Dumb and Dumber To. Maddow's sequel to Russia collusion is stunning.

Good Lord, Trump is praying that Biden wins the Democratic nomination. The only collusion necessary is to get the media to actually cover what Biden says. Tip to Instapundit.

Okay, The Resistance has just reached the really sad stage. Via Instapundit.

I guess Mattis doesn't get invited on MSNBC again. Via Vodkapundit.

Remember, modern feminism has nothing to do with equality with men. Feminism is the women's auxiliary of the Democratic Party.

It's been quiet on the Venezuela front. Are we closer to getting Maduro out than it seems? Apparently his backers in Russia, China, and Turkey only care if their business interests survive--with or without Maduro.

I'd have preferred to keep Bolton in as National Security Advisor. What's up with his removal? I'm going to enjoy the sight of media types who were horrified that Bolton was appointed suddenly being horrified that he was removed. Kind of like Tillerson's sudden transformation. Is it really about getting a deal with the Iranian nutballs? Trump tried a few months of "maximum pressure" and wants to declare victory?

In many ways, our trade war isn't even really about reforming trade rules with China. It is more like our response to China's extremely broad intelligence assault on America intended to fuel China's rise to dominance.

Mattis says we should offer at least moral support to Hong Kong's protesters. Yes. America should not want China to win this struggle in defense of Hong Kong's remaining freedoms. We aren't going to go to war with China over Hong Kong. But we should offer help. China will accuse us if sponsoring the protests whether we do anything or not. So as long as Hong Kongers want our help, we should offer it. If the protesters lose, it is the end of Hong Kong as we know it.

North Korea's quest for an American "security guarantee" is kind of silly given that North Korea already guarantees we don't want to invade and take North Korea:

The idea that North Korea needs nuclear weapons to prevent anyone from invading that impoverished Hellish black hole of northeast Asia is stunning in its stupidity.

I keep waiting for the end of Net Neutrality to lead to the death of the Internet. That was something to hyperventilate about, remember?

Thailand has been an ally since the end of World War II. But I am not happy with the royalists who suppress democracy and rule of law. I just hope Thais resolve that without throwing the country into chaos to benefit China.

It's getting to be quite the competition for getting into space. This is more like the 21st century I hoped for as a child watching 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Is Putin's "star fading?" Popularity may be fading but will it affect his ability to rule? This suggests he'll do what he needs to stay in power. And would a replacement at this stage be better or worse? It would be nice if Russia came to its senses and stopped its pointless hostility toward NATO, which is no military threat. Right now I just want Russia to be weaker.

If I was Rachel Dolezal, I'd be massively pissed. The left was outraged that she pretended to be African American. But now their rules say: “Genitalia is not an indicator of gender and it can be harmful to assume so.”  So someone with a penis can say they are a woman and the world has to salute and say "Yes ma'am!" You can--and should--have respect and sympathy for someone as an individual who is in that situation. But we shouldn't have to pretend nonsense is true. Tip to Instapundit.

I've said I have little faith in Trump's ability to get a good nuclear deal with North Korea. Despite growing discontent in Kim's kingdom, North Korea has no intention of giving up their nukes and is counting on a better partner in 2021. If Trump wins reelection, perhaps Kim will reconsider his ability to last four more years. North Korea is drawing down their war-reserve rice stocks. How long can that continue?

What is it with Democratic enthusiasm for funneling money to anti-American despots? With bonus mention of how Russia tried to get American troops killed, as I noted here.

An Army MLRS brigade has arrived in Europe.

If Erdogan doesn't want nukes, as the article authors says, why would Erdogan complain bitterly about the Non-Proliferation Treaty? What really bugs me is that America still has some nuclear weapons (gravity bombs) in Turkey. We should absolutely remove those bombs (or at least the warheads just to pretend we keep them there).

The United States approved the sale of up to 32 F-35As to Poland.

Bringing back the IFF cards. I remember those.  I was good with those on NATO and Soviet armored vehicles. I always enjoyed, replying "That depends" when shown a picture of a French tank.

Pro-government intervention people say success after laws are approved proves government regulations make things better. My view is that a lot (not all) of legislation that passes is because society has reached the point of supporting the change and that the legislation merely puts a government stamp of approval on changes in practice that would happen with or without legislation.

If right-wingers were really the major terror threat to America, the left would be bleating about "why do they hate us?" as if we deserved the anger.

I've known that the fighters tasked with knocking down the hijacked planes on 9/11 were unarmed for a long time--since the beginning?--so I don't know why this "news" about 9/11 is a new "bombshell."

Jihadis are still moving from Syria to Iraq, and we bombed a way station on an Iraqi Tigris River island.

I don't know what to make of this description of the Chinese threat, but present it for your interest.

Since Blogger started showing me usage statistics in mid-2010, it shows I have surpassed one million page views. If that is accurate. I suspect it counts too much but I don't know. It certainly counts differently.

It seems like there is a vaping scare going on that isn't justified. Sure, ban flavors to avoid attracting kids because it is better to not vape than vape. I won't protest that. But vaping is far better than smoking tobacco. And I heard a story about deaths from vaping that added in deaths from causes that seemed completely unrelated to vaping (oh, like using illegal products). When that is done in any subject the reason is to pad the numbers because the basic thing you are against isn't bad enough (which is also why I always say check the "definitions" section). Why the unjustified hysteria? And why demonize a legal product because some people mis-use it and pay the price? Doesn't that set a bad precedent (coughgunscough)? On the bright side, Trump is for regulating them so expect liberals to take up vaping as a (good) constitutional right.

Michael Yon continues to report live from Hong Kong. Sometimes David beats Goliath (and maybe there is a way to help that unlikely outcome). But that's not the way to bet. My admiration is mixed with dread.

Oil wealth, corruption and tyranny, and modern communications and travel make the latest round of the Islamic civil war hard for the non-Moslem world to ignore (because we die in it too, as collateral damage). Very slowly, forces in the Islamic world gather to resist the appeal of extremism.

When there is a Jew to be blamed, why let facts interfere (tip to Instapundit)? I used to think the village idiot was the worst part of the duo. I was wrong--Plame is. How did the CIA hire both of these clowns?

Trump released military aid to Ukraine previously held up for no apparent reason. The Resistance had a reason that was nonsense. To me, the most likely reason was to pressure Ukraine to battle corruption, which subtracts from Ukraine's war effort against Russia more than our aid adds.

Remember that Ukraine traded actual Russian prisoners for Ukrainians held hostage by Russia on false charges. Hopefully Europeans don't use this as a reason to ease sanctions on Russia on the false premise that Russia is being "reasonable." And of course, Russia got back a man who could have testified on the shoot down of Flight MH-17 over the Donbas by a Russian-supplied missile.

If family members (plural) have to restrain a secretly sedated elderly woman to "assist" her "suicide," I think it is safe to say the elderly woman did not want to die. Is "first do no harm" not a universal doctor thing? Tip to Instapundit.

No, we did not lose the war in Afghanistan. We have several hundred thousand Afghan security forces fighting jihadis every day. Why would we walk away from helping them in their fight by "getting over that we lost" and then getting out--thus insuring we lose? And the idea that we should leave because the war is long is mind-bogglingly dumb. As Jonah writes, "Does it really matter how long the war in Afghanistan has gone on if it's still necessary to be there? If it's necessary, time is irrelevant. And if it's unnecessary, time is also irrelevant." I think we have an interest in keeping Afghanistan from being a jihadi launching pad (again). And I think the price we must pay to prevent that is small compared to what we paid to get us this far. And the price is small compared to what we'd have to pay to go back in and start over if the Taliban win after we leave. As I've said before, the fact that we face enemies determined to kill us despite the length of time we've been killing them does not suggest to me that it is safe to stop killing them, turn our backs, and come home with confidence that they won't come after us to keep killing us at home.

Bernie Sanders bristled that his form of socialism would be like Cuba's or Venezuela's, which have impoverished those countries. He wants successful socialism! Question: Did Cuba's and Venezuela's leaders intend to have socialism that would be an economic failure or an economic success? And didn't fans of socialism in the West claim both would create successful economies rather than failures? So I don't care what Bernie intends. I care about what always happens. To Hell with him, as I noted in this data dump: "Seriously, I really despise that communist-loving Sanders. I was literally (or almost, depending on the time difference) learning to throw hand grenades when Bernie was partying with Soviets, as I noted in this data dump: Bernie Sanders was having a drunken ball with his Soviet friends in the Soviet Union on June 13, 1988. By contrast, I was having a very bad day on 13 JUN 88--but at least I had grenades to look forward to the next day." Canada and Sweden will be surprised to hear they are socialist countries, as Bernie claims.

I'm beginning to think that age of majority should only be 18 years old only if you don't go to a 4-year college. If they want to be "really scared," those snowflakes might want to calculate how long they'll be paying for that beer and pizza consumed last weekend and paid for with a student loan. If you do go to a 4-year college, I think that you should get "adult" status when you pay off your student loans. Something has to be done about these frightened, over-sensitive rabbits preparing to claim their place in society. Tip to Instapundit.

Good Lord, people, Trump was simply making a threat to destroy enemies with all the tools of our non-nuclear arsenal. You just look like an idiot by acting as if he was actually hinting we have weapons more powerful than nukes. Note that we have a lot fewer tactical nukes because precision has given us the ability to destroy targets with high explosives when once small nukes were needed. Does that mean a small conventional bomb is more powerful than a small nuke? No it does not. But it does mean the target is still destroyed. Now, practically speaking we don't have the ammunition stockpiles nor the targets to do precision "carpet bombing" on the scale Trump suggests. But it is true that we have been restrained in our use of the firepower we could use. And as the president said, we have chosen not to fight the war on terror that way. So no, the president hasn't been hinting at a super weapon or misrepresenting facts. You guys are just overthinking a simple threat way too much.

I'm honestly horrified at the Democratic display at their latest revival meeting debate. It was close enough to insane for government work. I want a sane opposition. The Democrats this election cycle aren't that. Seriously, I worry far less about Trump backers who think he plays 3-D chess than I do about those fanatics and their voting fans. Until the day arrives that the federal government is reduced in its scope of powers (I can dare to hope) to make the stakes of controlling the White House low enough to shrug off when your side loses (pity the Resistance didn't learn the lesson of building a federal government so powerful that you wet your pants when you lose control of it) I want the opposition to be at least sane even if I disagree with their policies. Tip to Instapundit.

Did the Air Force essentially just build the Cylon pilots who will control the skies for Skynet? The post also discusses F-16 drone conversions. That seems relevant for Israel in relation to Iran.

That's not a totalitarian impulse on display at all!

Apparently we killed Hamza bin Laden, al Qaeda terrorist son of his father who we also killed, somewhere in the "Afghanistan-Pakistan region." More please.

The media is talking down a good economy to get a Democrat elected, just like they did in 1992. Honestly, they did the same in 1984. That's when I started losing trust in the news media. I kept hearing CBS talking about how bad things were when I could see that the statistics said the economy was good. In 1984, Reagan won big despite the media. That said, the finances worry me a lot. Budget deficits and rising debt will end this run eventually.

I'll say it again, I am dumbfounded that feminists aren't the most hard core death-to-all-jihadis warriors in the West. Tip to Instapundit.

I won't weigh in on where democracy dies, but journalism goes to die at the Washington Post. Again, it is funny how "mistakes" always paint Republicans badly.

I'm almost 100% sure that when Biden said that nobody convicted for a non-violent crime should be in prison he meant to say nobody convicted of a nonviolent drug crime should be in prison. I'm not defending that statement, but I bet he meant that. With an eye on Harris' record on drug crimes. But he misfired and left Harris untouched.

If global warmers won't act like global warming is a crisis, why should I?  Seriously, if the world is doomed if we don't act NOW, why do almost all global warmers rule out nuclear energy? And why do they live such high carbon-production lifestyles? And no, buying carbon offsets doesn't give you freedom to generate carbon as much as you want. If we are doomed you should actually reduce your own production of carbon. If it is a crisis. It's almost as it they consider compelling the rest of us live more austere and primitive lives as their carbon offset to enable their own lavish lifestyles of jetting around and owning large (and multiple) homes to continue without disturbing their conscience.

Speaking of not reaching Peak Oil yet. Tip to Instapundit.

Things are heating up in Hong Kong. It is more than protest now. Watching Michael Yon film protesters pulling up paving bricks reminds me of a paving project in Lansing some years ago. The state wanted to put in brick sidewalks in the Capitol Building area. But the man in charge of the actual Capitol grounds refused to go along with that, knowing that protesters who get overly enthusiastic could pry them out of the ground and use them as weapons. So they just put in cement sidewalks around the Capitol Building. The bricks were farther out.

What fresh Hell is my new Blu Ray player? My old one--of 9 years--died. It is on a multi-HDMI splitter because I have just two HDMI slots on my TV. One is for the Roku for TV and the other had the Blu Ray plus an XBOX360 and an XBOX1. Anything on the multi-splitter worked if it was on and the others off. I thought I could just plug the new Blu Ray player into the multi-splitter and all would be well. Of course not. The new Blu Ray would not work on that. But it did work on the single slot. And now I'm trying to get the other stuff to work on the multi-splitter with difficulty. Oh, and the menu for the Blu Ray is in goddamn French with no apparent way to switch to English. How is it possible for later tech to be less user friendly?!

Huh

So what is going on in Venezuela?

Venezuela is "ready" to defend itself, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said Friday, after Washington invoked a regional defence pact that might justify such a move. ...

On Wednesday, the US invoked a regional defence pact with 10 other countries and Venezuela's opposition in response to "bellicose" moves by President Nicolas Maduro's regime.

Apparently, Venezuela has ordered the deployment of 150,000 troops to the border with Colombia. Which must mean other security and Maduro militias for the most part because the army is far smaller than that.

And it seems that our partners in the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) agreed with the request proposed by the Venezuelan opposition.

I doubt Colombia has volunteered to spearhead an invasion of Venezuela to remove Maduro.

And I'm sure Venezuela is incapable of fighting let alone invading Colombia. At this point Maduro's security forces are almost entirely incapable of fighting anybody but unarmed civilians.

But those Venezuelan security forces could seal off the border from humanitarian aid or movement of people (until the mechanisms for bribery kick in, of course).

What would Maduro do inside Venezuela behind such a shield?

And how does this fit with stories that Maduro is seriously talking about how to leave Venezuela?

Is this simply staged to put pressure on Maduro to get out? Is it timed to go along with the departure of Bolton, who Trump said restrained him in dealing with Maduro forcefully?  But if it fails, what then?

What is going on?

We Have Met The Enemy and He is Us

Retired Marine Corps general and former secretary of defense Mattis thinks that America's bitter internal divisions are a national security threat:

Mattis first pointed to Russia and China as the nation's most dangerous external enemies because of their authoritarian and imperialistic impulses. ...

Mattis then reflected that the country's internal issues might be even more of an existential threat. "But internally, my bigger concern is twofold: It's our growing debt that we're going to transfer to the younger generation with seemingly no fiscal discipline. And more than that, it’s the lack of friendliness, it's the increasing contempt I see between Americans who have different opinions.

Yes. Our most bloody war was our Civil War, after all. Not that I think we are heading that way. But failure to unite against foreign threats because of our divisions is a major threat, too.

I think the solution to the division is to reduce the scope of the federal government's powers that override state and local powers.

This great increase in the powers of the federal government makes control of the federal government astronomically more vital. So at the national level we battle for the presidency and even individual Congressional seats.

If the major battles that inspire divisions took place within states and cities, it would not divide America. Right now partisans in California or New York City fear the people in flyover states for making national policies that control local daily life--and vice versa, of course. That is insane to do. But we did it.

And here we are.

Restricting the federal government's powers to truly national issues that states and local governments can't handle is the way to go. But until our federal government goes broke when it becomes impossible to finance the deficit and pay the interest on the debt the federal government won't surrender that power.

And then all of a sudden a lot of programs will be thrown to the states who accepted the poison pills when the federal government offered to pay for them with borrowed money. And the states won't be able to afford to continue all of them because states can't run operating deficits (although in practice they can with accounting gimmicks in the short run and capital improvements in the long run).

We should get a start now on reducing federal roles while we don't have a crisis.

And let's not forget that this would ease my dating issues tremendously. A lot of women (and not just women, of course, but the men can keep their problems for all I care) say they are liberal and open minded. But they're really only one of those when confronted with different views. So strike a blow for national security and your friendly neighborhood TDR host!

General Mattis would surely agree.

From ... More of the Sea

The Marine Corps proposes ending the ability to land 2 brigades in one operation as the standard for Navy building and Marine Corps planning.

Why?

In short, the threat from ASCMs has evolved faster than the organic self-defense capabilities amphibious assault ships are equipped with. ...

[Marine Corps Commandant] General Berger explicitly acknowledged the high cost and vulnerability of amphibious assault ships when he wrote that the Navy and Marine Corps could not continue on the current path of "heavily investing in expensive and exquisite capabilities that regional aggressors have optimized their forces to target…"

So the Marine air-ground task forces that start at the battalion level are no longer the only way the Marines will think of deploying their forces, according to Berger:

It would be illogical to continue to concentrate our forces on a few large ships... We need to change this calculus with a new fleet design of smaller, more lethal, and more risk-worthy platforms.... Naval forces will persist forward with many smaller, low signature, affordable platforms that can economically host a dense array of lethal and non-lethal payloads.

So will this be the result?

If General Berger’s intent and guidance gets traction and results in significant and fundamental changes that will show up in future NDAAs, the Navy will buy fewer large amphibious assault ships and more numerous, cheaper, smaller, more agile vessels, as well as sea bases.

If so, perhaps we can experiment with armed amphibious warfare ships (based on World War II APDs made from old destroyers and destroyer escorts) that can carry up to a reinforced company of Marines--whether infantry, anti-aircraft, or coastal defense force designed to sink ships--that I proposed in Proceedings.

Such forces could operate independently or simply dispersed to come together to bring more power against a single objective from many directions.

In this post on the new Marine Corps concept, I address the need for large-scale amphibious operations once the seas are controlled. At that point the A2/AD threats no longer require dispersal.

The big legacy amphibs, I thought, could serve as sources of command and control, air power, and heavier reinforcements.

UPDATE: I really hate the term "agile" to describe ships or ground vehicles because I don't think that anything is agile enough to avoid a missile hit.

When I see "agile" I read "expendable." But it is not polite to say that out loud.

The Communist Disease

Can an emperor outlast a president with just another year in his first (and as his opponents hope, only) term?

Don't assume Xi can outwait Trump on a trade deal:

Largely overlooked by American media, the Chinese banking system increasingly appears to be the economic equivalent of Chernobyl. After a decade of massive credit expansion, with tens of trillions of dollars’ worth of loans being funneled into projects based on the whims of central planners, rather than actual Chinese entrepreneurs, there is growing concern that their banks are full of toxic loans. Three banks have had to be publicly bailed out by Chinese officials in recent months, each one larger than the last.

While there has been much talk of potential retaliatory measures from China against the United States for the trade war — such as selling off U.S. debt or attacking the dollar with a gold-based yuan — the reality is that China’s bigger issue is desperate need of more dollars. While the Bank of China can inflate away debts denominated in their own yuan, the country needs foreign currencies to pay for loans made in dollars and euros. Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass has identified a dollar shortage as one of the potential catalysts to an all-out crisis in China.

In our system, a former president gets rich and a life of leisure.

In China's system, a former ruler could get shamed and disappeared (along with his family and friends).

And the funny thing is, a trade deal would likely only paper over the problems of China's command economy that isn't free market capitalism at all.

So there's that.

A Third Narrative in Make-Believe World

Could Russia and India become a major power alignment in Asia?

The third order, unlike the American and Chinese versions, is neither inspired by antagonism toward any particular country nor achieved through the violation of international law or trade practices. Moreover, the third order is reflective of the geopolitical realities in the region, based on a multi-polar, rules-based, mutually beneficial framework. Given the enduring shadow of the Sino-U.S. rivalry, India, and Russia have their task cut out in framing this third narrative.

Maybe. They had close defense ties in the Cold War era.

But the idea that such an alliance doesn't have to be focused on any particular country as a potential common foe is simply nonsense. An alliance without a potential common enemy just doesn't exist. What's the purpose for hitching yourself to another country if not to oppose a third country?

Calling the alignment a "narrative" doesn't make the task make sense. That task is out of reach in the real world.

Russia is mostly anti-America and India is mostly anti-China. So whose priority is supposed to be the basis of the notional India-Russia alliance?

Given that Russia should be anti-China with a safe European rear area bolstered by friendship--or at least a solid truce--with NATO to hold their Far East against Chinese claims, it makes far more sense for Russia to change their outlook.

But is Putin capable of making that change? Hey, if enough Russians figure out that Putin has effed up royally, maybe a post-Putin Russia would be free to make that change.

Mullah Priorities

Trump's policy of squeezing Iran economically has a lot of ground to make up after Obama turned on the money spigot to fund mayhem around the Middle East.

The amount of money Iran got is truly appalling (tip to Instapundit):

In 2015, the Iranian Khomeinist regime received up to $150 billion into its bank accounts from the Obama administration. That windfall of cash was provided through terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran Nuclear Deal. That gusher of western cash then flowed directly into terror funding, even though Iranian experts and dissidents had warned over and over again that the money would not be spent on the Iranian people, but rather would go to enrich the repressive regime, and to fund its warring proxies in the region.

Recall that when called on their opening of the money spigot which the horrible Iran nuclear deal achieved, the administration said that the money would go to rebuilding Iran's economy and that Iran's sponsorship of terror wouldn't rise "dramatically." Really, that's what they said:

So there is no chance that Iran might use the massive amount of money that a deal with Iran will release to the mullahs on nukes, terrorism, and propping up Shia armed groups across the Middle East?

Or even half?

Or ten percent? Give me that, won't you? Our best analysis says there is nothing to spare for what Iran has been doing all along at great financial cost to them?

But no. The Iranians have made a friggin' commitment to the friggin' people to spend this windfall of cash on domestic problems not associated with nukes, terror, and general mayhem promotion.

Say, Iran's supreme nutball does have shovel-ready projects to fund!

Iran will help oppressed people in the region, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, days after Gulf Arab leaders met U.S. President Barack Obama and expressed concern about Iranian expansionism.

But no worries! We're assured by our administration that Iran's mayhem sponsorship won't increase "dramatically" with sanctions relief.

I keep thinking our president is inept. But I'm leaning to "delusional," lately.

That's what the president our left says is the smartest president evah! did. And I'm to trust them that Trump is an idiot?

Iran thought that Hillary would win in 2016 and keep the spigot open. Trump's victory ended that--and perhaps the nutballs' conviction that Allah is on their side, eh?

The Real Enemy

Britain is continuing to battle over the Brexit vote that was supposed to settle the issue once and for all.

Three years after voting to leave, Britain remains in the European Union while Remainers who support the EU continue to undermine the efforts to implement the will of the British people expressed in the Brexit vote.

That Britain remains in this state of limbo should be a damning indictment of the Brussels-based proto-empire:

This endless crisis has led to widespread criticism of British politicians of all hues, some of it justified. I find it deeply distasteful to see very senior Conservatives plotting with the opposition to bring down the Prime Minister. But far less criticism has been levelled at the EU itself — which is odd, because Brussels is the cause of our agonies, past and present. The Brexit vote would have gone the other way if it had had the wit to give David Cameron the concessions he begged for. But that is not the nature of the EU imperial class. They intended to send a message: Brussels does not respond to democratic pressure. The British public got that message, and voted to leave.

Yes. The real enemy is the anti-democratic European Union. They've rebuffed unfortunate outbreaks of democracy in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

And the EU feels they can reverse this British spasm of democracy, too.

Let this be Britain's finest hour against the latest attempt by a continental empire to crush Britain's freedom.

UPDATE: Will Britain save itself by re-embracing its Atlantic heritage and rejecting the authoritarian impulses of the continent?

Johnson’s efforts as the new prime minister ostensibly are to carry out the will of the British people as voiced in 2016, against the wishes of the European Union apparat and most of the British establishment. But after hundreds of years of rugged independence, will Britain finally merge into Europe, or will it retain its singular culture and grow closer to the English-speaking countries it once founded — which are doing better than most of the members of the increasingly regulated and anti-democratic European Union.

And yes, the continent has authoritarian impulses. We forget the role America has had in the post-World War II spread of democracy in Europe:

It is easy to forget--and this was a useful reminder to me--that Europe with its autocracies and monarchies was not fully part of a free West (although obviously part of the Western tradition) until we rebuilt Western Europe in that template after World War II. And NATO expansion after defeating the Soviet Union was more explicit in demanding democracy and rule of law for new members.

That reminder was from this author.

If America is ejected from Europe by the European Union, the old impulses will revive even faster.

They Hate Us. Because of Them

The September 11, 2001 attack is getting old enough that adults who can vote don't even remember that day.

Those jihadi murdering bastards hate us.

And they hate everyone else who isn't a jihadi nutball bastard--including the vast majority of the Islamic world.

For those who say they hate us because of Iraq or some other BS reason, did the majority of the Islamic world invite jihadi hatred, too?

Face it, we need to find, chase down, and kill jihadis wherever they are. Because short of that they won't stop killing us.

On this day I don't flay my flag half staff like I'm supposed to. In my view, that symbolizes remembering our dead from a past fight now settled.

But the war goes on. I never thought we'd still be fighting this war when I wrote this about the coming struggle. The jihadi enemy will continue to add to the death toll. Their hate has spanned a generation already.

And so my flag will fly tall in a symbol of the war that our enemies won't end.

Fight them. Find them. Kill them. And one day I'll fly my flag at half staff.

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

UPDATE: "Airplanes" didn't take aim at America that day. Nor were nearly 3,000 Americans "lost" as if they mysteriously vanished in some mysterious rapture that nobody can comprehend.

Acceptable Collateral Damage?

The obsession of the Obama administration and their media allies to find non-existent collusion between Russia and Trump caused America some real damage. We had a long-time spy inside Russia that fed us lots of information. Until we had to get him out:

As American officials began to realize that Russia was trying to sabotage the 2016 presidential election, the informant became one of the C.I.A.’s most important — and highly protected — assets. But when intelligence officials revealed the severity of Russia’s election interference with unusual detail later that year, the news media picked up on details about the C.I.A.’s Kremlin sources.

C.I.A. officials worried about safety made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia.

Sure, CNN wants to blame Trump. But no:

The decision to extract the informant was driven “in part” because of concerns that Mr. Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency’s sources alone was the impetus for the extraction.

Thanks Obama and The Resistance! Putin couldn't have divided America without you.

UPDATE: Remember, The Washington Post and the New York Times refute CNN's take:

The New York Times and Washington Post flatly contradicted CNN's story. Both newspapers reported that media revelations were the sole reason for the extraction.

Everyone gets stuff wrong sometimes. So that's not the issue. The issue is that whenever they are wrong it always seems to be wrong in a manner to harm Republicans. And they wonder why so many Americans don't trust them.