Primer:
The Justice Department on Tuesday announced plans to appeal a judge’s ruling that blocked President Donald Trump from shuttering a program that gave protections and work permits to some people who entered the U.S. illegally as children.
In a ruling last week, San Francisco-based U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ordered the administration to resume accepting renewal applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. More here from Politico.
In part, highlights:
The Department has also implemented historic efforts to step up international cooperation. For the first time ever, DHS established a clear baseline for what countries must do to help the United States confidently screen travelers and immigrants from their territory. Every country in the world is now required to meet high security standards and to help us understand who is coming into our country.As required under President Trump’s Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (EO 13780), all foreign governments have been notified of the new standards, which include the sharing of terrorist identities, criminalhistory information, and other data needed to ensure public safety and national security, as well as the requirement that countries issue secure biometric passports, report lost and stolen travel documents to INTERPOL, and take other essential actions to prevent identity fraud.***Visa Waiver ProgramWe are also looking at ways to further strengthen the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). First and foremost, the VWP is a security partnership program. It mandates high and consistent standards from partner countries in the areas of national security, law enforcement, and immigration enforcement to detect and prevent terrorists, criminals, and other potentially dangerous individuals from traveling to the United States —while still facilitating legitimate travel and tourism.Currently, 38 countries participate in the VWP, which allows their citizens to travel to the United States for business or tourism for stays of up to 90 days after applying and being approved through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). In return, these countries must comply with program requirements to enter into information-sharing protocols that enable the relay of information concerning known and suspected terrorists and criminals; consistent and timely lost and stolen passport information reporting; and robust border and travel documentscreening. As a result of these program requirements, countries have adopted new laws, policies, and practices that strengthen our mutual security.The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015,combined with Secretarial action, have strengthened the VWP’s security provisions over the past two years.VWP countries are now required to issue high -security electronic passports (e-passports); implement information sharing arrangements to exchange terrorist identity information; establish mechanisms to validate e-passports at each key port of entry; report all lost and stolen passports to INTERPOL or directly to the United States no later than 24 hours after the country becomes aware of the loss or theft; and screen international travelers against the INTERPOL Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database and notices. As with other operational activities of DHS, a full discussion of the privacy impact of these initiatives and how we mitigate the risk to personal privacy is available on our website.Since enactment of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, DHS has realized an increase in the sharing of terrorist identity information. Several countries have increased the frequency of their reporting of lost and stolen passports —VWP countries account for over 70 percent of the almost 73 million lost and stolen travel documents reported to INTERPOL. All VWP countries are now issuing and using for travel to the United States fraud-resistant e-passports that meet or exceed the ICAO standards. Over 70,000 ESTA applicationshave been denied, cancelled or revoked under enforcement of the VWP Improvement Act’seligibility restrictions for VWP travel.Border SecurityIn compliance with Executive Order 13767: Border Security and Immigration EnforcementImprovements, DHS has conducted a comprehensive study of the security of the southern border that addresses all of the elements that provide an integrated solution for the Nation. Our first priority is to expand on our existing southern border wall system and close legal loopholes that encourage and enable illegal immigration and create a corresponding backlog in the courts. We currently have an immigration court backlog of more than 650,000 cases pending before the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. We also have a massive asylum backlog with more than 270,000 pending cases before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).Recognizing the unsustainability of the asylum case backlog, USCIS has implemented efficiency measures designed to reduce adjudication times. Similarly, the Department of Justice has taken action to reduce unwarranted case continuances in immigration courts, which helps reduce the backlog while affording aliens full and fair hearings. To furtherreduce the “pull factors” and restore integrity to our immigration benefits adjudication process, we must tighten case processing standards, including the “credible-fear” standard, impose and enforce penalties for fraud, and ensure applicants are fully vetted before they are allowed access to the United States.In addition, visa-overstays account for roughly 40 percent of all illegal immigration in theUnited States. In FY 2016, more than 628,000 aliens overstayed their visas. By increasingoverstay penalties and expanding ICE’s enforcement tools, we can help ensure that foreignworkers, students, and visitors respect the terms of their temporary visas. We need Congress to authorize the Department to raise and collect fees from immigration benefit applications to fund additional enhancements to our immigration system called for by the President’s Executive Orders.Enforcing Immigration LawsWe are also prioritizing the enforcement of our immigration laws in the interior of our country.There are nearly one million aliens with final orders of removal across the country—meaning these removable aliens were afforded due process of law, had theirday in court, and were ultimately ordered removed by a judge — yet they remain in our nation and ICE only has 6,000 Deportation Officers to arrest and remove them. The Administration looks to strengthen law enforcement by hiring 10,000 more ICE officers and agents, and supports the request from the Department of Justice to hire 300 more federal prosecutors.To further protect our communities, we must end so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Hundreds of state and local jurisdictions across the country that do not honor requests from ICE to hold criminal aliens who are already in state and local custody. Instead, they allow them back into their communities, where they are allowed to commit more crimes. This also poses a greater risk of harm to ICE officers, who must locate and arrest these criminals in public places, and increases the likelihood that the criminal aliens can resist arrest or flee. Rather than enhancing public safety, sanctuary jurisdictions undermine it.The only “sanctuary” these jurisdictions create is a safe haven for criminals. States and localities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities should be ineligible for funding from certain grants and cooperative agreements.Authorizing and incentivizing states and localities to enforce immigration laws would further help ICE with its mission and make all communities safer.In FY 2017, 1,761 criminal illegal aliens were released from ICE custody because of a 2001Supreme Court decision that generally requires ICE to release certain removable aliens with final orders of removal—including violent criminals—within 180 days, if they have not been removed and there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. Legally insupportable judicial interpretations of the law regarding the detention and removability of criminal aliens have eroded ICE’s authority to keep aliens in custody pending removal.Pursuant to this Executive Order, USCIS announced it will take a more targeted approach to combatting fraud and abuse in the employment -based visa programs, including the H-1B program. To help end H-1B petitioner fraud and abuse, USCIS has established a Targeted Site Visit and Verification Program (TSVVP). Targeted site visits allow USCIS to focus its resources where fraud and abuse of certain programs are more likely to occur. TSVVP initially focused on H-1B petitions filed by companies that are H-1B dependent (as defined by statute), employers petitioning for H-1B workers who will be placed off -site at another company’s location, or cases where USCIS cannot validate the H-1B petitioner’s business information through commercially -available data.USCIS has also taken great strides to improve transparency with the public about employment -based immigration programs. The agency has published new data on its website to give the public more information regarding the use of nonimmigrant workers in the H-1B, H-2B, and L nonimmigrant programs. Information about the use and legal authority for employment authorization documents has also been published.Most low-skilled immigration into the United States occurs legally through ourimmigrant-visa system, which, unlike many other countries’ systems, prioritizes family-based chain-migration. Each year, the United States grants lawful permanent resident status (greencards) to more than one million people; two-thirds of that total is based on a person having a sponsoring relative in the United States, regardless of the new immigrant’s skills, education, English language proficiency, or ability to successfully assimilate. This system of chain-migration has accounted for more than 60 percent of immigration into the United States over the past 35 years. We must end chain-migration, and limit family -based green cards to spouses and the minor children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.We must also eliminate the “diversity visa” lottery. Every year, through this lottery, 50,000green cards are awarded at random to foreign nationals. Many of these lottery beneficiaries have absolutely no ties to the United States, no special skills, and limited education. The random lottery program has not been adopted by other countries and does not adequately serve our national interest. Full opening summary here.
Category Archives: Failed foreign policy
Abu Hamza was Notified of the 9/11 Attacks 4 Days Earlier
Abu Hamza was once deeply affiliated with the Finsbury Park mosque including raising funds for jihad there. Born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa in Alexandria, Egypt, on 15 April 1958, Abu Hamza was the son of a naval officer and a primary school headmistress. He initially studied civil engineering before leaving for England in 1979. More here.
A trustee at one of London‘s best-known mosques is a senior member of ‘terrorist organisation’ Hamas’s political wing, it was reported.
Mohammed Sawalha holds the role of trustee at Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, which was formerly linked to extremism but which insists it has since undergone an ‘complete overhaul’.
It emerged today that Mr Sawalha represented the militant Palestinian organisation Hamas at recent talks in Moscow.
Sawalha, who lives in London, was appointed a trustee of the mosque in 2010 and is legally responsible for overseeing the mosque’s management, The Times reported. More here.
He was one of five senior figures from the Islamist organisation who were sent to Moscow in September, where they met Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and other Kremlin officials.
ABU Hamza’s son, Sufyan Mustafa, has said he will fight to return to his life in Britain after the Government stripped him of his passport, leaving him in war-torn Syria. In 2012, Imran Mostafa, another of Hamza’s sons was jailed for his role in a jewellery heist in Norfolk.
Abu Hamza, Britain’s most notorious hate preacher, says militant contacts in Afghanistan called him four days before the 9/11 attacks to warn: “Something very big will happen very soon.”
The hook-handed cleric says he interpreted the message as being about an impending terrorist strike on America and believes the phone at his west London home was being “tapped” by police at the time.
Related reading: The Mustafa Indictment document
His claim raises questions about whether British authorities were aware of the warning and failed to pass it on to their American counterparts before al-Qaeda operatives flew hijacked jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in September 2001.
Details of the phone call are revealed in American court papers, seen by The Sunday Times, which also reveal that Abu Hamza acted as an agent for MI5 and Special Branch under the code name “Damson Berry”. The former imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London is appealing against his conviction for terrorist offences and his “inhuman” incarceration at an American“supermax” prison.
Related reading: Finsbury Park Truck Attack
In a 124-page handwritten submission, Abu Hamza says he has been singled out and “punished” since 9/11. He writes in broken English: “What made pro-war governments and intelligence [agencies on] both sides of the Atlantic more furious about the defendant [Abu Hamza is] that defendant received a call from Afghanistan on Friday, Sept 7, 2001, from 2 of his old neighbours in his Pakistan time (1991-93) saying ‘Something very big will happen very soon’ (meaning USA).”
Abu Hamza denies the call came from al-Qaeda figures, but says he thought “this news is widely spread and everyone is phoning friends . . . the intelligence [agencies] of many countries must have had an earful about it”.
The preacher’s claim could not be independently corroborated this weekend, but his standing in extremist circles makes it plausible.
Syrians: “Barrel Bombs are More Merciful”…Russia?
In 2016, it was Russia dropping the barrel bombs on Aleppo and Homs.
Warplanes from Russia’s lone aircraft carrier and a missile frigate struck targets in Syria on Tuesday, bombing areas southwest of the embattled city of Aleppo, as Syrian government aircraft renewed barrel bomb attacks on the city itself.
The first-ever Russian strikes from the Mediterranean-based carrier Admiral Kuznetsov were described by the Kremlin on Tuesday as targeting extremists in Idlib and Homs provinces. More here.
Now that Aleppo, Idlib and Homs are for the most part ghost towns, people that fled to Idlib and Ghouta are being killed by even more Russian barrel bombs.
The war in Syria is forgotten by the West and that is shameful. What the media is ignoring is reporting on the never ending war and suffering. Why is this an issue? Because the United States is still in Syria.
The U.S.-led coalition is working with its Syrian militia allies to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Sunday, a move that has added to Turkish anger over U.S. support for Kurdish-dominated forces in Syria.
A senior Turkish official told Reuters the U.S. training of the new “Border Security Force” was the reason that the U.S. charge d‘affaires was summoned in Ankara last week, and President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said the development was worrying and unacceptable.
The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria dominated by the Kurdish YPG. More here.
Related reading: Russia’s Lavrov: US wants to slice up Syria
Meanwhile, as Russia has become a full time military occupier in Syria, Foreign Minister Lavrov is yelling squirrel and blaming the United States for destroying peace globally. Yup..imagine that. He has a full list of grievances against the United States.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the United States of destabilizing the world, airing a list of grievances over the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Lavrov dedicated the opening of his annual press conference Monday to castigating the US, which is expected to soon issue a fresh round of sanctions against Russia over its interference in the 2016 US election. Russia has long denied meddling in the vote.Lavrov criticized the US for issuing regular “threats” in relation to events in North Korea and Iran, saying they had “further destabilized” the global situation.He did not mention President Donald Trump by name, but the US President has issued stern threats to North Korea and Iran, sending a series of fiery Twitter posts attacking the leadership in both nations.Trump has openly ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Twitter over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear testing and threatened military intervention. He recently lambasted the Iranian leadership for being repressive, “brutal and corrupt,” and supported anti-government protesters challenging the government in six days of rallies.Lavrov accused the US of provoking tensions on the Korean peninsula.“The United States quite plainly says that the military confrontation is inevitable, however, everyone understands the catastrophic consequences of such recklessness,” he said.He also criticized the US for expanding its military exercises around North Korea, “which provoked a new escalation of tensions,” while others were working through diplomatic channels to resume talks with Pyongyang.Lavrov warned the US not to back out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump had vowed to tear up the 2015 agreement, brokered by the Obama administration, alongside several European allies, Russia and China. The deal obliges Iran to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for eased sanctions.Trump signed a waiver on Iran sanctions Friday under the deal, but signaled that he would not do so again. He has been under pressure from foreign allies and, according to US officials, his own national security team to stick to the deal.The day he signed the waiver, however, Trump also announced new separate sanctions on 14 Iranian individuals and entities, in a move that has rattled Tehran.Lavrov said that US threats to walk away from the deal would undermine any future agreement with North Korea.“It’s sad that United States once again gives a reason to doubt their ability to be reliable contract partners,” he said.“And if this agreement is being taken aside and Iran is being told — you stay within the frame of agreements but we will return the sanctions — well, put yourself in place North Korea’s place. They are being promised that sanctions will be lifted if they say no to their nuclear program, what if they do it but sanctions are still there?”Relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorated in 2017, as several US investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election got underway. The US tightened sanctions against Russia and closed several of its diplomatic compounds in the country, while Moscow forced the US to cut back on its diplomatic staff in Russia.Lavrov laughed when CNN asked if he regretted Trump’s ascension to the presidency, given the diplomatic tumult, and whether he might now prefer it if Hillary Clinton had won the election.“This is not what diplomats do — regret something that has happened. We work with facts, and facts are what we have today, so we just do what needs to be done to advance Russia’s interests under the current circumstances,” he responded.US officials have not publicly responded to Lavrov’s comments.
How Iran is Competing with America in the Middle East
Reading through the summary below, it begs the question once again: Did Iran demand Obama remove troops from Iraq in order to advance the talks on the nuclear agreement? It also adds a similar question: Did Iran demand the same in Afghanistan?
Related reading: Why Obama Let Iran’s Green Revolution Fail
Modern War Institute: In March 2017, the head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs stated, “Some 2,100 martyrs have been martyred so far in Iraq and other places defending the holy mausoleums.” These 2,100 Iranian deaths over the past five years of fighting in Iraq and Syria are nearly equivalent to the 2,400 American deaths in seventeen years of combat in Afghanistan. Yet, although initial domestic support for American intervention in Afghanistan was the highest of all such military action since Gallup started collecting data in 1983, by February 2014, as casualties mounted, a plurality of Americans viewed the war in Afghanistan as a mistake. In contrast, the Iranian government narrative that its soldiers are protecting Shi’a holy sites in Syria has driven consistently high public approval with 89 percent of Iranians supporting the defense of shrines in Syria and about 65 percent supporting the deployment of Iranian soldiers to do so.
With the relationship between military intervention and domestic public support in mind, the comparison of forces between Iran and the United States depends more on willingness to use those forces than the capabilities they represent. On the surface, Iran faces the overwhelming power projection of the United States, along with the conventional superiority of US and Gulf Cooperation Council military forces. Despite this disparity, Iran is able to use a suite of conventional, unconventional, and proxy forces to deter potential aggressors, compete with regional peers, and influence states it considers vital to its national security. Along these lines, Iran attempts to circumvent American military strengths against which the Iranian military would lose, in favor of asymmetric concepts including its ballistic missile program; anti-access, area denial tactics; and support to proxy groups.
These three methods hinge on a competition of resolve between Iran and its rivals to incur the costs of conflict: the former two affect the cost calculation of potential adversaries and the latter displays Iran’s willingness to assume more risk than its opponents in pursuit of its political ends abroad. Determining the interests for which Iran is willing to incur high costs is essential if the United States expects to “neutralize Iranian malign influence,” a priority identified in the 2017 National Security Strategy. This comes as the US public decidedly prefers intervention in the form of airstrikes and Tomahawk cruise missiles rather than ground troops who could actually influence partner forces determined to counter that Iranian influence.
Balance of Power in the Middle East
Kenneth Waltz quipped that “power begs to be balanced” while defending the notion that proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to Iran would stabilize the Middle East. For Waltz and other theorists who espouse a realist view of international politics, the Middle East faces a two-pronged challenge to future stability based on the distribution of power among states therein. First, Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons under “strategic ambiguity” makes the relationship between Israel and other states in the region inherently imbalanced and therefore prone to conflict. Second, US abandonment of its “dual containment” strategy in favor of aggressive interventionist policies in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks destroyed Iraq as a major Middle East power and the regional bipolar balance between Iraq and Iran as a consequence.
According to realists’ view, even distributions of power promote stability and peace as the cost-benefit analysis of war yields little chance of positive gains against an adversary of similar strength, whereas uneven distributions of power increase the uncertainty of intentions between states who assess war as a likely result of a zero-sum security competition. In this latter scenario, weaker states tend to balance against stronger rivals by increasing political, military, and economic power through either internal means or alliance formation. As Stephen Walt further points out in his work “Alliance Formation and the Balance of Power,” this balancing behavior is most likely when states assess a rival as having not only the capability of attacking, but also the intention of doing so. Furthermore, situations where states face an overwhelming power differential are particularly vexing because the prospects of successfully balancing are so grim.
There is, however, a difference between possessing military power and actually using it, especially when doing so involves risks to domestic political support and stability. Whereas William Wohlforth in his article on unipolarity predicts that no state would bother attempting to balance against the clear and unambiguous military and economic superiority of the United States, the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led potential rivals to reassess US willingness to use its insurmountable ability to project and sustain military force. Therefore, rather than competing with the entire US military, Iran must make foreign policy decisions based on the military forces it expects the United States and its partners to use regionally. When the fight is between proxies and special operations forces, Iran’s prospects for balancing against its regional rivals and expanding its influence are less daunting and even optimistic.
Iran’s Play in Syria
Iran has been on a trajectory of increasing commitment to Syria since an uprising nearly deposed the regime of Bashar al-Assad starting in 2011. Unwilling to lose a longstanding ally and mechanism of supporting proxy groups in Lebanon and Palestine, Iran has relied upon the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), especially the externally oriented Quds Force, to support the Syrian regime. Originally founded to defend the Islamic revolution in Iran from internal and external threats, the IRGC has expanded in scope as the political and military mechanism of choice for Iran to expand its influence in the Middle East. Beyond sending its own forces, Iran has used the IRGC to lead foreign fighters and has directed the deployment of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters to Syria by the thousands. Iran’s model for applying force in the Middle East plays to its asymmetric strengths, while exploiting the perceived weaknesses of the United States and its allies, which Iran regards as risk averse, sensitive to casualties, and reliant on technological superiority and regional bases from which to project power. Iran has displayed not only a willingness to assume risk by deploying IRGC operatives to contested and denied areas, but has also been sustaining casualties in its campaign in Syria.
These casualties have varied in number, nationality, and military unit since the beginning of Iranian intervention in Syria, which speaks to Iranian resolve to support the Assad regime. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has done extensive research on Iranian media reporting of casualties in Syria. At first, the majority of those killed under the direction of Iran were Lebanese and Afghan, due to extensive Hezbollah deployments and IRGC recruitment of Afghan Shi’a to fight in Syria. Iranian casualties however, tended to be high-ranking IRGC members such as its deputy commander, Gen. Hossein Hamedani, who was killed in October 2015 near Aleppo. This indicates that IRGC operatives were training, advising, and leading Syrian units and foreign fighters, rather than their own military formations of lower-ranking Iranian soldiers.
As the civil war continued and foreign fighters could no longer sustain the tempo of operations, Iran began committing its own forces in 2015, including lower-ranking soldiers from IRGC units like the 2nd Imam Majtaba Brigade, 7th Vali Asr Division, and 2nd Imam Sajjad Brigade. These units are from the IRGC Ground Forces, whose security mandate is more internally focused than that of the Quds Force. This indicates not only a shift from a training and advisory mission to a more direct role in the fighting, but also a commitment of a larger portion of the Iranian armed forces to the fight in Syria. As a result, Iranian fatalities skyrocketed. However, Iran has given no indication of war weariness in the face of mounting human and economic costs of its unconventional fight in Syria, with even the semiofficial Fars news agency openly reporting IRGC casualties.
Domestic Backlash in Iran
Iran is no stranger to internal protests over domestic politics and foreign affairs. The Green Movement of June 2009 protesting the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed that Iranian authorities cannot simply ignore public opinion and revealed a true power struggle between the government and the opposition. While the lasting effects of the Green Movement on the relationship between public opinion and Iranian decision-making are unclear, polling leading up to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action indicated vast public support in Iran for a deal, often in contrast with the public statements of Ayatollah Khamenei against it.
Recent massive public protests against Iranian macroeconomic conditions including high inflation and high unemployment have further displayed the Iranian government’s exposure to domestic political backlash for its policies. President Hassan Rouhani was reelected in 2017 by wide margins on a platform of economic hope in the wake of sanctions relief under the nuclear deal. However, inbound investment that results from improving economic relationships tends to benefit large conglomerates often owned by the IRGC like Khatam al-Anbiya, which has large stakes in the oil, transportation, and construction industries. Meanwhile, unemployment among youth and inflation remain high, as Iranian economic policies have not promoted growth that would create jobs for most Iranian citizens. As novelist Suzanne Collins’ character President Snow said in The Hunger Games: “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.” Iranians have a lot of hope about their economic future; failure to deliver might lead to disaster, especially as Iran announces vast increases in military spending with an extra $7.5 billion to the IRGC (15 percent increase), $2.7 billion to the Iranian army (25 percent increase), and a separate $72 million subsidy directly to Khatam al-Anbiya.
Cost Calculation in Foreign Policy
Iran’s willingness to incur the costs of an aggressive foreign policy is not uniform across the Middle East. Iran views the outcome of the Syrian civil war as critical to its national interests and is therefore willing to expend physical and economic costs to sustain the Assad regime. However, Iran is reticent to suffer Syria-type casualties in places like Yemen, where Iran has limited its intervention to Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and high-ranking IRGC operatives leading Houthi militias. This is reminiscent of the “train, advise, and assist” mission that marked the initial phases of Iranian intervention in Syria. As a result, Iran has only sustained forty-four fatalities over the past two years of fighting in Yemen and has not publicized those deaths. This is problematic for Iran as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates show no signs of wavering in support of the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, despite international backlash against the air campaign.
Conflicts like those in Yemen and Syria display the gruesome truth of the competition between the United States and Iran in the Middle East; namely, it boils down to a question of who wants it more. While the United States has shown its willingness to incur human and economic costs in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past fifteen years, it is not clear whether the American people would support another effort of similar size and scope in the near term. In fact, according to Gallup, American support for the ongoing campaign in Syria has reached historic lows when compared to other conflicts over the past thirty-five years. Furthermore, US Central Command, charged with leading military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, is preparing to shift its priority back to Afghanistan—this as Iran shows no intention of decreasing its presence in either Iraq or Syria.
This is not to say that the United States cannot achieve its foreign policy goals vis-à-vis Iran in the Middle East without incurring high costs; it means that the United States will need to enable partners who are willing to do so. However, merely funding and providing material support to partner forces does not guarantee that they will act according to US national interests. That more elusive objective depends on the influence that sponsors have over proxies and still involves accepting a degree of risk. Although varying in scope depending on the target country, Iran exposes its IRGC operatives to the inherent dangers of the battlefield and shares that risk with its partners. Combined with what is often an ideological connection with proxies, this shared danger does much to influence the forces with which Iran partners. In contrast, the United States rarely exposes its special operations forces in the same way. In Iraq and Syria especially, the United States has largely demanded that its proxies assume the vast majority of the tactical risk, which negatively affects the perception of American resolve to accomplish its stated objectives.
Even overwhelming military force is only a useful deterrent if adversaries believe a state has the resolve to use it. American reticence to use the breadth of its military strength to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East has reduced the competition to irregular forces and both state and nonstate partners. In this realm, displaying resolve is still vitally important. Although recent protests indicate Iran is not immune to domestic backlash, Iran has shown a willingness to use and lose its special operations forces in external operations. The United States risks losing influence in the Middle East and control of its partner forces if it is not willing to expose its own special operations forces in a similar way. In the end, the competition between the United States and Iran in the Middle East comes down to resolve.
UN Declaration, Regular, Constant Global Migration = Insurgency
Berlin – A new series launched by the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) of IOM, the UN Migration Agency, aims to summarize the existing evidence on migration in an accurate and accessible fashion, to support discussions and any follow-up activities of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Note the words orderly and regular….if the United Nations and peacekeeping operations as well as the aid, education, construction and protection campaigns were successful, migration would not be required especially in non-war torn countries. Right? Or how about all these other global human interest organizations….they failing too? Those like the Clinton Foundation or hey how about the Gates Foundation, which is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It was launched in 2000 and is said to be the largest private foundation in the US, holding $38 billion in assets, improving lives from Seattle to South Africa….ahem.
Check here for the largest 10 organizations…. if all this work and money and resources were effective, then why the migration at all?
For the first time on 19 September 2016 Heads of State and Government came together to discuss, at the global level within the UN General Assembly, issues related to migration and refugees. This sent an important political message that migration and refugee matters have become major issues in the international agenda. In adopting the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, the 193 UN Member States recognized the need for a comprehensive approach to human mobility and enhanced cooperation at the global level.
What are the aims of the global compact for migration?
The global compact is framed consistent with target 10.7 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in which member States committed to cooperate internationally to facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration and its scope is defined in Annex II of the New York Declaration. It is intended to:
- address all aspects of international migration, including the humanitarian, developmental, human rights-related and other aspects;
- make an important contribution to global governance and enhance coordination on international migration;
- present a framework for comprehensive international cooperation on migrants and human mobility;
- set out a range of actionable commitments, means of implementation and a framework for follow-up and review among Member States regarding international migration in all its dimensions;
- be guided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda; and
- be informed by the Declaration of the 2013 High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.
The development of the global compact for migration – an open, transparent and inclusive process
The Modalities Resolution for the intergovernmental negotiations of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration outline the key elements and timeline of the process. The global compact will be developed through an open, transparent and inclusive process of consultations and negotiations and the effective participation of all relevant stakeholders, including civil society, the private sector, academic institutions, parliaments, diaspora communities, and migrant organizations in both the intergovernmental conference and its preparatory process.