Iran unveils second underground missile site

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

Oh, wonder if the Obama will give Tehran an Academy award for Iran’s theatrics, behavior and violations.

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran unveiled a new underground missile depot on Tuesday with state television showing Emad precision-guided missiles in store which the United States says can take a nuclear warhead and violate a 2010 U.N. Security Council resolution.

The defiant move to publicize Iran’s missile program seemed certain to irk the United States as it plans to dismantle nearly all sanctions on Iran under a breakthrough nuclear agreement.

Tasnim news agency and state television video said the underground facility, situated in mountains and run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was inaugurated by the speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani. Release of one-minute video followed footage of another underground missile depot last October.

The United States says the Emad, which Iran tested in October, would be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and U.S. officials say Washington will respond to the Emad tests with fresh sanctions against Iranian individuals and businesses linked to the program.

Iran’s boasting about its missile capabilities are a challenge for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration as the United States and European Union plan to dismantle nearly all international sanctions against Tehran under the nuclear deal reached in July.

Iran has abided by the main terms of the nuclear deal, which require it to give up material that world powers feared could be used to make an atomic weapon and accept other restrictions on its nuclear program.

But President Hassan Rouhani ordered his defense minister last week to expand the missile program.

The Iranian missiles under development boast much improved accuracy over the current generation, which experts say is likely to improve their effectiveness with conventional warheads.

The Revolutionary Guards’ second-in-command, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, said last Friday that Iran’s depots and underground facilities are so full that they do not know how to store their new missiles.

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Iranian-Saudi Tensions May Distract Iran’s Efforts to Attack Israel

InvestigativeProject: The dramatic escalation in the Iranian-Saudi Arabian rivalry poses critical potential ramifications for Israeli national security, according to the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror.

Amidror – also formerly the head of Israeli military intelligence – told the Jerusalem Post that he expects the Iranian-Saudi crisis to prolong the Syrian civil war, leading both sides to increase support for their respective proxies in that country.

Such a scenario can intensify Israeli concerns of unpredictable and radical terrorist organizations consolidating bases of operations on the Jewish state’s northern borders.

However, other analysts view Syrian fragmentation as a strategic benefit – at least temporarily removing Syria as a conventional military threat and forcing Iranian proxies, including Hizballah, to divert resources and manpower to the Syrian front instead of conducting major attacks against Israel.

According to this perspective, Iran will also be more preoccupied with confronting Saudi Arabia in other regional theaters – including Bahrain, Yemen, and Iraq.

“That doesn’t meant they won’t do anything [toward Israel]. This doesn’t mean, for instance, that this will influence Hezbollah [backed by Iran] not to carry out revenge attacks against Israel. But it means that whenever there is something, there will be someone in Iran who will say that they have other problems to think about; we will not be the only issue they will be focusing on,” Amidror said.

This assessment supports other analyses that believe Hizballah failed to effectively retaliate to Israel’s reported assassination of arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar. On Monday, Hizballah detonated a large explosive on the Israel-Lebanon border, targeting two military vehicles. Israel said it suffered no casualties. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) followed with artillery fire against Hizballah targets in Lebanon, but limited its response to avoid escalating tensions.

The relatively weak show of force from Hizballah suggests that the terrorist organization continues to be bogged down in the Syrian civil war, unwilling and incapable of seriously challenging Israel at the moment. Fighting in Syria has cost Hizballah as much as a quarter of its fighters, Israeli military affairs journalist Yossi Melman points out.

Those losses “neutralized the Shi’ite-Lebanese organization’s ability to act against Israel,” he writes. At the least, it makes the prospect of opening a second front with Israel less appealing. Hizballah still enjoys an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets it can fire at Israel when it opts for a confrontation.

Even though Hizballah and other Iranian proxies continue to enhance their presence in the Golan Heights for the purposes of targeting Israel, recent Iranian-Saudi tensions will likely force terrorist organizations at Iran’s behest to focus more of their efforts and resources on other fronts beyond the Jewish state.

Putin/Iran Support Assad and Children Eat Leaves and Die

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

War criminal charges for Assad, the Iranian Mullahs or even Putin? Nah….but why not? Where is the United Nations Human Rights Council, heck where is Samantha Power or Barack Obama? (rhetorical)

Obama’s redline?

A fact-finding mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has found indications that some people in Syria were exposed to sarin gas, according to a report to the UN.

The findings were presented in the latest monthly report on Syria from chief of the OPCW Ahmet Uzumcu.

According to the report, the mission to Syria was looking into charges by the Syrian government that chemical weapons were used in 11 instances. The report did not specify when the alleged chemical attacks occurred.

“In one instance, analysis of some blood samples indicates that individuals were at some point exposed to sarin or a sarin-like substance. Further investigation would be necessary to determine when or under what circumstances such exposure might have occurred,” Uzumcu was quoted as saying by Reuters. Much more here.

‘Children Are Eating Leaves Off The Trees’: The Nightmare of The Siege of Madaya, Syria

ViceNews: In the early hours of Sunday morning, a pregnant woman and her daughter tried to sneak out of Madaya, a mountain village perched in the snow-capped peaks of southwestern Syria.

As they reached the southern edge of town, someone tripped over a landmine, and the loud blast alerted a nearby Hezbollah checkpoint of their escape. The fighters opened fire, and between the explosion and the barrage, both mother and daughter died.

Desperate escape attempts like this one — which was reported by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and confirmed to VICE News by local residents — have become more and more common in Madaya, a village of 40,000 that’s been under siege since July by a combination of Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and his ally, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

In the past month alone, 31 residents have died from starvation, or in attempts to run the Hezbollah-manned blockade that encircles the town. A report compiled by the Syrian-American Medical Society and made available to VICE News found that a kilogram (two pounds)of flour now retails for around $100, while the average Syrian makes less than $200 each month.

“I had strawberry leaves for dinner today,” Rajai, a 26-year old English and math teacher in Madaya, told VICE News by phone, asking that his name be withheld for security reasons. “I haven’t had a real meal in three months.” Since the siege began in July, he’s lost 50 pounds. “Kids are eating leaves off the trees, and the very old and very young are dying,” he said.

As the death toll mounted in December, residents of Madaya began posting desperate pleas on social media, along with disturbing images, reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps.

In a picture dated January 3, a group of young men hold a poster in English pleading with the UN and the Pope to do something to lift the siege.

According to Rajai, the Assad regime is punishing his hometown for its participation in the Syrian uprising in 2011. When peaceful protesters took to the streets in the nearby city of Zabadani in April 2011, Rajai joined in. “We wanted to clean this country of Assad,” he said. He was arrested and tortured. Now, after five years of civil war, his outlook is bleak.

“In the early days of the revolution, we used to say no one could be made to feel hungry or afraid,” he said. “But now we know we were wrong.”

Madaya lies on a strategically key line in Syria’s ballooning multi-front, multi-party civil war. The town is nestled within the Qalamoun mountain range, alongside the Lebanese border, less than 30 miles (50 km) from the capital Damascus. Stamping out unrest in Qalamoun, said Joshua Landis, the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and editor of the blog Syria Comment, is key to the regime’s survival. “If rebels there broke out, they’d have a straight corridor to Damascus,” he said.

In the early years of the revolution, many of the mountain villages along the Lebanese border sided against the Assad regime, throwing in their lot with the expanding constellation of rebels who took up arms across the country.

As the revolution grew more violent, the Syrian-Lebanese border became a key route for arms smugglers, who were funneling weapons dangerously close to the Syrian capital. Assad and his Iranian, Russian, and Lebanese allies made securing that border zone a top priority — more pressing even than retaking northern territory from groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

So with the help of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Assad has been brutally crushing restive zones along the mountain range by setting sieges reminiscent of medieval warfare. Besides checkpoints and minefields, the regime and its allies employ brutal blockades that prevent food or water from reaching the isolated towns. “They are starving people into submission,” Landis said. “It’s a very old tactic.”

In September, Hezbollah moved into the town of Zabadani, just two miles (three km) north of Madaya, and the town’s only real lifeline to the outside world. A few beleaguered rebel fighters were allowed safe passage out thanks to a deal brokered by Turkey and Iran.

As Hezbollah stormed the city, it forced people it considered hostile to move to Madaya, a tactic residents say was designed to separate out pro-regime and anti-regime civilians. Loay, a 28-year old student in Zabadani, was forced to relocate to Madaya with his mother when Hezbollah took over his town. “They said: go to Madaya,” he told VICE News by phone. “There you will die, from starvation.”

In Madaya, he said, it’s like “another world.” “Everyone,” he added, “is starving.”

Loay’s mother Umm Mohamad, 52, also hasn’t had a meal in months. “My only dream is to have a piece of bread,” she said.

Syrian human rights groups are watching Madaya with horror. “They are making it into a big prison and suffocating the area,” Dr. Ammar Ghanem, a Syrian physician who grew up in the area, told VICE News. A member of the Syrian-American Medical Society’s board, Ghanem still has family stuck inside, and has been monitoring the humanitarian situation from afar. “The regime want people to die there,” he said.

Medical services in the town are meager. “They have no supplies, and no training — one of their only doctors is a veterinarian who is now operating on humans,” Ghanem said. “We would like to send in supplies, but of course, we cannot get through the blockade.”

The United Nations has struggled to get any aid into the besieged town. In October, it managed to secure safe passage for a shipment of biscuits to Madaya and Zabadani. But the food turned out to be expired.

Over the past three months, the Assad regime has prevented any additional shipments, essentially signing death warrants for dozens of children and elderly civilians in the coldest months of the winter.

But there are also very practical reasons for the siege. Hezbollah is trying to trade the civilians in Madaya for the well-being of Shiite civilians under siege by rebel forces in the northern cities of Kafrayya and Fua. “It’s a negotiating ploy,” Landis said. “Basically Hezbollah is taking hostages.” Indeed, in September, members of Ahrar al-Sham, the militant Sunni group that’s blockading the Shiite villages, began negotiating with the Syrian regime to simultaneously lift both sieges. Though the negotiators were able to arrange for the safe passage of some fighters from Zabadani, so far, the deal has yet to bear fruit for the embattled civilians.

Though the siege undoubtedly takes a humanitarian toll, multiple residents in Madaya told VICE News that fighters with Ahrar al-Sham are present in the town. The group fights with Al-Qaeda in the north of Syria. But Landis, the Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, stresses that the men who joined Ahrar in Madaya are most likely not ideologues. “They are fighting for their lives,” he said. “They’ll make alliances with whoever they think will save them.”

As the siege grinds on, civilians are increasingly losing hope, and fear their plight will always be in the shadow of the war up north against the Islamic State. “Sure, people may read about us if you write something,” Rajaai, the teacher, told VICE News. “But when they finish reading, they’ll forget us.”

Saudi Arabia’s Anti-Iran Coalition Growing

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

Any kind of peace accords and efforts to deal with Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Afghanistan due to broken relationships in the Middle East is not for the most part impossible until at least late 2017. Estimations of terror matrix trends rising is impossible to predict but it is for sure likely in the region.

While the U.S. State Department under John Kerry and the Obama White House are still working to support the Iranian nuclear deal, the real result is Iran’s growing influence and power in the region. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States have had enough and are taking aggressive action. Finally…

Saudi Arabia paid the larger part of the expenses to Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons with the option at obtaining a minimum of 10. Further, the U.S. maintains the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet I Bahrain, which is a Shiite majority. The Fifth fleet is designed to operate and maintain the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Bahrain has been a worry for the U.S. Navy going back to at least 2011 over Shiite uprisings which is still a major headache after the recent and escalating conflicted relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

New Saudi-Iran crisis threatens wider escalation

Reuters: The last time Saudi Arabia broke off ties with Iran, after its embassy in Tehran was stormed by protesters in 1988, it took a swing in the regional power balance in the form of Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait to heal the rift.

It is hard to see how any lesser development could resolve the region’s most bitter rivalry, which has underpinned wars and political tussles across the Middle East as Riyadh and Tehran backed opposing sides.

Riyadh’s expulsion of Iran’s envoy after another storming of its Tehran embassy, this time in response to the Saudi execution of Shi’ite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr, raised the heat again, making the region’s underlying conflict even harder to resolve.

At the heart of the new crisis is Saudi Arabia’s growing willingness to confront Iran and its allies militarily since King Salman took power a year ago, say diplomats, choosing with his son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to abandon years of backroom politics.

Last year, Riyadh began a war in Yemen to stop an Iran-allied militia seizing power in its southern neighbor and boosted support to Syrian rebels against Tehran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad. Its execution of Nimr, while mainly driven by domestic politics, was also part of that open confrontation with Iran, according to political analysts.

The interventions followed years of Riyadh complaining about what it regarded as unchecked Iranian aggression in the region. It has pointed to Iran’s support for Shi’ite militias and accused the country of smuggling arms to groups in Gulf countries – which Iran denies.

“We will not allow Iran to destabilize our region. We will not allow Iran to do harm to our citizens or those of our allies and so we will react,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Reuters on Monday, signaling Riyadh would not back down.

The Saudi decisions in Syria and Yemen were also partly a response to Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions on Tehran, theoretically giving it more money and political room to pursue its regional activities.

The new crisis has had the effect of hardening a wider confrontation between the loose-knit coalitions of allies each can call upon in the region; some of Riyadh’s allies also cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after the embassy attack, while Iran’s warned of repercussions.

That chain reaction may now complicate complex political talks over the formation of a government in Lebanon, efforts to bring Syria’s warring parties to talks, stalled negotiations to end Yemen’s civil war and Riyadh’s rapprochement with Baghdad.

SIMMERING MISTRUST

Until the 1960s and 70s, Saudi Arabia and Iran were uneasy allies regarded as the “twin pillars” of Washington’s strategy to curb Soviet influence in the Gulf. Sectarianism was muted.

But rich on its new oil wealth, Saudi Arabia began to propagate its rigid Salafi interpretation of Sunni Islam which regards Shi’ism as heretical, in mosques around the region. And, after its 1979 revolution, Iran adopted – and exported – the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, which says ultimate temporal power among Shi’ites should reside with its own supreme leader.

That growing ideological divide set up a simmering mistrust that was soon matched by a geopolitical rivalry that has driven their fractious relations for the subsequent 37 years.

After Iran’s 1980-88 war with Iraq, when Saddam invaded, it developed a strategy of “forward defense”, seeking to use ties with Arab Shi’ites to build militias and political parties that could stop new enemies emerging and give it deterrent capability through proxy forces.

Riyadh regarded Tehran’s cultivation of Shi’ite groups with intense suspicion, fearing it would foment revolution in Saudi-allied states and destabilize the region.

It broke ties in 1988 when a diplomat died in the storming of its Tehran embassy following tensions over the death of hundreds of Iranian pilgrims in clashes with Saudi police during the haj. But when Saddam invaded Kuwait, Tehran and Riyadh set aside their hostility to make common cause against a shared enemy.

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 upturned the regional power balance, however, as Iran used its ties to the country’s large Shi’ite community to gain sway in Baghdad, pitting Riyadh and Tehran more openly against each other – a pattern repeated in Yemen and Syria after the “Arab Spring” uprisings.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s civil war had poured fuel on growing sectarian tensions as al Qaeda, which follows an extreme form of Salafism, sent suicide bombers against Shi’ite civilians, prompting murderous retaliation from Iran-linked militias.

FURTHER ESCALATION

Now there is some scope for further escalation, both in the various Middle East theaters where Iran and Saudi Arabia back opposing forces, and diplomatically as Riyadh taps Arab and Muslim channels to try to isolate Tehran, according to analysts.

“Since 1979 the two countries have fought numerous proxy conflicts throughout the Middle East and often exchange threats and insults. But they’ve stopped short of direct conflict and eventually agreed to a cold reconciliation,” said Karim Sadjadpour, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East program.

But he said that Iran might seek to stoke unrest among Saudi Arabia and Bahrain’s Shi’ite communities.

Renewed protests among Saudi and Bahraini Shi’ites since the execution of Nimr, along with the bombing of two Sunni mosques in Iraq, may be regarded by Riyadh as evidence of Iranian incitement.

Riyadh has itself pushed allies to cut ties with Iran and pressed Muslim bodies like the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to condemn the storming of the embassy. Theoretically, it could also ramp up support for Syrian rebel groups.

All-out conflict is something that even hawks in Saudi Arabia and Iran would likely try to avoid. However, the new escalation between the region’s main enemies shows how events can sometimes pre-empt strategic plans.

After the execution of Nimr, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard elite military force said a “harsh revenge” would strike Saudi’s ruling Al-Saud family in the near future.

“The Revolutionary Guard is part of the Iranian government and their threats should be taken seriously because they control militia in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen and I would not be surprised if they use it to act against the Saudis,” said Abdulaziz al-Sager, head of Jeddah-based Gulf Research Centre.

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Where do the rest of the countries stand?

AP- SAUDI ARABIA — The kingdom severed ties to Iran after attacks on two of its diplomatic posts following its execution of a Shiite cleric last weekend; it also later cancelled all flights between the two nations.

IRAN — Since the attack on the diplomatic posts, Iran says it has made arrests and has criticized the violent protesters. However on Tuesday, President Hassan Rouhani took a slightly harder line, saying Saudi Arabia’s move to sever ties with his country couldn’t “cover its crime” of executing Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

COUNTRIES BACKING SAUDI ARABIA:

BAHRAIN — The tiny, Shiite-majority island kingdom off the Saudi coast, which long has relied on Saudi Arabia for support of its Sunni rulers, was the first to cut ties with Iran. Bahraini officials repeatedly have accused Iran of training militants and attempting to smuggle arms into the country, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

SUDAN — The African nation cut its diplomatic ties to Iran and gave Iranian diplomats two weeks to leave the country. Sudan once tilted toward Iran, but has been looking to Saudi Arabia for aid since the secession of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — The oil-rich country of seven emirates says it will reduce the number of diplomats in Iran, recall its ambassador and focus only on business relations. While backing Saudi Arabia, it may have chosen to reduce — rather than completely sever ties — because of a long trading history with Iran.

KUWAIT — The oil-rich country is recalling of its ambassador from Tehran, but it isn’t immediately clear how Kuwaiti-Iranian diplomatic ties will be affected. Tiny Kuwait is home to both Shiites and Sunnis living in peace and has the most free-wheeling political system among all Gulf nations.

JORDAN: Overwhelmingly Sunni Jordan is a close ally of Saudi Arabia in the region and a beneficiary of Gulf aid. Jordan’s government spokesman, Mohammed Momani, has condemned the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Iran.

THE MEDIATOR:

OMAN — The sultanate has long historical ties to Iran and served as the base for secret talks between Iranian and U.S. officials that jump-started the deal reached between Iran and world powers over the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program.

THOSE BACKING IRAN:

LEBANESE HEZBOLLAH MOVEMENT — Hezbollah was founded in 1982 with the help of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards after Israel invaded Lebanon. The group is one the main Iran-backed factions in the region.

SYRIA’S EMBATTLED PRESIDENT BASHAR ASSAD — Iran has been one of the biggest supporters of Syria since the 1980s and has stood by Assad’s government in his country’s grinding civil war. Saudi Arabia has been one of the biggest benefactors of those trying to overthrow him.

IRAQ’S SHIITE-LED GOVERNMENT IN BAGHDAD — Even as Iraq is embroiled in a major war against the militant Islamic State group, al-Nimr’s execution sparked outrage among the country’s majority Shiites who have taken to the streets in Baghdad and the south, calling for an end to ties with Saudi Arabia. The Shiite-led government has warmed Riyadh that such executions “would lead to nothing but more destruction.”

OTHER REGIONAL ACTORS:

ISRAEL — Israel considers Iran to be its greatest regional threat because of its nuclear program, its arsenal of long-range missiles, its support of anti-Israel militant groups and its repeated threats to destroy it. While Israel has no direct ties to Saudi Arabia either, the countries have come closer because of a shared concern over Iran’s growing influence.

THE PALESTINIANS — The Palestinian Authority issued a statement after the execution of al-Nimr saying that it stands alongside the Saudis in their fight against “terrorism.” The Saudis are the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority in the Arab world, providing them some $200 million annually. The PA, and the Fatah faction that leads it, has had a strained relationship with Iran because of its support of its rival, Hamas.

YEMEN — The Arab world’s poorest country is torn by a civil war pitting its internationally recognized government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, against Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are supported by Iran.

THOSE URGING CAUTION:

THE UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Saudi Arabia and Iran to support peace efforts in Syria and Yemen and avoid escalating tensions.

EUROPEAN UNION: The 28-nation bloc, which opposes the death penalty, criticized Saudi Arabia’s mass executions and said al-Nimr’s case undermined freedom of expression and basic political rights in the kingdom. Since tensions flared between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the EU foreign policy chief has had phone contact with both sides, fearing an escalation would further destabilize the whole region.

THE UNITED STATES — The White House has urged Saudi Arabia and Iran to not let their dispute derail efforts to end the Syrian civil war, while President Barack Obama’s administration also hopes to see the Iranian nuclear deal through.

UNITED KINGDOM — Britain and Iran reopened their respective embassies in 2015, four years after hard-line protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia is a key diplomatic and economic ally of Britain, though Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood said Britain told the kingdom about its “disappointment at the mass executions.”

TURKEY — Turkey has urged both Saudi Arabia and Iran to ease tensions, saying the Middle East region is “already like a powder keg” and cannot withstand a new crisis.

GERMANY — Berlin has called on Saudi Arabia and Iran to work to mend their diplomatic ties, while condemning both the mass executions in the kingdom and the storming of the Saudi missions in Iran.

RUSSIA — State news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed senior diplomat as saying Moscow is ready to act as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It’s unclear whether Russian officials have made a formal offer to work with the two nations.

China: Needy and More Provocative

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

Now China Wants Okinawa, Site of U.S. Bases in Japan

DailyBeast: Beijing is pushing out in all directions, from the South China Sea to several Japanese islands, with an eye on the eastern Pacific that laps American shores.

On the day after Christmas, three Chinese boats, one modified to carry four cannons, entered Japan’s territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands in the southern portion of the East China Sea. The move, a dangerous escalation, is the first time the People’s Republic of China sent an armed vessel into an area that Tokyo claims as its own.

The sending of the three Chinese vessels on Dec. 26 appears to signal a new phase of incursions to grab not just the Senkaku Islands but the nearby—and far more important—Ryukyu Islands. Those include Okinawa, which hosts more than half of the 54,000 American military personnel in Japan, including those at Kadena Air Force Base, the Army’s Fort Buckner and Torii Station, eight Marine Corps camps, as well as Air Station Futenma and Yontan Airfield, and the Navy’s Fleet Activities Okinawa.

Geopolitically, Okinawa is key to the American-Japanese alliance and the heart of America’s military presence in Japan. But if Beijing gets its way, U.S. military bases will be off Okinawa soon. And Japan will be out of Okinawa, too.

Chinese authorities in the spring of 2013 brazenly challenged Japan’s sovereignty of the islands with a concerted campaign that included an article in a magazine associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a widely publicized commentary in People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper and therefore China’s most authoritative publication; two pieces in the Global Times, the tabloid controlled by People’s Daily; an interview of Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan in the state-run China News Service; and a seminar held at prestigious Renmin University in Beijing. Much more here.

South China Sea tensions surge as China lands plane on artificial island

Reuters: China’s first landing of a plane on one of its new island runways in the South China Sea shows Beijing’s facilities in the disputed region are being completed on schedule and military flights will inevitably follow, foreign officials and analysts said.

China’s increasing military presence in the disputed sea could effectively lead to a Beijing-controlled air defense zone, they said, ratcheting up tensions with other claimants and with the United States in one of the world’s most volatile areas.

Chinese foreign ministry officials confirmed on Saturday that a test flight by a civilian plane landed on an artificial island built in the Spratlys, the first time Beijing has used a runway in the area.

Vietnam launched a formal diplomatic protest while Philippines Foreign Ministry spokesman Charles Jose said Manila was planning to do the same. Both have claims to the area that overlap with China.

“That’s the fear, that China will be able take control of the South China Sea and it will affect the freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight,” Jose told reporters.

China has been building runways on the artificial islands for over a year, and the plane’s landing was not a surprise, although it will almost certainly increase tensions.

The runway at the Fiery Cross Reef is 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) long and is one of three China was constructing on artificial islands built up from seven reefs and atolls in the Spratlys archipelago.

The runways would be long enough to handle long-range bombers and transport craft as well as China’s best jet fighters, giving them a presence deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia that they have lacked until now.

Work is well underway to complete a range of port, storage and personnel facilities on the new islands, U.S. and regional officials have said.

Fiery Cross is also expected to house advanced early warning radars and military communications facilities, they said.

Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed that the new islands would be mostly for civilian use, such as coast guard activity and fishing research.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at the weekend that the test flight was intended to check whether the runway met civilian aviation standards and fell “completely within China’s sovereignty”.

Leszek Buszynski, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said he believed military landings on the islands were now “inevitable”.

An air defense zone, while unlikely soon, was feasible and possible in future once China’s built up its air strength.

“The next step will be, once they’ve tested it with several flights, they will bring down some of their fighter air power – SU-27s and SU-33’s – and they will station them there permanently. That’s what they’re likely to do.”

DE FACTO DEFENCE ZONE

Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he expected tensions to worsen as China used its new facilities to project power deeper into the South China Sea.

Even if China stopped short of formally declaring an Air Defence Identification Zone, known as an ADIZ, Beijing’s need to protect its new airstrips and other facilities could see it effectively operating one.

“As these facilities become operational, Chinese warnings to both military and civilian aircraft will become routine,” Storey said.

“These events are a precursor to an ADIZ, or an undeclared but de facto ADIZ, and one has to expect tensions to rise.”

Hua, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said on Monday that there were no immediate plans for an ADIZ in the South China Sea.

“As for whether China will establish an ADIZ, the decision will be based on our judgment of the situation and our needs,” she aid, adding that Beijing respected other nations’ rights to international freedoms of navigation and overflight.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade ships every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

The United States has no claim in the South China Sea, but has been highly critical of China’s assertiveness and says it will protect freedom of navigation.

China sparked condemnation from the United States and Japan in late 2013 when it declared an ADIZ over the East China Sea, covering uninhabited islands disputed with Tokyo.

Chinese officials have reserved their right to do the same in the South China Sea but have said the conditions do not warrant one yet.

However, regional military officials say they are logging increased warnings to aircraft from Chinese radio operators, including some from ground stations on Fiery Cross reef.

Saudi Foreign Lobby Hooked with Hillary/Podesta

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

This is the time when foreign governments are ratcheting up their respective lobby operations in the United States, we are in a major election cycle. Not only will ad agencies hired by countries like Saudi Arabia but they will work to troll and re-tool attitudes and propaganda.

This began as noted at least last Fall and there will be a higher, more robust objective that will fund those in Washington DC and those hoping to have domestic influence in DC in 2016.

Hillary and her top campaign architect, John Podesta are the core designers and recipients of foreign influence.

Saudi Arabia Continues Hiring Spree of American Lobbyists, Public Relations Experts

Intercept: Saudi Arabia is in the market for a better reputation in Washington, D.C.

In September alone, foreign lobbying disclosure documents show the Saudi government signing deals with PR powerhouse Edelman and lobbying leviathan the Podesta Group, according to recent disclosures.

Edelman, the largest privately owned public relations agency in the world, is known for helping clients win favorable media coverage on mainstream outlets. The Podesta Group is a lobbying firm founded by Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The new signings are the latest in a year-long hiring spree by the Persian Gulf state as it further builds up its already formidable political arsenal inside the Beltway. The Saudi Arabian Royal Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, the Saudi Royal Embassy retained two influential lobbying firms, DLA Piper and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. DLA Piper, for instance, employs a small army of former government officials, including retired U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and George Mitchell. Also in March, the embassy retained two firms that specialize in analyzing big data for political clients, Targeted Victory and Zignal Labs.

Saudi Arabia’s political operation already includes former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who chairs one of the largest Republican Super PACs in the country, as well as the public relations firm MSLGROUP/Qorvis, and Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company that funds several influential American political groups, including the American Petroleum Institute. Aramco’s U.S. subsidiary, Saudi Refining, is a registered agent of the Saudi government. The government also finances a number of think tanks and universities, and has made contributions to prominent American nonprofits, including the Clinton Foundation.

The Podesta Group contract is with the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court. The contract, filed in the Justice Department’s foreign lobbying database, says that the firm will provide “public relations” work for the center.

“It is our company policy not to comment further on our work for clients beyond what is required by law and to direct reporters and other interested parties to our clients for any additional information,” said Missi Tessier, a spokesperson for the Podesta Group, when reached for more information about the relationship.

Edelman’s contract calls for the firm to “engage with opinion influencers, establish media engagement opportunities for [sic] principal, and assist in opinion editorial placement” on behalf of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority.

The Saudi regime is currently facing yet another public relations crisis as the Kingdom moves to execute Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the young nephew of a government critic.

The nation also faces international outcry over the widespread killing of civilians in Yemen. Since March, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition that includes the U.S., U.K., Egypt and several Persian Gulf nations to support the Yemeni government in its war against the Houthi rebels. The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly attacked schools, hospitals, and other civilian targets, including recent reports of a wedding party that was bombed, killing over 100 people.

Last week, I spoke to a number of lawmakers about Saudi human rights abuses, but found them extremely reluctant to criticize the Kingdom. Disclosures reveal that the lobbying firms that have worked for Saudi Arabia for years communicate frequently with senior members of Congress. Beyond entrenched military and economic ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Kingdom appears to be working to maintain its political clout.