Category Archives: Treasury

More Than Once Israel on the Cusp of Attacking Iran

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RFE: Israel’s Channel 2 TV reported August 21 that a plan for Israel to strike Iranian nuclear facilities was blocked on three separate occasions in recent years.

In an audio recording of former defense minister Ehud Barak obtained by the TV station, Barak said that he drew up the attack plans against Iran, and they were approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He said Israeli army chief Gabi Ashkenazi blocked one planned attack in 2010, by refusing to certify that the army was prepared to carry out the attack.

A second attack was aborted when hawkish Israeli ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Yuval Steinitz withdrew support, he said, while in 2012, Israel decided the timing was bad for an attack because of a U.S.-Israel military exercise.

The TV station said Barak tried to prevent broadcast of the bombshell revelations, but Israel’s military censor allowed it.Ya’alon and Steinitz issued a statement expressing bewilderment at the military’s decision to permit the broadcast.

The report comes as Israel has been strenuously lobbying against a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that aims to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions’ relief.

TOI: According to the August 21, 2015 edition of The Times Of Israel

Israel aborted a planned military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in 2012 — because the time selected for the operation coincided with a U.S. military exercise in the region.  Earlier planned military strikes in 2010 and 2011, were reportedly thwarted by deliberate leaks by those opposed to such an operation.  Israel’s Channel 2 News, reports that the U.S. was adamantly opposed to such an Israeli strike on Iran in 2012; but, that the Israeli political leadership had decided to proceed any way.  But, Tel Aviv ultimately decided to abort the mission, because the strike would have occurred at the same time that the U.S. and Israeli were conducting a joint military exercise.  Israel’s Channel 2 News reported that it relied on tape recordings of former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak; and, other unnamed foreign reports — to reach the judgment that Israel had decided to strike Iran, only to abort the mission later.

     “The attack [pre-emptive military strike], was being readied for January 2012; but, that [time period] coincided with the long planned, Austere Challenge 12 Exercise,  the largest planned joint U.S./Israeli military exercise.  “We intended to carry it out, so I went to (then U.S Defense Secretary Leon) Panetta; and, asked him if we could change the date of the exercise,” former Defense Minister Barak said in a recording broadcast by Channel 2.  “So, they delayed it as much as they could….to a few days before the U.S. election (in the U.S. that November).  However, The Times of Israel reports, the new date set for a pre-emptive Israeli military strike – was also not convenient.”

     “You demand that the U.S. respect your sovereignty; and, decide you want to do it (strike Iran), even if America is opposed to it — and, is contrary to their interests,” Minister Barak said in the recording.  “You can’t find yourself then going back on that — by trying to force America to be party to (the strike), just as it comes here [Israel], for a pre-planned [joint military] drill.  That’s how it [the pre-emptive military strike] ran into difficulties in 2012,” he explained.

     Israel’s Channel 2 News added that Barak’s revelation about a thwarted 2012 military strike – was only one in a series of bombshells in the tape recordings of his conversations broadcast Friday night in Israel.  Defense Minister Barak also “detailed how he and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to strike [Iran] in 2010 and 2011; but, were thwarted by opposition by the Army’s Chief of Staff and ministerial colleagues.”  These new revelations “come from conversations related to a new biography of Minister Barak — being written by Danny Dor, and Ilan Kfir.  The Times of Israel adds that the former Defense Minister and Prime Minister, “attempted to prevent the broadcast of the recordings but Israel’s military’s censors allowed Channel 2 to play them.”

     I believe these reports are accurate.  As to the reasons why Israel did not go through with a pre-emptive strike?  I suspect the reasons are more nuanced and complicated than portrayed here.  Some reliable reporting in Israel suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu never really intended to authorize a pre-emptive military strike against Iran; but, was in fact bluffing – in an attempt to influence U.S. elections; and, perhaps extract additional military concessions from Washington.

The Iranian Shopping List With the $150 Billion and More

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Iran’s Military Is No Match for Its Rivals – But That Could Soon Change

MilitaryEdge: Iran, despite its belligerent behavior and support for terrorism, is not a formidable conventional military force. The Islamic Republic has a handful of weapon systems that make it asymmetrically dangerous, but its military is largely outdated thanks to years of international sanctions and arms embargos. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the subsequent United Nations resolution endorsing the deal, however, Tehran will soon have access to foreign arms that could substantially upgrade its forces and challenge international efforts to curb its destabilizing activities.

Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the U.S. and many of its European allies imposed restrictions on arms exports to Iran. While they were not all air-tight (see the Iran-Contra Affair), they did have a profound impact on Iran’s arsenal when it was embroiled in a devastating eight-year war with Iraq. Tehran was forced to turn to new sources – such as China, Libya, Syria, North Korea and private smuggling networks – to acquire weapons and parts for their existing systems. Iran’s new regime was also forced to rely on indigenous production, which often meant copying foreign-made equipment and replacement parts.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Russia and China delivered some modern systems to Iran, including MiG-29 fighters, Su-24 bombers, Kilo-class diesel submarines, Tor-M1 surface-to-air missiles systems, C-802 anti-ship missiles, and QW-1 MANPADS. Iran also acquired dozens of French- and Soviet-made Iraqi aircraft that fled to the country during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Tehran impounded the aircraft, only returning a handful of Su-25s in 2014 to bolster Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State. But Iran was unable to import enough equipment to rebuild its forces following years of war and Western embargos.

Iran’s military suffered further blows as international pressure to curb Iran’s nuclear program enacted comprehensive embargos on arms supplies. In 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approved Resolution 1747, forbidding Iran from exporting arms and calling on member states to exercise “vigilance and restraint” in supplying the country with conventional arms. Then in 2010, the UNSC approved Resolution 1929, which required all member states to “prevent” sales to Iran – effectively placing an international arms embargo against it. Tehran’s principal military suppliers, Russia and China, ceased arms deliveries to the Islamic Republic.

Russia halted the delivery of the S-300 air defense system purchased by Iran in 2007, though not as the result of UN restrictions. Moscow could have still provided the S-300 under Resolution 1929 because restrictions are based on the UN Register of Conventional Arms, which permits the transfer of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with the exception of the shoulder-launched variety (MANPADS). Russia ended its self-imposed ban on transferring the S-300 in April and is expected to begin delivering components before the end of this year. With the addition of this advanced mobile SAM system, Iran will improve the layered air defense of key sites, thus better protecting its nuclear and military facilities from potential U.S. and Israeli strikes.

The JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 terminated Resolutions 1747 and 1929 and made the abolition of the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargos rewards for Iran’s implementation of its nuclear obligations. During the final days of the nuclear negotiations, Russia and China are reported to have been the primary advocates for removing the arms embargos. For years, Moscow and Beijing missed out on the lucrative arms race in the Middle East as American and European defense firms made billions on sales to the Arab Gulf states. Now, they are expected to be among the prime beneficiaries of Iran’s re-entry into the legitimate arms market.

Because of the substantial lead Iran’s Sunni adversaries hold in military spending and capabilities, it will be some time until the Iranian military is considered a peer competitor. Still, with investments in certain Russian and Chinese platforms and weapons systems, Iran could significantly increase its offensive lethality in the airspace and waters of the Persian Gulf to threaten its Arab neighbors and U.S. interests. Meanwhile, it can forego purchases of land systems such as tanks and armored vehicles, as a major ground war with its rivals appears unlikely.

Reports already indicate that Tehran may be shopping for new equipment that could offset, or at least reduce, its adversaries’ qualitative edge. Iran, for example, has allegedly already begun negotiations to acquire between 24 and 150 Chengdu J-10 multirole fighters from China in exchange for turning over its largest oil field to Beijing for two decades. Although news of the prospective sale of J-10s remains unconfirmed by China, Iran’s desire to acquire modern combat aircraft to update its aging air force is well documented.

Prior to the 1979 revolution, the scores of first-rate American fighters sold to the shah gave Iran one of the strongest air forces in the Middle East. Today, many of those aircraft that survived the Iran-Iraq War still remain in the IRIAF’s inventory and are likely unusable or have been cannibalized to keep other aircraft in service. Iran’s limited number of bombing missions on Islamic State targets in Iraq may be an indication of just how degraded the IRIAF has become.

Iran_possible_aircraft_buys_table

Currently, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air wing is made up of F-14A Tomcats, F-4E Phantom IIs, F-5E Tiger IIs, Chengdu F-7 (a Chinese copy of the iconic Soviet MiG-21), MiG-29 Fulcrums, Su-24 Fencers, Su-25 Frogfoots, and Mirage F-1s – nearly all manufactured before 1990. Iran also produced a handful of its own fighters, such as the Azarakhsh and the Saegheh. However, these aircraft appear to be only slightly modified copies of the American-designed F-5 Tiger – a light fighter outclassed by modern competitors.

Modern multirole fighter aircraft tend to only be as effective as the weapons and sensors they carry, so buying the jets themselves would not be enough. Iran would also have to shop for sophisticated munitions for air-to-air, anti-ship, and long-range standoff strikes. In fact, with certain air-to-surface missiles, the ban on its ballistic missile development becomes almost meaningless as Iran would be able to launch long-range precision-guided strikes that are likely more accurate and harder to intercept than any ballistic missile they are able to develop. While there are existing international agreements to limit the transfer of the more dangerous missiles, some systems could be altered to expand their range and payload.

With new weapons and an unrestricted supply of parts and technical assistance, Iran will be able to close the gap with it foes and far more easily exert its will in the Persian Gulf. Facing the U.S. and the Gulf states in a prolonged conflict, Iran’s military would still be at a significant disadvantage. Armed with a handful of advanced systems, however, Tehran could make a brief conflict with the U.S. or its neighbors costly, granting it the ability to double down on its rogue behavior while better deterring adversaries from stopping it.

Patrick Megahan is a research analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies focusing on military affairs.

***

NYT in part:

There is little question that Iran needs the money, $185 billion to update the petrochemical sector alone, officials say. It also needs a new airline fleet of as many as 400 planes and further investments in almost every aspect of the economy and infrastructure.

Yet, critics of President Hassan Rouhani’s government, the main driving force behind Iran’s foreign and economic diplomacy, say that many top officials in his reformist government have vested business interests, a common feature of almost the entire Iranian political elite. More details here.

UN is Whining About Immigration Crimes, So Blame Obama

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The United Nations published a dispatch on the sexual crimes of illegal immigrants while in detention. So….rather than whine about Donald Trump, hey UN, go knock on the doors of the White House and that of Jeh Johnson’s office.

At least Donald Trump deserves real praise for raising the verbal flags on the issue of immigration.

Sheesh, get a load of this.

Violence Against Women is the Dark Underbelly of The USA’s Migrant Detention System

Donald Trump is fond of ascribing violence in American cities to immigrants. He has even gone so far as to propose a Constitutional amendment that would erase the bedrock law of giving citizenship to any baby born on American shores.

But what about violence inflicted on migrants once they crossed the border?  The fact is,  many who come to the USA fleeing violence–particularly women–are subject to abuse upon arrival.

Central American women, detained in Texas last year, alleged sexual abuse in detention. Many were asylum-seekers. Some had suffered sexual violence back home. But the nightmare was not over. Guards took them from their cells for sex, women said. They groped mothers in front of their children. Playing on detainees’ desperation, guards told women they would help them once released – but in exchange for sex.

The horror stories hardly stop there. Transgendered women especially are at risk. Despite identifying as female, they are often placed in all-male units. Nicoll Hernández-Polanco, one transgendered woman detained in Arizona, fled Guatemala seeking asylum from persecution based on gender identity. In six months in all-male detention, she alleged that male guards constantly groped and insulted her. Another male detainee sexually assaulted her. When she protested these conditions, she was put in solitary confinement, she said.

These are only a few of many more sexual abuse allegations. The Government Accountability Officeinvestigated over 200 such complaints filed from 2009 to 2013. Yet even this number is an underestimate. Detainees often avoid reporting incidents, fearing retaliation or re-traumatization.

The sexual abuse of migrants in detention centers is the dirty underbelly of the USA’s migrant detention system. It’s a problem that has been known to authorities for years, yet there has not been sufficient effort to clamp down on these kinds of criminal activities that prey on deeply vulnerable women.

So what can be done to stop the abuse?

For starters, freeing certain detainees would probably help. Last month, a federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release mothers and children detained together. (The Texas women who alleged sexual abuse had been in such a family-detention center.) While a welcome change, this one step is far from a solution. Thousands of women are still detained. They are still potential victims of abuse.

There are broader, systemwide changes that might also push the needle in the right direction.

For one, the DHS does not follow guidelines set by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). These rules include more checks, training, and restrictions on guards. A first step is to improve compliance with PREA. Yet even that would only go so far. Detainees, like prisoners, are inherently vulnerable to abuse.

Also, many detainees are simply waiting to go to court. They have been convicted of no crime and pose no security threat. Detention is a drastic method just to ensure court attendance. Detainees might stay locked up for months. Each day they spend in detention, they remain at risk of abuse.

Finally, alternatives to detention already exist in many countries. In the USA, effective methods include social services and legal representation. Asylum-seekers are very likely to pursue their cases, even with no supervision.  With a better chance in court, people are more likely to show up for hearings. They need not be locked up beforehand.

Changes will be slow. The detention system is entrenched. To comply with Congressional budget directives, DHS must detain at least 34,000 people a day. Politicians must change this mandate to make detention reform possible.

The United Nations can play a role. It has already urged US compliance with PREA in detention centers. It can make more Americans aware of the abuses in detention centers and the alternatives to detention. Many voters know little about immigration detention, which happens in remote sites.  Alternatives to detention may be hard to imagine. The UN can help US advocates see how other countries have successfully used alternatives. With this knowledge, advocates can press for reforms to detention.

No immigration system should allow abuses in detention. Women fleeing violence must not suffer again. Asylum-seekers to the US must truly find refuge there.

*** Hold on…while this is a self inflicted wound at the hands of the Obama doctrine on immigration and while Jeh Johnson is his corrupt soldier…there is more they are hiding and with purpose.

STONEWALLED: Feds Hide Fiscal Details About Vast Operation To Resettle Illegal Alien Minors

Illegal aliens who show up at the border have been resettled all across United States of America instead of being detained and deported, as Donald Trump recently called for in his new immigration plan.

Breitbart: According to data from the Justice Department obtained by Breitbart News, 96 percent of Central Americans caught illegally crossing into the country last summer are still in the United States. Now Breitbart News has learned exclusively that a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from a pro-security group about the cost of this operation is being stonewalled.

In January of 2015, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), filed a FOIA request to discover the cost of accommodating the tens of thousands of illegal unaccompanied minors who came across the border encouraged by President Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty for illegal youths.

The FOIA letter made five requests of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency: that the federal agency detail (1) the costs of building of family detention centers; (2) the costs of apprehending, processing and detaining unaccompanied minors; (3) the costs transporting, transferring, removing and repatriating unaccompanied minors; (4) the costs related to ICE’s representation of government in removal procedures involving unaccompanied minors; and (5) the number of instances where objections to the return of unaccompanied minors were raised by the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The federal agency, however, refused to answer many of these questions– instead only partially answering two of the five requests. The agency provided only the costs of transporting, transferring and removing illegal minors, as well as the costs of the man-hours such tasks required. Those costs totaled $58.2 million—quadrupling ICE’s costs of $15.6 million in the year previous.

FAIR told Breitbart News that the agency did not provide clear documentation nor explanation as to how it arrived at this estimation.

FAIR asserts that, “The failure to provide most of the cost information related to the surge of [unaccompanied minors] indicates that the government has either failed to properly document those costs, or is refusing to reveal them.”

Because this FOIA request only inquired into the fiscal impact on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency– it does not at all take into account the cost incurred by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) nor the public education system. Because most of the unaccompanied minors were turned over to HHS following their apprehension, FAIR notes that HHS’ costs “for providing shelter, food, education, health care and other services, likely vastly exceed additional costs incurred by ICE.”

The flood of minors has also placed fiscal strains on our public education system. FAIR notes that, “68,541 [unaccompanied minors] were apprehended entering the U.S. Virtually all of them have been allowed to remain in the U.S., at least temporarily.”

Because federal law dictates that all children are entitled to an education regardless of their immigration status, the fiscal burden of educating these students has fallen onto our public education system.

As FAIR notes, educating 68,541 illegal immigrant children at “an average annual cost of $12,401 per child enrolled in K-12 education, the annual cost to local schools is at least $850 million. However, since virtually all of the [unaccompanied minors] are non-English proficient, the actual costs are likely substantially greater.”

The increased costs and difficulties associated with educating illegal minors from poor and developing countries has been well-documented. As Fox News Latino reported in June of this year, the border surge has left many “schools struggling with influx of unaccompanied minors.” While the federal government’s policy of releasing illegal minors into American communities imposes burdens all across our nation’s education system, it will perhaps hurt minority American students most profoundly, by straining the educational resources needed in their communities.

For instance, New York’s Hempstead School District, which is a 96 percent black and Hispanic district, had about 6,700 students dispersed amongst its 10 schools and usually receives an average of a couple hundred new students every year. “However, last summer’s enrollment skyrocketed to about 1,500 new kids – most of them undocumented immigrants.” Fox News Latino writes, “The crush of new enrollees left the district scrambling, forcing it to dip into its emergency reserves to shell out more than $6 million to hire more English as a Second Language teachers and additional staff to alleviate overcrowded classrooms. Still, it has not been enough. The average classroom in the district now has about 40 to 50 children and [as one teacher explained is] posing a safety issue… ‘You have to understand,’ [one teacher said], ‘many of the children are not even proficient in their native language, Spanish, and now we have to teach them how to speak English. That can be very difficult.’”

Deporting instead of resettling illegal immigrants would save taxpayer dollars in two ways.

First, by deterring future border crossings, it would reduce the amount of illegal immigration in the future. As FAIR explains, refusing to implement immigration law has only encouraged more illegal immigrants to unlawfully enter the United States: “In July 2015, the Government Accountability Office confirmed that President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals [DACA] program played a substantial role in triggering the surge of [unaccompanied minors] in 2014.”

Second, deporting rather than resettling illegal immigrants would save the costs of feeding, clothing, housing, educating, hospitalizing, and caring for illegal immigrants and their relatives. A previous study conducted by FAIR documented that illegal immigrants cost U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion every year. After FAIR explains that by comparison, “The estimated cost of deporting an illegal alien is $8,318. Using just the partial enumerated $58.2 million costs to ICE and the conservative $850 million estimate for education of [unaccompanied minors] resettled in the U.S., the amount of taxpayer money spent on dealing with unaccompanied minors would have paid for the removal of an additional 109,000 illegal aliens.”

Obama’s Stand-down Order on Crimea/Ukraine

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Putin put 150,ooo troops on ready status during the Olympics for a military confrontation against Ukraine, but none was to come. The White House only responded with the usual condemnation. Russia continued to test the will of the West and there was no response. Russia already had military facilities in Crimea as the Russian Black Fleet is based there.

The United Nations issued their own warning to Russia over Ukraine, yet to date, almost 7000 are dead. Sanctions are the weapon of choice and there has been some impact on the Russian economy.

Russia will accept any compliant Russian government in Ukraine, beyond that or if threatened, Putin will increase his aggressions.

The shades of the Orange Revolution and the hostilities between Russia and Georgia in 2008 are at the core of the United States lack of will, strategy and response.

The back story here is the Minsk Agreement has no value and to date is not deliverable as the standing with Ukraine remains in an incubation condition at the hand of General Breedlove and NATO.

The U.S. has looked to support the Baltics under the building threat of Putin’s aggressions there.

Secretary of Defense is working the NATO operations and is European Command under Operation Atlantic Resolve.

U.S. Told Ukraine to Stand Down as Putin Invaded

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As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces took over Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in early 2014, the interim Ukrainian government was debating whether or not to fight back against the “little green men” Russia had deployed. But the message from the Barack Obama administration was clear: avoid military confrontation with Moscow.

The White House’s message to Kiev was advice, not an order, U.S. and Ukrainian officials have recently told us, and was based on a variety of factors. There was a lack of clarity about what Russia was really doing on the ground. The Ukrainian military was in no shape to confront the Russian Spetsnaz (special operations) forces that were swarming on the Crimean peninsula. Moreover, the Ukrainian government in Kiev was only an interim administration until the country would vote in elections a few months later. Ukrainian officials told us that other European governments sent Kiev a similar message.

But the main concern was Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As U.S. officials told us recently, the White House feared that if the Ukrainian military fought in Crimea, it would give Putin justification to launch greater military intervention in Ukraine, using similar logic to what Moscow employed in 2008 when Putin invaded large parts of Georgia in response to a pre-emptive attack by the Tbilisi government. Russian forces occupy two Georgian provinces to this day.

Looking back today, many experts and officials point to the decision not to stand and fight in Crimea as the beginning of a Ukraine policy based on the assumption that avoiding conflict with Moscow would temper Putin’s aggression. But that was a miscalculation. Almost two years later, Crimea is all but forgotten, Russian-backed separatist forces are in control of two large Ukrainian provinces, and the shaky cease-fire between the two sides is in danger of collapsing.

“Part of the pattern we see in Russian behavior is to test and probe when not faced with pushback or opposition,” said Damon Wilson, the vice president for programming at the Atlantic Council. “Russia’s ambitions grow when they are not initially challenged. The way Crimea played out, Putin had a policy of deniability, there could have been a chance for Russia to walk away.”

When Russian special operations forces, military units and intelligence officers seized Crimea, it surprised the U.S. government. Intelligence analysts had briefed Congress 24 hours before the stealth invasion, saying the Russian troop buildup on Ukraine’s border was a bluff. Ukraine’s government — pieced together after President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev for Russia following civil unrest — was in a state of crisis. The country was preparing for elections and its military was largely dilapidated and unprepared for war.

There was a debate inside the Kiev government as well. Some argued the nation should scramble its forces to Crimea to respond. As part of that process, the Ukrainian government asked Washington what military support the U.S. would provide. Without quick and substantial American assistance, Ukrainians knew, a military operation to defend Crimea could not have had much chance for success.

“I don’t think the Ukrainian military was well prepared to manage the significant challenge of the major Russian military and stealth incursion on its territory,” said Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, told us. This was also the view of many in the U.S. military and intelligence community at the time.

There was also the Putin factor. In the weeks and months before the Crimea operation, Russia’s president was stirring up his own population about the threat Russian-speakers faced in Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics.

“They did face a trap,” said the Atlantic Council’s Wilson, who was the senior director for Europe at the National Security Council when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. “Any Ukrainian violent reaction to any of these unknown Russian speakers would have played into the narrative that Putin already created, that Ukraine’s actions threaten Russian lives and he would have pretext to say he was sending Russian forces to save threatened Russians.”

The White House declined to comment on any internal communications with the Ukrainian government. A senior administration official told us that the U.S. does not recognize Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea, and pointed to a series of sanctions the U.S. and Europe have placed on Russia since the Ukraine crisis began.

“We remain committed to maintaining pressure on Russia to fulfill its commitments under the Minsk agreements and restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including Crimea,” the senior administration official said.

Ever since the annexation of Crimea in March, 2014, there have been a group of senior officials inside the administration who have been advocating unsuccessfully for Obama to approve lethal aid to the Ukrainian military. These officials have reportedly included Secretary of State John Kerry, his top Europe official, Victoria Nuland, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and General Philip Breedlove, the supreme allied commander for NATO.

Obama has told lawmakers in private meetings that his decision not to arm the Ukrainians was in part due to a desire to avoid direct military confrontation with Russia, one Republican lawmaker who met with Obama on the subject told us. The U.S. has pledged a significant amount of non-lethal aid to the Ukrainian military, but delivery of that aid has often been delayed. Meanwhile, Russian direct military involvement in Eastern Ukraine has continued at a high level.

Even former Obama administration Russia officials acknowledge that Ukraine’s decision last year to cede Crimea to Moscow, while making sense at the time, has also resulted in more aggression by Putin.

“Would a devastating defeat in Crimea serve the interest of the interim government? Probably not,” said Michael McFaul, who served as ambassador to Russia under Obama and is now a scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. But nonetheless, McFaul said, the ease with which Putin was able to take Crimea likely influenced his decision to expand Russia’s campaign in eastern Ukraine: “I think Putin was surprised at how easy Crimea went and therefore when somebody said let’s see what else we can do, he decided to gamble.”

The Obama administration, led on this issue by Kerry, is still pursuing a reboot of U.S.-Russia relations. After a long period of coolness, Kerry’s visit to Putin in Sochi in May was the start of a broad effort to seek U.S.-Russian cooperation on a range of issues including the Syrian civil war. For the White House, the Ukraine crisis is one problem in a broader strategic relationship between two world powers.

But for the Ukrainians, Russia’s continued military intervention in their country is an existential issue, and they are pleading for more help. While many Ukrainians agreed in early 2014 that fighting back against Russia was too risky, that calculation has now changed. The Ukrainian military is fighting Russian forces elsewhere, and Putin is again using the threat of further intervention to scare off more support from the West. If help doesn’t come, Putin may conclude he won’t pay a price for meddling even further.

Interview With Ambassador Wallace on the Iran Deal

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Sadly, not only is Iran cheating, it is proven by the side deal they will cheat with White House and United Nations approval. The text of the side deal signed by Iran and the IAEA is here.

Further, Barack Obama has signed waivers on sanctions which allows the existing sanctions to be overlooked and violated by foreign countries where the United States will not apply any punishment.

It is proven that Barack Obama, John Kerry and the other members of the P5+1 don’t have any red-lines with regard to Iran’s actions or violations. Contact your senators and demand they vote no.

Meanwhile, United Against Nuclear Iran is a private group leading the charge to stop the Iran deal. It is led by former Senator Joe Lieberman. The radio interview with UANI CEO Ambassador Mark Wallace is here.