Category Archives: Trump Administration

Daily Gas Pump Prices are Based on the Strait of Hormuz

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Experts said Iranian officials are trying to demonstrate to the U.S. and its allies that the Islamic Republic is able to push back and gain leverage against the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy, which intensified after President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the landmark nuclear deal in May 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions, making it difficult for Iran to export oil, the foundation of the country’s economy.

China, Russia and leading Western European countries have sought ways around the U.S. sanctions, but it has been difficult to bypass them.

“The message that Iran is sending is that it is capable of making international waters unsafe not just for the U.S., but for international trade,” said Reza H. Akbari, a program manager and Iran expert at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

These are the reasons for oil tanker seizures and attacks by Iranian limpet mines.

Tensions between the West and Iran bubbled to a historic height in recent days after the assassination of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Tehran bombed two Iraqi bases that housed US troops.

They have sparked fears of wider US-Iran attacks in the greater region, which could take place in and around the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow body of water linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, which feeds into Arabian Sea and the rest of the world.

strait of hormuz jan 2020

A satellite image of marine traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz as on January 9, 2020.MarineTraffic.com

While Iran’s leaders claim to have “concluded” their revenge for Soleimani’s death — and President Donald Trump appears to believe them — many regional experts and diplomatic sources say Iran could unleash other modes of attack, which include unleashing allied militias to disrupt the Middle East.

One strategy could include Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, which would stop oil tanker traffic, disrupt global oil supply, and send prices shooting up.

Here’s what you need to know about this valuable strait.

Some 21 million barrels of crude and refined oil pass through the strait every day, the EIA said, citing 2018 statistics.

That’s about one-third of the world’s sea-traded oil, or $1.2 billion worth of oil a day, at current oil prices. The majority of Saudi Arabia’s crude exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, meaning much of the oil-dependent economy’s wealth is situated there. Saudi state-backed oil tanker Bahri temporarily suspended its shipments through the strait after Iran’s missile strikes in Iran, the Financial Times reported.

Last June Iran shot down a US drone flying near the strait, and a month later a US warship — USS Boxer — also shot down an Iranian drone in the same area.

Shortly after Iran’s drone attack, President Donald Trump questioned the US’ presence in the region, and called on China, Japan, and other countries to protect their own ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump noted that much of China and Japan’s oil flow through the strait, and added: “So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation.”

While a large proportion — 76% — of oil flowing through the chokepoint does end up in Asian countries, the US still imports more than 30 million barrels of oil a month from countries in the Middle East, Business Insider has reported, citing the EIA.

That’s about $1.7 billion worth of oil, and 10% of the US’s total oil imports per month.

Iranian leaders, who have also vowed retaliation for the death of Soleimani, have threatened to close down the strait multiple times in the past.

If Iran followed through with these threats, it would likely cause huge disruption to the global oil trade. As the strait is so narrow, any sort of interference in tanker traffic could decrease the world’s oil supply, and send prices shooting up.

Global oil prices have proven vulnerable to tensions between Iran and the West before. After the Trump administration said in April 2019 it would stop providing sanctions waivers to countries who purchase Iranian oil, prices rose to their highest level since November the year before, Axios reported.

How likely is Iran to shut down the strait?

Iran is more likely to disrupt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz than to engage in an all-out conventional war with the US, which is much stronger militarily.

But doing so comes with high costs to Iran.

To close down the entire strait, Iran would have to place at least 1,000 mines with submarines and surface craft along the chokepoint, security researcher Caitlin Talmadge posited in a 2009 MIT study. Such an effort could take weeks, the study added. (taken in part from here)

Trump Signs the Caesar Act into Law

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America has short memories yet war atrocities continue in Syria. For those that were very skeptical about the use of chemical weapons used in Syria by the Assad regime, here is the truth. Meanwhile. the Assad regime remains in power due to assistance from Russia and Qassim Soleimani was the wartime, military advisor to Assad.

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He was once a military photographer in Syria. For two years, he took pictures of the emaciated and mangled corpses left behind by Bashar al Assad’s interrogators. Then he fled to Europe with 55,000 digital images on flash drives hidden in his shoes.

Even members of Congress know him only as Caesar. When he spoke to them for the first time in 2014, he wore sunglasses and a bright blue windbreaker with the hood pulled over his head. No one recorded his voice or took pictures of his face. The Assad regime would assassinate him if it could.

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Two days after Christmas, President Trump signed into law the Caesar Act, a tribute to the man whose photographs have proven the war crimes of the Assad regime beyond the shadow of a doubt. When the FBI’s Digital Evidence Laboratory examined Caesar’s work, it found no signs of manipulation.

The bodies in Caesar’s images bear a striking resemblance to the ones in photographs of concentration camps liberated from the Nazis. Fittingly, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has had a selection of Caesar’s images on display since 2015.

The purpose of the Caesar Act is to put unprecedented economic pressure on the Assad regime. The United States and European Union put some tough sanctions on Mr. Assad and his henchmen in the early days of the war in Syria, but enforcement has been partial.

Whereas existing U.S. sanctions prohibit Americans from doing business with the Assad regime, the Caesar Act authorizes sanctions on the citizens of any country who work with Mr. Assad. The act specifically targets the Iranian militias and Russian mercenaries that have kept the Syrian dictator in power.

Although Moscow and Tehran have secured Mr. Assad’s grip on Damascus and other major cities, the war in Syria is far from over. An estimated 3 million Syrians are now crowded into the northwestern province of Idlib, which remains under the control of a variety of rebel forces, including extremists with ties to al Qaeda. As usual, Mr. Assad and his allies are targeting civilians, not terrorists. Hospitals are especially popular targets.

Thus, the Caesar Act still serves a pressing need. Economic pressure is one of the few means of holding war criminals to account for their actions. Sanctions alone will not bring down the Assad regime, but in concert with diplomatic and military pressure they should be part of any sound strategy.

On Twitter, Mr. Trump has made very clear that his administration is on the side of the Iranian people against their tyrannical regime. He should be equally clear in his support for the people of Syria. One can certainly object that Mr. Trump’s concern for human rights is selective, yet when the president of the United States speaks, the world pays attention. When the world is watching, war criminals hesitate.

The United States is not at war with Mr. Assad, but a U.S.-led coalition now controls about a fourth of Syria, which was formerly part of the ISIS caliphate. Twice now, Mr. Trump has ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops only to reverse himself under intense pressure from Republicans in Congress. This wavering only emboldens Mr. Assad, who wants to take back the resource-rich areas under the coalition’s control.

In terms of economic pressure, aggressive enforcement of the Caesar Act should be the first priority. Syria remains dependent on illicit shipments of Iranian oil. The Treasury Department has become more aggressive in its pursuit of sanctions evaders, but tankers of Iranian oil are still getting through.

With Russian help, Syria is also trying to revive its phosphate industry, which generated more than $100 million per year of export revenue before the war. Reportedly, Lebanese companies are buying the phosphates before reselling them abroad, likely after processing the raw material into crop fertilizer.

One entity beyond the reach of the Caesar Act is the United Nations, whose humanitarian agencies have been so deferential to the Assad regime that their aid has effectively become a subsidy for Mr. Assad’s war effort. Independent human rights organizations have produced lengthy reports on this travesty year after year, but donor states have not demanded accountability.

This is one area where further congressional action could make a difference. If there is a second Caesar Act, it should condition U.S. funding for U.N. humanitarian work on verifiable reforms. European governments should impose similar conditions.

Caesar demonstrated extraordinary courage by patiently collecting evidence of Mr. Assad’s war crimes. He saw his friends and neighbors among the dead, but he could say nothing. Had his superiors discovered his plans, his corpse would have been the next one in a photograph.

What Caesar deserves is not just a law, but a sustained American commitment to human rights in Syria.

*** From Human Rights Watch: The 86-page report, “If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria’s Detention Facilities,” lays out new evidence regarding the authenticity of what are known as the Caesar photographs, identifies a number of the victims, and highlights some of the key causes of death.

Russia Hacked Burisma Per Area 1

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Someone alert Tucker Carlson that Russia is still inside our political system.

Just reported by a California based company called Area 1 it began when the whole Burisma scandal broke last Fall during the impeachment hearings.

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WSJ/Volz:

Hackers believed to be affiliated with Russia’s military breached the Ukrainian gas company where former Vice President Joe Biden’s son had served on the board as it became a focus of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, according to a U.S. cybersecurity firm.

Attempts to hack into Burisma Holdings began last November, as Congress was holding hearings into whether Mr. Trump abused his office by pressuring his Ukrainian counterpart to work with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to investigate Mr. Biden and his son, Hunter according to research published Monday by Area 1, a California based company.

The hacking attempts are ongoing and are linked to the Russian military intelligence unit previously known as the GRU, which hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential election, Area 1 said.

The Russia Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. They have historically denied hacking into U.S. elections.

It wasn’t known what information the hackers were seeking or what they obtained, the firm said. In at least one instance, the hackers tricked the recipient of a phishing email into sharing login credentials that allowed them access into on the Burisma’s servers, the company said. Area 1’s findings were earlier reported by the New York Times.

Messrs. Trump and Giuliani have argued without evidence, that Mr. Biden’s anti-corruption push in Ukraine was designed to head off any investigation of Burisma. Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing and said they never discussed business in Ukraine.

Area 1’s documentation is found here.

In part from the preface of the report:

Like all phishing campaigns, we observe the GRU was successful because they found ways to appear authentic to their targets, rather than using any technical sophistication. Everything about their approach is technically unremarkable, yet highly effective. In this campaign the GRU combines several different authenticity techniques to achieve success: Domain-based authenticityBusiness process and application authenticityPartner and supply chain authenticityA key aspect of cyberattack preemption is having a deep understanding of cyber actor patterns and continually discovering and deconstructing campaigns to anticipate future ones. Our report is not noteworthy because we identify the GRU launching a phishing campaign, nor is the targeting of a Ukrainian company particularly novel. It is significant because Burisma Holdings is publically entangled in U.S. foreign and domestic politics. The timing of the GRU’s campaign in relation to the 2020 U.S. elections raises the spectre that this is an early warning of what we have anticipated since the successful cyberattacks undertaken during the 2016 U.S. elections.

Area 1 Security has correlated this campaign against Burisma Holdings with specific tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used exclusively by the GRU in phishing for credentials. Repeatedly, the GRU uses Ititch, NameSilo, and NameCheap for domain registration; MivoCloud and M247 as Internet Service Providers; Yandex for MX record assignment; and a consistent pattern of lookalike domains.

Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted seven officers with the G.R.U in 2018.

 

Pelosi Says ‘no war’ but What About the Gerasimov Doctrine?

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The 800 lb. gorilla in the room, meaning in Congress is the 2002 AUMF, Authorization for Military Force. That was 18+ years ago and since that time warfare has changed. No longer will we see convention forces take the battlefield that looks that of Ramadi, North Korea or driving the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

Modern warfare is best described today by the doctrine developed by Russian General Valery Gerasimov. This site has published several items on Gerasimov in recent years where in summary his military paper lays out theories of modern warfare and the new rules. The strategies include politics, cyber, media, leaks, space, fake news, conventional, asymmetric a tactics of extortion and influence.
The United States does not want war but bad guys do and they often get it.
As long as the United States responds and remains defensive on all fronts, we are in a forever war and the bad guys multiply.

The adversaries of our nation watch us more than we watch ourselves, there are divisions, departments, teams, units and various skill sets that are assigned and dedicated to all things United States all to pinpoint our weaknesses and fractures in our systems. They DO find them.
When third in the line of succession to the presidency, Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls President Trump and ‘insecure imposter’ and an ‘assassin’, it becomes one of many jumping off points for our adversaries to exploit. When the media calls Trump a liar, members of Congress use racist, unfit and unstable, the enemy takes delight.

So, taking out General Soleimani was long overdue and as for bad guys multiplying?

Source IISS report

Enter the cyber trolls, the deep fakes, the false news stories, hacks, ransomware, espionage, theft, plants, drones, terrorists embedded with migrants, illicit transfer of goods including weapons, money and people generated by rogue nations.

So, while there is little debate about the AUMF, there is a past due need to update and define all lanes of modern warfare and for a full new unanimous vote on military force which does now include cyber and space.
When Speaker Pelosi announced last week ‘NO WAR’ and the House passed a non-binding resolution to limit President Trump’s war powers against Iran, you can bet Russia was listening as were North Korea, Syria, China and even Iran.

This is a pre-911 mentality regarding foreign policy, United States doctrine and national security. Such was the case several days ago when Iran launched their cyber operation to begin brute force attacks against several targets inside the United States. The Department of Homeland Security’s CISA division (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) sent out several advanced warnings nationally for state and local governments as well as private business and corporations to be on the ready and harden systems with robust firewalls. They are asked for information regarding intrusions and attacks, Well, Texas Governor Abbot did respond. A few Texas state systems were the victims of of brute force cyber hits. The extent of that action appears to be rather minimal but no computer system network ever wants to reveal the damage such that it would or could invite more resulting in more ransomware.

Noted in the Gerasimov Doctrine, hard and soft power across many domains, past and over any boundaries, Russia collaborating with China, Iran and North Korea counter-balance conventional warfare with hybrid tactics and it is cheaper and often missed by experts and media until the real damage is noted.

Congress has held many hearings on what is an act of war against the United States and yet, here we are with a tired and outdated AUMF that does not address gray zone operations. Just ask Ukraine, East Europe and Crimea how Russia was successful in applying hybrid warfare tactics. Maybe we should just rename the Gerasimov Doctrine civilian military operations, perhaps the Democrats and Pelosi would better understand the burdens of the Commander in Chief and that of the Secretary of Defense along with the intelligence agencies. It is an ugly world.

Democrats Cant be Trusted with Intelligence Briefings

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This site on May of 2018, wrote a piece regarding John Kerry’s global shadow foreign policy operations. His organization is called Diplomacy Works. Two areas of concentration for John Kerry via his organization since he launched it in 2017 are Iran and North Korea.

On his team of over 50 people are: Jeremy Ben-Ami, President of J Street and a former Clinton advisor, former Ambassador for Qatar, Dana Smith Shell, who also worked for Clinton and Kerry. Then there is Antony Blinken who is a former US Deputy Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor; former Ambassador Nicholas Burns who worked for Hillary; former Senator Tom Daschle; Jonathan Finer, former policy planner at the US State Department; Michele Flournoy, Juan Gonzalez, a special advisor to VP Joe Biden; Avril Haines, former Deputy National Secruity Advisor to Obama; Dr. Colin Kahl, former Special Assistant to President Obama and VP Joe Biden; Robert Malley, former Special Assistant to the Obama White House; Jen Psaki, former Obama White House communications director; former Ambassador Wendy Sherman to name a few.

Sounds like all Deep Staters….right? They are.

So with America just off the 2-3 year Mueller investigation, with continued lawsuits against policy decisions from the Trump White House, with constant leaks that came from not only the FBI and members of Congress to the media including the Washington Post and the New York Times and then the leak of the leak to the pesky whistle-blower about a phone call that launched the impeachment adventure, no one inside the Trump White House should trust anyone inside the Beltway.

Past working relationships from the Obama administration go on to be renewed relationships in new and often obscure places and such continues to be true with the names listed above. Take for example the name above Jonathan Winer….he at one point was special envoy to Libya and assistant secretary of state for international law under John Kerry. If his name is rather familiar, it should be. He and Christopher Steele are old pals from 2009. He too got his hands of the dossier summary and conferred with Victoria Nuland and Sidney Blumenthal.

Then there is Wendy Sherman, that when working for John Kerry was assigned as the North Korea Policy coordinator. Prior to that, Sherman directed the 1988 Democratic National Committee. She also did stints at Emily’s List, for former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, as president of Fannie Mae Foundation and even was a foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign.

Kinda wonder now about those deep state relationships right? If you care to understand just one more among John Kerry’s team, let’s look at Robert Malley. He is a lawyer and most of all a communist sympathizer. Yup, a real anti-semite and in 2008 held meetings with Hamas. In 2014, the Obama administration named Malley to the National Security Council to work with Susan Rice as an expert on the Middle East.

So, when it comes to covert military operations such as that of the drone strike killing Qassim Soleimani and the failed strike in Yemen to take out the other Quds Force commander, Abdul Reza Shala’i who commands the Houthis, would you advise the Gang of 8 or others in Congress?

By the way, directly after the strike to kill Soleimani, Trump dispatched a back channel message via the Swiss embassy to Iran to NOT ESCALATE. Well, Iran did.

The failed strike was first reported by the Washington Post…hummm, how did they know? Shala’i does need to meet a drone as he leads the commanders in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. Remember how those missiles and drones from Yemen strike Saudi Arabian targets?

The United States has a $15 million bounty on him. Shala’i directed the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington DC in 2011.

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This was a plot right out of Hollywood actually that included an Iranian-American used car salesman and resident of Texas names Manssor Arbabsiar who has a cousin high up in the Quds Force named…wait for it….Abdul Reza Shahla’i. The assassination by the way paid well if successful, $1.5 million. (criminal complaint found here)

This was a plot right here in our homeland…those Democrats overlook the connections including Soleimani….