"America’s instructive humiliation in the South China Sea": Spengler

David P. Goldman in Jerusalem

BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN on MAY 20, 2016 in Asia Times
“Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should: We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in 1902 after the Boers humiliated the British Army in the first round of the Boer War. America should express the same gratitude towards China, which has humiliated America in the South China Sea. By exposing American weakness without firing a shot, Beijing has taught Washington a lesson which the next administration should take to heart.

Last year I asked a ranking Pentagon planner what America would do about China’s ship-killer missiles, which reportedly can sink an aircraft carrier a couple of hundred miles from its coast. If China wants to deny the American navy access to the South China Sea, the official replied, we can do the same: persuade Japan to manufacture surface-to-ship missiles and station them in the Philippines.

It didn’t occur to Washington that the Philippines might not want to take on China. The country’s president-elect Rodrigo Duterte explained last year (as David Feith reported in the Wall Street Journal), “America would never die for us. If America cared, it would have sent its aircraft carriers and missile frigates the moment China started reclaiming land in contested territory, but no such thing happened … America is afraid to go to war. We’re better off making friends with China.”

It isn’t only the Philippines who see the obvious. China claims the support of 40 countries for its position that territorial claims to the South China Sea should be resolved by direct negotiations between individual countries, rather than before a United Nations tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on Law of the Seas, as Washington wants. A joint statement by the foreign ministers of China, Russia and India after a meeting in Moscow last month supported China’s position.

The US 7th Fleet was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the South China Sea after World War II, relying on a weapons system now more than nine decades old, namely the aircraft carrier. That was before China fielded its DF-21 “carrier killer” surface-to-ship missile. The latest iteration of the missile, designated DF-26, reportedly has a range of 2,500 miles. New technologies, including lasers and rail guns, might defeat the new Chinese missiles, but a great deal of investment would be required to make them practical, as a January report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued.

How are Obama's strategies losing the Middle East? Watch Bret Stephens of the Wall St. Journal, live with Josh Block

Under the presidency of Barack Obama the Islamic State (ISIS) is spreading into Iraq and Gaza, Iran trifles with Obama's nuclear sanctions lifting, and Islamism is growing in global socio-political influence.  Wall St. Journal columnist Bret Stephens analyzed the US' interests under the Obama administration's Middle East policies- in conversation with The Israel Project's Josh Block at Congregation Beth Jacob in Beverly Hills,  Sunday evening June 7, 2015.  

Enjoy some of Mr. Stephen's analysis in 21 minutes of video and 30-minutes of preceding audio from the presentation.  

How Obama's bungled Middle-East agenda bodes for the future

"The Solution: How to Deal with Obama Middle-East Policy" by Barry Rubin 

It is likely that the efforts of the Obama Administration during its second term will fail, not only because of its lack of understanding of the region and its ideology, but also due to the specific agenda.

No Middle Eastern country (only hostile ones or movements) can depend on the United States.  And to clarify this further:  No country -- including Israel -- can depend on the Obama Administration.

But as I noted above, this U.S. policy of Obama’s second term will fail. For example, the main goals of the second term are four big issues:

--Israel-Palestinian peace

--Egypt government coalition with Muslim Brotherhood

--Syrian civil war resolution with rebel victory

--U.S.-Iran rapprochement resolving nuclear issue.

Yet because of irreconcilable differences, these may well be unresolvable. Due to such failures and hardline radical positions (Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Islamists and regime, Iranian regime), the next administration would probably be forced back on recognition of extremism, support of allies, and U.S. interests.

Thus, regarding the “peace process,” we may well see the typical pattern in which the Palestinians wreck the peace process by rejecting or demanding even more concessions. Once again, it will only be necessary to wait until American negotiators learn better why their goals are impossible. Radicals will just raise their demands and demonstrate their anti-Americanism, and necessary priorities will shift.

"Russia-Iran Axis Gets Access" by Barry Rubin in PJ Media

The original supposed intent of this whole Syria exercise–punishing Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons–has achieved zero. In fact,  it has backfired.

“Russian credibility is not in question,”  my colleague Dr. Jonathan Spyer pointed out, American credibility is in question.

“The Russian weapons lifeline to the dictator is buzzing with increased activity,” Spyer continues.  ”The arms ships that make their way from the Ukrainian port of Oktabyrsk have increased in number in recent weeks, shipping analysts say. They are bringing the vital spare parts for Assad’s planes and tanks.”

But there’s more.

Was this a pay-off for the Putin-Syria deal to get Iran to agree? Was it an advantage that the Kremlin grabbed in order to show that Russia can do anything it wants now? If so, it was a heavy one indeed. Pay close attention.

Russian media reported Moscow is selling Iran five batteries of S-300 missiles for $700 million. The sale was frozen three years ago when the UN imposed sanctions. Russia will probably claim the weapons are for defense.

And of course, it is for defense, presuming Iran needs to defend a nuclear reactor or missile bases from Israel.

This step tightens the Iran-Russia alliance, presumably a way to make Iran feel more secure as it backs Syria. Russia may also have made an agreement to build a second nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

In other words, the Russia-Iran alliance is stronger; America is weaker; Syria is more secure, though it is still a very long way to win the civil war. But Iran—where the Obama Administration is cutting the sanctions—is more powerful and further away from any effective containment.

Here is Ammar Abdulhamid, who is an honorable and  sincere Syrian supporter of moderate rebels but knows he isn’t finding any:

“So the Russians have put on the table a plan whose implementation requires thousands of peacekeepers and experts working together over a period of several years to dismantle Assad’s chemical supplies and production capabilities. In practice, this requires cessation of all hostilities by all parties, in other words, an end to the civil war.”

 ”End the civil war and the Russian plan can work. But how do we end the civil war? Well, how about a limited strike against Assad’s military and security establishment to convince him to cease hostilities? There you go, we’re back where we started: in order to make Russia’s plan work we need to strike Assad, and in order to strike Assad, we need an American President who is willing to do it and does not go into convulsions each time we get to this point.”

I unfortunately don”t agree with Abdulhamid, but I would if he had received the moderate opposition he wanted.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth O’Bagy, who became famous overnight by being quoted as the rationale for saying Syrian rebels are moderates by Kerry, McCain, and the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, was fired by her pro-rebel lobbying group for faking her PhD.

 Turns out she DID lie about her PhD,  BUT they had to get rid of her without pointing to the real scandal that the Syrian rebels are not moderate.

Did anyone learn anything? Again, they really fired her for embarrassment, because it showed that State Department just bought intelligence it wanted–saying Syrian rebels are moderate–by Kerry, McCain, theWashington Post and Wall Street Journal. A few months later she said the opposite.

The real issue–they are lying and faking intelligence–became disguised as a technical issue. Read more

If Obama’s Syria Promises Mean Nothing, How Can We Trust Him on Iran?

Syrian chemical attack victim (Photo: The Times London)

Jonathan Tobin writes in Commentary:

With even ardent Obama supporters like Jeffrey Goldberg reminding the president he has made it crystal clear that chemical weapons use would be a red line that would trigger a strong U.S. response, what follows will not only tell us whether that promise would be kept. It will also illustrate just how seriously to take other pledges the administration has made, specifically its vow never to allow Iran to go nuclear.

With the White House desperately trying to buy time before making a decision on Syria, it’s fair to ask why anyone should regard American rhetoric on Iran as anything more than an elaborate bluff if Obama won’t keep his word about Assad’s behavior.

Read more