Send Salon mailing list submissions to
salon@listserve.com
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
salon-request@listserve.com
You can reach the person managing the list at
salon-owner@listserve.com
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Salon digest..."
To access the full archive of posted links, visit the Salon Archive https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/ If you never set up a password for your account (It’s optional), just enter your email address and click the Password “remind” button. The system will send you a randomly generated password that you can use to log into the archives.
Today's Topics:
1. ?Historic presence? doesn?t justify US conduct in SCS
(Chas Freeman)
2. 'Their money, not ours?: 9/11 families urge Biden to return
frozen funds to Afghans (Chas Freeman)
3. Why is Amnesty apologising for telling the truth about
Ukrainian war crimes? (Chas Freeman)
4. BREAKING: Trump Endorses Yemen War Powers Resolution
(Chas Freeman)
5. Combat ready? Pentagon to host 'transgender and non-binary'
gender inclusion and pronoun usage workshop (Chas Freeman)
6. Fast Facts | Iran Nuclear Deal (Chas Freeman)
7. Intel to invest $7 billion in new plant in Malaysia, creating
9, 000 jobs (Chas Freeman)
8. Russia's Defence Ministry says it may shut down Zaporizhzhia
nuclear plant if shelling continues (Chas Freeman)
9. The global struggle to respond to an emerging two-bloc world
(Chas Freeman)
10. Details on new nuclear deal approved by Iran (Chas Freeman)
11. MBS?s Visit to Europe: Seeking New Security Ties Through
Greece and France (Chas Freeman)
12. Energy Sanctions On Russia Have Been A Boon For China And
India (Chas Freeman)
13. Walker, Pollard, Hanssen, Trump . . . America's most
traitorous spies | OpEd News (Chas Freeman)
14. Playing With Fire in Ukraine: The Underappreciated Risks of
Catastrophic Escalation (Chas Freeman)
15. Israel?s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank
(Chas Freeman)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:26:08 -0400
Subject: [Salon] ‘Historic presence’ doesn’t justify US conduct in SCShttps://asiatimes.com/2022/08/historic-presence-doesnt-justify-us-conduct-in-scs/‘Historic presence’ doesn’t justify US conduct in SCS
US gunboat diplomacy in South China Sea concerns not just Beijing, but ASEAN states
by Mark Valencia August 18, 2022Multiple aircraft fly in formation over the USS Ronald Reagan, a US Navy aircraft carrier, in the South China Sea. Photo: Kaila V Peters / US Navy
Gregory Poling of Washington think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has tried to justify current US policy and conduct in the South China Sea by detailing its historic “investment” there.
Although he has publicly admitted his bias by stating that it is his job “to advance the interests of the United States,” it is not in the US interest to produce biased analysis of critical issues regarding US policy in the region. For that reason, his article in Foreign Policy cries out for a riposte.
Poling’s polemic begins by dismissing Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe’s address to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June as “tin-eared” and in contrast praising that of US Defense Minister Greg Austin.
But Austin’s meme of “a US focus on alliances and international rules as a source of stability” was also tin-eared for some Southeast Asian countries that want both the US and China to dial back their military competition and their attempts to make such countries choose between the two superpowers.
Then, in an epitome of disingenuousness, the article asserts that China is threatening “freedom of navigation.” It says that “Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, especially to historic rights throughout the nine-dash line, threaten the centuries-old US commitment to freedom of the seas.”
First of all, if the author knows exactly what China claims, he should share it and the evidence for it with the rest of us who are still unclear.
Apparently he thinks this is a claim to sovereignty over the waters and territory within the nine-dash line. Yet many others think it is at most a claim to sovereignty only over the territory and a share of the resources within that line. While the latter was not recognized by an international tribunal, such a claim does not threaten freedom of navigation.
Indeed, whatever China claims, it has not threatened freedom of commercial navigation there and is unlikely to do so in peacetime. To the contrary, it worries that the US, in a time of hostilities, might cut its commercial lifelines, and it is preparing to defend them.
The US and apparently the author conflate freedom of commercial navigation with the “freedom” of its military to spy on and threaten China’s defenses.
While China does not object to ordinary military transit of the South China Sea, it does object in word and deed to certain military activities that it thinks violate the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea’s (UNCLOS’) requirement to pay due regard to its rights and duties in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The article goes on to say that the US commitment to freedom of the seas “mitigates naval tensions.” To the contrary, it exacerbates naval tension when the US uses warships and warplanes to enforce its interpretation of “freedom of navigation” for its military to spy on and threaten China’s defenses.
Southeast Asian concerns
Indeed, this statement is “tin-eared” for Southeast Asian countries. Given that claims by all littoral members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations except Singapore and Brunei have been targets of US Navy freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), it is safe to say that they do not approve of this gunboat diplomacy – at least against themselves. They also fear that it will be destabilizing.
Even US stalwart Singapore has reservations. Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen has said, “Some of the [South China Sea] incidents are from assertion of principles, but we recognize that the price of any physical incident is one that is too high and unnecessary to either assert or prove your position.” This criticism seemed directed at the US use of warships to assert its legal position.
Some Indonesian policymakers have long been suspicious of US intent and worry about the potential destabilizing effect of increasing US-China military competition and confrontation. Then-defense minister Ryamizard Ryacudu suggested that “if regional countries can manage the SCS on their own, there is no need to involve others.”
Luhut Pandjaitan, then coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, once declared in a veiled criticism of both US and China that “we don’t like any power projection.”
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte once said that “the threat of confrontation and trouble in the waterway came from outside the region.” Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has argued that “big warships [in the South China Sea] may cause incidents, and that will lead to tension.”
Indeed, then-Malaysian foreign minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in 2020: “While international law guarantees the freedom of navigation, the presence of warships and vessels in the South China Sea has the potential to increase tensions that in turn may result in miscalculations which may affect peace, security and stability in the region.”
In the context of the question of “freedom of navigation,” Poling’s article asserts that ”for every American involved in maritime affairs whether naval, commercial or scientific, UNLOS is effectively the law of the land.”
This sweeping statement conveniently ignores the fact that the US and apparently the author have their own interpretations of key provisions of UNCLOS, especially those pertaining to freedom of navigation, that differ from those of other countries such as China.
These include “other internationally lawful uses of the sea,” “marine scientific research,” “abuse of rights,” ”due regard,” and “peaceful use/purpose.” Worse, the US then backs up its interpretations with gunboat diplomacy by challenging others’ claims with threat of use of force, aka FONOPs. Poling also ignores the fact that the US is not a party to UNCLOS and thus has no legitimacy or credibility unilaterally interpreting such provisions in its favor.
According to the article, “the US alliances network along with American territories in the region made the United States a resident power and helped maintain stability in Asia.” This would be news to many Southeast Asians. Just what “territories in the region” does he mean?
The United States’ continued neocolonial occupation of conquered remote Pacific islands hardly qualifies it as a “resident power” in East and Southeast Asia. Moreover its alliances with Thailand and the Philippines are rapidly fading in strength and relevance.
But it is the assertion that the US has helped maintain stability in Asia that really takes the cake. US attempts to maintain its hegemony were a major factor in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Moreover, its support for regime change and for ruthless dictators in Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines also resulted in instability when their peoples rebelled.
This polemic, with its facile and false assumptions, has no place in a prestigious journal like Foreign Policy.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:30:28 -0400
Subject: [Salon] 'Their money, not ours’: 9/11 families urge Biden to return frozen funds to AfghansAugust 17, 2022'Their money, not ours’: 9/11 families urge Biden to return frozen funds to Afghans
Families of 9/11 victims have called on the administration of US President Joe Biden to release billions of dollars held by Afghanistan's central bank in the US.
In a letter sent to Biden on Tuesday, 77 family members of 9/11 victims called on the president to modify an executive order from February which froze the Afghan central bank's $7 billion-worth of assets in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
"Any use of the $7 billion to pay off 9/11 family member judgments is legally suspect and morally wrong," the family members wrote in a letter first reported by Politico.
The letter came amid a report in the Wall Street Journal that the US had ruled out releasing the funds following the US killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul earlier this month.
The US froze the money after the Taliban swept to power following the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban and US had been engaged in talks about releasing the funds.
The Biden administration was considering a plan to allow $3.5bn to flow into Afghanistan for humanitarian purposes and to support the central bank, based on assurances on how the money would be used.
But the revelation that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was living in Kabul derailed talks between the US and the Taliban on a compromise over the funds.
Afghanistan is in desperate need of cash. The country's GDP plummeted 20 percent following the Taliban takeover. Foreign aid, which accounted for 95 percent of the government's budget under the previous administration has dried up. It is estimated that 95 percent of the population does not have enough to eat.
The 9/11 victims families said that, while they had filed lawsuits seeking justice for their loss, they didn't intend for the compensation "to take money away from starving Afghans".
"This money is theirs, not ours," the letter said. "Simply put, this money belongs to the Afghan people, not 9/11 family members - and they need it more."
However, the letter sent to Biden on Tuesday does not represent a unified voice for the 9/11 families. Others have called for the funds to be paid out.
One victim, speaking on behalf of another group of families seeking compensation, disputed the Afghan people's claim to the funds.
"The Afghans had every opportunity to fight back against the Taliban," Brett Eagleson, whose father died in 9/11, told Politico earlier this year. "I don't see how they can claim it as their money."
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:33:53 -0400
Subject: [Salon] Why is Amnesty apologising for telling the truth about Ukrainian war crimes?Why is Amnesty apologising for telling the truth about Ukrainian war crimes?
16 August 2022Allowing only one side to be criticised for its crimes – reinforcing the loaded western political narrative of good guys versus bad guys – is likely to fuel war rather than resolve it
Middle East Eye – 16 August 2022
Should a human rights organisation apologise for publishing important evidence of war crimes and human rights abuses?
If it does apologise, what does that suggest about its commitment to dispassionately uncovering the truth about the actions of both parties to war? And equally, what message does it send to those who claim to be “distressed” by the publication of such evidence?
Those are questions Amnesty International should have pondered far more carefully than it obviously did before issuing an apology last week over its latest report on the war in Ukraine.
In that report, Amnesty accused Ukrainian forces of committing war crimes by stationing troops and artillery in or near schools, hospitals and residential buildings, thereby using civilians effectively as human shields. Such practices by Ukrainian soldiers were identified in 19 different towns and villages.
These incidents did not just theoretically endanger civilians. There is evidence, according to Amnesty, that return fire by Russian troops on these Ukrainian positions led to non-combatants being killed.
The Israeli army regularly accuses Palestinian factions like Hamas of hiding among civilians in Gaza, while obscuring its own, long-documented practice of using Palestinians as human shields.
But whatever the truth of Israel’s claims, unlike the tiny and massively overcrowded Gaza, which offers few or no hiding places outside of built-up areas for Palestinian fighters to resist Israeli aggression, Amnesty concluded of the situation in Ukraine: “Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas.”
In other words, it was a choice made by the Ukrainian army to put its own civilians in harm’s way.
Mounting pressure
Notably, this is the first time a major western human rights organisation has publicly scrutinised the behaviour of Ukraine’s soldiers. Until now, these watchdog bodies have focused exclusively on reports of crimes committed by Russian forces – a position entirely in line with the priorities of their own governments. By its own admission, Amnesty has published dozens of reports condemning Russia.
The pushback against the latest report was relentless, coming even from Amnesty’s own Ukrainian team. Oksana Pokalchuk, its head, quit, explaining that her team “did everything they could to prevent this material from being published”.
Under mounting pressure, Amnesty made a statement last week in which it said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused by its report, while at the same time stating: “We fully stand by our findings.”
The idea that only one side has been committing war crimes in Ukraine was always implausible. In wars, all sides commit crimes. It is in the nature of wars.
Faulty lines of communication mean orders are misunderstood or only partially relayed to those on the front lines. Inevitably, soldiers prioritise their own lives over those of the enemy, including civilians. Terrorising the other side – through human rights violations – can be an effective way to avoid combat, by sending a warning to enemy soldiers to desert their posts and civilians to flee. Sadists and psychopaths, meanwhile, find themselves with plenty of opportunities to exploit during the fighting.
But conversely, parties to wars invariably struggle to acknowledge their own abuses. They prefer simple-minded, self-serving narratives of good and evil: our soldiers are heroes, morally spotless, while their soldiers are barbarians, indifferent to the value of human life.
Western governments and establishment media outlets have readily peddled this foolish line in Ukraine, too, even though neither Europe nor the United States are supposed to be directly involved in the war. They have reflexively amplified Ukrainian claims of Russian war crimes, even when the evidence is lacking or the picture murky, and they have resolutely ignored any evidence of Ukrainian crimes, such asevidence that Russian prisoners of war have been executed or that Ukraine has been using petal cluster bombs in civilian areas.
More self-censorship
In such circumstances, only the human rights community is in a position to provide a more faithful picture of how events are unfolding, and hold to account both sides for their crimes. But until Amnesty stepped out of line, western human rights groups had moved in lockstep with western governments, the same governments that appear to want endless war in Ukraine, to “weaken Russia”, rather than a quick resolution.
Even the author of Amnesty’s new report, Donatella Rovera, has conceded: “I think the level of self-censorship on this issue [Ukrainian war crimes] has been pretty extraordinary.”
Amnesty should not be apologising for providing a rare window on such crimes. It should be emphasising the importance of monitoring both sides for serious breaches of international law. And for very good reason.
Amnesty’s apology sends a message to those partisans trying to shut down scrutiny of Ukrainian crimes of just how easy it is to put the human rights community on the defensive. Efforts to deter reporting of a similar nature in the future will intensify.
Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was among those who lost no time vilifying Amnesty by characterising its report as “Russian disinformation”.
Amnesty’s apology suggests such pressure campaigns have an effect and will lead to increased self-censorship – in a situation where the evidence already indicates that there is a great deal of self-censorship, as Rovera pointed out.
The apology betrays the civilians who have been, and will be, used as human shields – putting them in lethal danger – over the coming months and potentially years of fighting. It means Ukrainian forces will feel even less pressure to rein in behaviour that amounts to a war crime.
Amnesty would never apologise to Russian partisans offended by a report on Russian war crimes. Its current apology indicates to the victims of Ukrainian human rights abuses that they are less worthy than the victims of Russian abuses.
Flooding the battlefield
Turning a blind eye to Ukrainian crimes also lifts the pressure on western governments. They have been recklessly channelling arms worth many billions of dollars to Ukraine, even though they have little idea where most end up. (In a further worrying sign of self-censorship in the west, CBS recently postponed the broadcastof an investigation suggesting as little as a third of western weapons reach their intended destination in Ukraine.)
That is all the more dangerous because, even before Russia’s invasion in late February, Ukrainian forces – including the neo-Nazi elements now glossed over in western narratives – were engaged in a vicious civil war with ethnic Russian communities in Ukraine’s east. That region, the Donbas, is where Moscow has been focusing its military advances.
Human rights violations by Ukrainians against other Ukrainians were regularly committed during the eight-year civil war, as western monitors documented at the time. Such crimes are almost certainly continuing under cover of the war against Russia, but with the aid now of western arms shipments.
Ignoring abuses by Ukrainian forces gives them a free hand to commit crimes not only against Russian soldiers but also against the large number of Ukrainians who are not seen as loyal to Kyiv.
A failure to closely scrutinise how and where western artillery is being used is almost certain to result in more, not less, of the kind of Ukrainian crimes Amnesty has just highlighted.
Western governments, and publics, need to be confronted with the likely consequences of flooding the battlefield with weapons before they prefer such a policy over pursuing diplomatic solutions.
Ultimately, allowing one side only to be criticised for its crimes – reinforcing the simple-minded narrative of good guys versus bad guys – is likely to fuel the war rather than resolve it.
War-mongering
Amnesty’s conduct over this latest report is not exceptional. It is part of a pattern of behaviour by a western human rights community vulnerable to political and financial pressures that detract from its ostensible mission.
As the near-exclusive focus on Russian crimes in Ukraine illustrates, international humanitarian law is all too often interpreted through the prism of western political priorities.
There has long been a revolving door between the staff of prominent human rights groups and the US government. And pressure from elite donors – who are invested in these dominant narratives – doubtless plays a part, too.
Anyone departing from the narrow political consensus imposed by western political and media elites is defamed as spreading Russian “disinformation”, or for being apologists for dictators like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad or Libya’s late ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Criticisms of Israel, meanwhile, are demonised as proof of antisemitism.
Certainly, Russian, Syrian and Libyan leaders have committed war crimes. But the focus on their crimes is all too often an excuse to avoid addressing western war crimes, and thereby enable agendas that advance the interests of the West’s war industries.
I experienced this first hand during the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. Israel accused Hezbollah of using its own population as “human shields” – framed by the Norwegian politician and United Nations official Jan Egeland as “cowardly blending” – an allegation lapped up by the western media.
Whatever the truth of that claim, it presented a very one-sided picture of what took place during that summer’s fighting. Though no one was allowed to mention it at the time because of Israel’s strict military censorship laws, it was common knowledge among Israel’s minority of Palestinian citizens that many of their own communities in northern Israel were being used as locations for Israeli tanks and artillery to fire into Lebanon.
The Israeli army had forcibly recruited these third-class citizens as human shields, just as the Ukrainian army is now accused by Amnesty of doing to civilians.
I saw for myself a number of the locations where Israel had installed batteries in or next to the minority’s communities. There were later Israeli court cases that confirmed this widespread practice; Palestinian politicians in Israel raised the matter in the Israeli parliament; and a local human rights group later issued a reportdocumenting examples of these war crimes.
But these revelations never gained any traction with either the western media or human rights groups. Western publics were left with an entirely false impression: that Hezbollah alone had endangered its own civilians, even though Israel had undoubtedly done the same or worse.
The reality could not be acknowledged because it conflicted with western political priorities that treat Israel as a valued ally with a moral army and Hezbollah as a depraved, bloodthirsty terrorist organisation.
Saints and sinners
Human rights groups reporting on the 2006 Lebanon war actively echoed these self-serving western narratives that unfairly differentiated between Hezbollah and Israel, as I highlighted at the time.
I found myself in a very public row with Human Rights Watch over comments made by one of its researchers to the New York Times claiming that Hezbollah had intentionally targeted Israeli civilians whereas Israel had avoided targeting Lebanese civilians.
He stated: “I mean, it’s perfectly clear that Hezbollah is directly targeting civilians, and that their aim is to kill Israeli civilians. We don’t accuse the Israeli army of deliberately trying to kill civilians.”
In my subsequent back-and-forth with HRW – which can be read here, here and here – the organisation sought to defend this claim. But there were two glaring problems.
First, it completely failed to fit the known facts of the war. Israel’s strikes on Lebanon had caused a disproportionately large number of civilian deaths, despite the use of precision weapons. Hezbollah, using far more primitive rockets, meanwhile, had killed mostly soldiers, not civilians.
But more problematic still, HRW had ascribed intentions to each side – good and bad – when it could not possibly know what those intentions were. As I wrote at the time of its researcher’s comments:
Was he or another HRW researcher sitting in one of the military bunkers in northern Israel when army planners pressed the button to unleash the missiles from their spy drones? Was he sitting alongside the air force pilots as they circled over Lebanon dropping their US-made bombs or tens of thousands of ‘cluster munitions’, tiny land mines that are now sprinkled over a vast area of south Lebanon? Did he have intimate conversations with the Israeli chiefs of staff about their war strategy? Of course not. He has no more idea than you or I what Israel’s military planners and its politicians decided was necessary to achieve their war goals.
HRW’s comments made sense only in a political context: that the group faced enormous pressure from US politicians and funders to focus on Hezbollah’s crimes. It also faced a damaging vilification campaign led by Israel lobbyists who wished to shield Israel from scrutiny. They accused the group’s senior staff of antisemitism and spreading a blood libel.
It looked very much like HRW caved into that pressure, just as Amnesty is now effectively doing in apologising for upsetting Ukrainian partisans and those emotionally invested in the one-sided narrative they hear constantly from their politicians and media.
Neither Amnesty nor Human Rights Watch responded to a request for comment.
The reality is that western publics need more, not less, scrutiny of the crimes committed in wars, if only to tear the facade off narratives designed to paint a picture of saints and sinners – narratives that dehumanise official enemies and fuel more war.
The minimum needed to achieve that is an independent, fearless, vigorous human rights community, not an apologetic one.
If you appreciate my articles, please consider hitting a donate button (left for Paypal, right for GoCardless):
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:36:03 -0400
Subject: [Salon] BREAKING: Trump Endorses Yemen War Powers Resolutionhttps://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/18/2117411/-BREAKING-Trump-Endorses-Yemen-War-Powers-ResolutionMAR-A-LAGO, near Disneyland - In a stunning and unprecedented series of posts on Truth Social Wednesday that drew the rapt attention of U.S. pundits and America’s Reserve Army of Unemployed Basement-Dwelling Pajama-Wearing Link-Clickers alike, former U.S. President Donald J. Trump enthusiastically endorsed the bipartisan, bicameral Sanders-Warren-Leahy-DeFazio-Jayapal-Mace Yemen War Powers Resolution currently pending in Congress with 8 sponsors in the Senate and 114 sponsors in the House.
“Great nations do not fight endless wars!” thundered Trump, pounding the Teleprompter with his tiny fists for emphasis. “If we truly want to Make America Great Again, we need to stop fighting endless, unnecessary, unconstitutional, innocent baby-starving, genocidal wars of choice on behalf of the ‘cartoonishly despotic Saudi regime’ [registered trademark!], just to line the pockets of the corrupt, privileged, entitled, usurious, avaricious, latte-sipping, pointy-headed, silver-spoon, ruthless-cosmopolitan, East Coast liberal elite, Ivy League, opera-supporting, miscegenation-apologist billionayah oligarch CEOs at Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.”
Senior advisors to Trump insisted that Trump’s unprecedented and shocking Janus-like about-face on the issue was 100% sincere, despite the fact that while actually President, Trump sought to vigorously prosecute the unconstitutional and unnecessary baby-starving war of choice in a shameless attempt to curry favor with the ‘cartoonishly despotic Saudi regime’ [registered trademark!] and line the pockets of Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin. The senior advisors to Trump quickly dismissed speculation that Trump’s move was a cynical, opportunist channel-changer to distract attention from the recent FBI raid on his shockingly repulsive porno-mansion to retrieve shoplifted public property.
Indeed, the senior advisors to Trump tried to turn the tables on the pointy-headed, Ivy League, East Coast liberal elite, silver-spoon, opera-supporting, so-called “journalists” who sought to question them on Trump’s apparent inconsistency. “Exactly what part of ‘that was then, this is now’ don’t you latte-sipping, opera-supporting, pointy-headed liberals understand?” the senior Trump advisors carefully explained.
###
[Apologies to The Onion for shameless plagiarism. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:44:18 -0400
Subject: [Salon] Combat ready? Pentagon to host 'transgender and non-binary' gender inclusion and pronoun usage workshop
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:52:39 -0400
Subject: [Salon] Fast Facts | Iran Nuclear Deal
![Fast Facts Logo _4_.jpg]()
Iran Nuclear Deal
(August 2022)
Is a renewal of the Iran nuclear deal within reach?
- The Iran nuclear deal has been negotiated through indirect talks since April 2021.
- The original deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed in July 2015 between Iran, the U.N. National Security Council, Germany and the European Union.
- In May of 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Washington would leave the JCPOA.
- Amid recent negotiations, Iran has had three primary demands:
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) close its probe into the origins of uranium traces.
- Guarantee that U.S. Presidents cannot unilaterally leave the deal, as former President Trump did.
- Washington remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, lifting sanctions against Iran.
- On August 8, 2022, the European Union proposed a draft nuclear deal as a final offer to save the 2015 JCPOA.
- This proposal responded to Iranian objections to IAEA investigations into the origins of uranian traces. If Iran can provide credible explanations into these traces prior to re-implementation of the deal, the IAEA will close its probe on the matter.
- On Friday, August 12, U.S. chief negotiator Special Envoy Robert Malley stated: “We are considering the text very carefully to make sure that it lives up to the president’s very clear guidance that he would only sign up to a deal that is consistent with U.S. national security interest.”
- By the end of the day on Monday, August 15, Iran responded to the EU’s draft.
- On Tuesday, August 16, a spokesperson for European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell responded: “We are studying it and are consulting with the other JCPOA participants and the US on the way ahead.”
- According to Iran’s IRNA News Agency, “an agreement will be concluded if the United States reacts with realism and flexibility.”
- In a U.S. State Department Press Briefing, Spokesperson Ned Price asserted that “if Iran is prepared for a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA, so are we. The only way to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is for Iran to drop further unacceptable demands that go beyond the scope of the JCPOA.”
![]()
Please direct all congressional inquires to: SSchaefer@mepc.org
Our mission is to provide policymakers and the public with credible, comprehensive information and analysis on political, economic, and cultural issues pertaining to U.S.-Middle East relations. Our goal is to foster more effective policy solutions to current and future challenges. We accomplish this through three core programs: 1. our world-renowned, quarterly journal Middle East Policy (the #1 most cited publication on the region in the world); 2. our Policy Products and Programming Series designed for senior policymakers and their staffs, and 3. our acclaimed international educational outreach program, TeachMideast, designed for students, educators and other civic leaders.
For sponsorship opportunities, please contact: balghussein@mepc.org
For individual donations, please click here
![]()
![Footer logos.jpg]()
1730 M St. NW, Suite 512,
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 296-6767
Subscribe to our journal
![Facebook]()