Continued Sanctions Would Be Much Better Than Obama's Bad Deal

Every Liberal in creation is saying the choice is between Obama's bad deal and immediate war with Iran.  I think that's a false choice.  It's possible that sanctions combined with the falling price of oil may seriously weaken the regime. Manufacturing and running centrifuges is expensive. The Iranians also have a huge and expensive security structure. They are sponsoring Shi'ite militias or armies in wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. They have expensive internal subsidies for food and gasoline to keep the populace under control. All of this has to be paid for by oil revenues. Estimates vary, but the Mad Mullahs need somewhere between $100 to $130 a barrel of oil to pay for all of this. Right now the price is about $55 a barrel. Iran has lots of natural gas reserves, but no export terminals and limited export pipelines. They will not be able to borrow money for export facilities if they are under sanctions. The US could put even more pressure on them by legalizing the export of crude oil and natural gas.

While I'm sure that the Mullahs won't cut the centrifuges, if they cut sponsoring wars and terrorism, their allies would be defeated. Defeats in foreign adventures can be deadly to the prestige authoritarian governments need for survival. If they cut in domestic subsidies they could be overthrown in the resulting unrest. If they cut domestic security they could lose control of dissidents and be overthrown. Add to the mix that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, has terminal cancer and is expected to die within 2 years. The combination of financial stress and a succession struggle could topple the whole regime. It's worth at shot. The current agreement guarantees an Iranian nuclear weapon within 10 years or less.  That's a lock on a nuclear war in 10 years or less.

Legal Trash Talk: Liberal Reaction to The Letter

There is a lot of legal trash talk this week about “The Letter.”  Liberals called the 47 Republican Senators “Traitors” in big headlines.  The Pravda Press said that the letter was a violation of the Logan Act.  The commentators said the letter violated the Constitution’s allocation of all foreign negotiations to the president.  All of this was hogwash.

Just so everyone is clear on this, the Constitution defines treason:  "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."  I know liberals don't read the Constitution because it reminds them of the Tea Party, but it really helps to occasionally know what you're talking about. 

The Logan act was passed in 1799.  It outlawed negotiations between private parties and foreign governments.  The last and only prosecution under the Logan Act was in 1803.  It did not result in a conviction.  Since the Republican Senators did not negotiate and since they are Senators and not private individuals, the Logan Act doesn’t seem to apply.  Low information voters don’t know any of this, so the smear worked.

Since Barry the Brilliant said he would veto any attempt by Congress to advise him on negotiations with Iran and then consent to any agreement, the person ignoring the Constitution was the president, not the Senate Republicans who wrote the letter.  Treaties are supposed to be made with the advice and consent of the Senate, according to the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2.  As with many other things, our Dear Leader is ignoring the Constitution in this regard also.  Since no remedy is specified, 47 Republican Senators chose to help themselves by writing an open letter to the Iranians to remind everybody, the Iranians, the president and the public that agreements which happen without the advice and consent of the Senate are not binding.  If one side is ignoring the Constitution, you can hardly complain when in reaction the other side fails to preserve decorum. 

I think any agreement President Obama signs will have exactly the same binding power on the next administration as the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 has had on the Obama Administration, in other words none.  The Budapest Memorandum, signed by the Clinton administration, guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine in return for the surrender of 1,800 ex-Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. It was signed by the US, UK and Russia. The UK has special forces in the Ukraine right now training Ukrainian forces. Obama sent MREs (meals ready to eat).  According to the German ambassador to the US, Obama told Angela Merkel that the US would not send military aid to the Ukraine. So the US is not helping the Ukraine defend itself from piecemeal annexation by Russia at all.

Liberals seem to go to the Lewis Carroll school of legal interpretation.   I need to quote Mr. Carroll extensively so you understand how this really works.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

In simpler terms, heads means liberals win, tails means conservatives lose. Liberals are to be the master. There are no laws any more, just liberal interpretations to suit liberal convenience.   The Constitution is to be interpreted out of existence.  It seems the liberal elite prefers a dictatorship of the liberal elite to the rule of law.  The trash talk is just there to justify their actions to the low information voters who don’t know any better.

Senator Cotton Speaks Truth to Power

How dare Senator Cotton speak truth to power!  Just because everything in the letter was completely true is no excuse.  Senator Cotton has interrupted delicate negotiations which were to conclude with an agreement that could never command even a majority in the Senate, let alone a 2/3 vote needed to ratify a treaty.  It was very rude of him and his 46 colleagues to notice that Emperor Barry the Brilliant can't bind the United States to a deal without ratification.  Who does Senator Cotton think he is anyway, a Senator or something? 

I think Conservatives and Liberals differ greatly in our views of the Iranian regime.  When Iranians chant "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," I believe them.  Since 1979, the Mad Mullahs have said they are at war with America.  And they have backed it up with acts of war starting with taking our embassy in 1979 and then continuing with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983 and the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996.  More recently, Iran was the major supplier of the deadliest IEDs used against US troops in Iraq.  I do not believe for a minute that the Iranian government wants peace.  I believe they want world domination, because that's what they say all the time.

Every Liberal press flack in creation is attacking Senator Tom Cotton personally as a stupid war monger. Senator Cotton has a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard.  He also has a Harvard Law degree.  One of his professors was Elizabeth Warren. His academic record is better that Obama’s, or at least what we know of it.  Cotton is not an ignorant hick.  Tom Cotton is a US Army combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.  He was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism under fire in Afghanistan.  He does not take war lightly.  As a Vietnam Era veteran, I find personal attacks on Senator Cotton's motivation for writing the letter to be extremely offensive.

The letter that everyone is complaining about was entirely accurate.  There were no lies in the letter, as even John Kerry was forced to admit that executive agreements do not have any binding power on future administrations.  The letter inconveniently pointed out that Emperor Barry the Brilliant had no clothes, that he can’t deliver what he was promising the Iranians without a Senate vote.  The timing might not have been what liberals would have preferred, but free speech is valid all the time whether you're a Republican or Democrat, Senator or President.

The agreement in prospect will remove economic sanctions against Iran.  The letter writers want sanctions to continue and actually to get stronger.  I also want the sanctions to be strengthened.  I think the sanctions combined with the current price of oil would be extremely effective.

The fall in the price of oil puts Iran in a very bad position economically.  Oil is at about $55 a barrel.  Iran needs oil at over $100 a barrel to fund all of their terrorism, wars and centrifuges.  They have a huge military and internal security structure which is very expensive.  The have large internal subsidies for food and energy.  The Iranian inflation rate is 30.3% according to the Iran central bank.  They are broke.  Continued sanctions could lead to a much better Iran arms deal.  Continued sanctions might even lead to the collapse of the current regime. 

One way to keep the price of oil low would be to allow American crude oil to be exported.  In the US, existing oil storage tanks are almost completely full.  Right now the difference between West Texas Intermediate, the American benchmark oil price, and Brent Crude, the international price, is about $10 a barrel.  The prices would be roughly the same if the US could sell crude on the international market.  Right now, that’s illegal.  

Signing the current deal as it's described in the press is much more likely to lead to was than continuing the sanctions.  In reaction, Saudi Arabia signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with South Korea.  The Saudis have also made it clear that if they need to, they can purchase nuclear weapons from Pakistan.

The Israelis have no way to attack Iranian centrifuges in the deeply buried concrete bunkers with conventional weapons.  The Israelis would have to use multiple nuclear ground bursts to do the job.  There would be a lot of radioactive dirt thrown into the air.  If the Iranians look like they are about to break out with nuclear weapons, there is a strong possibility of Israeli preemptive attack.

My conclusion is that the deal in prospect is more dangerous than no deal at all.  The letter was a legitimate exercise in free speech by a decorated combat veteran and Senators whose duty to the country was to head off what they saw as a very bad deal by reminding everyone of the obvious.  Without Senate approval, the deal is not binding.

The Letter:

http://www.cotton.senate.gov/sites/default/files/150309%20Cotton%20Open%20Letter%20to%20Iranian%20Leaders.pdf

Iranian Inflation

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/06/08/366072/iran-inflation-rate-falls-by-98/

Oil Storage Full:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/oil-storage-squeeze-may-lead-to-another-price-crash

Jews: The Canaries in the Coal Mine

There are a lot of idiots who think everything that's wrong in the Middle East would be fixed if only Israel was removed. Many believe we don't need to continue to support Israel because they have enough weapons to make it on their own. Both ideas are totally manure.

The terrorist tactics that ISIS and Al Qaeda use today were tested on Israelis by Palestinian terrorists starting in the 1970's. Then, lots of people said the Jews brought it on themselves and it was nobody else's problem. Now, the terrorism has expanded to include everybody else who doesn't practice Islam exactly according to whichever Jihadist nut is holding a gun to their head. As Jews were in the run up to World War II, Jews are today the canary in the coal mine. It may start with them, but it never ends with them.

By now, everyone should realize we have big problems with Islamofacism, whether it's Sunni ISIS or Shi'ite Iran. Of the two, Iran is the more dangerous. Iran is working on a nuclear bomb. Iranian leaders organize frequent government sponsored street demonstrations around two slogans, "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Iranian leaders have called Israel a one bomb country. They also have said that even if Israel retaliates with nuclear weapons, Muslims will win because there will still be over a billion Muslims and no Jews. Further, they are also working on an ICBM that can reach the US. The best we can hope for there is that they want to discourage us from protecting Israel. The worst case is that they are crazy enough to attack us. Everyone thought Hitler was a joke. It would be a big mistake to believe Iran is a joke.

If we leave Israel to fend for itself, we are risking a general war in the Middle East. The Saudi's and the Gulf States are so scared of a nuclear Iran that they will make a deal with the Israelis for a coordinated attack on Iran. The attack might include nuclear weapons, because against the Iranian air defense systems the Israeli Air Force can't deliver a conventional weapon big enough to destroy the Iranian centrifuges in their deep underground bunkers. They would have to use nukes.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414643/standing-our-friends-standing-our-enemies-scott-walker

Recriminations Are Required on Vietnam War

I really can't stand the casual assumption that we were the bad guys in Vietnam. We left all of Indochina to its fate in 1975. The victorious Communists killed about 2 million Cambodians, and hundreds of thousands of other ethnic groups. Two million Vietnamese fled in leaky boats. There had never been any such mass exodus from Vietnam before. Ten to a hundred times more people died after we left than died during the war. I was in Air Force ROTC from 1968-1972 and on active duty from 1972-1976. In college arguments, I always said that if we lost there would be a bloodbath. It was obvious after the Tet Offensive. The Viet Cong left several mass graves of thousands of men, women and children that they executed. The Vietnamese knew about it, but it was not widely reported in the US. Anybody who took the time to look into it could have easily predicted the subsequent mayhem. Here it is 40 years later and the anti-war left has yet to even notice the havoc they unleashed, let alone apologize for it. The willful ignorance is so bad that our Secretary of State, who testified under oath to Congress that Americans commonly committed war crimes in Vietnam, gets a pass for his obvious perjury and is appointed to the highest level cabinet level post in the federal government.

What about war crimes in Vietnam?  The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group was a Pentagon task force set up to investigate.  They found 320 substantiated cases. At the height of the war, there were over 500,000 American troops in Vietnam. This number of war crimes were a low productivity hour or two for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  American war crimes were hardly as common as John Kerry testified they were.  He lied.

I think that the post WWII policy of trying to contain communism made the Vietnam War almost unavoidable. I agree that the stated objectives of Kennedy and Johnson did not include stopping the killing that accompanied any communist takeover of any country. However, the anti-war protesters loudly proclaimed that they wanted to stop the killing as one of their major slogans. I heard them loud and clear, up close and personal. They claimed that the killing would stop if the US withdrew from Southeast Asia. The actual outcome did not match their stated goals at all. Worse, the "Peace Movement" didn't even bother to look to see the damage the withdrawal actually did. They patted themselves on the back for making "peace" and went on to their next causes with enthusiasm. They took no notice of the fact that they facilitated massive slaughter. When peacenicks look back, it's with nostalgia for the righteousness of their cause.  They are oblivious to their actual results.  And they are running US foreign policy today with the same disastrous results in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria.

Vietnam War Crimes Working Group link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_Crimes_Working_Group

Saudis Use Oil Weapon Against Iran

A lot of pundits are treating the falling price of oil as a Saudi move to try to preserve market share.  I think Saudi Arabia is trying to put the Iranian mullahs out of the nuclear arms business. The House of Saud is so scared of an Iran with nukes, they talk about how much they have in common with Israel during newspaper interviews. I think they have rightfully concluded that the Chicago Machine Prodigy in Chief will not treat the Iranians anywhere near as tough as he does Republicans and that it's up to them or the Israelis to stop an Iranian bomb. The Israelis would have to use nukes to do the job, so the Saudis decided to use the oil weapon. The Iranian government depends on oil revenue for 65% of its budget. The mullahs need an oil price of $100 to $130 a barrel in order to support their internal subsidies for food and gasoline, pay for their extensive and expensive internal security organizations and support Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria and Shiite militia groups in Iraq. All those centrifuges processing uranium to make weapons are hugely expensive also.  Iran has minimal foreign exchange reserves. At $50 a barrel for their oil, the Iranian government goes broke in a year or two, maybe less. The Saudis are getting the added benefit of crippling Russia at the same time. Saudis would like to damage Russia because Putin has been selling arms to Assad in Syria and, in addition to arms, has sold a reactor to Iran that can be used to make plutonium for a bomb. Russia gains most of its foreign exchange from oil and natural gas sales. The price of natural gas is under pressure from US fracking and the prospect of increasing US liquid natural gas exports. With the oil price at half of the $100 a barrel Putin needs to stay in business and the ruble down 30-40% against the dollar, things don't look so good for Putin. All the companies his oligarch buddies own have a lot of debt to European banks due in the next two years.  They can't refinance because of the sanctions prompted by Putin's Ukrainian aggression. The oligarchs may be tempted to replace Putin with somebody who would be better for business just like mobsters get rid of guys who attract too much heat from the cops. I think the stress that the lower oil price puts on US producers is a side benefit for the Saudis. The main target is Iran, with a secondary target of Russia.

Shopping for a New Foreign Policy

Given the results of the current administration’s foreign policy, people are now asking what kind of foreign policy the US should implement.  The current administration seems to like to talk loudly and send in a few air strikes and some drones while announcing that we won’t put boots on the ground or stay longer than the next significant election.  The previous administration’s efforts at nation building ended up to be beyond what the country was willing to spend in both lives and money.  So what’s next?

For a start, I would like to suggest a few new rules of thumb to guide future foreign policy decisions.  I would recommend a foreign policy that arms our friends so they can defend themselves. There should be no reason that the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq should have to retreat because they are out of ammunition, leaving Yazidis running for the hills to escape ISIS. There should be no reason that the President of the Ukraine should have to come to Washington to beg for weapons after Russia seized pieces of his country. Even worse, the Ukraine still didn't get the weapons, even though the US guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine in exchange for their surrender of Soviet Era nuclear weapons. If the US guarantees your territorial integrity, it should mean we will give you weapons so at least you can fight for yourself. We should also decide that the borders drawn by colonial powers in Africa, Asia and the Middle East often contribute to instability because they group together tribal and religious groups who would be better off separated.  In particular, if arming the Kurds means that the Turks are nervous, that’s too bad.  It’s not like they let us use our own airbase in Incerlik, Turkey, for air strikes against ISIS.

If the US admits you to NATO, it should mean we are ready to help defend you, but you have to make a big boots on the ground contribution yourself. This might mean a small professional military with a large conscripted national guard. It should not mean that you get your defense for free at the expense of US taxpayers.

While we're talking about NATO, there is no reason that US forces should be stationed in Germany instead of Poland. The Russians have violated their side of the agreement that kept NATO forces out of former Warsaw Pact Countries. At the very least, there should combat aircraft stationed in Poland so they could slow down any Russian aggression against NATO members, like the Baltic States.

We need to get away from keeping our friends weak and dependent and then having to send US ground combat troops to bail them out. Being a friend of the US should mean you've got enough guns and ammo to make attacks against you very costly. It should also mean the US Special Forces have trained you how to use your weapons very effectively.

Article I was reacting to:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/389308/market-foreign-policy-kevin-d-williamson