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US poised to renew anti-Iran nuclear sanctions waivers in blow to hawks: Report

Press TV – July 31, 2019

The US is reportedly expected to extend waivers from sanctions that allow the remaining signatories to a 2015 nuclear deal to continue their nuclear cooperation with Tehran, in what would be a blow to ardent Iran hawks in the White House.

Citing six unnamed officials, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump had in an Oval Office meeting last week sided with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who backed renewing the waivers that the hawks want eliminated.

The US State Department last extended the sanctions waivers in May and the expected renewal will give five Iranian nuclear projects another 90 days of immunity.

The sources further said Mnuchin had prevailed over the objections of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton — two staunch sponsors of economic pressure and tough action against Iran.

Mnuchin “argued to Trump that if the sanctions were not again waived as required by law by August 1, the United States would have to sanction Russian, Chinese and European firms that are involved in projects inside Iran that were established as part of the 2015 nuclear deal,” the officials added.

The five programs include modifying the heavy water reactor in Arak, converting the Fordow enrichment facility as well as fuel exchanges at the Bushehr nuclear power plant and the Tehran research reactor, The Washington Post reported.

It also quoted a senior official in the Trump administration as saying that Washington’s goal of ending the waivers still remained.

“We still have the goal of ending these waivers,” he said. “These waivers can be revoked at any time, as developments with Iran warrant. But because of the Treasury Department’s legitimate concerns, we’ve decided to extend them for now.”

Daryl Kimball, president of the Arms Control Association, said that the nuclear projects should be saved for their intrinsic value as Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran was not going to work anyway.

“It’s in the US national and international security interest to extend these waivers to allow these projects, which were designed to make Iran’s nuclear programs more proliferation-resistant,” he said.

The US launched the “maximum pressure” against Iran after pulling out of the 2015 multilateral accord — officially named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — and re-imposing the sanctions it had lifted under the agreement.

Analysts believe the rift in the White House on the issue and the broader Iran policy is the root cause of Trump’s mixed signals, which have often switched between belligerent rhetoric and overtures to Tehran.

July 31, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

West’s Relations with the White Helmets have gone Stale

By Jean Perier – New Eastern Outlook – 30.07.2019

At long last, Western sponsors of the so-called “humanitarian group” White Helmets have woken up to the fact that their love affair with those pseudo-humanitarianists is more damaging that beneficial, which in turn invoked a number of problems.

The White Helmets which have been exposed as a propaganda operation launched by Washington and London to feed the international community with fake videos depicting false-flag chemicals attack in Eastern Ghouta started experiencing its first difficulties last year when the White House decided to stop sponsoring them. For sure, their activities have been pretty beneficial for the US as it provided Washington with a pretext to attack Syria, but then Washington has never had much concern over the well-being of its minions once they are no longer useful.

Even though Donald Trump would have a change of heart in mid-summer 2018, ordering the US State Department and US Agency for International Development to allocate another 6.6 million dollars to sponsor the activities of this organization, at this point nobody had any doubts about the provocative and untruthful nature of the reports that would be released by the White Helmets.

A well-known British journalist, Vanessa Beeley has already exposed the ties between the British intelligence agencies and the White Helmets and through them to the Jabhat Al-Nusra terrorist group. According to her revelations, the White Helmets branch in Eastern Aleppo was once established by Abdulaziz Maghribi, who previously headed a local Al-Nusra-affiliated militant group. Further still, this individual had also been an armed member of the Turkish-backed Al Tawhid brigade which invaded East Aleppo in 2012

The ever growing awareness of the Western public about the deceptive nature of the White Helmets and their activities has rendered them useless in any future anti-Russian or anti-Syrian provocations. Therefore, Washington had to take some sort of decision about their future, musing over the possibility of turning them into a purely British local propaganda vehicle, as the group was created back in 2013 by a retired British servicemen, the head of the Mayday Rescue Foundation NGO – James Le Mesure, or scrap this project altogether. Under these circumstances it became clear even for Washington that it had to find much more credible partners on the ground to carry on advancing its agenda.

As the number of Syrian towns under control of pro-Western jihadi fighters has been dwindling steadily, Jordan’s intelligence agencies in cooperation with the Mossad launched a withdrawal operation, transporting a total of 98 White Helmets activists together with their family members to Jordan from south-western Syria, on July 22, 2018. Some publications claim that they’ve evacuated 422 people, while others state that there was over 800 people transported in total. Initially, it was planned that those so-called activists would dwell for some time at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base before heading to a number of western countries.

Initially, it was announced that the resettlement of the White Helmets wouldn’t take more than three-four weeks, with the UK, France, Canada, and Germany claiming that they would be delighted to become a new home for those “brave souls”, but it’s been over a year now. No more than three hundred out of the initial 800 have found their new homes, as reported by Reuters, but now the process of resettlement has come to a screeching halt.

In particular, as it’s been reported by Canadian media sources, there’s still White Helmets members dwelling with their family members in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp, including those that were supposed to be moved to Canada. In total, there’s over 42 people that have been waiting for resettlement to Canada for almost a year now. However, after the initial security check, including an “interview” conducted in the camp, Ottawa realized that it had no intention of providing asylum to the much-touted “human rights champions,” seeking a pretext to send them some place else instead. The situation is getting even more peculiar due to the fact that Amman gave permission of transit to those individuals, but didn’t say a word about their right for permanent residence. Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau hopes that the Nazi-ridden Ukraine would develop a taste for hosting pro-Western “human rights activists,” after all the newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to pay his dues after the warm welcome he received in Ottawa and Canada making a promise to deliver its old armored vehicles to Ukraine.

As for Canada itself, in spite of its relatively relaxed migration legislation, it’s in no hurry to grant refuge to those representatives of the White Helmets that are stuck in Jordan. It is equally reluctant to grant entry permission to those Canadians who were fighting against the legitimate Syrian government in the ranks of ISIS militants together with their family members. In total, the latter group consists of 32 individuals (6 men, 9 women and 17 children). According to the information leaked to the media, Canadian intelligence agencies are currently collecting evidence to identify the role they might have played in committing various war crimes.

In general, as Canadian observers note, the flow of Syrian refugees to Canada has been put on halt once Ottawa faced a number of difficulties with their integration into the local society. After all, Justin Trudeau couldn’t care less about Syrian refugees, since they were only beneficial to him during the initial years of his stay in power, when he could score a number of political points talking about them. It is obvious that Western governments have no stomach for hosting those individuals they were praising as heroes, since such a move could result in a spike of xenophobic moods and a wide-spread panic over the possibility of terrorist attacks. And besides, the White Helmets have already played their propaganda role, so they are no longer needed.

July 30, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

As US Beefs Up Military Presence in the Gulf, Yemen’s Houthis Turn to Russia for Support

Houthi attempts to engage the UN to broker a peaceful solution to the war on Yemen have stalled. Now, out of options, the movement may have found a willing partner in Moscow.

By Ahmed Abdulkareem | Mint Press News | July 26, 2019

MOSCOW — Yemen’s Houthi movement has reacted with concern to an announcement by Washington that the U.S. is pursuing an increased military presence in the Persian Gulf. U.S. Central Command announced Operation Sentinel on July 19, claiming that a multinational maritime effort is needed to promote “maritime stability, ensure safe passage, and de-escalate tensions in international waters throughout the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Arabian [Persian] Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman.”

The Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, the highest political authority in Sana`a, held an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the developments. After the meeting Houthi officials released a statement denouncing Operation Sentinel, saying that Yemen is keen on the security of the Red Sea and that any escalation by Coalition countries, including the United States, would be met with a response. The statement went on to say:

What makes waterways safe is an end to the war on Yemen, a lifting of the siege on the country and the end to [the Saudi-led Coalition] restricting access to food and commercial vessels in Yemeni ports, especially the port of Hodeida, not the presence of multinational forces there.”

Houthi officials also weighed in on the arrival of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia as a part of a broader tranche of forces sent to the Gulf region over the past two months following increased tensions between Washington and Tehran. Mohammed Abdulsalam, the spokesman of Houthis and one of the most important decision-makers within the movement, told al-Mayadeen TV that the arrival of 500 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia is “not welcome in the region.” 

On Monday, Abdulsalam ridiculed Saudi Arabia’s celebration of the arrival of the U.S. troops, pointing to the Kingdom’s relying on U.S. and British protection while at the same time not knowing how to extricate itself from Yemen. “On one side, there are the Saudis seeking protection from others and on the other side, we have Yemen facing those superpowers with strength, rigidity and wisdom,” Abudlsalam said in a Facebook post. Abdulsalam also said that the deployment of U.S. troops to the Kingdom was aimed at boosting the morale of Saudi Arabia in the face of Yemen’s ballistic missile and drone attacks.

Abudlsalam’s comments were made during an official visit to Moscow, where a Houthi delegation was visiting at the invitation of the Russian government. The July 24 meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister to the Middle East and North Africa Mikhail Bogdanov was held to discuss, among other things, U.S. military presence in the Gulf. Abdulsalam claimed during the meeting that U.S. and Western visions for a solution to the conflict in Yemen would be unsuccessful, telling his Russian counterpart that there won’t be security and safety in the region without an end to the aggression against Yemen. He went on to say that, “we [Houthis] have common interests with the Russians regarding peace in the region.”

Both Bogdanov and Abdulsalam expressed commitment to abiding by the UN-brokered Stockholm Agreement, which calls for a ceasefire in the Hodeida port in western Yemen. The Houthis also expressed support for Russia’s policy vision for security in the Gulf, which was presented by Bogdanov on Tuesday.

While Russian efforts may not necessarily produce peace in Yemen, they may give the Saudi-led Coalition a chance to see that all options for diplomacy have been fully explored. They will also provide the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — which recently pulled out a significant portion of their military forces from Yemen, amidst fears of Houthi retaliatory attacks on Dubai — a chance to jump on the Russian bandwagon. Saudi Arabia, which has made little progress in its more than four-year-long adventure in Yemen, could also use Russian efforts as a face-saving opportunity, according to Yemeni diplomats who spoke to MintPress.

According to well-informed sources in the Houthi movement, Russia is pushing hard to play a role in bringing an end to the war on Yemen, and Russian and Houthi interests are becoming more aligned, including opposition to an increased U.S. military presence in the region. Houthi officials are also hoping that Russia will use its position in the UN Security Council to veto resolutions adversely affecting the interests of Yemen. One Houthi official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, even told MintPress that Russia played a role in the recent withdrawal of the UAE forces from Yemen.

“No subordination to Iran”

Mehdi Al-Mashat, the Head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, told delegates from the International Crisis Group on Wednesday that the Houthis are ready to stop drones and ballistic attacks on Saudi Arabia if the Kingdom stops its attacks on Yemen. He also expressed readiness to engage in dialogue with Saudi officials to “achieve a just peace for all,” but warned that the “U.S. must know Yemen is a country which has sovereignty and is not subject to anyone.”

Regarding Iran, Al-Mashat told members of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based NGO that works to resolve violent conflicts around the world, “with regard to the false claims that we are followers of Iran, which the Coalition countries know to be false, we confirm that there is no subordination to Iran.” Tehran’s support for the Houthis is limited to political, diplomatic and media support and the country’s influence in Yemen is marginal at best.

For its part, the United Nations says the years-long war in Yemen can be stopped and is eminently resolvable if the warring sides commit to the UN-brokered Stockholm peace agreement reached in Sweden late last year. Under the agreement, both the Houthis and Coalition forces agreed to withdraw their troops from the Yemeni ports of Hodeida, Salif, and Ras Issa, and to allow the deployment of UN monitors.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday, “I believe that this war in Yemen is eminently resolvable, both parties continue to insist that they want a political solution and the military solution is not available, they remain committed to the Stockholm agreement in all its different aspects.”

UAE “not leaving Yemen”

While the Houthis have had some success in forcing a dialogue with Coalition leaders through the United Nations, Russia, and various NGOs, it appears that their celebration over the recent announcement that the UAE is withdrawing its troops from Yemen may have been premature. In the Houthis’ first official statement since the UAE announced it was withdrawing its troops from Yemen, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on Wednesday that “the UAE has not withdrawn any its soldiers from Yemen, and instead has redeployed its forces from a number of areas in Yemen, including battlefields in Hodeida and Marib province in eastern Yemen.” Abdulsalam went on to encourage UAE leaders to pull out of Yemen, saying “the UAE getting out of Yemen is positive and natural and we encourage its leaders to do so.”

The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammed Gargash, in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Monday, confirmed the UAE was not leaving Yemen, saying: “Just to be clear, the UAE and the rest of the Coalition are not leaving Yemen.”

He added, “While we will operate differently, our military presence will remain. In accordance with international law, we will continue to advise and assist local Yemen forces — referring to the myriad UAE-funded Yemeni rebel groups including the Shaban elite forces, the Mahri elite forces, and the Security Belt.

According to Mohammed Abdulsalam, the seemingly contradictory statement coming from the UAE may be a result of Saudi pressure.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu, citing a spokesman for the UAE allies, reported on Wednesday that the Sudanese armed forces had partially withdrawn from parts of Yemen following the withdrawal of UAE troops from the same areas. Yemeni armed forces will replace the Sudanese troops around Hodeida, a Yemeni source told Anadolu.

The UAE and Sudan, parts of a Saudi-led military coalition, have been active members in the brutal Saudi-led Coalition’s war on Yemen since it began in 2015, which the United Nations says has produced the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with millions on the brink of starvation

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media

July 30, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Russia presents UN with Persian Gulf collective security plan amid tensions

Press TV – July 30, 2019

Russia has submitted to the United Nations a proposal that calls for collective security in the Persian Gulf at a time of rising tensions in the strategic region.

In two identical letters addressed to the UN Security Council and the General Assembly and obtained by Russia’s TASS news agency on Tuesday, Moscow underlined the need for an “effective” measure to boost stability in the Persian Gulf.

“In the current conditions, energetic and effective action is needed at international and regional levels in the interests of improving and further stabilizing the situation in the Persian Gulf, overcoming the prolonged crisis stage and turning this sub-region to peace, good neighborly relations and sustainable development,” the letters read.

They also called on regional and extra-regional countries to engage in bilateral and multilateral talks aimed at forming a security system in the Persian Gulf.

“Practical work on launching the process of creating a security system in the Persian Gulf may be started by holding bilateral and multilateral consultations between interested parties, including countries both within the region and outside of it, UN Security Council, LAS (League of Arab States), OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation), GCC (Persian Gulf Cooperation Council),” they added.

Moscow further expressed its readiness to cooperate with “all interested parties to implement this and other constructive proposals.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry unveiled last week its plan for collective security in the Persian Gulf, which envisages holding an international conference as well as establishing an organization on regional security and cooperation.

Recently, the US has taken a quasi-warlike posture against Iran and stepped up its provocative military moves in the Middle East, among them the June 20 incursion of an American spy drone into the Iranian borders.

The UK has also joined the US in fueling tensions with Iran by seizing an Iranian-owned supertanker in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4 in an apparent act of “maritime piracy.”

Two weeks later, a British-flagged tanker failed to stop after hitting an Iranian fishing boat — as is required by international law — in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) impounded the ship after its unsafe maneuver.

Earlier this month, Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US was working to form a military coalition to protect commercial shipping off the coast of Iran and Yemen.

Former British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt also unveiled plans for a European-led naval mission, which he said would be aimed at ensuring safe shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

July 30, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Talks only possible with ‘tangible results,’ but US does not ‘seek dialogue’ – Tehran

RT | July 29, 2019

There is no point in talking when no “practical results” can be achieved, and Washington is not interested in good-faith dialogue, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said amid rising tensions with the US.

“Dialogue and negotiation can be held when we have a certain agenda in place, and when we could get some tangible and practical results out of it,” Abbas Mousavi said on Monday, as cited by Reuters.

The Americans “are not seeking dialogue,” he added.

Problems have been piling up between the US and Iran over the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, which the US blames Tehran for. Iran denies any wrongdoing and urges Washington to stop meddling in regional affairs.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proposed traveling to Iran to “speak directly to the Iranian people.”

Mousavi rebuffed Pompeo’s offer as a step in “psychological warfare” and a “defensive move” by the US in response to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent trip to New York. The official said Iran “sees no sincerity” in Pompeo’s suggestion and pointed out that Zarif travels to New York only to attend UN events, not for bilateral talks with the US.

Amid the standoff with Iran, US officials maintain that Washington is open and ready for dialogue, but not until the Islamic Republic fulfills a laundry list of demands. Tehran has also been saying that it is ready to negotiate, but only on an equal footing and without threats and ultimatums by the US.

July 29, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US, Pakistan move in tandem to end Afghan war

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | July 28, 2019

The US State Department chose Friday to announce the decision to approve a $125 million aid package providing technical support to Pakistan’s fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft. Ironically, the news reached Delhi on the 20th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas, which symbolises, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi put it on Saturday, “India’s might, determination, capability, discipline and patience” to thwart Pakistan’s hostile acts.

Clearly, Washington has begun to “incentivise” Pakistan, in the downstream of the talks between President Trump and Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House on July 22.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon also notified on Friday about a proposed $670 million follow-on support programme for the eleven C-17 Globemaster-III air-lift aircraft sold by the US to India in the recent years. By holding out the carrot to India, Washington hopes to create the hype that it is also favouring Delhi.

The intention here is to finesse Delhi’s criticism over the revival of US military aid to Pakistan. Of course, it will be a delusional thought that the US is balancing India and Pakistan. In reality, the Pentagon’s India proposal is a purely commercial transaction — “after-sales service”, which will generate good business for the US vendors — while the military aid to Pakistan providing technical and logistics support for its F-16 fighter jets is on concessional terms and signifies a major political decision.

Delhi will take note that the proposed US military aid may significantly enhance Pakistan’s offensive capability insofar as some of the F-16 jets are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.   

Indeed, the “big picture” emerging out of all this is that the US and Pakistan are marching ahead in tandem to implement the decisions taken by Trump and Imran Khan to swiftly end the Afghan war.

No sooner than Imran Khan left Washington on July 23, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford traveled to Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul for consultations with American, NATO and Afghan officials.

Dunford said he wants to ensure Gen. Austin S. Miller, the US commander in Afghanistan, has all he needs. He added that he wanted to take the pulse of US military operations in the country. Indeed, the pulse rate is rather high, as the US withdrawal from Afghanistan looms large.

Dunford insisted that the negotiations have not changed the military mission in the country. “Day to day, the mission hasn’t changed for General Miller and the team, and they are still taking the fight to the Taliban and supporting the Afghan military,” he said.

But that’s putting on a brave face. Evidently, the US is pushing forward a “face-saving way out of Afghanistan,” as former CIA deputy director Michael Morell has told Axios. The message has gone down the line in the State Department and the Pentagon that Trump wants to move quickly toward a deal to end the war in Afghanistan. Morell is deeply sceptical whether a deal with the Taliban will secure peace.

He said, “I would bet that the US intelligence community and policymakers have a pretty good understanding of what the Taliban’s intentions are. So we’re making a deal that we know isn’t going to be kept just to save face, just to maintain honour.” Morell repeated his past warnings that the Taliban is “ideologically not disposed to sharing power.”

However, an apocalyptic scenario cannot deter Washington anymore. On a parallel mission, the US special representative on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad also took off on July 23 from Washington to Kabul (where he is now speaking with members of the Afghan government as he works to encourage inter-Afghan conversations between the Taliban and the government.)

In immediate terms, Khalilzad expects Pakistan to deliver on the promise that Imran Khan made to Trump to the effect that he plans to meet with the Taliban to persuade them to hold negotiations with the government in Afghanistan. (Taliban has welcomed such a meeting.)

Imran Khan had said, “Now, when I go back after meeting President Trump … I will meet the Taliban and I will try my best to get them to talk to the Afghan government so that the elections in Afghanistan must be inclusive where the Taliban also participate in it.”

It may seem a tough call, but the news from Kabul on Saturday suggests that Pakistan may have made some headway already. The Afghan state minister for peace affairs Abdul Salam Rahimi announced on Saturday that “We (Afghan government) are preparing for direct talks (with the Taliban.) The government will be represented by a 15-member delegation. We are working with all sides and hope that in the next two weeks the first meeting will take place in a European country.”

The Norwegian capital Oslo is mentioned as the venue for the crucial meeting between the representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban. The Taliban has not yet budged from its longstanding demand that a deal must be forged with the US first. Possibly, a deal may be announced after the 9th round of US-Taliban talks in Doha in the coming week.

Indeed, we are witnessing an utterly fascinating spectacle of diplomatic pirouette being played out between and amongst five main protagonists — Trump who is demanding an expeditious US withdrawal from Afghanistan, assuming Imran Khan will deliver on his promises; Imran Khan, in turn, going through the motions of persuading the Taliban to be reasonable while expecting generous US reciprocal moves to accommodate Pakistani interests; Ashraf Ghani, Afghan president, seeing the writing on the wall that US withdrawal is unstoppable, whilst still hoping to secure a second term in office; Khalilzad pushing the reluctant Afghan government to fall in line with a Taliban deal, while also negotiating with the Taliban for an orderly US withdrawal, albeit with a weak hand; and the Taliban on a roll, sensing victory. There are caveats galore. But the compass has been set.

July 28, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

10 Downing Street: Beware of Zionists at Work

Newly appointed home secretary, Priti Patel, had unauthorised meetings with Zionist regime leader Netanyahu in November 2017
Press TV – July 27, 2019

Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister (PM), has promised a “golden age” to the British people. Addressing parliament for the first time as PM on July 25, Johnson said Brexit would make Britain “the greatest place on earth”.

Whilst these grandiose remarks are entirely in keeping with Johnson’s bombastic leadership style, nevertheless the British people, and the wider world, are left wondering to what extent the new PM can defend and promote the national interest.

Judging by Johnson’s effusive declaration of being a “passionate Zionist” in the closing stages of the Tory leadership race, the British people might be in for a disappointment.

Johnson made the same declaration – of being a “passionate Zionist” – in August 2014, at the height of Israel’s War on Gaza.

In keeping with his stated Zionist sympathies, Johnson’s new cabinet is riddled with Israeli sympathizers, two of whom can be described as hard-core Zionists.

First there is Sajid Javid, who was described by the Times of Israel on May 13, 2018, as Britain’s “top Muslim pro-Israel” politician.

Javid, who has been appointed chancellor, previously served as the home secretary, in whose role he implemented various pro-Israeli policies.

But Javid’s pro-Israel stance pales in comparison to Priti Patel’s, who has just been appointed home secretary.

In her previous role as international development secretary, Patel had 12 unauthorised meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Zionist regime officials, including the foreign minister and the public security minister.

In a revelation that shocked even sections of the Tory party, Patel had suggested giving UK aid money to the Israeli army for a military project in the occupied Golan Heights.

Despite being dismissed by former PM Theresa May for breaching the ministerial code, Patel has made a remarkable comeback by occupying one of the greatest offices of state, namely the Home Office.

Since her appointment as home secretary on July 24, British social media has been awash with commentary highlighting the extreme irony of someone who prioritised the interests of a foreign power over Britain’s, now taking charge of the UK’s national security.

Across the spectrum of British activists, the new Tory cabinet’s ability and willingness to serve the national interest is being met with acute scepticism.

July 27, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Johnson Forced To Tow Establishment Line When Dealing with Iran

Press TV – July 27, 2019

Britain’s new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has immediately been engrossed in controversy upon assuming the highest office in the land.

He has landed in hot water because of his father’s hard-hitting interview with Press TV.

Speaking to Press TV on July 25, two days after his son was declared prime minister, Stanley Johnson said he was looking forward to seeing Boris “building bridges with Iran”.

Talking up Boris’ fascination with ancient history, and his apparent “love” for Iran, Johnson Snr claimed that: “Iran means so much to him, so the chance to have long-standing relationship with a country with such a fantastic history…”

Johnson Snr even proposed the following solution to the tankers dispute: “I think the best thing would be to say, look, we let your ship go you let our ship go… easy peasy”.

Stanley Johnson came under immediate attack from the British press for his supposedly “bizarre gaffe” on “Iranian state TV”.

For his part, Boris Johnson explicitly opposed his father’s position, and possibly his own beliefs, by parroting the establishment line on this issue.

Despite all the hot issues of the day, not least Brexit, Johnson opted to focus on Iran as his top priority at the very beginning of his premiership.

Addressing parliament for the first time as prime minister, Johnson attacked the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, for “appearing” on Press TV and “siding” with Iran.

Johnson was subsequently ridiculed by the tabloid press for attacking Corbyn for committing the same supposed sin as his own father.

However, this about-face is hardly surprising as, at the end of the day, the PM is expected to follow the old establishment guidelines on foreign policy matters.

If anything, this episode demonstrates the power of the establishment in imposing its values, requirements and policy priorities on the highest office of the land.

Boris Johnson has developed a reputation as an amateur historian. Back in 2006 he authored the book “The Dream of Rome” to showcase his historical knowledge.

The book was also the subject of a BBC documentary, with Johnson as the star of the show, thus further burnishing his credentials as a historian.

If he was true to his training as an amateur historian, and a putative “lover” of Iran, then Johnson would take immediate steps to ease tensions with Iran.

Some international observers tend to lean toward his father’s view on the tankers dispute. They argue that releasing the Grace 1 super-tanker, which was unlawfully seized in the Gibraltar Strait by the Royal Marines earlier this month, would constitute a credible de-escalatory first step.

His strength of personality and bombast notwithstanding, Boris Johnson’s words and actions in his first few days in office do not instill confidence that he will stay true to his own instincts and judgement on Iran.

July 27, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

After Mueller Debacle, Where Do Democrats Go?

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • July 26, 2019

The Democrats who were looking to cast Robert Mueller as the star in a TV special, “The Impeachment of Donald Trump,” can probably tear up the script. They’re gonna be needing a new one.

For six hours Wednesday, as three cable news networks and ABC, CBS and NBC all carried live the hearings of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the Mueller report was thoroughly trashed.

The special counsel stood by his findings. His investigation was not a “hoax” or “witch hunt,” he said. He admitted that he had found no Trump-Russia conspiracy. He denied he exonerated Trump of obstruction of justice.

All this we knew, and all of it we have heard for months.

What was new, what was dramatic, what was compelling was how the House Republicans arrived with their war paint on and ripped Mueller and his investigation to such shreds that viewers were feeling sorry for the special counsel at the end of his six hours of grilling.

The Republicans exposed him as only vaguely conversant with his own report. They revealed that he had probably not written his own statement challenging the depiction of his findings by Attorney General Bill Barr.

Mueller’s staff of lawyers, Republicans showed, reads like a donors list for Hillary Clinton. The FBI contingent that started the investigation was a cabal so hateful of Trump that some had to be fired.

Republicans raised questions about the origins of the investigation, tracing it back to early 2016 when Maltese intelligence agent Joseph Mifsud leaked to a staffer of the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos, that Russia had Clinton’s emails. That and subsequent meetings have all the marks of an intel agency set-up.

Repeatedly, Republicans brought up the dossier written by British spy Christopher Steele, who fed Russian-sourced disinformation to Clinton campaign-financed intel firm, Fusion GPS, who passed it on to the FBI, which used it as evidence to justify warrants to spy on Trump’s campaign.

To many in the TV audience, this was fresh and startling stuff.

Yet Mueller’s response to all such allegations was that they were outside his purview and that other agencies were looking into them.

Wednesday’s hearings often proved painful to watch.

Mueller, a 74-year-old decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam and a former director of the FBI, sat mumbling his dissents as one charge after another was fired at him, his associates and his investigation.

For this disaster, the Democrats are alone to blame.

Mueller had wanted to file his report and leave it to the attorney general and Congress to act, or not act, on its contents. His job was done, and he did not want to testify publicly.

Democrats, desperate for impeachment hearings, wanted him to recite for the TV cameras every charge against the president.

What Democrats hoped would be a recital of Trump’s sins, Republicans turned into an adversarial proceeding that ended Mueller’s public career in a humiliating spectacle lasting a full day.

Where do Democrats go from here?

Their goal from the outset has been to persuade the nation that Trump colluded with Putin’s Russia to steal the 2016 election, and that the progressives are the true patriots in seeking to impeach and remove an illegitimate president and prosecute him for acts of treason.

The Republican position is that, for all his flaws and failings, Trump won the 2016 election fairly and squarely. He is our president, and the drive to impeach and remove him is an attempted constitutional coup d’etat by a “deep state” terrified that it cannot win against him in 2020.

The rival narratives are irreconcilable.

The Republican message of Wednesday: Proceed with hearings to impeach and there will be blood on the floor.

Democrats are in a hellish bind.

Should they proceed with hearings on impeachment, they will divide their party, force their presidential candidates to cease talking health care and start talking impeachment, and probably fail.

Impeachment hearings would fire up the Republican base and energize the GOP minority to prepare for combat in a Judiciary Committee where they are already celebrating having eviscerated the prosecution’s star witness.

If Democrats vote impeachment in committee, they will have to take it to the House floor, where their moderates, who won in swing districts, will be forced to vote on it, splitting their own bases in the run-up to the 2020 election.

If Democrats lose the impeachment vote on the House floor, it would be a huge setback. But if they vote impeachment in the House, the trial takes place in a Senate run by Mitch McConnell.

Trump would go into the 2020 battle against a Democratic Party that failed to overthrow the president in a radical coup that it attempted because it was afraid to fight it out with the president in a free and fair election.

Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

July 26, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine on the cusp of change

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | July 23, 2019

The thumping victory by the Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, securing an absolute majority of 253 seats in the 450 member parliament, can be viewed as a tectonic shift in the geopolitical landscape of Eurasia. The next big party in the parliament will be the pro-Russia Platform – For Life, which secured 44 seats. The stunning rout of the pro-western forces symbolised by former President Poroshenko’s Solidarity party (24 seats).

The West must see the writing on the wall that the tide of opinion in Ukraine is overwhelmingly favouring the country’s reconciliation with Russia — a total negation, in other words, of the “regime change” through a US-sponsored colour revolution in 2014. The pro-western forces had let loose a campaign that the July 21 election was about Renewal (pro-west regime change in 2014) versus Revanche (rapprochement with Russia). The latter has won resoundingly. (See a commentary in the US government controlled Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty titled Renewal Or ‘Revanche’? Buzzwords Of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Elections Forecast Tension Following Vote.)

In effective terms, the control of parliament consolidates Zelenskiy’s gip on political power and enables him to accelerate three things: one, the purge of the Poroshenko era personnel from the top echelons of the government most of whom are western nominees or proxies; two, a parliament that will cooperate with his legislative and reform agenda; and, three, robust efforts forthwith to bring the war in Donbas to an end and an improvement in relations with Russia.    

Moscow has every reason to be quietly pleased with the outcome of the July 21parliamentary poll in Ukraine. Did Moscow anticipate the election results? Possibly so — even if the scale of Zelensky’s victory might have surpassed expectations. President Putin voiced optimism on the eve of the poll saying that the two countries will mend ties. As he put it, “We [Russia and Ukraine] have many things in common, we can use this as our competitive advantage during some form of integration. Rapprochement is inevitable.”

In fact, Moscow has already begun sensing that the Ukrainian government is no longer taking a hostile attitude toward Russia. The Kremlin noted last week that Kiev’s newly-appointed representatives in the contact group working on Donbas are taking a cooperative and constructive attitude, eschewing the negativism of the Poroshenko era. Besides, Zelensky has also signalled readiness to release from detention the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti, Kirill Vyshinsky.

Zelensky can be expected to push for a radical fresh start in the policies, domestic and foreign. He has made it clear that he disowned the legacy of the Poroshenko presidency. He will now push through parliament his plan to extend a current ban preventing officials from the Yanukovych era (prior to 2014 regime change) from working in the public service to Poroshenko and his team. Legal prosecutions also seem possible, especially as Zelensky seeks to abolish the general immunity enjoyed by parliamentarians. These are hugely popular moves — and they will seriously debilitate the pro-western forces.

Zelensky’s projection of himself as a president for peace echoes the deep yearning of a big majority of Ukrainians for an end to the war in Donbas. “We are prepared to do everything required by the Minsk agreements,” he recently said in an interview with Deutsche Welle. He seems willing to make concessions to the separatists, as envisaged under the Minsk agreements — such as a measure of regional autonomy, a say in the foreign and security policies, the use of Russian language and so on. If he moves in that direction, a sea change in the climate of relations between Ukraine and Russia is possible.

However, the complexity of the Donbas question should not be underestimated. The conflict is multi-dimensional and external powers — Russia as well as western powers — are deeply involved in Ukraine. The regime change in Ukraine in 2014 is at the root of it. Will the West let Ukraine slip out of its hands? Will Zelensky be allowed by the West to plough an independent furrow toward the east? These are key questions today. The Russian attitudes will be largely conditional on that. For the moment, it does appear, though, that Ukraine is on the cusp of change. See a recent research paper by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs titled The Donbas Conflict: Opposing Interests and Narratives, Difficult Peace Process.

July 23, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Venezuela blames nationwide blackouts on ‘electromagnetic attack’

RT | July 22, 2019

Massive power outages all across Venezuela were likely caused by an “electromagnetic attack,” the government of President Nicholas Maduro said, stressing that authorities are working to restore the service as soon as possible.

The blackout affected the entire nation, Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Rodríguez said on Monday evening, claiming that the power was knocked out by outside interference. The government has activated all the necessary protocols to provide safety for Venezuelans and work crews are already working to restore power.

Preliminary probe into the incident has suggested the “existence of an electromagnetic attack that sought to affect the hydroelectric generation system of Guayana, the main provider of this service in the country,” the minister told state channel VTV.

While authorities are struggling to resolve the crisis, the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido has used the power outage to once again attack his political opponent, accusing President Maduro of “destroying” the country’s electrical system.

In March, Venezuela suffered two major blackouts that sent the country into darkness for days. At the time, Caracas blamed it on cyberattacks on the Guri Hydroelectric generation and distribution system and accused the US-backed local opposition of sabotaging the power grid. Maduro also accused Washington of waging an “electricity war” to bring Guaido to power.

July 22, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

“US Causes Instability Anywhere It Sets Foot”

Al-Manar | July 20, 2019

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday that the United States causes instability and insecurity everywhere in the world it sets foot, including the Persian Gulf and South America.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in the Venezuelan capital early Saturday after a six-day stay in New York.

Speaking to reporters upon arriving in Caracas, Zarif said that “anywhere the United States sets foot in, it causes instability there.”

“At the moment, the US is causing insecurity with its presence in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and also the South American region,” said Zarif.

He went on to add that, “I don’t know any place in the world where the US’s presence has brought stability.”

“Anywhere the US has set foot on, it led to pressure on the people and caused extremism and terrorism,” stressed the Iranian top diplomat.

While in Caracas, Zarif is slated to take part in the Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Coordinating Bureau (CoB) on 20-21 July under the theme: “Promotion and Consolidation of Peace through Respect for International Law.” He will also meet with a host of Venezuelan officials before making a visit to Nicaragua and Bolivia.

July 20, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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