the Russian government announced that it would expel ten U.S. diplomats and blacklist eight former and incumbent U.S. officials that were “involved in drafting and implementing anti-Russia policy.” The expulsions come after the Biden administration attributed the SolarWinds breach to Russia and implemented economic sanctions.
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Cyber Week in Review: April 23, 2021 | Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views
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The UK government has launched a security campaign this week meant to educate domestic audiences on strategies used by foreign spies to steal sensitive or classified information. The campaign, titled “think before you link,” is a response to an increasing number of British nationals being targeted by malicious state actors masquerading as online recruiters
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The new campaign is meant to combat these foreign actors by giving “practical advice on how to identify a malicious online profile, how to respond if approached, and how to minimize the risk of being targeted in the first place.”
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Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would bar government and local law enforcement agencies from purchasing the location data of U.S. citizens without a warrant. The “Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act” [PDF] would also criminalize the police use of “illegitimately obtained” data from technology brokers such as Clearview AI, a biometrics firm that has scraped and sold billions of photos from social media and other websites
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Facebook announced that it had broken up two separate Palestinian hacker groups—one with alleged ties to the Palestinian Preventive Security Service (PSS), the intelligence service of the Palestinian Authority, and the other, known as Arid Viper, with reported links to the Hamas militant group.
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the PSS-backed hackers are believed to be based in the West Bank and target entities primarily in Palestine and Syria, with a lesser focus on Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya. Their targets include journalists, critics of the Palestinian government, human rights activists, and military groups such as the Syrian opposition and Iraqi military.
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Trump's Pardons: The List - The New York Times - 0 views
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With hours to go before President Trump left office, the White House released a list early Wednesday of 73 people he had pardoned and 70 others whose sentences he had commuted.
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On the list were at least two people who had worked for Mr. Trump: Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, and Elliott Broidy, a former top fund-raiser. Both received full pardons.
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The rapper Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., received a full pardon after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon in December. Mr. Trump also granted a commutation to another rapper, Kodak Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri (though he was born Dieuson Octave). In 2019, he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for lying on background paperwork while attempting to buy guns.
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The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution gives presidents unlimited authority to grant pardons, which excuse or forgive a federal crime. A commutation, by contrast, makes a punishment milder without wiping out the underlying conviction.
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Mr. Manafort, 71, had been sentenced in 2019 to seven and a half years in prison for his role in a decade-long, multimillion-dollar financial fraud scheme for his work in the former Soviet Union. He was released early from prison in May as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and given home confinement. Mr. Trump had repeatedly expressed sympathy for Mr. Manafort, describing him as a brave man who had been mistreated by the special counsel’s office.
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Mr. Stone, a longtime friend and adviser of Mr. Trump, was sentenced in February 2020 to more than three years in prison in a politically fraught case that put the president at odds with his attorney general. Mr. Stone was convicted of seven felony charges, including lying under oath to a congressional committee and threatening a witness whose testimony would have exposed those lies.
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Mr. Kushner, 66, the father-in-law of the president’s older daughter, Ivanka Trump, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission. He served two years in prison before being released in 2006.
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Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with a Russian diplomat, and whose prosecution Attorney General William P. Barr tried to shut down, was the only White House official to be convicted as part of the Trump-Russia investigation.
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Mr. Trump issued full pardons to Nicholas Slatton and three other former U.S. service members who were convicted on charges related to the killing of Iraqi civilians while they were working as security contractors for Blackwater, a private company, in 2007.
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Joe Arpaio, an anti-immigration crusader who enjoyed calling himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” was the first pardon of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
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Conrad M. Black, a former press baron and friend of Mr. Trump’s, was granted a full pardon 12 years after his sentencing for fraud and obstruction of justice.
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Former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois was sentenced in 2011 to 14 years in prison for trying to sell or trade to the highest bidder the Senate seat that Mr. Obama vacated after he was elected president.
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Dinesh D’Souza received a presidential pardon after pleading guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in 2014. Mr. D’Souza, a filmmaker and author whose subjects often dabble in conspiracy theories, had long blamed his conviction on his political opposition to Mr. Obama.
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Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, pleaded guilty in 1998 to concealing an extortion plot. Mr. DeBartolo was prosecuted after he gave Edwin W. Edwards, the influential former governor of Louisiana, $400,000 to secure a riverboat gambling license for his gambling consortium.
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Alice Marie Johnson was serving life in a federal prison for a nonviolent drug conviction before her case was brought to Mr. Trump’s attention by the reality television star Kim Kardashian West.
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Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, was tarnished by a racially tainted criminal conviction in 1913 — for transporting a white woman across state lines — that haunted him well after his death in 1946. Mr. Trump pardoned him on May 24, 2018.
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Susan B. Anthony, the women’s suffragist, was arrested in Rochester, N.Y., in 1872 for voting illegally and was fined $100. Mr. Trump pardoned her on Aug. 18, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of 19th Amendment, which extended voting rights to women.
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Zay Jeffries, a metal scientist whose contributions to the Manhattan Project and whose development of armor-piercing artillery shells helped the Allies win World War II, was granted a posthumous pardon on Oct. 10, 2019. Jeffries was found guilty in 1948 of an antitrust violation related to his work and was fined $2,500.
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Ten years ago, Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.
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I. Lewis Libby Jr., known as Scooter, was Vice President Dick Cheney’s top adviser before Mr. Libby was convicted in 2007 of four felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice, in connection with the disclosure of the identity of a C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame.
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Mr. Trump’s decision to clear three members of the armed services who had been accused or convicted of war crimes signaled that the president intended to use his power as the ultimate arbiter of military justice.
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Michael R. Milken was the billionaire “junk bond king” and a well-known financier on Wall Street in the 1980s. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, though his sentence was later reduced to two. He also agreed to pay $600 million in fines and penalties.
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Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven Hammond, were Oregon cattle ranchers who had been serving five-year sentences for arson on federal land. Their cases inspired an antigovernment group’s weekslong standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016 and brought widespread attention to anger over federal land management in the Western United States.
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David H. Safavian, the top federal procurement official under President George W. Bush, was sentenced in 2009 to a year in prison for covering up his ties to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist whose corruption became a symbol of the excesses of Washington influence peddling. Mr. Safavian was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements.
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Angela Stanton — an author, television personality and motivational speaker — served six months of home confinement in 2007 for her role in a stolen-vehicle ring. Her book “Life of a Real Housewife” explores her difficult upbringing and her encounters with reality TV stars.
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7 More Killed in Iraq as Anti-Government Protests Continue | Time - 0 views
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At least seven more Iraqi protesters were killed Saturday in clashes with security forces in Baghdad and the southern town of Nasiriyah, as thousands took part in nationwide anti-government protests, officials said.
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“I want change. I want to remove those corrupt people who sleep in the Green Zone and who fired tear gas and rubber bullets at us,” said protester Fares Mukhaled, 19, who sat barefoot on the ground at the square, where some had erected tents.
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The protests against the Shiite-dominated government have been largely concentrated in Shiite areas. Some have also criticized Iran’s influence over the country. “Iraq is free. Iran out, out!” some protesters chanted in Tahrir Square.
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The rallies have mainly been by young, unemployed men who are demanding jobs and better services. Young women appeared among the crowd in Baghdad for the first time Saturday, some handing out water to the protesters
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Defense secretary says troops in Syria will 'temporarily' go to Iraq before returning t... - 0 views
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Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that American troops ordered out of northern Syria will "temporarily" go to Iraq before they return to the US, and that President Donald Trump has not yet approved a plan to keep some troops in Syria to protect oil fields.
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"We will temporarily reposition in Iraq pursuant to bringing the troops home. And so it's just one part of a continuing phase, but eventually those troops are going to come home." The Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement Tuesday that US troops withdrawing from Syria may enter the Kurdish region of Iraq and then leave the country, but that they do not have permission to remain in Iraq.
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Hours before the ceasefire brokered last week is set to run out, Esper told Amanpour that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces "are making good faith efforts to withdraw from the area in time" and that "if they need a little bit more time they should be given a little bit more time." The secretary said that reports he's seen in the last day have shown that the ceasefire "is largely holding," though there "is some skirmishing here and there."
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Esper said that he thinks Turkey should be held accountable for alleged war crimes committed by Turkish-backed proxy forces against the Kurds in Syria, allegations that Esper said he assumes are accurate.
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"I've seen the reports as well, we're trying to monitor them. They are horrible and if accurate and I assume that they are accurate, they would be war crimes," Esper said, adding, "I think all of those need to be followed up on. I think those responsible should be held accountable, in many cases it would be the government of Turkey
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As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure - The New York Times - 0 views
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General Suleimani, who was considered the most important person in Iran after Ayatollah Khamenei, was a commanding general of a sovereign government. The last time the United States killed a major military leader in a foreign country was during World War II, when the American military shot down the plane carrying the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
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Mr. Trump’s two predecessors — Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — had rejected killing General Suleimani as too provocative.
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. The Pentagon also tacked on the choice of targeting General Suleimani, mainly to make other options seem reasonable.
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Mr. Trump, who aides said had on his mind the specter of the 2012 attacks on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, became increasingly angry as he watched television images of pro-Iranian demonstrators storming the embassy. Aides said he worried that no response would look weak after repeated threats by the United States.
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When Mr. Trump chose the option of killing General Suleimani, top military officials, flabbergasted, were immediately alarmed about the prospect of Iranian retaliatory strikes on American troops in the region. It is unclear if General Milley or Mr. Esper pushed back on the president’s decision.
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The option that was eventually approved depended on who would greet General Suleimani at his expected arrival on Friday at Baghdad International Airport. If he was met by Iraqi government officials allied with Americans, one American official said, the strike would be called off. But the official said it was a “clean party,” meaning members of Kataib Hezbollah, including its leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Mr. Trump authorized the killing at about 5 p.m. on Thursday, officials said.
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Pompeo Says Iran Posed Continued Threat to the U.S.: Live Updates - The New York Times - 0 views
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Following a bipartisan and international uproar, Mr. Trump conceded that striking such sites would amount to a war crime.
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That appeared to put him at odds with his bos
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On Saturday, Mr. Trump declared that the United States had identified 52 potential targets in Iran, some “important to Iran & the Iranian culture.”None of them qualified as cultural sites, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified.
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NATO is removing some of the trainers who have been working with Iraqi soldiers battling the Islamic State, in the wake of the American killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
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but refused to provide “operational details’’ about troop movements.
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Canada, Germany and Croatia, have announced that they are moving troops out of Iraq altogether, at least temporarily, because of security concerns.
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in a letter posted on Twitter on Tuesday.
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But he said that Iran posed a threat to American lives.
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But since then, American officials have failed to provide any evidence to show what might have been targeted, or how soon an attack was expected.
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Some Pentagon officials have said the intelligence did not show an imminent attack. The alerts on threat streams were not unusual, they said.
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Iran's supreme leader calls Trump 'clown' in rare Friday sermon | World news | The Guar... - 0 views
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Striking a defiant tone, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Donald Trump was a “clown” who pretended to support the Iranian people but would push a poisonous dagger into their backs.
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The “cowardly” killing of Suleimani had taken out the most effective commander in the battle against the Islamic State group, he said.
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Khamenei called the downing of the plane a “bitter accident” that saddened Iran as much as it made its enemies happy. He said Iran’s enemies had seized on the crash to question the Islamic Republic, the Revolutionary Guards and the armed forc
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He also lashed out at western countries, saying they were too weak to bring Iranians to their knees.
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After Suleimani was killed, Iran announced it would no longer be bound by the limitations in the nuclear agreement. European countries who have been trying to salvage the deal responded earlier this week by invoking a dispute mechanism that could result in even more sanctions.
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Trump claims Suleimani was 'saying bad things' about US before deadly strike | US news ... - 0 views
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Addressing Republican donors at his Florida resort on Friday night, Donald Trump said Qassem Suleimani was “saying bad things about our country” before the US president authorised the drone strike which killed the Iranian general and pitched the Middle East to the brink of war.
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The speech was not open to reporters but CNN obtained a recording of Trump’s remarks at Mar-a-Lago, which it said undermined official explanations for the decision to kill Suleimani at Baghdad airport on 3 January.
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Congress was not informed of the strike in advance, its eventual notification was heavily classified and a congressional briefing prompted bipartisan protest. Democrats have proposed legislation to rein the president in.
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Iran has also admitted shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet in error, killing 176 people. Amid anti-regime protests in Tehran, the threat of a US-Iran war has receded.
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“They’re together sir,” Trump said he was told. “Sir, they have two minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. ‘Two minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They’re in the car, they’re in an armoured vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. Thirty seconds. Ten, nine, eight ...’
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According to CNN, Trump told his audience in Florida the death of al-Muhandis meant the US took out “two for the price of one”. He also repeated an erroneous claim that the Iraqi was “the head of Hezbollah”. Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed militant group based in Lebanon.
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CNN said the audio of Friday’s speech also included a complaint that Conan, a Belgian Malinois dog wounded in the Baghdadi raid, “became very famous” and “got more credit than I did”.
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...we’re asking readers, like you, to make a contribution in support of the Guardian’s open, independent journalism. This has been a turbulent decade across the world – protest, populism, mass migration and the escalating climate crisis. The Guardian has been in every corner of the globe, reporting with tenacity, rigour and authority on the most critical events of our lifetimes. At a time when factual information is both scarcer and more essential than ever, we believe that each of us deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.
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We have upheld our editorial independence in the face of the disintegration of traditional media – with social platforms giving rise to misinformation, the seemingly unstoppable rise of big tech and independent voices being squashed by commercial ownership. The Guardian’s independence means we can set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Our journalism is free from commercial and political bias – never influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This makes us different. It means we can challenge the powerful without fear and give a voice to those less heard.
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Opinion | Horrified by the Blackwater Pardons - The New York Times - 0 views
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After only one week, we determined that this incident was not as presented by Blackwater personnel and their State Department lackeys, but it was a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam. Three of the guards were convicted of manslaughter and one of murder.
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I only recently became aware of the concerted effort for the pardons, which I understand started with a political push by members of Congress. President Trump should have had staff members review the trial evidence that led to the convictions and read the judges’ opinions and sentencing statements. God forbid they might have actually picked up the phone and called the investigators who built the case. I’m so disgusted with the president’s actions!
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n 2007, when private security contractors working for Blackwater in Iraq killed 17 Iraqi civilians, and injured others, the killings provoked outrage in Iraq, and around the world. It took seven years for the U.S. government to successfully prosecute the perpetrators, a case that highlighted the need to hold private contractors accountable.
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President Trump has shamefully pardoned four of the perpetrators, upending this valuable example of accountability.
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Opinion: Trump's wrecking ball of a transition - CNN - 0 views
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President Donald Trump has managed to use his remaining time in office to act as a political wrecking ball while the country is still being ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Trump, who had been spouting false claims of voter fraud for months, launched several failed lawsuits in an attempt to challenge the election results in key swing states, and also contacted state legislatures to try to persuade them to intervene on his behalf
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While the President has been unsuccessful in his efforts to overturn the election, he may have succeeded in sowing distrust among many in our democracy, fanning the flames of the toxic political atmosphere and likely making governing that much more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden.
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Trump has also set a dangerous precedent for future Presidents to dispute the election results on spurious claims
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President Trump has turned a blind eye to the millions of families that are suffering as a result of the pandemic. Despite 18 million cases, more than 330,000 deaths, and millions facing economic hardship, there has been little direction from Washington about what states need to be doing right now to curb the spread of this horrible virus.
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Although 1 million Americans have already gotten the Covid-19 vaccine, that falls far short of the administration's goal of inoculating 20 million Americans by the end of December
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President Trump's 11th hour decision to blow up the stimulus negotiations has also jeopardized much needed financial relief for millions of Americans. Rather than showing a genuine effort to pressure Senate Republicans to agree to legislation House Democrats passed in May, which would have provided $1,200 checks for individuals and up to $6,000 per household, Trump decided to intervene only after Congress finally agreed on individual payments of $600 -- saying he wanted $2,000 checks instead.
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President Trump has also used his remaining time in office to dole out presidential pardons that exemplify the absolute worst use of this constitutional power.
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Russia-gate alumni Roger Stone, who was convicted of seven felonies including obstruction, threatening a witness and lying under oath; Paul Manafort, who was convicted of eight counts of financial crimes; Alex van der Zwaan, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators; George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI; and Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, were all pardoned, likely as a reward for their loyalty.
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Trump also offered presidential relief to corrupt Republican Congressmen Duncan Hunter, who pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to misuse campaign funds, Steve Stockman, who was convicted of a number of felonies including fraud and money laundering, and Chris Collins, who was serving time on charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making a false statement -- along with Charles Kushner, the father of son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was sentenced to two years in federal prison for retaliating against a federal witness, evading taxes and lying to the Federal Election Commission.
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Four Blackwater guards were also pardoned after a lengthy trial found them guilty of killing 14 Iraqis in 2007.
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Given all that has happened during this transition, some commentators wonder whether Congress should reduce the time between election and inauguration even more
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This transition has given us more than enough reason to revisit our election laws, provide more clarity about the Electoral College certification process, and rein in the executive power that a lame duck President can wield.
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Early Muslim Conquests (622-656 CE) - Ancient History Encyclopedia - 0 views
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Islam arose as a religious and socio-political force in Arabia in the 7th century CE (610 CE onwards).
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The Islamic Prophet Muhammad (l. 570-632 CE), despite facing resistance and persecution, amassed a huge following and started building an empire
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After he died in 632 CE, his friend Abu Bakr (l. 573-634 CE) laid the foundation of the Rashidun Caliphate (632-661 CE), which continued the imperial expansion.
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The Islamic Prophet Muhammad started preaching a monotheistic faith called Islam in his hometown of Mecca from 610 CE onwards.
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Equality, egalitarianism, equal rights for women (who had been hitherto considered “property” by the Meccans), and the prospect of heaven attracted many towards Islam.
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Despite putting forth strict persecution of the new religion and its preacher, Meccans failed to contain the Muslim community.
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Medina offered Prophet Muhammad sovereignty over the city, making him the first ruler and king (r. 622-632 CE) of what was later to become the Islamic or Muslim Empire. The city-state of Medina soon came into conflict with Mecca, and the latter was conquered, after years of warfare, in 629/630 CE.
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At the morrow of Prophet Muhammad’s death, the Islamic Empire slid to the brink of disintegration, as many advocated pre-Islamic home-rule system. This threat, however, was averted when Abu Bakr (r. 632-634 CE) proclaimed himself the Caliph of the Prophet and the first supreme ruler of the Islamic realm.
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Abu Bakr now sought to expand his realm beyond the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslim Empire bordered two superpowers: the Byzantine Empire (330-1453 CE) and Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE) to the north-west and north-east respectively. These two colossal powers often clashed violently in prolonged wars, had exhausted their resources, and severely repressed Arabian tribes living in the Middle East in the course of pursuing ultimate power. For Abu Bakr, this was an opportune moment, although he may not have known that.
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Never content with wasting an opportunity, the Caliph sent Khalid, who had now distinguished himself as a war hero, to raid Iraq (633 CE). The duo stuck to the western side of the Euphrates, where they enjoyed much success, employed eager locals in their ranks, and countered Sassanian advances towards the conquered territory.
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Abu Bakr died in 634 CE, and his successor Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644 CE) took charge as the second caliph of the Islamic Empire and the "commander of the faithful". Caliph Umar reinforced the Iraqi front with fresh troops under the command of a reputable companion of the Prophet: Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas (l. 595-674 CE).
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With this defeat, Sassanian control over Iraq was shattered, the Rashidun troops soon swept over the land and even took Ctesiphon – the Persian capital, ironically located far off from their power base in Khorasan, the eastern province – located in modern-day Iran.
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Umar’s successor Uthman (r. 644-656 CE) continued the military expansion undertaken by his predecessors. Yazdegerd III, who had escaped to the eastern parts of his kingdom, was murdered by a local at Merv in 651 CE.
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Abu Bakr sent four divisions under Shurahbil ibn Hasana (l. 583-639 CE), Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 640 CE), Amr ibn al-As (l. c. 573-664 CE), and Abu Ubaidah (l. 583-639 CE) to raid Syria and the Levant.
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The Rashidun forces continued to advance northwards in the Levant and Syria. They took Damascus in 634 CE, either through an assault or treason, defeated the Palestinian imperial division in the Battle of Fahl (Pella; 635 CE).
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Honed for their shipbuilding skills, the Syrians were employed to create a formidable Rashidun fleet to challenge Byzantine authority in the Mediterranean. After defeating the Byzantine fleet attempting to retake Alexandria (646 CE), the Muslims went on the offensive. Cyprus fell in 649 CE, followed by Rhodes in 654 CE, and in 655 CE, the Byzantine naval authority was crushed with a victory at the Battle of the Masts. Muslims held uncontested control over the Mediterranean and sent raiding parties as far as Crete and Sicily.
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At its peak, the realm of the Rashidun Caliphate spread from parts of North Africa in the west to parts of modern-day Pakistan in the east; several islands of the Mediterranean had also come under their sway.
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The Byzantines and Sassanians were superpowers of their time but years of warfare had weakened the two colossal titans
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Moreover, Arabs were never expected to pose any threat to them, these disunited desert dwellers did not have the numbers or the will to face an empire. This, however, changed as the Arabian Peninsula was united under the banner of Islam by 633 CE. Freed from the infighting that had plagued them for centuries, the Arabs directed their potential towards their neighbors. They considered a just war as a holy struggle and if death was to embrace them, they would be immortalized as martyrs.
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Such a strong resolve, however, was lacking in their foes. Both empires employed mercenaries, and these men did not feel similar passion for their client state as the Arabs did for the Caliphate. Moreover, a multiethnic army lacked the coherence imparted by a single faith and unified national sentiment, but perhaps the most destructive penalty that these empires faced was because of how they treated their people in their provinces.
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The U.S. and Iran Move Closer to a Nuclear Deal - The New York Times - 0 views
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On Saturday, Iran’s Parliament placed largely symbolic sanctions on 51 Americans, many of them prominent political and military officials, for “terrorism” and “human rights violations,” in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, two years ago.
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Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, then warned that Iran would “face severe consequences” if it attacked any Americans, including any of the 51 people hit with the sanctions.
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Symbolic acts of sanctioning individuals and issuing sharply worded statements are nothing new in the long and troubled relationship between Tehran and Washington.
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The Biden administration needs a foreign policy success, particularly after the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, and has said it prefers a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear standoff over military confrontation.
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The Biden administration initially wanted to return to the original deal while following the Trump blueprint on missiles and foreign policies, but has now indicated it would accept a return to the 2015 accord without those strings attached.
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initially demanded the lifting of all sanctions imposed by Mr. Trump and guarantees that a future American president would not withdraw from the deal. But Tehran has softened those demands as the negotiations have progressed in Vienna.
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Former President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed tough economic sanctions cutting off most of Iran’s oil revenues and international financial transactions. Mr. Trump’s goal was to pressure Iran into a deal that reached beyond its nuclear program, restricting its ballistic missiles and regional political and military activities.
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“We will facilitate revenge on Americans in any place, even their own homes and by people close to them, even if we are not present,” he said in a video of the speech.
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The recent jousting between Tehran and Washington is linked to Iran’s commemoration on Jan. 3 of the two-year anniversary of the U.S. assassination of General Suleimani. In speech after speech during the ceremonies, Iranian officials threatened revenge against American officials — even though Iran had retaliated five days after the assassination with a ballistic missile strike on an American military facility in Iraq.
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Ebrahim Raisi, the newly elected hard-line Iranian president, said that former President Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, should stand trial in an impartial court and face “ghesas,” a term that in Islamic jurisprudence means an “eye for an eye.” Otherwise, he warned, people would take their own revenge.
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Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signaled an indirect endorsement of talks with the U.S. in a speech on Monday when he said the Islamic Republic “holding talks and negotiating with the enemy at certain junctures does not mean surrendering.”
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Over a four-day period, they unleashed a series of rocket and drone attacks on a U.S. military base in western Iraq and on the living quarters of State Department employees at the Baghdad airport, according to the Iraqi military and an official with the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition based in Baghdad, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
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In northeastern Syria, artillery rounds were fired at a Syrian-Kurdish-led base with U.S. advisers, according to the U.S.-led coalition, which issued a statement blaming the attacks on “Iran-supported malign actors.”
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Tehran’s proxies were launching the attacks, Iranian officials were expressing a surprisingly optimistic view of the talks in Vienna, now in their eighth round, while the State Department was offering a more measured assessment.
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An adviser to Iran’s Foreign Ministry said he believed a deal could be reached before mid-February, which would coincide with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
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made an important concession to get things rolling by agreeing to work from a draft agreement worked out with Mr. Rouhani’s team,
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Under that agreement, the U.S. would lift all sanctions related to the nuclear deal (while keeping those for human rights and other issues) and Iran would return to its technical commitments regarding its nuclear program under the old treaty.
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“I’m not going to put a time limit on it or give you the number of meters remaining on the runway, except to say, ‘Yes, it is getting very, very, very short,’”
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Iran may have softened its initial demand for the removal of all sanctions imposed after Mr. Trump exited the deal, including those related to human rights.
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Iran was pursuing “the removal of sanctions” related only to the original nuclear deal and looking to complete sanctions removal sometime in the future.
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Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But if the talks fail, he said, its efforts at enriching uranium since the U.S. exited the nuclear deal have put it in a position to move toward weaponization very quickly.
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Opinion | Dick Cheney set Liz Cheney's demise in motion decades ago - The Washington Post - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...eney-liz-demise-deception-iraq
cheney patriotism paranoia disinformation decline GOP culture politics US history
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There is a bitter irony in Cheney’s fall: She is being undone by the very politics her father championed. Weaponizing patriotism? Abandoning the truth? Vice President Dick Cheney was a pioneer.
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In my new book, “The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party,” I traced the actions of GOP leaders who essentially created the Trump era by removing the guardrails of our political system. Dick Cheney was one such leader.
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her father abandoned the truth in the most profound way, starting a war on the basis of lies. Liz Cheney denounces the evil of preying on patriotism. But her father was a key figure in a White House that politicized the 9/11 attacks and portrayed the administration’s opponents as traitors.
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There was extraordinary national unity after the 2001 terrorist attacks. But George W. Bush’s strategists argued that Republicans should “go to the country” on the issue of terrorism and “focus on war” in the elections of 2002 and 2004, making the case that Democrats endangered Americans’ security. On the campaign trail, Dick Cheney warned that if people made “the wrong choice” and voted Democratic, “then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating.” As Bush said Democrats were “not interested in the security of the American people,” Cheney claimed electing Republicans was “vital” for “defending our homeland.”
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In that same year, Republicans close to the administration ran an infamous ad juxtaposing an image of Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a triple amputee from his service in Vietnam, with images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein
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Two years later, a group with ties to Bush did similarly to Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, with flimsy accusations that he lied about his Vietnam service and betrayed comrades.
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Cheney was also the primary force for distorting intelligence about Iraq to make the case for war. He falsely claimed in 2001 that it was “pretty well confirmed” that the 9/11 mastermind met with Iraqi intelligence. He falsely called evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda “overwhelming” and said Hussein had “long-established ties with al-Qaeda.” He falsely called Iraq “the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault … on 9/11.”
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Those contagions — using disinformation and patriotism as political weapons — spread through the Republican Party and consumed it utterly with Trump’s triumph. Too late, Liz Cheney bravely stood against both, and is on the verge of political exile
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All our Greek tragedy needs now is the catharsis: a glimmer of self-awareness from Dick Cheney about his role in causing this.
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Ukraine Invasion: Russia's Military Is Adapting After Early Failures - Bloomberg - 0 views
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Russian killed-in-action numbers are stunning. In 20 years of hard fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S. suffered roughly 2,000 troops killed in combat. The Russians, in just over two weeks, have lost at least 4,000 and possibly twice that.
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Russia is reportedly sending its jets on 200 sorties a day, using a tremendous amount of fuel and spare parts that will be increasingly hard to come by given sanctions. Ukraine claims to have shot down more than 50 aircraft at $20 million to $50 million a pop.
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One recent estimate put the cost of the war at billions of dollars per day, and at that rate Putin will run out of money even before he runs out of public support.
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For the Russians on the ground in Ukraine, the worst is still ahead. For Putin to subdue Kyiv, a city of nearly four million, he will have to throw a significant level of combat power into the fight
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It took the U.S. First Marine Division — the most elite combat troops in the world — nearly two months to conquer Fallujah, an Iraqi city about a tenth the size of Kyiv.
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Opinion | I was a Republican Partisan. It Altered the Way I Saw the World. - The New Yo... - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...lican-partisan-world-view.html
partisan epistemic bubble polarization credulity culture history politics
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I remember when supporters of Operation Iraqi Freedom constantly hyped good news from the battlefield and minimized bad news — right until the bad news became so overwhelming
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Before Bush changed tactics and reinforced American troops during the surge in 2007 and 2008, it sometimes felt disloyal in Republican circles to criticize the course of the war.
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Could we have changed our military tactics sooner if we had been able to see the battlefield more clearly? Did paradigm blindness — the unwillingness or inability to accept challenges to our core ways of making sense of the world — inhibit our ability to see obvious truths?
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the red-blue divide is perhaps less illuminating than the gap between engaged and disengaged Americans, in which an exhausted majority encounters the highly polarized activist wings of both parties and shrinks back from the fray
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The wings aren’t changing each other’s minds — hard-core Democrats aren’t going to persuade hard-core Republicans — but they’re also not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.
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In 2020, when I was doing research for my book about the growing danger of partisan division, I began to learn more about what extreme partisanship does not only to our hearts but also to our minds.
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It can deeply and profoundly distort the way we view the world. We become so emotionally and spiritually invested in the outcome of a political contest that we can inadvertently become disconnected from reality.
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Our heart connects with our mind in such a way that the heart demands that the mind conform to its deepest desires
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When a partisan encounters negative information, it can often trigger the emotional equivalent of a fight-or-flight response. This applies not just to negative arguments but also to negative facts. To deal with the emotional response, we seek different arguments and alternative facts.
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If you are a true partisan, you essentially become an unpaid lawyer for your side. Every “good” fact that bolsters your argument is magnified. Every “bad” fact is minimized or rationalized.
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When partisanship reaches its worst point, every positive claim about your side is automatically believed, and every negative allegation is automatically disbelieved.
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allegations of wrongdoing directed at your side are treated as acts of aggression — proof that “they” are trying to destroy “us.”
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You see this reality most plainly in the daily Republican theatrics surrounding Trump’s criminal indictments. Rather than wrestle seriously with the profoundly troubling claims against him, they treat the criminal cases as proof of Democratic perfidy. They believe every claim against Hunter and Joe Biden and not a single claim against Trump.
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ask why people are checking out, and one reason is that partisans make it so very difficult to engage.
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The problem is most pronounced (and often overtly threatening) on the MAGA right, but it’s endemic to our partisan wings
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as partisanship deepens, partisan subcultures can get increasingly weird. They become so convinced of the us-versus-them dynamic that they’ll eventually believe virtually anything, as long as it’s a claim against the other side.
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If decades of partisanship have persuaded you that your opponents are evil, have no morals and want to destroy the country, then why wouldn’t they hack voting machines or recruit a pop star as a government asset?
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Expose yourself to the best of the other side’s point of view — including the best essays, podcasts and books.
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when you encounter bad news about a cause that you hold dear — whether it’s a presidential campaign, an international conflict or even a claim against a person you admire, take a close and careful look at the evidence