NATO members scramble to support Ukraine amid Russian threat

The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent NATO countries scrambling to provide military support to Kyiv. In recent weeks, Spain, France, Estonia, the United Kingdom and the United States among others have provided varying kinds of military support to Ukraine in anticipation of Russian aggression.  

NATO is under no treaty’s obligation to defend Ukraine because the ex-Soviet country is not a member of the alliance, but the group has made clear that it stands with Kyiv and has called on Moscow to de-escalate tensions. 

Some military movements appear to be posturing, aimed at deterring Russia from any aggressive actions, but other steps appear to be prepared for a serious conflict. Either way, experts say, the assistance could show Russian President Vladimir Putin that the cost of an invasion of Ukraine is too great.   

“There's clearly a sense that the military support provided to Ukraine would help Ukraine raise the cost to Russia of military aggression,” said former US Ambassador William Courtney, a senior fellow at RAND Corporation.  

Ukraine has asked to join NATO, a move that is staunchly opposed by Russia. Russian officials have demanded that NATO not extend further east, but the alliance has rebuffed these demands. The Kremlin has used this refusal as a justification to amass forces at the border, claiming unspecified security concerns. 

Russia has amassed at least 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, and US officials have warned that an attack could likely occur by mid-February.  

In recent years, the Ukrainian forces have been able to increase operability and protect itself against another invasion. Still, the Russian military is far more dominant and capable than its opponent.  

Courtney confirmed that NATO has no formal obligation to defend Ukraine, but added that the West’s military support to the Eastern European country has been “quite substantial” since 2014. 

At the time, Russian forces invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.    

“Europe and the United States, over time, developed an increasing desire to help Ukraine advance internally both through reforms democratic and economic reforms, and also to move closer to the West which seems to be Ukraine's interest,” he said.  

One goal of aiding Ukraine is centered on the concept of “porcupine defense,” the idea that a country makes itself as difficult to invade as possible.  

“You provide security assistance and arms that are lethal that complicate Russia's ability to take large parts of Ukraine without getting beaten up in the process,” said Rachel Ellehuus, deputy director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“So, they can certainly withstand a Russian incursion for a limited period of time, but not forever,” she continued.  

This method, combined with the alliance’s threats of severe economic consequences should Russia invade, could make Putin think twice about doing so.  

“The issue is helping to deter Russian aggression by making clear that the cost to it economic, military and the human costs of casualties will be greater than maybe expected before,” Courtney said.  

While the alliance is behind Ukraine, countries thus far have varied on the extent of their support.  

Over the past couple of weeks, Denmark decided to send four additional F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania for air policing and a 160-man frigate in the Baltic Sea. France, for its part, has offered to send troops to Romania.  

The United Kingdom also announced that it is sending Ukraine light, anti-armor defensive weapons systems, as well as a small number of UK personnel to provide training.  

Meanwhile, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania recently received approval from the US to send American-made weapons to Ukraine for additional defense.  

Estonia is providing Javelin anti-armor missiles, while Latvia and Lithuania are providing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and adjacent equipment.  

“We sincerely hope that Ukraine will face no need to use this equipment and call on Russian Federation to seize its aggressive and irresponsible behavior,” the Baltic nations said in a statement.  

Spain announced that it is sending warships to bolster NATO’s naval forces in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and is mulling sending its own fighter jets to Bulgaria.  

But countries sending assistance must strike a delicate balance — helping Ukraine without doing anything that could provoke the Kremlin.  

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, explained that recent efforts to provide assistance have been defensive in nature for this reason.  

“Given that diplomacy continues and that the preferred outcome by NATO countries is a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, NATO members are trying to find the right balance between improving the capabilities of the Ukrainian military to resist Russian aggression and taking steps that the Russians would see as a provocation,” Kupchan said.  

Further complicating matters is uncertainty about how Russia would invade Ukraine, should it choose to do so.  

Moscow has largely positioned troops along Ukraine’s northeastern border. On Tuesday, it announced that it is moving troops to Belarus for military drills that are scheduled for next month, when the West fears an invasion could occur.  

The drills put more pressure on NATO nations, as it puts Russian troops on Ukraine’s northern neighbor, giving Putin more options for a possible invasion.  

“I think the dynamic really changed when Russia sent forces into Belarus,” Ellenhuus said. “A lot of allies now worry that Russia is somehow preparing to invade Ukraine, both from the south and then also from, from Belarus.”  

A Russian invasion of Ukraine could trigger a rush to ensure that countries on its eastern flank are defended.  

The US, for its part, has no intentions of sending troops to deter an invasion, but has said if Russia invades, then it would send troops to bolster NATO’s forces along the Eastern Flank.  

President Biden has also repeated several times in recent weeks that if Russia decides to invade Ukraine, the US will slap devastating economic sanctions on the country. Vice President Harris echoed this same sentiment in an interview with Savannah Guthrie earlier this week.  

The US military has already sent the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier strike group to take part in a NATO naval exercise in the Mediterranean, though Pentagon officials insist the drill are not in response to Russia’s recent aggressions. 

Macron leading the charge against Biden

Lately, French President, Emmanuel Macron said he would rather work with the International Olympic Committee to protect athletes all over the world rather than participate in symbolic boycotts of the China games. “We must not politicize the Olympics,” said Macron.

“I prefer to do things that have a positive impact on the international stage, as I do with everything else.”

The United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom are among the Western countries that have announced that they will not send officials to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in order to send a message to China about its human rights record.

Foreign Affairs Ministers of European Union (EU) were scheduled to meet in Brussels to discuss the issue, but they were not likely to agree to follow the US stance.

“We’re not rushing into it,” said one EU diplomat.

“I don’t think people are rushing to support the US position.”

China said it was unconcerned about a ‘domino effect’ of diplomatic boycotts after Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada joined the United States in refusing to send officials to the Olympics.

Because of China’s atrocities in the western region of Xinjiang, the United States was the first to announce a boycott, say that its government officials would not attend the February 4-20 Games next year.

“I don’t see any need to be concerned about any domino effect,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a daily press conference when asked about the possibility of more boycotts.

“On the contrary, the Beijing Winter Olympics have received widespread support from around the world.”

The US and its allies’ diplomatic boycotts come after a sharp deterioration in relations between Beijing and Washington, which began under former US President Donald Trump.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has continued to put pressure on China on a number of issues, including human rights and China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea.

Wang noted that the United Nations on December 02, 2020 adopted a resolution calling for an ‘Olympic Truce’ during the Beijing Games, which was co-sponsored by more than 170 of the 193 member states.

According to him, quite a few foreign leaders and members of royal families had signed up to attend.

Overcrowding of warships in South China Sea

Senior Chinese diplomats have called on the United States not to show off its power over the South China Sea and warned of the risk of a misfire in the disputed waters with increasing presence of naval vessels.

Speaking to a South China Sea forum in Sanya, on the Southern Chinese island province of Hainan, via video link, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed an unspecified country for seeking to show off its power and maritime dominance.

“We must adhere to multilateralism and jointly maintain maritime order. The ocean is not a zero-sum game of competition, and no one should use the ocean as a tool to impose unilateral power,” Wang said.

“We oppose that certain countries, for the purpose of safeguarding maritime hegemony, flaunt their forces and form cliques at sea, and continue to infringe on the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of other countries.”

China and the US have been stepping up their military presence in the disputed waters, with increasing risks of an accidental clash. Concerns have escalated as the US has teamed up with its allies, including Britain and France, to send naval vessels to the South China Sea. Diplomatic observers have warned the consequences would be more serious if there was a clash between nuclear submarines.

Last month, the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group and the British carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth conducted a series of exercises in the South China Sea. It was the USS Carl Vinson’s ninth visit to the area this year.

The South China Sea is heavily contested between China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The US is not a claimant, but accuses Beijing of stoking military tensions and restricting freedom of navigation there, and has said its presence is needed to provide security backup to its Asian allies.

“China calls on the United States to actively consider joining the convention and take concrete actions to participate in the defence of the international maritime rule of law,” he said.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, former president of the Philippines, said the tensions and troubles in the South China Sea were posing “grave threats” to stability, and Southeast Asian nations were seriously concerned.

“Imagine what an exchange of fire between warships of the People’s Liberation Army and the US Seventh Fleet would do to stock, currency and commodity markets worldwide,” she asked the forum.

“The world hopes that such an unwelcome event remains pure imagination. But there are reasons to worry. For the first time in years, if not ever, aircraft carrier groups of China and America deployed in the South China Sea at the same time; so did French and British warships. Earlier this year, the presence of hundreds of Chinese vessels near Whitsun Reef led to Philippine diplomatic protests and the exchange of unfriendly words between Manila and Beijing.”

Arroyo said the South China Sea disputes had previously been managed by the expansion of economic and diplomatic ties among the nations involved, and with a balance of power.

“Now, the balance of power approach is increasingly being taken with the growing presence of American and allied forces in the South China Sea, which will get even more formidable with the Aukus, to which the PLA may feel the need to respond,” she said, referring to the deal struck with the US and Britain to help Australia acquire a nuclear submarine fleet.

A Pentagon report last week said China’s navy had expanded to 355 ships and submarines by 2020. It said the Chinese navy had placed a high priority on modernizing its submarine forces, operating six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), six nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), and 46 diesel-powered attack submarines (SSs).

But Wu Jianghao, assistant Chinese foreign minister, said China had engaged in discussions with other South China Sea claimants on joint exploration of its resources and a code of conduct.

“We must oppose maritime hegemony, division and confrontation, and build the ocean into a territory where all parties expand cooperation, rather than a zero-sum arena,” he told the forum.

 

Turkey to expel 10 western ambassadors

Reportedly, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced to expel the ambassadors of 10 Western countries who appealed for the release of Osman Kavala. Seven of these ambassadors represent Turkey’s NATO allies. 

The expulsions, if carried out, would cause the worst rift with the West in Erdogan’s 19 years in power.

 “I have ordered our Foreign Minister to declare these 10 ambassadors as persona non grata as soon as possible,” Erdogan said on Saturday, referring to a term used in diplomacy that signifies the first step before expulsion. He did not set a firm date.

 “They must know and understand Turkey,” Erdogan added, accusing the envoys of “indecency”.

“They must leave here the day they no longer know Turkey,” Erdogan said.

Lately, the envoys had issued a highly unusual joint statement saying the continued detention of Parisian-born activist Osman Kavala “cast a shadow” over Turkey. Kavala has become a symbol of the sweeping crackdown Erdogan unleashed after surviving the coup attempt.

The United States, Germany, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden called for a just and speedy resolution to Kavala’s case.

Speaking to the AFP news agency from his jail cell last week, Kavala said he felt like a tool in Erdogan’s attempts to blame a foreign plot for domestic opposition to his nearly two-decade rule.

Kavala said on Friday he would no longer attend his trial as a fair hearing was impossible after recent comments by Erdogan.

The Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights watchdog, issued a final warning to Turkey to comply with a 2019 European Court of Human Rights order to release Kavala pending trial.

If Turkey fails to do so by its next meeting scheduled to commence on November 30 and continue till December 02, the Strasbourg-based council could vote to launch its first disciplinary proceedings against Ankara.

European Parliament President David Sassoli tweeted: “The expulsion of 10 ambassadors is a sign of the authoritarian drift of the Turkish government. We will not be intimidated.

A source at the German Foreign Ministry also said the 10 countries were consulting with one another. German lawmakers called for a tough response.

“Erdogan’s unscrupulous actions against his critics are becoming increasingly uninhibited,” Bundestag vice president Claudia Roth told the dpa news agency.

She said Erdogan’s “authoritarian course must be confronted internationally” and demanded sanctions and a halt to weapons exports to Turkey.

“The possible expulsion of 10 ambassadors, including the representatives of Germany and many of Turkey’s NATO allies, would be unwise, undiplomatic and would weaken the cohesion of the alliance,” lawmaker and foreign policy expert Alexander Graf Lambsdorff tweeted. “Erdogan can have no interest in that.”

Norway said its embassy had not received any notification from Turkish authorities.

“Our ambassador has not done anything that warrants an expulsion,” said the ministry’s chief spokesperson, Trude Maaseide, adding that Turkey was well aware of Norway’s views.

“We will continue to call on Turkey to comply with democratic standards and the rule of law to which the country committed itself under the European Human Rights Convention,” Maaseide said.

Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said his ministry had not received any official notification, but was in contact with its friends and allies.

“We will continue to guard our common values and principles, as also expressed in the joint declaration,” he said in a statement.

Chinese President’s most audacious geopolitical bet

A head-spinning series of seemingly disparate moves over recent months add up to nothing less than a generational wager that Chinese President, Xi Jinping  can produce the world’s dominant power for the foreseeable future by doubling down on his state-controlled economy, party-disciplined society, nationalistic propaganda, and far-reaching global influence campaigns.

With each week, Xi raises the stakes further, from narrowing seemingly mundane personal freedoms like karaoke bars or a teenager’s permitted time for online gaming to three hours weekly to the multi million US dollar investor hit from his increased controls on China’s biggest technology companies and their foreign listings.  

It is only in the context of Xi’s increased repressions at home and expanded ambitions abroad that one can fully understand Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s decision this week to enter a new defense pact, which he called “a forever agreement,” with the United States and the United Kingdom.

Much of the news focus was either on the eight nuclear-powered submarines that Australia would deploy or the spiraling French outrage that their own deal to sell diesel submarines to Australia was undermined by what French officials called a “betrayal” and a “stab in the back” from close allies. France went so far as to recall its ambassador to the United States for the first time in the history of the NATO alliance.

All that noise should not distract from the more significant message of the ground-breaking agreement. Prime Minister Morrison saw more strategic advantage and military capability from the US-UK alignment in a rapidly shifting Indo-Pacific atmosphere, replacing his previous stance of trying to balance US and Chinese interests.

“The relatively benign environment we’ve enjoyed for many decades in our region is behind us,” Morrison said on Thursday. “We have entered a new era with challenges for Australia and our partners.”

For China, that new era has many faces: a rapid rollback of economic liberalization, a crackdown on individual freedoms, an escalation of global influence efforts and military buildup, all in advance of the 20th national party congress in October 2022, where Xi hopes to seal his place in history and his continued rule.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, one of the world’s leading China experts, points to Xi’s “bewildering array” of economic policy decisions in a recent speech as president of the Asia Society.

They started last October with the shocking suspension of Alibaba financial affiliate Ant Group’s planned initial public offering in Hong Kong and Shanghai, clearly aimed at Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma. Then in April, Chinese regulators imposed a $3 billion fine on Alibaba for “monopolistic behavior.”

In July, China’s cyber regulator removed ride-hailing giant Didi from app stores, while an investigative unit launched an examination of the company’s compliance with Chinese data-security laws.

Then this month, China’s Transport Ministry regulators summoned senior executives from Didi, Meituan and nine other ride-hailing companies, ordering them to “rectify” their digital misconduct. The Chinese state then took an equity stake in ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and in Weibo, the micro-blogging platform.

Xi was ready to accept the estimated US$1.1 trillion cost in shareholder value wiped from China’s top six technology stocks alone between February and August. That doesn’t factor in further losses among the education, transportation, food delivery, entertainment and video gaming industries.

Less noticed have been a dizzying array of regulatory actions and policy moves whose sum purpose appears to be strengthening state control over, well, just about everything. 

“The best way to summarize it,” says Rudd, “is that Xi Jinping has decided that, in the overall balance between the roles of the state and the market in China, it is in the interests of the Party to pivot toward the state.” Xi is determined to transform modern China into a global great power, “but a great power in which the Chinese Communist Party nonetheless retains complete control.”

That means growing controls as well over the freedoms of its 1.4 billion citizens.

Xi has acted, for example, to restrict the video gaming of school-aged children to three hours a week, and he has banned private tutoring. Chinese regulators have ordered broadcasters to encourage masculinity and remove “sissy men,” or niang pao, from the airwaves. Regulators banned “American Idol”-style competitions and removed from the internet any mention of one of China’s wealthiest actresses, Zhao Wei.

“The orders have been sudden, dramatic and often baffling,” wrote Lily Kuo in the Washington Post. Jude Blanchette of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says, “This is not a sector-by-sector rectification; this is an entire economic, industry and structural rectification.”

At the same time, President Xi has launched a push to share the virtues and successes of the Chinese authoritarian model with the rest of the world. 

“Beijing seeks less to impose a Marxist-Leninist ideology on foreign societies than to legitimate and promote its own authoritarian system,” Charles Edel and David Shullman, the recently appointed director of the Atlantic Council’s new China Global Hub, wrote in “Foreign Affairs.” “The CCP doesn’t seek ideological conformity but rather power, security, and global influence for China and for itself.”

The authors detail China’s global efforts to not remake the world in its image, but rather “to make the world friendlier to its interests — and more welcoming to the rise of authoritarianism in general.”

Those measures include “spreading propaganda, expanding information operations, consolidating economic influence, and meddling in foreign political systems” with the ultimate goal of “hollowing out democratic institutions and norms within and between countries,” Edel and Shullman write.

Within President Xi’s bold bet lie two opportunities for the US and its allies.

The first is that Xi, by overreaching in his controls at home, will undo just the sorts of economic and societal liberalization China needs to succeed. At the same time, the world’s democracies, like Australia, are growing more willing to seek a common cause to address Beijing.

In the end, however, Xi’s concerted moves require an equally concerted response from the world’s democracies. The French-US crisis following the Australian defense deal this week provides just one example of how difficult that will be to achieve and sustain.

World powers creating ground for Israeli attack on Iran

The statement jointly issued by the world powers on Friday accusing Iran of attacking an Israeli ship reminds me of the saga of presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.  The time proved it was a ‘hoax call’ aimed at creating justification for attack on Iraq.

It may be recalled that earlier Israel convened a meeting in Jerusalem of representatives of United Nations Security Council nations to discuss the possibility of a retaliatory military strike on Iran for its attack on the Mercer Street. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declared, “Now is the time for deeds — words are not enough. It is time for diplomatic, economic and even military deeds — otherwise the attacks will continue.”

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken and Foreign Ministers of Group of Seven (G-7) nations and the European Union on Friday issued a joint statement condemning Iran for carrying out a “deliberate and targeted attack” on an Israeli-owned vessel last week that killed two of its international crew.

The statement serves as a show of international unity against Iran’s actions in the region and assigns the Islamic Republic responsibility for the oil tanker attack off the coast of Oman, violating international law meant to guarantee freedom of navigation in the international waters. 

The G-7 nations — United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom — were joined in the statement by the high representative of the European Union. 

“We condemn the unlawful attack committed on a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on 29th July, which killed a British and a Romanian national. This was a deliberate and targeted attack, and a clear violation of international law. All available evidence clearly points to Iran. There is no justification for this attack,” the statement read. 

The G-7 nations and the EU further condemned Iran’s support for “proxy forces and non-state armed actors” as threatening international peace and security.

The statement follows the US, UK and Romania assigning blame to Iran for attacking the Israeli-owned Mercer Street vessel on July with an explosive drone. 

A report published Friday from US Central Command identified the drones recovered in the attack as Iranian-made.

Blinken on Wednesday spoke with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on “ongoing efforts to forge a coordinated response to Iran’s attack,” according to a readout of the call. 

Resolution against Iran at IAEA will disrupt the situation, says Zarif

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iranian Foreign Minister, on Monday warned the three European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal that a resolution against Iran by the IAEA Board of Governors would disrupt the current conditions, reports Tasnim news agency.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with members of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Zarif warned of agitation in case the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board issues a statement against Iran over its decision to suspend the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol of the NPT.

“The Europeans (UK, France, and Germany) have begun a wrong move at the Board of Governors with the backing of the United States. We believe such an action would upset the conditions,” Zarif noted.

He also stressed that Iran’s ambassador to the Vienna-based international organizations has already warned the Board of Governors about the consequences of confusing the status quo.
 
“We hope wisdom would prevail, otherwise, we would have (other) approaches,” Zarif warned.

Speaking at the parliamentary meeting, Zarif also said the US has no right to return to the JCPOA – the official name for the 2105 nuclear deal- until it recommits itself to its obligations.

In accordance with the Iranian Parliament’s legislation on lifting sanctions, Iran has halted the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol because the signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal have failed to fulfill their commitments.

Following last week’s visit to Tehran by the IAEA Director General, Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog issued a joint statement, declaring that Iran will stop its voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol and will deny IAEA inspectors access to its nuclear facilities beyond the Safeguards Agreement as of 23rd February 2021, for three months.

According to Reuters, Britain, France and Germany have draft a US-backed resolution at the IAEA’s Board to criticize Iran for limiting cooperation with the Agency, despite Russian and Iranian warnings of serious consequences,.

The IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors is holding a quarterly meeting this week against the backdrop of faltering efforts to revive Iran’s nuclear deal with major powers now that US President Joe Biden is in office.

Iran scaled back its cooperation with the IAEA last week, ending extra inspection and monitoring measures introduced under the deal, including the power given to the IAEA to carry out snap inspections at facilities that have not been declared to be related to nuclear energy. Tehran’s move is a response to the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and the re-imposition of sanctions that had been lifted under it.

The European trio (E3), all parties to the 2015 nuclear deal, circulated a draft resolution for the Vienna meeting voicing “serious concern” at Iran’s reduction of transparency and urging Iran to reverse its steps.

Iran has warned to cancel a deal struck a week ago with the IAEA to temporarily continue many of the monitoring measures it had decided to end - a black box type arrangement valid for up to three months and aimed at creating a window for diplomacy.

Iran said on Sunday it would not take up a proposal by European Union Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell to hold an informal meeting with the United States.

It is unclear how many countries would support a resolution. Moreover, Russia warned that a resolution could hurt efforts to revive the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and that it would oppose it.
 
“Adoption of the resolution will not help the political process of returning to the normal comprehensive implementation of the JCPOA,” Russia’s note to other member states said.

“On the contrary it will hugely complicate those efforts undermining the prospects for the restoration of the JCPOA and for normal cooperation between Iran and the Agency,” it added. 

Netanyahu first leader in Middle East to get a call from Biden

US President, Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on phone; nearly a month after Biden assumed the charge. Netanyahu was the first leader in the Middle East to get a call from Biden. The conversation lasted for nearly an hour. 

The two leaders noted their personal ties of many years and said they will work together to continue bolstering the strong alliance between Israel and the US.

The leaders agreed to continue a dialogue between them to promote peace agreements between Israel and states in the region, the Iranian threat and regional challenges.

Biden congratulated Netanyahu for his leadership in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and they exchanged opinions on the matter.

Biden affirmed his personal history of steadfast commitment to Israel's security in call with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Biden emphasized US support for recent normalization of relations between Israel and countries in the Arab and Muslim word and underscored importance of working to advance peace throughout the region, including between Israelis and Palestinians.

“It was a good conversation,” Biden later told reporters in the Oval Office, where he was meeting US labor leaders.

The phone call came a day before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to hold a video conference with his counterparts in UK, France and Germany that are party to the 2015 Iran deal. The meeting comes after Tehran announced it would not allow snap inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency if the US does not lift sanctions imposed since 2018 by February 21.

The Biden administration seeks to rejoin the nuclear deal, which former US president Donald Trump left in 2018, as long as Tehran returns to full compliance with its limitations.

Israel is opposed to the deal, which would eventually permit Iran to enrich high levels of uranium that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon. In recent weeks, Iran has begun enriching uranium to 20%, far beyond the limitations of the 2015 deal, and developing uranium metal.

The delay in Biden’s call sparked speculation that the president was distancing himself from Netanyahu, possibly in light of the prime minister’s tense relationship with former US President Barack Obama, under whom Biden was vice president, and his especially warm one with Trump, including after Biden won the 2020 election.

Netanyahu rejected those theories, most recently in an interview with Army Radio on Wednesday afternoon hours before the call, in which he said “Joe Biden is my personal friend for 40 years” and that he believes Biden will advance further peace agreements between Israel and Arab and Muslim states.

Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan each called their Israeli counterparts twice in recent weeks.

Advisers for some of Netanyahu’s political rivals said officials in the Biden administration told them they were maintaining the strong US-Israel relationship while relaying a message that there would be “no special relationship” between Netanyahu and Biden.

Israel fears losing its freedom to operate against Iran

Speculation about the extent to which the incoming American administration will appease Iran has been rampant. But US President-elect Joe Biden’s picks for relevant top positions don’t seem to leave much room for supposition.

Let’s start with William Burns, Biden’s nomination for CIA director. Burns currently serves as president of the left-wing foreign-policy think tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of its donors is the Open Society Foundations network, established by George Soros.

Burns has decades of experience as a career diplomat under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Burns is a longtime associate of Biden. The two have worked closely together, most recently when the latter was Vice President and the former was Deputy Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, during the administration of former US President, Barack Obama.

Burns who had served as Ambassadors to Russia and Jordan, also had a key role in talks with the regime in Tehran in 2013. These led to the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 countries: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China plus Germany. By that time Burns had retired, but his imprint lived on in the nuclear deal.

In this context, Biden’s statement about Burns – “[He] shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical” – is not liked by his opponents. The cause of greater concern is Burns’s faith in the JCPOA from which outgoing US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

In an 29th August 29 2020 opinion piece in The Atlantic titled “‘America First’ Enters its Most Combustible Moment,” Burns spelled out his objections.

 “Any leverage against Iran produced by the UAE-Israel agreement [the Abraham Accords between the United Arab Emirates and the Jewish state that subsequently were signed on 15th September 2020 at the White House] is already being swallowed up in the serial diplomatic malpractice of the administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign – aimed more at toppling the Iranian regime than at changing its behavior,” he wrote. “Doubling down on failed policy is not a smart diplomatic prescription... but the Trump administration is not likely to see the light. Instead, it will continue to pretend that the United States can participate in only the punitive parts of the Iran nuclear deal... [a strategy that it] tried – and spectacularly failed at.”Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump’s “maximum-pressure campaign” is anything but “diplomatic malpractice.”

Antony Blinken, for instance – who, pending congressional confirmation, will replace Pompeo – is another JCPOA enthusiast. Blinken served under Obama, first as Deputy National Security advisor and then as deputy secretary of state. Like Burns, he was instrumental in formulating and promoting the deal. He also wants to lift sanctions against Tehran as one of those “goodwill gestures” that American multilateralists so love extending to the regimes.

He was clear about this in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. In a thread of tweets on 9th May 2018, Blinken wrote, “By blowing up the Iran nuclear deal, President Trump puts us on a collision course with Iran and our closest allies. It gives Iranian hardliners the excuse to speed again toward the bomb without a united international coalition to oppose them or inspectors to expose them. Or if Iran and Europe stick with the deal, it forces us to sanction the latter to stop them from doing business with the former. Either way we lose.”

AS IF THIS weren’t an illustration of the degree to which Democrats misunderstand – or are willfully blind to – the mindset of the Iranian mullahs, Blinken goes on to make a ridiculous assertion. The cancellation of the JCPOA, he tweeted, “makes getting to yes with North Korea that much more challenging.

Cognizant of new reality, Israel is boosting its ability to combat Iranian forces and other proxy groups. The Democrats in the White House, State Department and Capitol building are lying in wait to lead the world, as Obama proudly did, “from behind.”