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In this mailing:
* Pete Hoekstra: More Foreign Policy Confusion
* Amir Taheri: Netanyahu: The Unexpected Moderate


** More Foreign Policy Confusion ([link removed])
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by Pete Hoekstra • January 8, 2023 at 5:00 am
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* The recently released Biden National Security Strategy points to the "acute threat" posed by Russia to United States national security. Yet the administration continues, with the support and encouragement of the European Union, its futile attempt to restart the "nuclear deal" to enable Iran's expansionist regime to have as many nuclear weapons as it likes and the ballistic missiles to deliver them -- and on top of that, using Russia, of all countries, as its proxy negotiator.
* One can only wonder at how the Biden administration believes the U.S. can negotiate the nuclear agreement using Russia, a nation it labels as an "acute threat," to work on a deal with Iran, a nation that it labels as a "persistent threat."
* Not surprisingly, most Middle Eastern countries do not want to see a nuclear-armed Iran. U.S. President Joe Biden and the Saudi government made this point abundantly clear ([link removed]) at their summit earlier this year. Given the unified messaged and shared strategic goal, you would think this would be case closed. Far from it.
* It is the Saudi kingdom and its oil wells that Iran has been attacking. The Saudis might therefore be understandably alarmed by the efforts of the Biden administration to finalize a new agreement that would enable Iran to legitimately have nuclear weapons.
* Saudi Arabia, unlike Iran, has not been invading its neighbors. At present, Iran, through its proxies, effectively controls four countries in addition to its own: Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
* The rational Saudi view seems to be: Why should we help the U.S. empower a neighbor who is trying to kill us?
* The Saudis, admittedly imperfect, have never encroached on their neighbors or how done anything remotely comparable -- not to mention the gruesome way Iran brutalizes its own citizens. If that is how Iran treats its own people, how can one expect it to treat other countries any better?
* Why the U.S. even expected the Saudis to help it while the U.S. was cuddling up to Iran -- which has been attacking Saudi Arabia for years through its Houthi proxy in Yemen -- is unfathomable.... Why should a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead not be far behind?
* Why does the U.S. continue to work on disruptive deals with countries that are "acute" and "persistent" threats to the U.S., and which will improve Iran's economy -- so that Iran can be in an even stronger position to help Russia attack its neighbors, while Iran attacks its neighbors?
* The bottom line appears to be that American citizens, whose tax dollars are underwriting massive amounts of assistance to Ukraine, are paying more at the pump because the Biden Administration wants an Iranian nuclear agreement with a key supporter of Russia.
* If you are confused, it is because the Biden administration's foreign policy is confused. If the Biden administration really believes Russia is an "acute threat," it needs to act like it and stop propping up Russia's allies, which are also threats to the U.S. Instead, the U.S. should be working with countries in the Middle East to support efforts against Russia.
* The U.S. also needs to stop this foolish obsession with getting a new Iranian nuclear deal. It is inconsistent with all U.S. foreign policy and national security interests.

One can only wonder at how the Biden administration believes the U.S. can negotiate the nuclear agreement using Russia, a nation it labels as an "acute threat," to work on a deal with Iran, a nation that it labels as a "persistent threat." Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Alexandr Demyanchuk/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

A lack of clarity, previously mentioned by this author concerning the lack of clear direction and goals for the West's involvement in Ukraine, also, if you consider its many contradictions, seems to extend to much of the Biden administration's foreign policy.

The recently released Biden National Security Strategy points to the "acute threat" posed by Russia to United States national security. Yet the administration continues, with the support and encouragement of the European Union, its futile attempt to restart the "nuclear deal" to enable Iran's expansionist regime to have as many nuclear weapons as it likes and the ballistic missiles to deliver them -- and on top of that, using Russia, of all countries, as its proxy negotiator.

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** Netanyahu: The Unexpected Moderate ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • January 8, 2023 at 4:00 am
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* After decades, some genius pretended to have discovered the "two-state solution." That "solution", of course, had been offered by the United Nations and accepted by the Jews under the "extremist" David Ben Gurion in 1947, but rejected by neighboring Arab states. Its revival by Western powers, notably the United States, was an exercise in diplomatic wild goose chasing.
* The fact is that repeated opinion polls and elections show that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians do not want the "two-state solution..."
* [T]he dismantling of all settlements in Gaza never led to the peace expected.
* As the theme of the settlements began to appear shopworn, a new version of the "Palestinian problem" was put into circulation: "Israeli Apartheid." But that, too, was never defined. In South Africa under Apartheid, black and colored citizens were not allowed to vote or get elected. In Israel, non-Jewish citizens can and do. Palestinians in the West Bank do not have those rights because they are not Israeli citizens.
* Opinion polls in the West Bank, too, show that bread-and-butter politics and cleaning corruption are the top concerns of Palestinians.
* That problem might find a solution only if both Israelis and Palestinians are convinced that solving it is in their own interest. Whichever way one looks at it, that conviction isn't there yet. And even if, one day, that conviction materializes, there is no guarantee that those who have built whole carriers and national strategies around perpetuating it will allow a solution to be agreed and applied.

(Photo by Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)

There are phrases that, as a student of history in the making, I never thought I would read, let alone write. Now, however, such a phrase is in full circulation and I feel no qualms about repeating it: Benjamin Netanyahu is a moderate politician! The "comeback kid" of Israeli politics certainly cuts a moderate figure in his new Cabinet. Some commentators even dub him "the only moderate" in that Cabinet.

Others see his return to power as a sign that, in the words of Alan Dershowitz, Israel is "a deeply divided state." Yet other commentators warn that the latest general election that ended with the victory of the right-wing parties has taken Israel "to the edge". "What has been built in 75 years may be dismantled in a very short time," says a writer who reminds us that she is a descendant of a Holocaust victim.

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