#SecretaryofStateMikePompeo

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Erdogan and Trump discuss Russian S-400s

Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Monday in a telephone conversation about the Turkish proposal for a joint working group on the Russian air defense system S-400 that Ankara intends to acquire. "Our honorable President has raised the proposal to establish a working group on the purchase of S-400 defense systems from the Russian Federation," the Turkish Presidency said in a statement. For months now, the United States and Turkey, members of NATO, have been opposing this issue, which is provoking resistance from Washington. The Americans argue that the air defense systems proposed by the Russians are not compatible with those of the Atlantic Alliance and are contrary to the safety of their F-35 fighter aircraft. The Turkish authorities explain that a working group could evaluate the consequences of an acquisition of the S-400 systems. They said Friday they have no answers from their American counterparts on this topic....... Read the full article

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Iran in the crosshairs

Courtesy John Wight Mike Pompeo’s bellicose rhetoric against Tehran leaves no doubt that Washington has embraced the status of international renegade. Pompeo’s speech, delivered in his capacity as secretary of state, evinced a blatant disregard for the integrity of international treaties and respect for international law. It also ensures that the last vestiges of credibility enjoyed by the US has now been shredded in the eyes of a world grown weary – weary of a Trump administration which, in its caprice and continual threats, is more redolent of a New York mafia crime family than a respectable and responsible government. With Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – better known as the Iran nuclear deal – his administration has embarked on the path of conflict with Iran in conjunction with regional allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Together they comprise an axis of aggression that imperils the stability of the region, with potentially grave consequences for the rest of the world given the succour such a regional conflict would give to extremism and global terrorism. It also sets a dangerous precedent when it comes to arriving at a peaceful resolution to the on-going crisis in Ukraine and ensuring a successful outcome to the inchoate process of peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula. The Empire enters its mad dog days Thus the dire consequences of the untrammelled power of what is an imperial hegemon in Washington have never been more manifest, with its drive to dominate and dictate on pain of war reflective of an empire desperate to arrest a decline, entering its mad dog days in the process. Let us be clear: the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA has nothing to do with Iran’s compliance, which has been impeccable, and everything to do with Washington’s hegemonic agenda towards the region – a hegemonic agenda which precedes Trump. In the way of this agenda are Iran, Syria and Hezbollah – along with Russia – which, if not on a formal basis certainly on a de facto basis, comprise an axis of anti-hegemony that needs to be broken. It is for this and no other reason that Trump, Netanyahu, and bin Salman are intent on forcing the issue with Iran, regardless of the likely catastrophic results. They have lost in Syria, where the drive to topple the Assad government has been thwarted thanks in no small part to Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah – standing with the Syrian people and Syrian Arab Army – and in response they are intent on settling accounts. Whither the transatlantic alliance Another casualty of Trump’s demarche against Iran is the transatlantic alliance between Washington and its various European allies, considered by its proponents to be the unbreakable and irreplaceable fulcrum of democracy in our time. The insouciance with which the Trump administration has been willing to disregard the stance of France, Germany and the UK on the Iran deal is revelatory; proof-positive that rather than any kind of alliance between friends and partners, the true nature of the America’s relationship to Europe and the EU is akin to the one that existed between Rome and its various satellites and client states during the halcyon days of another empire – which made the mistake of believing its power and existence was eternal. This particular aspect of the crisis, involving the prospect of US sanctions being levelled not only against Iran but also British, French and German companies operating in Iran, is reflective of the extent to which neocon nostrums are in the driving seat of US foreign policy, with any lingering façade of propriety dropped in favor of raw imperialism. Now more than ever the wheels have come off Europe’s slavish attachment to the supposed virtues of unipolarity, with the likes of Emmanuel Macron – the very embodiment of a confected liberal centrist, a leader for whom the word ‘opportunism’ was invented – left dangling like the proverbial flunkey after being kicked to the kerb by his lord and master. The grievous reality of Europe’s hideous lack of independence from Washington – independence of the type that once minded Charles De Gaulle to declaim, “Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world” – has been laid bare. It presents Europe with a test. Does it wilt in the face of the Trump administration’s imperial arrogance and bellicosity? Or does it awaken and emerge, finally, from beneath Washington’s feet to play a positive and progressive role in world affairs? Here it is hard to imagine leaders of the questionable calibre of Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron existing anywhere else other than beneath the feet of Washington, with Macron’s earlier boast of wielding influence over Trump when it comes to Syria now returning to haunt him. The reality is that French President Emmanuel Macron carries about as much weight in Washington as a fly’s wing. Europe’s choice – unipolarity or multipolarity Crisis is opportunity, they tell us, and this particular crisis presents the opportunity for a new alignment in Europe, forged on the understanding that the destabilizing factor in Europe is not and has never been Russia; that it is and has always been the United States. Economically, culturally, and politically, Europe’s identity has been progressively subsumed into a US identity, with its regressive and shallow paean to the cult of the individual, unfettered capitalism, and might is right. Therefore the choice Europe faces is clear. It can either remain tethered to the mast of the sinking ship of unipolarity, or it can join Russia, China and the rest of the world in shaping a multipolar alternative, rooted not in the caprice of a president in Washington but instead in the principles set out in the UN Charter – specifically respect for national sovereignty and international law. Returning to Iran, which now finds itself firmly in the crosshairs of regime change for no other reason that it refuses to bow to the writ of Washington, there is no longer any hiding place when it comes to taking sides. If those countries threatened by this eruption of US aggression do not hang together they will hang separately. Hegemony demands its response in the shape of anti-hegemony. The future of generations as yet unborn depends on nothing less. John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1 Read the full article

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The White House’s wishful thinking on Iran and North Korea

Courtesy Ishaan Tharoor, The Washington Post The Trump administration is feeling its oats. President Trump and his lieutenants spent weeks applauding their strategy of “maximum pressure” on North Korea, which they believe forced Kim Jong Un to agree to a historic round of denuclearization talks on June 12. They also pointed to the absence of such pressure on Iran as the reason Tehran is supposedly wielding its malign influence across the Middle East, requiring the United States to scrap the nuclear deal. On Monday, in a speech billed as his first major policy address, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hailed “the coming pressure campaign on the Iranian regime.” Echoing his boss, Pompeo painted an image of Iranian militias and agendas running rampant across the Middle East. And, like Trump, he denigrated the previous administration's diplomatic overtures to the Islamic Republic as a losing “bet.” “We will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies operating around the world and crush them. Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East,” Pompeo said before outlining a list of blunt demands of the Iranian regime that included halting development of ballistic missiles and ending support for militant proxies. While many American allies in Europe would also like to see the defanging of the Iranian regime, few would consider Pompeo's demands as part of a coherent strategy or a viable Plan B to compensate for the collapse of the nuclear deal. “The list of requirements of the Iranians asks for everything but conversion to Christianity and reads more like a demand for unconditional surrender than an actual attempt at negotiation,” Jeremy Shapiro, the research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said to my colleagues. Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, sneered at Pompeo's speech, calling it a “regression to old habits” by a bullying superpower. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign-policy chief, issued a more polite but no less stern rebuke. “The JCPOA was never designed to address all issues in the relationship with Iran,” Mogherini said in a statement, using the official abbreviation for the nuclear agreement. “Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of JCPOA. There is no alternative to the JCPOA.” “This is the Trump administration making an offer Iran can only refuse, and was made in order for Iran to refuse,” tweeted Rob Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group. “Risks of regional escalation, already high, just got higher.” Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor of international affairs, suggested Pompeo's demands echoed “the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914,” which prefigured World War I. Undeterred, Pompeo used the tough words of a hawk who bitterly opposed the nuclear deal and has a history of advocating regime change in Tehran. “The Iranian regime should know that this is just the beginning,” he warned on Monday. “After our sanctions come into full force, it will be battling to keep its economy alive.” But it isn't clear how the new program of U.S. sanctions will be any more stifling than the ones slapped on Iran by the Obama administration to bring Tehran to the table. Few experts believe that the Trump administration can cobble together the same kind of multilateral front that coaxed Iran into curbing its uranium enrichment activities and submitting to international inspections. “After Trump’s decision earlier this month to trash effective and verifiable agreement that had near universal international support, other states have little motivation to support a new U.S. sanctions regime,” noted Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. “The United States is not going to get that level of support this time around — not even for its own sanctions.” Of course, some of Trump's key aides simply aren't that invested in the diplomatic path the White House is supposedly laying out. John Bolton, Trump's new national security adviser, argued in the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that sanctions on Iran wouldn't work because other major powers wouldn't sign up for them (he was proved quite wrong) and they wouldn't change the behavior of the regime's more hard-line elements (he may be on firmer ground here). Many of the administration's critics believe Bolton, as well as Pompeo, would rather skip straight to military action. Bolton is also casting a shadow on the White House's North Korea gambit. Though Trump is keen on the potential publicity and TV buzz generated by the planned June 12 meeting with Kim, White House aides have started to fear what many analysts had assumed: North Korea is not actually serious about striking a deal in Singapore. Few Korea watchers or arms-control experts believed Pyongyang would actually surrender its nukes, and some worried that hawkish figures at the White House were deliberately setting up the talks to fail. Bolton, in particular, has been singled out for his saber-rattling against North Korea — not just in Pyongyang, but also in Seoul. “In South Korea, many people, regardless of their political orientation, are not fond of John Bolton,” a senior official close to the South Korean president told my colleague Anna Fifield. “He seems to think the U.S. can fight another war on the Korean Peninsula, so from our perspective, as the people living on the Korean Peninsula, he is very dangerous.” It’s unclear what the maximalist stance struck by Bolton and Pompeo will achieve other than pushing the countries closer to military conflict. In the meantime, Trump may end up looking weak by meeting Kim. “The White House might be talking about maximum pressure,” wrote arms-control expert Jeffrey Lewis, “but what’s really happening is that it is moving to accommodate Kim, offering him the recognition he always believed nuclear weapons would bring.” Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York. Read the full article