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With the announcement of the Saudi-led alliance for Yemen, the magnitude of the Middle East conflict has become plainly visible. Continue reading →

Original Article

President Obama’s far-reaching efforts to facilitate Iran’s march to nukes amount to nothing less than apocalyptic betrayals of U.S. voters and allies – betrayals that will make the world exponentially more dangerous.

Obama has ignored the countless reasons to doubt that the ayatollahs will make and keep a nuclear accord that prevents them from acquiring nuclear weapons. Here are just some of those reasons:

1) Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani boasted about his own role in exploiting diplomatic talks to advance Iran’s nuclear program,

2) Iran hid its nuclear facility in Qom until it was exposed in 2009 and continues to cover up its nuclear work in Parchin),

3) Iran recently tried – in a single transaction – to buy know-how for nukes and impunity for one of its biggest terrorist attacks.

4) Iran is actively developing more advanced, long-range cruise missiles,

5) thanks to Iranian involvement in the recent Houthi-rebel takeover of Yemen, Iran’s ever-expanding hegemony now reaches four Arab countries, and

6) Iran continues to stonewall IAEA inquiries into potential military dimensions of its nuclear program, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1929).

The Saudis have warned that the current deal will spark a Mideast nuclear arms race. It could also hasten the era of nuclear terrorism. There are already reports that ISIS has resorted to attacks with chemical weapons (hardly surprising after Obama’s “red lines” on Syria’s chemical weapons use turned white). Iran could provide nuclear material – in addition to a nuclear umbrella – to its proxy terrorist group, Hezbollah. For these and other grave concerns, Netanyahu risked his political career on a speech before Congress that explained why the deal is so bad.

Yet rather than address legitimate reservations about the emerging Iranian nuclear deal, Obama prefers to hold Bibi to his Israeli election slogans about a Palestinian state as if Obama hadn’t himself broken countless campaign promises, including his own oft-repeated commitment (to voters and allies alike) that he would prevent Iran from going nuclear. Breaching his promise to everyone, Obama has embraced a process that makes Iran a threshold nuclear state.

Instead of questioning the intentions of the same theocratic regime that held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, the Obama administration has whitewashed Iran’s terrorist activities/record, and accepted Rouhani as a “moderate” even though human rights in Iran have actually worsened under his rule.

Despite Obama’s attempts to influence the outcome of Israel’s free elections, no Israeli government, regardless of the political parties that comprise it, can live with the existential threat posed by a nuclear Iran. And world powers are closer than ever to forcing an Israeli military response to that danger because they have buckled rather than created sufficient diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Iran to dismantle its nuclear program.

Iran has made steady progress on its nukes despite decades of sanctions, UN Security Council resolutions, IAEA inspections, and negotiations. The most successful strategy for stopping Iran’s nuclear march was the very real threat of force in 2003. After the U.S. military quickly trounced Iraq, neighboring Iran was deterred from continuing its nuclear activities, until it concluded that the U.S. military threat had dissipated.

Under Obama, the weakest U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, there is no credible military threat, as his actions in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere have shown.

That reality will force Israel to take military action against Iran’s nukes – either in the absence of a nuclear deal or despite the bad one under consideration (which paves Iran’s path to the bomb with legitimacy while isolating Israel). Some think that Israel will refrain from attacking because a military strike would, at best, set back Iranian nukes by a few years. But that is a specious argument for two reasons:

1) Like “mowing the grass” with Hamas’ military buildups in Gaza, Israel may simply have to take military action every few years,

2) the Iranians may eventually stop trying to develop nukes, after realizing that it’s a huge waste of resources to build nuclear facilities that Israel will eventually destroy.

Despite all of the risks of attacking Iran’s nuclear program, doing nothing will be riskier to Israel’s survival because the world’s most dangerous regime then acquires the world’s most dangerous weapons.

The Jewish nation knows all too well the dangers of ignoring genocidal threats, and Iran, the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism, has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel. By making Iran a nuclear threshold state, the proposed deal leaves the ayatollahs with the ability to carry out that threat and therefore compels an Israeli attack. However, because Israel’s capabilities are far more limited than those of the U.S. military, Israel won’t be able to prevent Iranian retribution when destroying Iran’s nukes.

What follows is a nuclear World War III. Iran will retaliate with an overwhelming barrage of potent, long-range ballistic missiles on Israel’s population centers, and will likely also target the Israeli nuclear reactor in Dimona (which action could itself produce massive casualties). Hezbollah, which has about 100,000 long-range missiles supplied by Iran, will add to the unstoppable downpour of missiles. For all of their impressive successes, Israeli missile defense systems simply cannot handle such a huge number of incoming missiles, and so there will be thousands of dead.

The world, as usual, will do nothing but excoriate Israel and call for restraint, leaving Israel with countless casualties. Adjusted for population differences, ten thousand dead in tiny Israel is like about 400,000 killed in the USA. At that point (if not much sooner), Israel will feel that it’s very survival requires nuking Tehran and a few other major cities, which would destroy the regime along with maybe a million people.

The Sunni countries threatened by Shiite Iran’s hegemonic aggression in the region may have already entered the fray at that point, or would do so soon after, and the centuries-old Sunni-Shia conflict would explode throughout the region even more than it already has. It’s not clear how the war eventually ends, but there will be even more chaos as failed states and radical extremism spread across the Middle East. The price of oil will skyrocket to unseen levels, and none of this will be good for U.S. interests.

Absurdly enough, the U.S. could probably prevent such a doomsday scenario by simply asserting an ultimatum backed by very credible military force. If Iran does not, within a week after the expiration of the current talks, allow inspectors unfettered access to all of its nuclear facilities and then cooperate in their destruction (with compensation and a set of economic and political rewards for that cooperation), then the U.S. military will, with overwhelming military force, destroy the entire Iranian military infrastructure (including its nuclear program) and work towards the downfall of the regime.

If the U.S. can make such a threat credibly, then Iran will acquiesce, no actual force will be needed, and the decades-long Iranian nuclear threat will finally end.

But, unlike apocalyptic betrayals, such a bold show of force is unthinkable for Obama, and so we could be looking at a nuclear World War III in the not-too-distant future.

Original Article

For a variety of good reasons, European leaders are focusing their attention on the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the Western Balkans, where Europe’s last war was staged, have fallen to the bottom of the European agenda, as have discussions on EU enlargement.

This neglect could result, yet again, in the destabilization of the Western Balkans.

China and especially Russia are keen to jump into the vacuum left behind by the EU – and their interests don’t necessarily align with those of the EU.

Serbia is particularly receptive to these efforts, given the country’s self-perception as a bridge between the east and the west. EU leaders need to ask themselves if they can afford to neglect Serbia for at least another five years.

And when asking this question, they should keep in mind that Serbia has undergone a remarkable transformation from the “reluctant Europeaniser” to “the best pupil in class,” as former Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer put it.

Crucial to this process has been the new centre-right government under Aleksander Vucic, formed in 2009 after Vucic and the current Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic split from the Serbian ultranationalists.

Vucic’s conservative, pro-European party has fought corruption, implemented harsh economic reforms and, above all, pushed for the normalizing of relations with Kosovo. Today, you will find only pro-European parties in the Serbian parliament – unthinkable just a few years back.

Enlargement fatigue

Instead of rewarding Serbia’s efforts, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, as one of his first actions in office, halted EU enlargement until at least 2020.

Although, realistically speaking, Serbia’s accession to the EU before 2020 would have come as a surprise, Juncker has sent a clear message: EU enlargement – and the accession of Serbia, in particular – is not a high priority for the new commission.

The halt was arguably Juncker’s first major mistake in office. The EU now risks losing its strongest leverage – the conditionality of the EU-accession negotiations – over Serbia’s future development.

If the EU fails to wake up and demonstrate stronger commitment to the region, Serbia may begin looking for alternative paths.

Chinese island in the European ocean

One path could lead to Beijing. The Chinese government considers the Balkans a central node in its long-term strategy to speed up east-west trade and to ensure greater access to the western European market.

The Chinese Development Bank and other Chinese banks are concentrating on making large investments in Serbia’s weak infrastructure, one result of which is the China-Serbia friendship bridge that stretches across the Danube.

This new partnership between China and Serbia doesn’t stop at economic co-operation. It also includes close political partnership.

In 2014 alone, Belgrade signed 13 agreements and memoranda with Beijing regarding finance, infrastructure, telecommunications and transport. In 2009, the pair signed a strategic partnership agreement that ensured the territorial integrity of both countries and supported, de facto, Serbia’s stance on Kosovo vis-a-vis China’s separatist region.

Serbia went as far as agreeing not to join any international initiative or fora that criticizes China’s human-rights policy. In 2010, Serbia even criticized the awarding of the Nobel Prize to the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, a move that contrasts sharply with the EU’s stance on human-rights policies in China.

Free trade with Russia

A more natural alternative for Serbia – and one even more alarming, in light of the situation in Ukraine – is Russia.

There are many reasons: the two countries share historic and cultural ties, Russia supports Serbia’s position on Kosovo in the United Nations Security Council, and the pair maintain close economic cooperation, especially in the energy sector.

In 2013, Serbia and Russia signed a strategic partnership agreement that deepened economic and political cooperation, including coordination in international organizations. Serbia was the only EU-candidate country that failed to support the sanctions on Russia and that abstained from the UN statement condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Serbia is also the only country outside of the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to have signed a free-trade agreement with Russia, in 2009. In October 2014, the special relationship was again brought to the fore when Russian president Vladimir Putin attended the first Serbian military parade since 1986.

Indeed, if Russia wants to ramp up pressure on Europe, then the Balkans – Serbia in particular – will likely become a hotspot.

The Serbian energy sector is especially vulnerable to Russian interests, since Gazprom Neft and Lukoil hold the majority of shares in Serbia’s local oil monopoly Naftna Industrija Srbije and the state-owned Beopetrol.

It’s telling that following the cancellation of the long-awaited South Stream project – which had promised €2.5 billion in Russian investments – Vucic blamed the Ukrainian conflict and the clash between the great powers, instead of the Russian government, for Serbia’s economic loss.

EU and European leaders have long eyed the Russian-Serbian relationship with suspicion, but, as the political scientist Ivan Krastev points out, “none of the projects designed to make the region less dependent on Russia have been completed.”

European democracy

Problematic as the situation may appear, the EU remains Serbia’s largest investor and trading partner, dwarfing Chinese and Russian investment and trade.

For now, the EU’s conditionality is the strongest transformative force in the region. Serbia may be looking at possible partners to the east, but the country has shown no signs of leaving its European path.

The EU opened formal accession negotiations in January 2014, but since then, no accession chapters have been opened.

Given the alternative paths to China and Russia, the poor economic conditions in Serbia and growing concerns over the freedom of the Serbian media, what the country needs right now, in order to become a successful European democracy, is a positive signal from the EU.

Any further delay means giving up the strong hold of conditionality. The Serbian people need a clear sign that their future lies with the EU – and the opening of the accession chapters would be just that.

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