‘If He Makes a Successful Return in 2024, Democracy’s Done’

Fiona Hill was introduced to most Americans through her testimony in President Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings in late 2019. A former National Security Council official, that day she delivered a personal story of growing up in a working-class mining town in northeastern England and emigrating to the United States, all delivered in an accent that many Americans couldn’t quite place but would have marked her for class discrimination in her native country.

Her new book, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21^st Century, only briefly touches on her White House experience and mostly focuses on the personal story that so many found compelling in her testimony. (Representative Jackie Speier asked Hill to confirm a story from her childhood during the question-and-answer portion: that a classmate had set her pigtails on fire when she was 11 during school, and Hill had extinguished the blaze and completed a test. It was true.) Still, there is enough space for a few revealing West Wing anecdotes, such as when the former president mistook her for a secretary and then-chief of staff Reince Priebus referred to her as “the Russia bitch.” In response to the book, Trump emailed an angry statement to supporters this week calling her “a Deep State stiff with a nice accent.”

Ultimately, the book goes beyond a memoir. Hill uses the story of her hometown and her journey to the White House to show not just that success was difficult for her, but that it should have been impossible. The more she describes her native mining town, the more it looks like deindustrialized centers in the American Midwest and coal towns in Appalachia. That’s the point: Hill is particularly interested in how a lack of opportunity, not just in the UK but also in the U.S. and Russia, creates the ideal circumstances for a dangerous brand of populist politics to thrive.

While some parts of the book sound like a policy paper, there are also parts that sound like snippets from a frank conversation between two very close friends, such as when she writes about her struggles with wage discrimination in Washington or stuffing her bra with tissue and pantyhose at one of her first jobs at a medieval-themed banquet hall. I called to ask her what she’s most worried about when it comes to Trump’s next act, and if even now, even after everyone in Washington knows her name, she thinks she could play salary hardball like some of her male colleagues.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Katelyn Fossett: What do you make of Trump’s recent comments about the Jan. 6 rioters? He said in a statement in September they were being unfairly persecuted by the Biden administration.

Fiona Hill: Well, this is also part of this myth-making, as we’re well aware: the perpetration of the Big Lie, and the turning of the people of Jan. 6 into martyrs and also trying to rewrite the historical record in real time. He is mulling again a return to what he sees more as a crown than the presidency in 2024.

I feel like we’re at a really critical and very dangerous inflection point in our society, and if Trump — this is not on an ideological basis, this is just purely on an observational basis based on the larger international historical context — if he makes a successful return to the presidency in 2024, democracy’s done. Because it will be on the back of a lie. A fiction. And I think we have to bear that in mind. And I was hoping that with the book, I might be able to reach out, because I’m not a partisan person, to people who care very much about the United States and about its democracy to really think about this long and hard.

I find it deeply disturbing that the number one identity that people put forward in polls now is whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican rather than an American or someone from a particular region. Even religious or ethnic/racial identifiers seem to be subsumed in this in some of the polling. And so, you know, those of us who are independent in mind and practice but politically engaged, where do we fit into all of this? We used to fit into America. I have a lot of friends who are immigrants like myself who have been here for a long time, who come from many, many different places — not all from Europe. And they say, “This is not the America I came to. This is not the America we chose to come to.” And they were deeply disturbed by this. But many people fled these kinds of authoritarian or autocratic regimes, which are highly personalized, deny social mobility and where you have kleptocratic cliques of cronies who are really trying to take charge of policy, and that’s what this [deep polarization] is about. This is not about ideology. It is a manipulation of particular social issues — abortion, immigration, all kinds of issues.

This America is looking dangerously like Russia — based on the divisions of Russia in the 1990s and then the Putin system that came out of that. China, Hungary, Venezuela — many of the countries that are expelling immigrants from the region. This is what we’re dealing with. In all of these places, all of these issues are being manipulated and people’s grievances are being whipped up.

Fossett: Given your past concerns about the Trump administration’s friendly posture toward Russia, do you think that the Biden administration has been an improvement in that respect?

Hill: Well, you know, there’s a similar kind of problem. With both Trump and Biden, the first thing is that they both wanted to get rid of Russia as a problem. Trump obviously wanted to win over Putin. He had this kind of strongman envy; he thought Putin was the ultimate badass. But really, Trump himself wanted to focus on other things. China, Iran and other issues were much more pertinent to his goals, and he was trying to sort of win Russia over through Putin to just get them on our side, as he saw it. Biden similarly wants to focus on China — not Iran, obviously — but he wants to park Russia somewhere, as a colleague has described it. But the Russians really don’t like this. And so the more that you try to marginalize them, or deprioritize them, the more likely they are to fight back, or drive out of that parking lot.

Russia is confounding for most people. Why are we still in a Cold War situation with Russia? When the National Security Strategy came out under Trump — obviously Trump didn’t really like it — when Russia was given more prominence along with China, there was a lot of head-scratching. But it’s of course because of the election subversion and the actions Russia has taken to influence our elections, all of these operations to hack into all of our systems, ransomware … I mean, Russia is a massive problem. But we’re not in the kind of confrontation that we were with Russia in the Cold War. This is really kind of more Russia’s confrontation of choice than it is ours.

We have a really hard time getting the Russians off our back. So just like Trump thought that he could woo Putin, Biden would just like to say, “Yeah, please go away,” so he can move on with everything else.

But we need to always keep coming to Russia in our sights. And we’ve got to be a bit more sophisticated and nuanced in managing that relationship.

Fossett: What do you think more sophistication and nuance would look like?

Hill: Well, first of all, we know that they’ve been interfering in our political systems and they continue to do so. They’ve been doing it across the board with our European allies as well. We do need to work with [those allies] on this and get back to a concerted action. Domestic renewal is a critical part of this as well because the Russians are exploiting all of our internal divisions. Russian operatives masquerade on the internet, pressing issues on abortion, race, religion and partisan divisions. The more that we can do to overcome those and have a sensible national conversation about them, give more empathy and remember we’re Americans, the better off we will be.

We also have to keep on with education efforts to make sure that people are more aware of posting personal and political information online. They might also be dealing with someone in their social media circles who might be working for the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, as opposed to St. Petersburg, Florida.

And we also have to recognize that some of our politicians behave in the same way. I probably shouldn’t say this, but some of our members of Congress look more like some of the crazy members of the Russian Duma [parliament], like Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who were influence operations for Russian domestic purposes. They’re out there being agent-provocateurs and stirring things up for domestic purposes, but they’re exactly the kinds of people that can be pointed to and manipulated by Russians on the outside. So when people say, for example, that Trump was a Russian asset, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he was on the books, or that we’ll find some file. Is just means that his actions, and his embrace of the Big Lie, and all of his vulnerabilities could be unbelievably easily exploited. Some of our members of Congress and senators are exactly the same.

But the problem for us is that we’re doing that domestically. Our political system has changed since Citizens United, with the creation of Super PACs and political action committees. I would hope that the Supreme Court would start thinking about reversing that. It’s a bit pie in the sky, but we need to ask how we can take all of this money out of our politics. Because that’s how the Russians can create shells, and they can influence other people with lots of money who can play in our system.

Fossett: I thought your book was similar to J.D. Vance’s book. Both are personal stories about people who made it out of socioeconomic disadvantage against all odds, and what those stories explain about people who feel resentful or dispossessed. Have you read that book?

Hill: I did, and, actually in a way, my book’s a little bit of a reaction to his. I thought his book was so grim, and he seems to sort of blame, in some respects, his family and people from his background for their predicament. And I thought, “Well, that’s not fair,” because in my experience, all of it has to do with circumstances. And I didn’t grow up in a family with substance abuse problems and other issues but certainly in the community there was plenty of that.

Fossett: Now he’s running for Senate in the mold of a Trump populist. And I want to ask about that transformation, because it seems so relevant to your arguments about how these populist-nationalist ideas take root in areas that are dealing with the kinds of problems both you and he discuss.

Hill: He should be running as his own person, not trying to emulate someone else. He’s the real deal. I mean, Trump was never the real deal. There are sections in Hillbilly Elegy about how celebrities like Trump can talk the talk and they never walk the walk.

There ought to be more empathy for the people and place where he came from, not trying to use them as a kind of slogan or a kind of a banner. Because the big problem of populism is people can’t see themselves reflected in the people at the top, and so they become prey to the celebrity-politicians and others who say, “I will be your champion; just give me your vote.” And those politicians don’t care that much about them.

Vance’s book along with many of the other, more conventional sociological books of the period — like The Unwinding, Strangers in Their Own Land, We’re Still Here, Janesville — these are the books that should be helping us to understand how we got to all of this. And these books should be coming up with some concrete solutions, not just serving as a kind of platform and springboard for exploitation, for a certain small number of people to get into political office.

I’m not saying that every politician seeks office for personal gain or professional advancement, but certainly a lot of people do. I mean, Trump thinks of himself as a king and wants to create a new dynasty. I saw that firsthand.

Fossett: I really thought the gender component was interesting to include in the book, because it’s essentially about lack of opportunity, and there are specific hurdles for women.

Hill: At one point my editor was a bit leery about me weaving the gender issue into it because I started off writing the book thematically. I wasn’t really going to do the whole biography in the way that it is in there now. Once we started to do it, when I started to write and draft it, it was a little overwhelming for the uninitiated reader. So we decided to do the biographical through-line.

And that’s when the women’s issues component seemed to become a question mark for the editor. But I did a little bit of focus grouping with my colleagues, and they said I should really insist on trying to keep this in. Some of them said, “Well, maybe this isn’t completely related to the theme of opportunity or some of the national security themes that you’re mentioning,” and I said, “But it is!” I mean, as any woman will tell you, this is very important. It does feed into social grievance and helps to explain why many women are also attracted to populism.

Fossett: It’s so important because we rarely discuss gender in the context of economic mobility. A lot of the gender issues we talk about are either issues for women at the top of the income distribution or the bottom. But women face unique issues moving from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Hill: Yes, because you get Anne-Marie Slaughter’s book about not having it all, which is very much for an elite audience. And then you got the less well-off women at the very bottom, for instance the single mothers who are looking for jobs and opportunities. You don’t see it the whole way through.

Fossett: So often when you hear about the narrative of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or the self-made person, that narrative often sounds designed around a man.

Hill: Even the word bootstraps, right?

Fossett: What do you think our conversation about economic mobility misses when it comes to women in particular?

Hill: Well, I do think gender is an obstacle to getting ahead at different phases of one’s career.

But many of the barriers are subtle. I mean, the #MeToo movement brought those out in a very unsubtle way — the barriers that are posed by sexual harassment and rape. But it’s also that kind of constant feeling that you are not the same as everyone else. I was told throughout my career that I was a risk because of being a woman. I’ve had all of these questions asked — when I was planning on having children — all of these things that are completely inappropriate.

But women are also often divided against each other. People never really know about salaries, because people don’t want to talk about it. I wanted to use a few more stories that people told me for the book and they didn’t want to let me use them because they were embarrassed. Older women in particular didn’t want people to know that they were underpaid vis-a-vis their male colleagues in these senior positions, because it was them somehow saying, “Well, I’m second class. I’m not worthy of this.” Because money is the marker.

Then there are physical security issues that are tied to opportunity. If you’re a girl considering job opportunities, you do have to think about going home on a bus or metro late at night. Some of the stories that got taken out were about attacks on the metro and getting stalked in the streets. My teenage years were when the Yorkshire Ripper was at large in the UK. It was a huge constraint on my teens and late teens because girls from all kinds of backgrounds were being killed. They weren’t all prostitutes, and a lot of the people who were had been driven into prostitution because of the extreme economic circumstances. And in the whole of the north of England, we were having all kinds of Take-Back-the-Night demonstrations because women couldn’t go to work and come back for fear of being brutally murdered. I was flashed at probably 100,000 bloody times from being a small child all the way through to an adult woman. And it would make me think twice about walking on my own or going anywhere on my own. So opportunities were constrained. These are not fully understood, but they do become constraints on economic mobility because women don’t have the same choices as men or boys do in terms of being able to take advantage of job offers or internships or other things as well.

And then the big issue is of single women with children, and their constraints on earning power get passed on to their children.

Fossett: The other thing I noticed in your book was how frankly you talked about what might be called wage discrimination. You describe two instances, at the Brookings Institution and in the White House, where the person who was in your position before you made a lot more money. In both cases, your predecessor was a man. They got more money because they had threatened to leave if they didn’t. And I have to ask, even in your position, as someone who is very well respected in her field and who has worked directly with the president, do you think that if you had tried to play hardball in the same way, it would have worked?

Hill: I almost think that it wouldn’t. It would be a backfire. And there was one incident where my husband had actually coached me beforehand. He said, “Men do this all the time, and you need to ask for this. And here, this is how to do it.” The hiring manager pretty much laughed at me when I tried it. And this is the kind of thing that a guy does all the time. And then I just thought, “Wow.” I remember hearing about successful women who had taken a lawyer to their salary negotiation, and I was like, “What?” And then I thought, “Well, yeah, I see why.” Because they’re going to get ripped off just as a matter of course.

But there is always this pervasive sense that I’ve experienced myself all the time that if you push too much, they’ll say, “Well, we won’t hire you. Because you are a risk and we’re taking a risk on you.” And then your salary history from these early jobs … The places I’ve worked, like Brookings and Harvard, have really worked on this, particularly in the last 10 years since the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and more women have moved up and started to push for wage equality.

But you can’t reverse 20-odd years of wage inequality. I tallied up at one point $500,000 of pay that I will never have. And I’m not going to complain from my vantage point, because I’m married to somebody who works in the private sector. But, yeah, it just annoys me that I’m paid and have been successively paid a hell of a lot less than men. So it’s like … so what am I? I’ve worked incredibly hard. I’ve been working since I was 11. And I’ll never make the same as a man from my kind of cohort.

And so what about the single mother? The younger person who is looking across at the guy next to her and thinks, “They’re making more than me here.” And then the hiring managers, will literally say, “Well, what’s your husband making?” or “Well good for you that you made that in your last job but you’re not going to get that here because we’re taking a risk on you in this promotion.” I spoke to a lot of women — around my age and in the media — who had exactly these discussions, and I want them to come out and talk about them. Because I want to make sure that young women don’t have to do that. People think you are the B-word when you start to push. Or they think you’re greedy and grasping. Women aren’t allowed to be angry, and women aren’t allowed to ask for the same things that men are allowed to ask for.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/08/fiona-hill-book-donald-trump-515660
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Katelyn Fossett

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Premier: Iraq doesn’t need U.S. combat troops

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister says his country no longer requires American combat troops to fight the Islamic State group, but a formal time frame for their redeployment will depend on the outcome of talks with U.S. officials this week.

Mustafa al-Kadhimi said Iraq will still ask for U.S. training and military intelligence gathering. His comments came in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of a planned trip to Washington, where he’s slated to meet with President Joe Biden on Monday for a fourth round of strategic talks.

“There is no need for any foreign combat forces on Iraqi soil,” said al-Kadhimi, falling short of announcing a deadline for a U.S. troop departure. Iraq’s security forces and army are capable of defending the country without U.S.-led coalition troops, he said.

But al-Kadhimi said any withdrawal schedule would be based on the needs of Iraqi forces, who have shown themselves capable in the last year of conducting independent anti-IS missions.

“The war against IS and the readiness of our forces requires a special timetable, and this depends on the negotiations that we will conduct in Washington,” he said.

The U.S. and Iraq agreed in April that the U.S. transition to a train-and-advise mission meant the U.S. combat role would end but they didn’t settle on a timetable for completing that transition. In Monday’s meeting at the White House, the two leaders are expected to specify a timeline, possibly by the end of this year.

The U.S. troop presence has stood at about 2,500 since late last year when former President Donald Trump ordered a reduction from 3,000.

The U.S. mission of training and advising Iraqi forces has its most recent origins in former President Barack Obama’s decision in 2014 to send troops back to Iraq. The move was made in response to the Islamic State group’s takeover of large portions of western and northern Iraq and a collapse of Iraqi security forces that appeared to threaten Baghdad. Obama had fully withdrawn U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, eight years after the U.S. invasion.

“What we want from the U.S. presence in Iraq is to support our forces in training and developing their efficiency and capabilities, and in security cooperation,” al-Kadhimi said.

The Washington trip comes as the premier’s administration has faced one setback after another, seriously undermining public confidence. Ongoing missile attacks by militia groups have underscored the limits of the state to prevent them and a series of devastating hospital fires amid soaring coronavirus cases have left dozens dead.

Meanwhile, early federal elections, in line with a promise al-Kadhimi made when he assumed office, are less than three months away.

Chief on the agenda in Washington, however, is the future of American-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Iraq declared victory over IS in late 2017 after a ruinous and bloody war. The continued presence of American troops has become a polarizing issue among Iraq’s political class since the U.S.-directed drone strike that killed powerful Iranian general Qassim Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on Iraqi soil last year.

To quell the threat of widespread instability following the targeted killings, the U.S. and Iraq have held at least three rounds of strategic talks centering on Iraq’s military needs in the ongoing fight against IS and to formalize a timeline for withdrawal.

Four years since their territorial defeat, IS militants are still able to launch attacks in the capital and roam the country’s rugged northern region. Last week, a suicide bomber killed 30 people in a busy Baghdad marketplace. That attack was later claimed by IS.

Al-Kadhimi has faced significant pressure from mainly Shiite political parties to announce a timeline for a U.S. troop withdrawal. Ongoing rocket and, more recently, drone attacks targeting the American military presence have also heaped pressure on the government. They are widely believed to be perpetrated by Iran-aligned Iraqi militia groups.

An announcement that combat troops will withdraw might serve to placate Shiite parties but will have little impact on the ground: The coalition’s combat mission ended effectively in November when the Pentagon reduced U.S. troops in the country to 2,500, according to Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein. Shiite parties have said they do not object to trainers or advisors who may remain as part of the coalition.

U.S. and coalition officials have maintained that U.S. troops are no longer accompanying Iraqi forces on ground missions and that coalition assistance is limited to intelligence gathering and surveillance and the deployment of advanced military technologies. Iraqi military officials have stressed they still need this support going forward.

“Iraq has a set of American weapons that need maintenance and training. We will ask the American side to continue to support our forces and develop our capabilities,” al-Kadhimi said.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/25/premier-iraq-doesnt-need-us-combat-troops-500720
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GOP senators fight to preserve Biden’s war powers amid tensions with Iran

Republican lawmakers are determined to preserve President Joe Biden’s power to wage military campaigns in Iraq, even against the commander-in-chief’s wishes.

It’s a strange dynamic for members of Congress, who have long seen presidents of both parties expand and sometimes abuse their war powers even after campaigning on ending conflicts in the Middle East. Nearly 20 years after the horrors of Sept. 11, GOP lawmakers are now in the awkward position of fighting to maintain a Democratic president’s authority to conduct military operations without congressional approval.

It largely stems from Republicans’ desire to project an aggressive posture toward Iran — whose proxies in Iraq and Syria attack Americans on a near-daily basis — and concerns about the rapid destabilization of Afghanistan amid the U.S. withdrawal.

“Presidents should be authorized … to go after terrorists or other armed groups who seek to harm the United States or our personnel deployed anywhere in the world, on an ongoing basis, and to do whatever is necessary to degrade their capability to strike us — and if possible to wipe them out of existence,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chair of the Intelligence Committee and a senior member of the Foreign Relations panel.

The debate on Capitol Hill comes as the Senate is set to vote this year on a bipartisan bill to repeal authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs) enacted in 1991 for the Gulf War and 2002 for the Iraq War. The bill is sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.).

The House already repealed both authorizations, in addition to a never-used 1957 AUMF. If the repeal measures reach Biden’s desk, it would be the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that Congress will have clawed back its constitutional war powers.

Proponents of repeal got a major boost when Biden came out in support of scrapping at least the 2002 measure, which gave then-President George W. Bush the authority to topple Saddam Hussein’s government. It was used by subsequent presidents to legally justify military action against terror threats that only developed after the AUMF was first adopted.

At a classified briefing Monday evening for members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, top administration officials argued that the 2002 authorization was functionally obsolete, according to two people familiar with the briefing. Officials were “unequivocal” that the AUMFs are not “exclusively” relied upon for ongoing operations, and that no current military actions will be impacted by the repeal, said another person familiar with the meeting.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said after the briefing that he plans to move forward with a markup of the AUMF repeal measure before senators leave Washington for the summer recess in August. He said the information given was “helpful” in outlining the case for repeal, but he acknowledged it wouldn’t satisfy everyone.

“There are other members who have ideological issues,” Menendez said. “There’s no briefings in the world that I could ultimately provide that will deal with that.”

Most Republicans are expected to oppose repealing the 2002 AUMF, with many arguing that Congress should not deprive Biden of legal authority to protect American troops in light of a barrage of attacks from Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq. In two recent bombing campaigns against the Iranian proxies, Biden notably did not cite the AUMF as legal justification; he instead pointed to his Article II constitutional authority to defend Americans by launching retaliatory strikes.

“The president’s constitutional Article II authorities appropriately give him the power to defend our troops and our core national interests,” said Young, the Republican leading the effort to repeal the outdated AUMFs. “He’s proven that by doing that — without any exception being taken by my colleagues whatsoever.”

Still, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), an Armed Services Committee member, said scrapping Iraq-related AUMFs could “embolden” terror groups that some lawmakers assert Biden has no authority to go after. That includes al Qaeda, the terror group that was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and which Republicans believe will reconstitute in Afghanistan once the U.S. pullout is complete and potentially expand into Iraq and Syria, where American troops are continually attacked by Iranian proxy forces. GOP lawmakers instead want Biden to develop a clearer strategy to deter the attacks, even if that includes launching preemptive strikes using the AUMFs currently on the books.

“It would be a very powerful start for the Biden administration to be very forceful and clear and unequivocally saying, we do not believe we are constrained from carrying out as many strikes that would be necessary to protect Americans against Iranian-backed militias or any militias that seek to harm us,” Rubio said. “Degrading these groups’ ability to strike America or strike Americans anywhere in the world requires sustained pressure.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a Foreign Relations Committee member, said the AUMF is necessary for troops in Iraq to “defend themselves properly,” adding: “You don’t want to have to only react after you’ve been attacked.”

But even some of Biden’s allies say that the president does not and should not have the authority to launch offensive strikes against the Iranian proxies without first seeking congressional approval. They also argue that the 2002 AUMF could not be legally employed to justify attacks on Iranian proxies.

“I think that there are some colleagues, who never want to see repeal, who are advocating that that’s the reason not to repeal,” Menendez said of the GOP push to preserve the Iraq AUMFs.

It’s no surprise that Republicans would push for a harder line against the government in Tehran. The GOP largely supported the Trump administration’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, which included pulling out of the Obama-era nuclear deal and imposing a raft of biting sanctions.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a Foreign Relations Committee member, told POLITICO that he is planning to introduce an amendment to the AUMF repeal measure that would “make clear that there is ample authority to protect our servicemen and women and to protect American lives from Iranian military aggression.”

Such a position would grant Biden expansive authority to attack Iran over its malign activities in the region, including its nuclear ambitions and its support for terror groups that are targeting Americans. But Biden has no interest in that authority, officials say, as his administration is seeking to revive the nuclear agreement that Trump scrapped in 2018.

Democrats are expected to double down on their efforts to repeal AUMFs on Tuesday when the House Appropriations Committee votes on annual Pentagon spending legislation.

Progressive Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who has led the House effort to scrub the broad suite of war powers, plans to offer amendments that would repeal the 2002 Iraq War authorization and sunset the 2001 AUMF that governs a myriad of military operations around the world, including the war in Afghanistan. Lee has tacked the measures onto the must-pass defense funding bill in previous years, though the effort has not survived in compromise spending legislation negotiated with the Senate.

Pro-repeal lawmakers are projecting confidence about the prospects of breaking a GOP-led filibuster in the upper chamber when Majority Leader Chuck Schumer puts the Kaine-Young bill up for a vote later this year. Already, several Republicans have come out in favor of it. If all 50 Democrats vote for the measure, it would need the backing of at least 10 GOP senators to pass.

After that, the House and Senate would need to reconcile their bills into one large legislative package. Kaine, the lead Democratic sponsor of the effort, has said it’s likely that the issue gets resolved as part of the annual defense policy bill, must-pass legislation that will head to Biden’s desk this year. He has already discussed potential options with Lee.

“Just get it done,” Kaine said when asked about his strategy. “How can we get it to Biden’s desk promptly?”

Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/13/gop-senators-biden-war-powers-iran-499496
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Hard-line judiciary head wins Iran presidency amid low turnout

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s hard-line judiciary chief won the country’s presidential election in a landslide victory Saturday, propelling the supreme leader’s protege into Tehran’s highest civilian position in a vote that appeared to see the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.

Initial results showed Ebrahim Raisi won 17.8 million votes in the contest, dwarfing those of the race’s sole moderate candidate. However, Raisi dominated the election only after a panel under the watch of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disqualified his strongest competition.

His candidacy, and the sense the election served more as a coronation for him, sparked widespread apathy among eligible voters in the Islamic Republic, which has held up turnout as a sign of support for the theocracy since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Some, including former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for a boycott.

In initial results, former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei won 3.3 million votes and moderate Abdolnasser Hemmati got 2.4 million, said Jamal Orf, the head of Iran’s Interior Ministry election headquarters. The race’s fourth candidate, Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, had around 1 million votes, Orf said.

Hemmati offered his congratulations on Instagram to Raisi early Saturday.

“I hope your administration provides causes for pride for the Islamic Republic of Iran, improves the economy and life with comfort and welfare for the great nation of Iran,” he wrote.

On Twitter, Rezaei praised Khamenei and the Iranian people for taking part in the vote.

“God willing, the decisive election of my esteemed brother, Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, promises the establishment of a strong and popular government to solve the country’s problems,” Rezaei wrote.

The quick concessions, while not unusual in Iran’s previous elections, signaled what semiofficial news agencies inside Iran had been hinting at for hours: That the carefully controlled vote had been a blowout win for Raisi amid the boycott calls.

As night fell Friday, turnout appeared far lower than in Iran’s last presidential election in 2017. At one polling place inside a mosque in central Tehran, a Shiite cleric played soccer with a young boy as most of its workers napped in a courtyard. At another, officials watched videos on their mobile phones as state television blared beside them, offering only tight shots of locations around the country — as opposed to the long, snaking lines of past elections.

Balloting came to a close at 2.a.m. Saturday, after the government extended voting to accommodate what it called “crowding” at several polling places nationwide. Paper ballots, stuffed into large plastic boxes, were to be counted by hand through the night, and authorities said they expected to have initial results and turnout figures Saturday morning at the earliest.

“My vote will not change anything in this election, the number of people who are voting for Raisi is huge and Hemmati does not have the necessary skills for this,” said Hediyeh, a 25-year-old woman who gave only her first name while hurrying to a taxi in Haft-e Tir Square after avoiding the polls. “I have no candidate here.”

Iranian state television sought to downplay the turnout, pointing to the Gulf Arab sheikhdoms surrounding it ruled by hereditary leaders, and the lower participation in Western democracies. After a day of amplifying officials’ attempts to get out the vote, state TV broadcast scenes of jam-packed voting booths in several provinces overnight, seeking to portray a last-minute rush to the polls.

But since the 1979 revolution overthrew the shah, Iran’s theocracy has cited voter turnout as a sign of its legitimacy, beginning with its first referendum that won 98.2% support that simply asked whether or not people wanted an Islamic Republic.

The disqualifications affected reformists and those backing Rouhani, whose administration both reached the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and saw it disintegrate three years later with then-President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of America from the accord.

Voter apathy also has been fed by the devastated state of the economy and subdued campaigning amid months of surging coronavirus cases. Poll workers wore gloves and masks, and some wiped down ballot boxes with disinfectants.

If elected, Raisi would be the first serving Iranian president sanctioned by the U.S. government even before entering office over his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as his time as the head of Iran’s internationally criticized judiciary — one of the world’s top executioners.

It also would put hard-liners firmly in control across the government as negotiations in Vienna continue to try to save a tattered deal meant to limit Iran’s nuclear program at a time when Tehran is enriching uranium at its highest levels ever, though it still remains short of weapons-grade levels. Tensions remain high with both the U.S. and Israel, which is believed to have carried out a series of attacks targeting Iranian nuclear sites as well as assassinating the scientist who created its military atomic program decades earlier.

Whoever wins will likely serve two four-year terms and thus could be at the helm at what could be one of the most crucial moments for the country in decades — the death of the 82-year-old Khamenei. Speculation already has begun that Raisi might be a contender for the position, along with Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/19/ebrahim-raisi-iran-presidency-495200
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Iranian ships once believed to be headed toward Venezuela change course, U.S. officials say

The Iranian navy ships believed to be originally headed toward Venezuela changed course early this week and are now steaming north up the west coast of Africa, U.S. officials said.

The ships, which U.S. officials believe may have been preparing to conduct an arms transfer, have appeared to change course several times during their journey from Iran — and could do so again. But after the course change early this week, they are likely now headed either into the Mediterranean — potentially planning to sail off of Syria — or north toward Russia, according to a defense official briefed on the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.

U.S. officials believe the course change indicates that a diplomatic campaign to urge governments in the Western Hemisphere to turn away the ships was successful, the official said. The Iranian frigate Sahand and afloat staging base Makran charted a new course after Biden administration officials publicly and privately urged the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in the region not to allow them to dock, POLITICO reported.

Spokespeople for the White House, State Department and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

But whether the ships cross the Atlantic, their journey is a significant demonstration of the naval capability of Iran, a longtime U.S. adversary that has sought to make inroads in Latin America. Last week marked the first time Iranian warships had rounded the Cape of Good Hope; none has ever successfully crossed the Atlantic or circled around the entire coast of Africa.

U.S. officials began closely monitoring the ships’ progress in mid-May as they left the Gulf and headed down the east coast of Africa. Officials believe they are carrying fast-attack boats and potentially other weapons to fulfill a deal that Iran and Venezuela inked a year ago; satellite images from May 10 show seven such vessels on the Makran’s deck.

Former officials from across the political spectrum urged the Biden administration to seize the ships if they attempted to carry out the transfer.

“They are in effect pirate ships,” said John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, noting that Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism and Washington has levied heavy sanctions on Tehran and Caracas. “The United States has a legitimate right of self-defense against both of them.”

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former commander of U.S. European Command and U.S. Southern Command who was considered a possible running mate to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, wrote that “intervention may be justified” because arms transfers are a potential violation of U.S. sanctions.

“If the U.S. was willing to seize Iranian oil shipments for violating sanctions last year, it should be prepared to take direct action to stop these small but lethal machines of war from being delivered to a corrupt and dangerous regime in Caracas,” he wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed last week.

The website TankerTrackers.com on Monday said it had assessed that the ships are now headed to Syria to participate in naval exercises with Russia. The site estimated the ships will pass Gibraltar on July 4, which is the two-year anniversary of the seizure of the Grace 1 supertanker as it sailed toward Syria.

This is not the first time Iran has been suspected of attempting to send arms to Venezuela. Last summer, Trump administration officials suspected that Venezuela was considering purchasing missiles from Iran, including long-range ones that could reach the United States.

Officials grew so concerned that they discussed options to seize the cargo, including sending Coast Guard cutters to intercept and board Iranian commercial ships that could be carrying weapons, according to two former defense officials with direct knowledge of the discussions. Aides engaged in lengthy discussions about justification, concluding that the administration could use Article II of the Constitution, which gives the president authority to defend against a threat to the homeland, one of the former officials said.

However, the key difference is that last year the discussions involved Iranian commercial vessels, while this year they involve warships. Coast Guard vessels may not be equipped to withstand a kinetic conflict with an Iranian warship, forcing U.S. officials to consider sending in U.S. Navy assets. However, the U.S. military has a limited naval presence in the Latin America region, typically deploying only a few smaller littoral combat ships at one time. The Pentagon would have to pull assets from other regions — a move the Navy is likely to resist.

Another challenge is that warships and other government ships are granted sovereign immunity in international waters by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, said Cornell Overfield, an associate research analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis. In this case, seizure of the vessels, even if they are found to be carrying arms, would be unlawful, he said.

“So long as the Iranian warships do not threaten use of force, sovereign immunity protects them wherever they are,” Overfield wrote in Foreign Policy.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/17/iran-ships-venezuela-495013
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U.S. monitoring Iranian warships that may be headed to Venezuela

The U.S. national security community is monitoring two Iranian naval vessels whose ultimate destination may be Venezuela, according to three people familiar with the situation, in what would be a provocative move at a tense moment in U.S.-Iran relations.

An Iranian frigate and the Makran, a former oil tanker that was converted to a floating forward staging base, have been heading south along the east coast of Africa, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.

U.S. officials do not know for sure the destination of the Iranian ships, these officials said, but believe they may be ultimately headed for Venezuela. Iran’s intent in sending the vessels in the direction of the Western Hemisphere remains a mystery, the people said, as does their cargo.

The two countries — both of them facing severe U.S. sanctions — have developed closer ties over the last few years, with cooperation ranging from gasoline shipments to joint car and cement factory projects.

Senior officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s government in Caracas have been advised that welcoming the Iranian warships would be a mistake, according to a person familiar with the discussions. But it’s not clear whether Maduro has heeded that warning: At one point on Thursday, U.S. military officials understood the ships had turned around, but as of Friday morning they were still steaming south, one of the people said.

Lawmakers privy to the most sensitive intelligence information were informed over the past few days that the U.S. believed the Iranian ships may be heading toward Venezuela, but cautioned that the destination could change, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The mere presence of Iranian warships in America’s backyard would represent a challenge to U.S. authority in the region — and would likely inflame the debate in Washington over President Joe Biden’s decision to re-open negotiations with Tehran.

Iranian media has claimed the 755-foot long Makran, which was commissioned this year, can serve as a platform for electronic warfare and special operations missions, and Iranian officials have boasted of the ship’s missile and weapons capabilities. It is able to carry six to seven helicopters, as well as drones, they have said.

A spokesperson for the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry declined to comment. A spokesperson at the Iranian Mission to the U.N. declined to comment. And White House and Pentagon spokespersons declined to comment.

The timing of Iran’s apparent westward foray is especially inopportune for those hoping for a lowering of tensions with Tehran.

Since entering office, Biden has explored rejoining the 2015 agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which his predecessor Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. Those talks are ongoing in Vienna. The recent fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas, long backed by Iran, also has fueled criticism from Republican lawmakers about the wisdom of re-entering the JCPOA.

Successive governments in Tehran and Caracas have made a habit of defying the United States, with whom each country has a complex history. The Venezuelan government was one of the first to recognize the Islamic Republic after the 1979 overthrow of the shah, a U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Tehran regularly objects to the presence of U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf region, and it has previously threatened to make a similar show of force in America’s backyard but never followed through.

Maduro’s authoritarian regime has been shunned by many countries, including its Latin American neighbors. The United States has imposed successively harsher rounds of sanctions that have punished an economy already wracked by mismanagement, corruption and Covid. Iran is one of Venezuela’s few close allies.

As Venezuela’s oil refining sector has collapsed in recent years, the Islamic Republic has sent multiple fuel tankers to the country to help with crippling gas shortages. In exchange, Venezuela’s government has supplied Tehran with much-needed cash and helped it build relationships in Latin America.

U.S. officials have watched those ties blossom with varying levels of concern.

In December, the top commander of U.S. troops in Central and South America described Iran’s growing military presence in Venezuela as “alarming.” In comments reported by The Wall Street Journal, Adm. Craig Faller, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, said the presence of personnel from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force is particularly concerning.

The Trump administration designated the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization in 2019, and killed its Quds Force commander, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, last year in an airstrike in Iraq.

Last summer, U.S. authorities seized four ships carrying cargo from Iran to Venezuela, as the Journal reported. At one point on their journey, those ships and five others were traveling with an Iranian naval intelligence ship, U.S. officials told the paper. The ships did not reach Venezuela.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/29/iranian-warships-venezuela-491414
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North Korea threatens U.S. and accuses Biden of “big blunder” over foreign policy

A top North Korean official warned the U.S. “will find itself in a very grave situation” after President Biden called the country a security threat during his first policy speech to Congress last week.

Why it matters: The threat underlines the challenges Biden faces as he seeks to break away from the failure of predecessors to overcome differences with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime over denuclearization and sanctions, which have crippled the isolated nation.

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Context: In his speech to Congress last Wednesday, Biden said the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran were “a serious threat to America’s security and world security,” which he vowed to address through “diplomacy and stern deterrence.”

What they’re saying: Kwon Jong Gun, a senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official, said in a statement published by the state-run KCNA, that Biden’s speech was a “big blunder” and his comments “intolerable.”

• “His statement clearly reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward” the North Korea as it had been done by the U.S. for over half a century,” Kwon said.
• Kwon did not specify what steps North Korea was considering.

The big picture: Kwon’s comments come a day after White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration had completed its review of U.S. policy toward North Korea.

• Psaki suggested the Biden administration would aim for a middle ground between former President Trump’s “grand bargain” and former President Obama’s “strategic patience” approach.
• The Biden administration did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.

Source: https://www.axios.com/north-korea-threatens-us-biden-speech-0d4e5673-ce6f-4b86-be9f-1dfdc0e96802.html
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U.S. forces: Rockets hit airbase in Iraq hosting U.S. troops

BAGHDAD — At least 10 rockets targeted a military base in western Iraq that hosts U.S.-led coalition troops on Wednesday, the coalition and the Iraqi military said. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.

The rockets struck Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province at 7:20 a.m., coalition spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Iraqi military released a statement saying the attack did not cause significant losses and that security forces had found the launch pad used for the rockets. It was found in the al-Baghdadi area of Anbar, an Iraqi military official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the attack with the media.

It was the first attack since the U.S. struck Iran-aligned militia targets along the Iraq-Syria border last week, killing one militiaman and stoking fears of a possible repeat of a series of tit-for-tat attacks that escalated last year, culminating in the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani outside the Baghdad airport.

Wednesday’s attack targeted the same base where Iran struck with a barrage of missiles in January last year in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani. Dozens of U.S. service members were injured, suffering concussions in that strike.

British Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Hickey condemned the attack, saying it undermined the ongoing fight against the Islamic State group. “Coalition forces are in Iraq to fight Daesh at the invitation of the Iraqi government,” he tweeted, using the Arabic acronym for IS. “These terrorist attacks undermine the fight against Daesh and destabilize Iraq.”

Denmark, which like the U.S. and Britain also has troops at the base, said coalition forces at Ain al-Asad were helping to bring stability and security to the country.

“Despicable attacks against Ain al-Asad base in #Iraq are completely unacceptable,” Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod tweeted. The Danish armed forces said two Danes, who were in the camp at the time of the attack, are unharmed.

Wednesday’s attack comes two days before Pope Francis’ is scheduled to visit Iraq in a much anticipated trip that will include Baghdad, southern Iraq and in the northern city of Irbil.

Last week’s U.S. strike along the border had been in response to a spate of rocket attacks that targeted the American presence, including one that killed a coalition contractor from the Philippines outside the Irbil airport.

After that attack, the Pentagon said the strike was a “proportionate military response” taken after consulting coalition partners.

Marotto said the Iraqi security forces were leading an investigation into the attack on Ain al-Asad.

U.S. troops in Iraq significantly decreased their presence in the country last year under the Trump administration. The forces withdrew from several Iraqi based across the country to consolidate chiefly in Ain al-Asad and Baghad.

Frequent rocket attacks targeting the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy, during President Donald Trump’s time in office frustrated the administration, leading to threats of embassy closure and escalatory strikes.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/03/iraq-airbase-attack-us-troops-473203
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U.S. carries out airstrike in Syria after rocket attacks

The U.S. has carried out an airstrike on a structure connected to an Iran-backed militia in Syria, following three separate rocket attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a defense official.

The strike, which was ordered by President Joe Biden, was designed to damage the militia group’s ability to conduct future attacks, the official said. The military action was carried out by the U.S. without coalition partners.

The strike was defensive in nature, but was a response to the three attacks endangering Americans in Iraqi this month, the official said.

The retaliatory strike comes more than a week after a dozen rockets believed to be linked to an Iran-backed militia group targeted coalition forces outside Irbil International Airport, killing one non-U.S. contractor and wounding nine more people, including five Americans.

Then on Saturday, at least four rockets struck Balad Air Base, which houses American contractors who provide support to Iraq’s fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, wounding one person.

And on Monday, two rockets fell near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, inside the Green Zone. No injuries or casualties resulted.

Biden initially faced criticism for not immediately pinning blame for the attacks on Iran, which has frequently carried out similar strikes against U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq. Some have been fatal.

Thursday’s strike comes as the Biden administration strives to renew negotiations with Iran after former President Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, sparking escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/25/us-airstrike-syria-471685
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‘Stop the bleeding’: Biden reaches out to Europe, but Trump’s damage has been done

President Joe Biden and his team are fanning out across the West’s leading institutions and forums to announce that “America is back.”

They’re set to be greeted with welcome relief by allies, who — in the face of a global recession and pandemic, not to mention PTSD from the Trump years — appear happy for now to table complicated negotiations over shared challenges and thorny points of divergence.

“These next four days will set the tone” for the following four years, said Alexander Stubb, who spent nearly a decade dealing with then-Vice President Biden, including a stint as Finland’s prime minister.

Biden is guaranteed to get hearty applause while addressing G-7 leaders and the Munich Security Conference on Friday, but his administration should expect a rockier road ahead.

After conversations with his British, French and German counterparts, aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting Quad counterparts (India, Japan and Australia) on Friday and the EU’s foreign affairs council Monday. His audience is expecting him to play transatlantic bad cop, compared to the ever-optimistic Biden.

On other fronts in the charm offensive, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has wrapped up two days of meetings with NATO colleagues, where he successfully argued to delay NATO troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, while climate envoy John Kerry today joins U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to sweep the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Agreement.

POLITICO spoke to a dozen European and Japanese leaders and senior officials who often lived in fear of former President Donald Trump’s tweets. While they’re positively relaxed about the speeches Biden will deliver Friday, they know Biden’s powers are limited.

European leaders in particular worry that Trumpism remains alive, are skeptical about the results the White House can squeeze from a deeply divided U.S. Congress and aren’t yet sold on meeting the Biden administration’s expectations on China, Russia and trade.

To maximize the chances of a functioning G-7 and rekindled transatlantic relationship, allies are setting the bar low for Friday’s gatherings.

As president and host of Friday’s G-7 gathering, the U.K. is giving Biden a passing grade before he opens his mouth. “Biden doesn’t need to come to this meeting with a suite of creative policy announcements for it to be important or successful,” said a senior British diplomat, adding “it’s enough to stop America’s image bleeding. I doubt anyone will be disappointed.”

A Japanese government spokesperson stressed the need for G-7 countries “to lead the post-COVID international order,” and anticipated full-throated agreement with the shared democratic values Biden is expected to advocate.

Even the Hungarian government — which had an antagonistic relationship with the Obama administration — couldn’t bring itself to sound any alarm bells about the Biden era: Zoltán Kovács, a cabinet member and government spokesperson, said he had no concerns or expectations to convey to Biden.

While boilerplate commitments to multilateralism and democracy are already flowing, they disguise bubbling transatlantic tensions on issues from trade to energy policy to China.

European officials know the tough conversations can’t be avoided for long. Biden “said all the right things” to reassure Europe after “the unpredictable cacophony of Trump,” said Stubb.

“But the realistic picture is that the world is radically different from 2016 when Trump entered the scene,” he added. “This is the message Blinken should deliver” when he meets with the EU’s 27 foreign ministers and the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell.

Europe isn’t afraid to go its own way

Shocked by Britain’s vote to leave, and wedged between an aggressive Russia, a rising China and a disinterested America under Trump, the EU set a course for “strategic autonomy” in recent years. In that time, China also overtook the U.S. as the EU’s biggest trading partner.

The EU’s repositioning is only now bearing fruit, but that’s not to say it’s superficial either: There’s a determined independent approach to China and Russia relations, a beefed-up industrial policy, tough digital regulations and taxes, and only a tentative commitment to EU joint defense and increased national defense spending.

While the Biden administration sees the EU as an essential pillar of stability in global affairs, it recoils at many of these decisions.

Europeans also worry that in four years, a new Republican administration may junk Biden’s defense and climate commitments, leaving them stranded with long-term investments and no American backup. “Who’s to say we won’t end up right where we were four years from now?” one senior German defense official asked.

National leaders and climate officials welcome U.S. re-entry into the Paris Climate Agreement — Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, called it “an encouraging step” — but said they will celebrate only when Congress passes a strict and well-funded 2030 emissions reduction target.

Trade tensions are simmering

On trade, there is goodwill but that isn’t stopping points of contention spilling out into the open.

Kurz, Austria’s 34-year-old chancellor, told POLITICO that once progress is made against Covid-19 and toward economic recovery, “we should give our trade relations a fresh start by settling ongoing trade disputes and ending punitive measures as soon as possible.”

Kurz is referring to Trump-era tariffs the new administration is yet to unwind, and Biden’s new “Made in America” government procurement policy, which is provoking grumbling in Brussels. Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s trade chief, told reporters Thursday: “We will be assessing to which extent the U.S. complies with its [World Trade Organization] commitments under the global procurement agreement.”

As part of a broader review of trade policy, Dombrovskis promised the EU will be “tougher and more assertive.” That includes a European Commission effort to deliver an “anti-coercion” trade instrument, which would allow it to retaliate against any future U.S. efforts to block EU trade. EU officials are frustrated that European companies such as Airbus and Renault have lost out because of American sanctions against Iran. Brussels is also worried that Washington may outlaw EU companies from shipping goods (like cars) made with U.S. microchips to China, on national security grounds.

“In the years to come, we will witness a certain amount of tension in the field of semiconductors,” said Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner. “We, in Europe, intend to play our full part in this new geostrategic game of chess.”

Back in Washington, administration officials are mostly biting their tongues, avoiding wading into controversial geopolitics like the Nordstream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, though House Republicans are urging the imposition of sanctions.

On Trump’s favorite topic of defense funding commitments, Austin, the defense secretary, wrote Wednesday that the U.S. is “ready to consult together, decide together and act together,” with NATO allies, a markedly softer tone than Trump.

European leaders know this harmony won’t last without extra effort from Europe. “Both President Biden and Secretary Blinken know Europe very well. But this also means they know Europe could be a better partner and ally,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told POLITICO.

“We need to put our European house in order by being united on foreign policy and defense,” de Croo added.

Washington’s frustrations are almost certain to burst out into the open around the EU’s push for “strategic autonomy” from the U.S., China and Russia.

While American officials roll their eyes at the EU’s bungling of Russia relations, and see the bloc’s “tech sovereignty” push as blatant protectionism, top of their complaint list is a recent EU-China investment deal that Angela Merkel and EU officials deliberately pushed through in the last weeks of the Trump administration.

The China problem

“China will be the elephant in the room,” said Stubb, but others including Austria’s Kurz are happy to bring the discussion into the spotlight. “Austria is also ready to engage in an open dialogue with the United States on China,” Kurz said.

The problem for the U.S. may be a lack of EU unity on the topic. “If Mr. Biden is stretching out his hand towards Europe, he expects a firm shake, not 27 opinions from as many member states,” said De Croo.

Many smaller European countries feel stuck on China: They distrust how Beijing wields power, but find it both too big to ignore and too big to handle alone. Germany and France — the biggest EU powers — have been vocal about their preference to engage with China rather than forming a Cold War-style bloc against it.

While the EU shifted closer toward U.S. positions on China in 2020, the lack of unity leaves many European countries still allowing Huawei in at least parts of their mobile networks, and prevents the EU from imposing sanctions on China over human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority.

Last week, as China attempted to use a special summit to strengthen relations with Central and Eastern European countries, half of the 12 invited EU national leaders failed to show up to pay homage to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who hosted the event.

When Blinken meets with 27 European foreign ministers Monday via videoconference, he will begin testing the waters on whether the EU can be a strong U.S. ally on China policy.

Aware that pressure from D.C. is on the way, Brussels is considering blocking products made with slave labor before they enter the EU market as part of its new trade strategy, Dombrovskis, the EU’s trade chief, said. Countries including the U.S., Canada and the U.K. have taken steps to avoid importing such products, following increasingly detailed reports on forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.

Meanwhile, NATO — which includes 21 EU countries as members — has quietly expanded its remit to China: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance’s strategy must be based on defending democracy against China’s and Russia’s “authoritarian pushback against rules-based international order.”

NATO’s traditional foe is another source of EU division and potential conflict with a Biden administration. To the annoyance of Baltic countries, Emmanuel Macron has spent his French presidency attempting to succeed where Merkel, Barack Obama and others have failed — by turning Vladimir Putin into a security partner for Europe. There’s no evidence it’s working.

Italy’s new prime minister, Mario Draghi, seems determined to follow in Macron’s footsteps: using his debut speech Wednesday to say Italy would try to increase dialogue with Russia, while expressing concerns over violations of fundamental rights in the country.

Draghi’s remarks come as the EU is considering whether to hit Russia with further sanctions. The topic will be on the table of the bloc’s foreign affairs ministers’ meeting Monday, right after Blinken finishes his discussion with ministers.

We’ll always have Munich

President Biden is returning to familiar ground at the Munich Security Conference, with a familiar message for familiar faces: “Without a stable Atlantic alliance everything, in my view, falls apart.” But what worked in 2009 and 2019 may not be enough in 2021 as democracy finds itself under attack from all quarters, including at home in the United States.

Biden has had to adjust his domestic message and policies to fit with the times, and deliver a flurry of concrete actions to repair the damage he discovered when assuming office. Sooner or later, he’ll need to do the same abroad.

Matthew Karnitschnig and Mark Scott contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/19/biden-europe-meeting-g7-leaders-470104
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After rocket attack, Biden faces first real test on Iran

Analysis: Fiery rhetoric of Trump era is gone, but flare-up in northern Iraq is a microcosm of tension to come

Joe Biden faces his first real test with Iran. A barrage of 15 rockets in northern Iraq that struck a US base, killing a military contractor and wounding a soldier, were likely aimed as much at testing the new president’s mettle as they were at causing damage.

In the hours after the attack on Erbil airport, where much of the remaining US presence in Iraq is based, a Shia group loyal to Iran felt emboldened enough to claim it. Although the boast was from a hitherto unknown group, it left no doubt who was behind the first such barrage since Biden’s inauguration.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/middle-east-biden-resumption-traditional-diplomacy-analysis
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48 hours of border chaos: Inside a CBP crackdown on Iranian Americans

Hours after a U.S. military drone killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, one of the most powerful men in Iran, the head of field operations for the border in Washington state gathered her senior staff on an emergency conference call.

It was the first Friday in 2020 — still a holiday for many — and director Adele Fasano spoke from home about the email she’d just received from U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters advising “heightened vigilance” following the airstrike.

She instructed assistant directors of field operations and area port directors to institute “heightened security measures.” When the call ended, the Seattle CBP office circulated a “high threat alert” memo among management outlining new criteria for enhanced vetting of cross-border travelers.

The message to rank-and-file agents was clear: Target travelers with ties to Iran, Lebanon and Palestine.

During the next 48 hours, 277 people — dozens of them American citizens or legal permanent residents — would be stopped and held for secondary screenings as they tried to cross into the U.S. from Canada. Many said they were held for more than six hours. Some were denied access to medicine or questioned about their relatives. Most had no idea why they were stopped, though they had their suspicions.

One Iranian American, held for six hours overnight at the Pacific Highway crossing, likened the scene to “a modern-day version of Japanese internment camps.”

More than a year after the incident — now the subject of widespread scorn from advocates for the immigrant community — a CBP internal affairs report obtained by POLITICO offers the first detailed account of the chaos that ensued after the Seattle Field Office sent that memo to staff.

The report, which focuses on the Blaine, Wash., ports of Peace Arch and Pacific Highway where a majority of the screenings took place, confirms that federal officials initially misled the public about what took place. It raises new questions about whether any corrective actions were taken after a top agency leader in Washington had to step in to halt the detentions.

The 87-page document, released in response to a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request, describes an office where senior leaders did not trust frontline border officers to make real-time decisions on who to admit to the United States. Internal investigators were told those same officers feared Fasano.

Officers and managers followed the directive to detain anyone with ties to Iran — then waited for direction from superiors on what to do next. Fasano, who was on vacation at the time, stopped answering emails as the resulting chaos unfolded.

The two days of disarray at the Peace Arch and nearby Pacific Highway port of entry spurred accusations of civil rights violations by members of Congress and advocacy groups, despite CBP’s initial denials that any directive was issued. Two organizations sued CBP to get the enhanced vetting directive, which was ultimately released in December. And some travelers subjected to those screenings now plan to take the U.S. government to court.

Two members of Congress who had pushed for answers said the internal report, which the agency has not provided them, confirms their suspicions.

“From the very beginning, I knew CBP was not telling the truth about what had occurred,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in an interview. The Seattle congresswoman is among several lawmakers who have pushed for answers from agency leadership.

Despite the outrage over the incident, the report makes no recommendations on how the agency can avoid a repeat scenario. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Washington declined to prosecute any CBP employees for criminal civil rights violations.

What’s more, the internal affairs report — based on emails from that weekend and interviews with CBP officers and the managers who were working, including Fasano — reaches no conclusions about whether the criteria used to flag travelers for secondary inspections were legal or appropriate, nor does it specify if any of the officials implicated in the events were disciplined.

The DHS’ Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties launched an inquiry into the incident, but its status is unclear.

“What’s shocking is there [are] really no recommendations,” said Len Saunders, an immigration attorney in Blaine who disclosed what he saw at the Peace Arch that weekend to the media and to investigators. “There’s no sort of accountability.”

CBP spokesperson Jason Givens declined to make any of the senior Seattle field office leaders named in the report available for comment. POLITICO’s emails and direct messages on LinkedIn to Fasano went unanswered.

“CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation into this matter has been completed and has closed with no actionable findings,” Givens said in an email. “CBP has nothing further to add to the OPR report that has been provided to you via your FOIA request.”

The January 2020 memo issued by one CBP field office illustrates the broad discretion border officials are given to decide who may enter the United States, no matter which political party controls Washington.

What follows is a day-by-day account from inside the Blaine border facility, based on agency investigators’ interviews with employees, supervisors and travelers there and supporting emails and documentation provided to POLITICO under FOIA.

Jan. 3: ‘Increase your security awareness’

Fasano, whose career took her from San Diego to New Jersey before landing in Blaine, was on vacation when she received that first email from Executive Assistant Commissioner Todd Owen in the hours after the drone strike.

The email was marked as a high-importance message and mentioned that acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan would hold a call with senior leadership on the matter that day. Still, Owen noted at the beginning of the message that the directions were precautionary.

“There is no specific intelligence at this time indicating any such threat here, but none the less [sic], please increase your security awareness at our facilities to better safeguard our employees,” Owen wrote.

When Fasano assembled her area port directors by phone to discuss heightened security measures, she noted it was her first security threat since arriving at the Seattle field office in 2019.

Owen’s email had mentioned certain travelers, she said, so the officials talked about the killing of Soleimani, who had led the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military arm charged with defending Iran’s political system. The attack at the direction of President Donald Trump had prompted the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to vow “a forceful revenge.”

“We talked about making sure that no one gets through who would present a threat,” Fasano later told investigators. There was no discussion about who should be referred to secondary inspection.

Fasano decided during a second call with senior field office management that, given the threat, approval for releasing individuals from additional screening would rest solely with her and Michael Freeman, assistant director of field operations for Seattle.

Fasano acknowledged it was an unusual requirement, but later explained to investigators that when she first arrived at the Seattle office, which is headquartered in Blaine, she believed port personnel were waving through travelers who should have been turned away.

But, she added, she “still expected her managers to oversee the operation at the ports and ensure the expedited processing of” U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

“I should have been much more explicit,” Fasano later acknowledged to investigators.

What would quickly be made clear was who CBP officers in the area were expected to target.

The Seattle office’s Tactical Analytical Unit soon circulated the “high threat alert” memo outlining the criteria for enhanced vetting: men and women “born after 1961 and born before 2001 with links,” such as birthplace, travel or citizenship, to Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

POLITICO and other media outlets first reported on the memo in January 2020 after a whistleblower brought it to Saunders’ attention.

The memo listed sample questions for officers to ask related to travelers’ jobs, education and military service, and the language did not explicitly exempt U.S. citizens and green card holders from the enhanced vetting.

“The directive clearly makes a link between people of Iranian descent and a security threat,” Jayapal told POLITICO.

One man who arrived in Blaine that Saturday with his wife and daughter after a shopping trip to Canada told investigators he was asked many questions “about his occupation, where he was born, his military experience, his time spent outside the U.S. to include travel to Iran, and multiple inquiries about his family and their background.”

The man said half the CBP officers he encountered that night were rude, while the other half tried to help travelers as best they could. His biggest complaint, he said, was that they were never told why they had to wait so long.

His daughter told investigators that she watched as white, Asian and Indian travelers were helped within minutes of entering the Peace Arch building.

An unidentified CBP supervisor who developed the specialized vetting criteria that weekend said she believed Customs and Border Protection was operating as if “we had crossed the line with Iran and we were about to get attacked.”

The officer tried without luck to enlist help from other offices within DHS to help with the impending workload. They didn’t seem concerned about the “Iranian threat,” she said, making her question how significant it really was.

Jan. 4: ‘It is out of our hands’

In the hours after the screening measures went into effect, no one called Fasano to report anything amiss. But she wasn’t answering emails, either.

Even though Fasano had dictated only she or Freeman could approve the release of travelers from secondary, her deputy would turn out to be the only one signing off requests.

Fasano received an email for each traveler sent to secondary, but she acknowledged none.

Freeman said he waited about 30 minutes after the arrival of the first requests because he thought Fasano wanted to give the OK. When she did not respond, he started green-lighting. He would approve all releases, except during the midnight shift when he delegated responsibility to another unit.

It was “fairly common” for Fasano to not pick up her phone or respond to emails or texts, Freeman told investigators.

The emails didn’t indicate how long it was taking to process the travelers, Fasano later said, and Freeman was quickly responding to the requests.

“I just assumed people were in and out,” she said.

Tired and hungry travelers filled the vestibule from Saturday night into Sunday morning. Several sat on the floor because there were not enough seats.

Officers eventually ordered Domino’s pizza for those stuck at the Peace Arch building, paying for it out of their own pockets. While travelers were able to keep their phones and pace the lobby, they were unable to leave until their secondary screenings were completed because officers confiscated their identification documents.

One woman who was stopped at Blaine’s Pacific Highway port with her husband and children — all American citizens — said they watched as CBP officers “constantly checked their computer screens to see if travelers could be allowed to leave.”

She recalled one officer telling travelers, “We don’t know anything,” when asked about the holdup. “It is out of our hands … we are not happy.”

She and her family finally left the port around 5 a.m. on Jan. 5, almost six hours after they’d arrived.

Delays were compounded by paperwork issues — misspellings, incomplete information and inconsistent communication between units.

But the root cause, investigators found, was the broad scope of the vetting criteria that had been “poorly communicated” to the field. Making things worse was the fact frontline officers were not granted discretion to implement the enhanced screening.

Fasano initially insisted that officers had not followed guidance — an assertion she partially backed away from during the internal investigation.

On the Saturday night, Fasano and Freeman were in touch — though they don’t agree what transpired.

Freeman says he told his boss they needed to “rethink” how the port was screening travelers.

Fasano told investigators that she was the one who wanted to change course, but that Freeman convinced her not to make any changes that night.

“There’s no way,” Freeman told investigators in a follow-up interview.

Jan. 5: ‘Stop it immediately’

By early Sunday, reporters were inquiring why so many people of Iranian descent had been held for extra screening. That’s when Randy Howe, then-executive director for field operations at CBP headquarters, stepped in.

Unable to contact Fasano, he reached out to Freeman.

After Freeman explained the vetting procedures, Howe told him to “stop it immediately.”

Freeman emailed port directors on Jan. 5 with new procedures. “For this operation, CBP will not target by nationality,” he wrote.

Freeman couldn’t recall any conversations before that Sunday among field office management about whether the vetting procedures they implemented could spur officers to violate agency policy or travelers’ civil rights.

January 2020: Fallout and aftermath

During the investigation, Freeman described a field office where personnel feared that to challenge Fasano would be to risk their jobs.

Their sense of the situation might help explain CBP’s reputation as one of the least desirable federal agencies to work for — it ranked 380th out of 420 “agency subcomponents” in the Partnership for Public Service’s 2019 listing of the best places to work in the federal government. Of the major agencies, DHS ranked last.

“For us in the field office, and the area port directors … we’re afraid of [Fasano],” Freeman said, “and the decision making that she makes.”

In the immediate aftermath, Fasano wanted to fire the two watch commanders who’d been on duty that weekend who, in her mind, didn’t speak up.

They “were the ones that would — should — have reported it,” Fasano said. “They are the ones who have the authority and expectation to take action when something is happening at the ports.”

She directed an employee to report the watch commanders for “dereliction of duty” to the Joint Intake Center, the DHS office that investigates complaints against CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees.

Fasano would later acknowledge to investigators that it was reasonable that officers interpreted the guidance to include shuttling U.S. citizens into secondary inspections.

“I didn’t articulate it clearly,” she said. “And I fully admit, I screwed up.”

Most travelers said they’d been treated respectfully during a precarious situation in which frontline officers were just doing their jobs. Many agreed that the time they were held was excessive, and a couple of individuals described rude interactions when they asked why they were being held for so long.

Fasano had not anticipated the procedures she signed off on would net such a large number of people, even though the region from Vancouver south to Seattle is home to a sizable Iranian expat community.

“Between the lack of guidance from headquarters when they issue security threat information … what exactly [did] they expect from us?” Fasano said. “We weren’t withholding any information or trying to conceal anything we were doing.”

In the months after the incident, members of Congress tried to get answers from CBP. Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene, whose district includes Blaine, said the report contains “more information on the events than what’s been shared with us over this period.”

“They haven’t provided a clear path to protect civil rights going forward, and that’s what needs to happen,” she told POLITICO.

Headquarters “grossly mishandled the messaging” amid the public relations fallout, Fasano said.

An agency spokesperson initially denied the agency was holding Iranian American travelers due to their country of origin based on directives from CBP or DHS.

Weeks later, Morgan, the acting commissioner, said there was no “national directive” to target Iranians for questioning. It was the first public acknowledgment that the Seattle office’s action was an outlier.

Fasano said she believed she was “set up” to take the fall and noted that the first time she was asked about the operation was at a meeting with congressional aides and DHS’ civil rights office — not by headquarters.

“They knew what went on in Blaine,” she said.

The episode illustrates a longstanding lack of accountability at DHS agencies, Jayapal said.

“We just need to overhaul these agencies from top to bottom to ensure the dignity, respect and civil liberties of people,” regardless of their nationality, she said.

While the Biden administration can make administrative changes, Jayapal said, restructuring the department would require legislation. “DHS, even under the best leadership, is an unaccountable agency,” she said. “It is so huge and sprawling.”

Fasano has since moved to a different role at CBP headquarters in Washington — executive director for the Office of Field Operations, Planning, Program Analysis and Evaluation.

“People routinely move throughout the organization both at headquarters and in the field for a variety of personal and professional reasons,” CBP spokesperson Givens said.

Matt Adams, legal director at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, one of the groups that sued CBP to release the directive, blasted the absence of recommendations in the report.

“It is masked as an internal affairs report, but it doesn’t take any steps toward requiring accountability,” he said.

Now that a federal judge has required CBP to disclose what he called the “underlying unlawful activity,” Adams said travelers who were affected by the directive that weekend — including American citizens and permanent residents — want to sue the federal government for damages.

When Howe, the former head of field operations at CBP headquarters, spoke to Fasano a few days after the incident, he said, she criticized her employees for not telling her about the delays.

“I’m still puzzled by that statement, because if she was giving approval, then she would have been aware,” Howe said.

One traveler told investigators that the six-hour wait at the Peace Arch crossing should never have happened to U.S. citizens. “His seven-year-old son was very traumatized by the situation, and his son was now fearful whenever crossing the border to go to Canada,” investigators wrote.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/16/customs-border-protection-iranian-americans-468851
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