Countries and companies should wake up to new political risks to shipping and supply chains.

This article appeared on Bloomberg.com on March 29, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
March 29, 2021

The Suez Canal Crisis of 2021 is upon us. The canal is closed, and maritime traffic jams extend into the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The reopening date is uncertain, supply chains are stressing, and executives are nervous.

“Crisis” may strike some as the wrong word. After all, there are no Cold War tensions as there were during the 1956 Suez Crisis, which closed the canal for six months, as the USSR simultaneously crushed the Hungarian Revolution. Nor are there Arab-Israeli military hostilities as during 1967’s Six-Day War, which (along with the 1973 Yom Kippur War) closed the Suez Canal for eight years.

The current blockage apparently arose from adverse weather conditions. But no one should underestimate the geostrategic warning it sends about the potential for political sabotage. As nature inspires art, so too does it inspire malevolence. This is not merely about geography, but also about today’s broader political risks to world commerce, ranging from one errant ship at Suez to confronting China’s enormous political, military and economic challenge.

Indisputably, political risks are now rising from sources not previously perceived. The coronavirus pandemic, for one, has alerted terrorist groups, rogue states and major powers alike that biological (and chemical) weapons have far more coercive power than once recognized. Such weapons are comparatively easier to make than nuclear devices.

New political risks have come on little cat feet, almost unnoticed. For decades, foreign investment in and reliance on supply sources in China expanded as if political risk were irrelevant. No longer. Former President Donald Trump’s tussle with Beijing, hardly amounting to a “trade war,” simply underscored the emerging political risks of dealing with China. Looking to hedge their bets, some foreign companies were already shifting capital allocations and supply chains to Southeast Asian countries, India and elsewhere. That trend is accelerating.

And the aggregate China risk factor will only increase. Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong and the city’s melancholy demise as a “rule-of-law” international enclave in China is all but certain. Computer-driven industrial and financial espionage, outright theft of intellectual property, discrimination against foreign firms, and internal political and religious oppression all make China an increasingly risky place to be. And as political conflicts between China and the West continue to escalate, it becomes more dangerous to rely on Chinese supply sources.

Many Europeans, favored Wall Street investors and well-paid pundits argue that rising tensions are not inevitable. Perhaps. Certainly, the risks of relying on China don’t rule out having any presence whatever in the country. There are innumerable intermediate options. Yet in virtually every line of business, the intermediate options cry out for estimating a higher risk to any material supply-chain investment in China.

Moreover, China is creating its own geostrategic choke points, by building naval and air bases on islands, rocks and reefs it claims in the South China Sea, and declaring the region a Chinese province. In the East China Sea, Beijing is threatening Taiwan and challenging Japan on the sovereignty of the islands called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyus in China. This menacing behavior leaves the economies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries in danger.

Clearly, geopolitical risks are rising sharply. And to mitigate disruption, governments and businesses must diversify their supply chains and methods of shipping, and avoid geographic or political chokepoints, man-made or natural.

The United Arab Emirates has shown foresight by building an oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. The East-West Petroline, running from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea, was also designed to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. Nevertheless, shipments must traverse either the Suez Canal or the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the Red Sea’s southern end, now threatened by Yemen’s Houthi rebels (who have also attacked the Petroline itself). Today’s Middle East might consider building pipelines and other shipment methods through Jordan to Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Iran may well have had such an alternative route in mind for its (and Iraq’s) oil in extending its military dominance through Lebanon and Syria to the Mediterranean.

By the same token, why shouldn’t American and European companies concentrate more investment and manufacturing in the Western Hemisphere (or at home) rather than in China? As long as they avoid the likes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, their political risk would be drastically lower, not to mention their transportation costs and possible losses during shipping. Perhaps the 2021 Suez Canal Crisis will have a silver lining after all, impelling governments and companies to come to terms with the new global security dangers they face.

This article appeared in The Daily News on February 8, 2020. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
February 8, 2021

Yemen’s long, bloody “civil war” — which has essentially become a proxy war between Iran and Gulf Arabs — is correctly seen as a humanitarian tragedy. Too many, however, including President Biden, mistakenly think that solving the tragedy requires blaming the wrong side, effectively exonerating the real culprits and their surrogates.

Biden said last week in his first presidential foreign-policy address that “we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” This sounds significant, except that direct U.S. involvement ended with the 2018 suspension of in-flight refueling of Saudi air operations in Yemen.

Biden had already “paused” several pending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, although these arms were always intended for general military purposes, not specifically for use in Yemen. Moreover, perhaps unwittingly, Biden’s ambiguous phrasing calls into question the separate U.S. campaign against Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, which threatens both Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

On Friday night, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced plans to revoke the Trump administration’s designation of the Houthi rebels, the principal target of Saudi and UAE military action, as a foreign terrorist organization. The Houthi, a Shia opposition sect, have long received considerable Iranian financial and military support, including in recent times cruise missiles and drones.

These weapons have been used against civilian targets in Saudi and the UAE, including airports and oil infrastructure. Along with weapons supplied by Iran to Shia militia groups in Iraq, they constitute real threats to the oil-producing Gulf monarchies.

In effect, Iran is trying to encircle its Arab enemies, chief among them Saudi Arabia, by installing a friendly regime in their backyard. Among the Arabian Peninsula states, Yemen is the poorest and most notably the only one without oil. Armed conflict and political hostility are the rule, not the exception, there: long-term, multilayered and ever-changing. Ancient strife led to repeated civil wars under British colonial rule and after 1967 when two independent states superseded the colony. Periodic conflicts between (and within) the two Yemens followed until, remarkably, reunification came in 1990.

It didn’t last long. Despite some short-lived stability, a Shia rebellion broke out in 2004. That revolt, after multiple permutations, is the primary conflict in Yemen today.

It is important to understand just what is going on here. Biden is not reversing President Trump’s strategy on Yemen, because Trump had none. He only branded the Houthis on his way out, Jan. 19, all but inviting Biden’s new team to upend the designation. Internal disputes and Trump’s own apathy thwarted action until his term was almost over.

Rather, Biden is making unforced concessions to Iran, laying the basis for resurrecting President Obama’s failed 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. The symbolic rhetorical gesture of “ending” U.S. support for Saudi war efforts is really a slap at Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, since 2015, Riyadh’s most forceful advocate for decisive action in Yemen.

Despite Biden’s implicit effort to characterize this as a brutal Saudi assault on an impoverished country, the central problem is Iran and its proxy, the Houthis. Biden’s decision to inhibit the Saudis and placate the Houthis will not contribute to peace, but will instead inspire the latter to further stiffen their position. Biden is following Obama’s utterly erroneous notion that appeasing Iran will induce it to engage in more civilized behavior on nuclear and other issues, and that Yemen’s Arab neighbors are the real threats to regional peace and security.

In fact, Tehran and its allies will be delighted that the Biden administration’s giveaways have begun, and you can anticipate the mullahs to ramp up their bloody and destabilizing mischief throughout the region and the world.

The White House justifies its policy by citing humanitarian concerns, ignoring that Iran and the Houthis, far better at ideological propaganda than their opponents, are cynically manipulating Yemeni civilians and foreign aid workers for their own strategic purposes. Listing the Houthi as terrorists, for example, was not an obstacle to the distribution of food or medical assistance, or to peacefully resolving the conflict. The obstacle is that the Houthis are terrorists, seeking, with Iran, tactical advantage over their local enemies while reducing the external support they can call upon.

At a bare minimum, U.S. pressure to bring peace and save civilian lives should be applied in an even-handed, not one-sided, manner. Doing that, however, might offend the terribly sensitive mullahs Biden is assiduously courting.

Iran has Biden right where it wants him. The losers are the Yemeni people. And, ultimately, the United States.

Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty dangerously undermines decades of carefully crafted U.S. policy.

This article appeared in Foreign Policy on December 15, 2020. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
December 15, 2020

Outgoing President Donald Trump’s Dec. 11 proclamation that the United States would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara marked yet another low for his administration. In an unrelated deal to facilitate the exchange of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco, Trump’s decision to throw the Sahrawi people under the bus ditches three decades of U.S. support for their self-determination via a referendum of the Sahrawi people on the territory’s future status.

Republican Sen. James Inhofe was exactly right when he said in a Senate floor speech on Dec. 10 that Trump “could have made this deal without trading away the rights of this voiceless people.” Inhofe is one of the few U.S. experts on Western Sahara, built up through years of service on both the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services, which he now chairs. I have worked frequently with Inhofe on the Western Sahara issue over the years, dating back to my own initial involvement as assistant secretary of state for international organizations during the George H.W. Bush administration.

Warm but unofficial relations between Israel and Morocco are nothing new. Morocco has long considered recognizing Israel, and King Hassan II aggressively pursued that option during the 1990s, as did other Arab nations. Secret Israeli-Moroccan contacts have been commonplace since. Today, full relations are thus neither new nor difficult to achieve. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recently taken the plunge, and more could follow. But what Morocco has actually agreed to remains unclear; Rabat denies it will open anything more than a “liaison office” in Israel (which it did in the 1990s), or that its deal actually involves full diplomatic relations.

In making his rash decision, Trump consulted neither the Polisario Front—which has long represented the Sahrawis—nor Algeria and Mauritania, the most concerned neighboring countries, nor anyone else. This is what happens when dilettantes handle U.S. diplomacy, and it is sadly typical of Trump’s nakedly transactional approach during his tenure.This is what happens when dilettantes handle U.S. diplomacy, and it is sadly typical of Trump’s nakedly transactional approach during his tenure. To him, everything is a potential deal, viewed in very narrow terms through the attention span of a fruit fly. Fully weighing all the merits and equities involved in complex international scenarios is not his style. Historical background and future ramifications? Those are for losers. Fortunately, Trump made no nuclear deal with North Korea or Iran; one can only imagine what he might have given away.
His casual approach to notching one more ostensible international victory raises significant problems of stability across the Maghreb. And crossing Inhofe, reelected last month to another six-year Senate term, was a major political mistake. Trump knows exactly how Inhofe feels about the Western Sahara; I was there in the Oval Office on May 1, 2019, when the Oklahoma senator explained his support for a referendum. Trump said he had never heard of Western Sahara, and Inhofe replied, “Oh, we spoke before, but you weren’t listening.”

The Washington Post reports that in recent weeks, Trump became irate that Inhofe would not accede to nongermane amendments that the president wanted in the annual defense authorization bill, such as repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media platforms from liability for what they publish. Trump’s advisors reportedly persuaded the president to stiff Inhofe on the Western Sahara in retaliation. But this standoff is far from over. Inhofe is a determined Sahrawi proponent, and, from his powerful position as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he will make the argument to reverse Trump’s decision directly to Biden if need be.

Where, then, does Trump’s reckless and unnecessary move leave President-elect Joe Biden and the foreign governments most directly interested in the Western Sahara?

The answer begins with the obvious—the very name of the U.N. peacekeeping operation authorized by Resolution 690 of 1991 was “Mission of the United Nations for the Referendum in Western Sahara” (MINURSO being the Spanish acronym). When Spain’s colonial rule collapsed with Francisco Franco’s 1975 death, and after an initial conflict between Mauritania and Morocco, the Polisario-Moroccan military hostilities left the territory partitioned and its status unresolved. The Polisario’s fundamental choice in 1991 was to suspend its ongoing confrontation with Morocco in exchange for a referendum, in which the choice would be between independence or unification with Morocco.

King Hassan II fully understood that this deal was, in Resolution 690’s express terms, “a referendum for self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.” The choice, stated in the first paragraph of the U.N. Secretary General’s report approved by Resolution 690, was “to choose between independence and integration with Morocco.” The 1997 Houston Accords, negotiated under James Baker’s auspices as the Secretary General’s personal envoy, reinforced that understanding. (At the time, I worked for Baker at the U.S. State Department, and I later assisted him in his work as the U.N. envoy.)

Members of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army take part in a ceremony to mark 40 years after the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was proclaimed by the Polisario Front in the disputed territory of Western Sahara at the Rabouni Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria, on Feb. 26, 2016.
Can John Bolton Thaw Western Sahara’s Long-Frozen Conflict?
The Polisario Front has created an international diplomatic presence on a shoestring budget and sees the Trump administration as its best hope in decades to gain independence from Morocco.

Nonetheless, Morocco has spent nearly three decades preventing the referendum from taking place. Together with France and other Security Council allies, it has tried, unfortunately with some success, to blur Resolution 690’s referendum commitment. Rabat has offered a variety of so-called autonomy proposals, not one of which has ever come close to being acceptable to the Polisario, proposing a referendum on incorporation versus “autonomy.” To the Sahrawi, this is a take it or leave it proposition, and has therefore always been unacceptable. From Morocco’s perspective, this kind of so-called peace process could go on forever: Rabat not only controls the vast bulk of the Western Sahara’s territory militarily, but, through successive waves of settlement from Morocco proper, is trying to overwhelm the ethnic Sahrawi population. Secretary General António Guterres’s statement following Trump’s announcement, for example, called for preserving the 1991 cease-fire, but spoke only about a “resumption of the peace process.”

If Morocco won’t accept a referendum, it doesn’t deserve a cease-fire or a false “peace process.”

This is a pathetic—and authoritative—admission of 30 years of U.N. failure. The Polisario did not abandon its war against Morocco for a “peace process,” but for a referendum. One obvious option, therefore, is to terminate MINURSO, and return to the status quo ante of open hostilities. With the original deal broken, and Morocco for three decades evincing no intention of accepting a referendum, why keep a U.N. peacekeeping operation on perpetual life support? If Morocco won’t accept a referendum, it doesn’t deserve a cease-fire or a false “peace process.”

In fact, a major cease-fire violation occurred last month, so serious that many believed full military hostilities might resume. For now, there is no way to tell whether this is likely, or what the outcome might be. But make no mistake, the Polisario is at a crucial juncture. It would be fully justified if it chooses to return to the battlefield, but much depends on the positions of Algeria, Mauritania, and others—and what resources are available.

For the Polisario, Trump’s about-face is more than disappointing. It broke a U.S. commitment that once looked rock-solid, and which I tried to defend and advance during my time as national security advisor—often in the face of the State Department’s determination to find a way to solidify Moroccan control of Western Sahara.

Unfortunately, the Sahrawis are not the first during Trump’s tenure to experience an assault on one U.S. undertaking after another, imperiling even long-standing formal U.S. alliances like NATO. It is perfectly appropriate for a nation to modify its responsibilities in light of changed national-security circumstances, but it is quite another to gratuitously destroy a commitment, with no consultation, just to make a so-called deal in a completely separate context.It is perfectly appropriate for a nation to modify its responsibilities in light of changed national-security circumstances, but it is quite another to gratuitously destroy a commitment, with no consultation, just to make a so-called deal in a completely separate context. Fortunately, Trump’s time is all but over.
From the perspective of U.S. policy, the best outcome would be for Biden, once inaugurated, to reverse Trump’s acquiescence to Moroccan sovereignty. This will not be easy, given the expectations—misguided though they are—already built up in Rabat and Jerusalem. If Biden wants to do a 180-degree turn, he should do so immediately on taking office, which would minimize any damage.

There are other obstacles. Ironically, Trump’s insouciance gave the State Department bureaucracy exactly what it has wanted since Resolution 690 first encountered stiff Moroccan resistance within months of its adoption nearly three decades ago. Rabat had argued that losing the Western Sahara referendum would destabilize its monarchy, and the State Department’s bureaucrats lapped it up. In fact, the referendum’s outcome would almost certainly depend on who constitutes the voting-eligible population, yet another issue Morocco has contested despite its earlier commitment to the 1975 Spanish census defining the universe of eligible voters—an era before Morocco sought to engineer the territory’s demographics in its favor. Notwithstanding substantial Moroccan transfers of population into Western Sahara, and the supposed benefits of its rule, Rabat and the U.S. State Department both fear they haven’t done enough to achieve the result they want.

Morocco is no longer really concerned about its monarchy’s stability being undermined by formal diplomatic ties with Israel than are Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, or other Gulf Arab states yet to come around. What is really behind Morocco’s argument is that Rabat has come to believe its own propaganda, rather than its underlying reason for the occupation—which is that it wants control over possible substantial mineral resources buried under all that Saharan sand, fishing assets, and possible resort development opportunities for tourists.

Biden, of course, will have a few other things on his mind on Jan. 20 apart from Western Sahara. While Biden and his advisors formulate their own policy, they can lay down a marker that Trump’s about-face is under review, insisting in the meantime that a referendum is still a prerequisite before the United States will consider the Western Sahara issue resolved. There should be no outcome acceptable to Washington that is not approved by the Sahrawis in an internationally conducted, free, and fair vote—with a yes-or-no choice on full independence on the ballot. Morocco may gag at this option, but it has little choice but to accept it if the United States insists on it.

For Algeria, Mauritania, Israel, and European leaders, there is not much to lose if Biden reverses Trump’s misguided move. It will be a welcome relief that the prospect of conflict with Morocco has been at least postponed. These states should all insist that the Western Sahara’s future should not be shuffled aside, a development that only benefits Morocco, given its de facto control over the bulk of the territory.

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have already freed Israel from the formal diplomatic isolation it faced for many years. Whatever Morocco does in response to a new Biden policy that reaffirms Western Sahara’s status quo will affect Israel only slightly. And graciously accepting what a new Biden administration says about the territory may well be in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interest. In this way he could, at essentially no cost to Israel—for which the Western Sahara is a non-issue—add to his political capital with Biden for issues that really matter, like taking on the threat posed by Iran.

The European Union—especially Spain, the former colonial power, where support for the Sahrawi remains quite strong; and France, Morocco’s protector—could summon up a few words about self-determination to help move the process along. If they choose not to say anything, they should remain silent bystanders and avoid compounding Trump’s mistake.

A post-inauguration bipartisan agreement between Biden and Inhofe could repair the disarray caused by Trump’s gratuitous grandstanding. Such a deal would mark a welcome change from the past four years of chaos and division, and a return to pursuing U.S. national interests rather than those of Donald Trump.

Misguided opposition in the Senate bodes ill for U.S. Mideast policy in the Biden administration.

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on December 6, 2020. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
December 6, 2020

Senate opposition to the proposed U.S. arms sales to the United Arab Emirates reflects a dangerous reversion to the Obama-era understanding of the Middle East. While opponents of the deal claim that the Emirates have misused other U.S. weapons in Yemen, the real issue is much broader.

A Senate vote on legislation to halt the $23 billion arms deal is expected in days. While opposition will likely fail—even if the bill passes, supermajorities would be needed to override the expected presidential veto—the thinking behind it foreshadows an ill-advised Biden administration policy toward Iran.

The Iranian threat to regional peace and security has altered the strategic reality of the Middle East since the misbegotten 2015 nuclear deal. Arab states increasingly fear Tehran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but also its support for terrorism in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, as well as its conventional military activities. The decision by Bahrain and the U.A.E. to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel shows how Iran’s increased—and largely unchallenged—belligerence has realigned the Middle East’s correlation of forces.

Many of these shifts stem from the nuclear deal, which released between $120 billion and $150 billion in frozen assets and freed Iran from arduous economic sanctions, providing Tehran the resources to expand its military and clandestine capabilities. Iran’s Quds Force used its share of the windfall to beef up support for Iraqi Shiite militias, Syria’s Assad, and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. In response, the Emirates and other U.S. friends rightly want more-advanced arms.

Less reported, but of vital importance to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s six Arab member states, was Iran’s dramatic expansion of support for Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Previous Iranian aid to the Houthis had been intended to stalemate Saudi and Emirati efforts to install a stable, pro-GCC government in San’a, but in 2017 Tehran ramped up shipments of sophisticated weaponry that could strike far beyond Yemen’s borders. This threatened Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure; important civilian airports in Riyadh, Dubai and Abu Dhabi; and commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, critical sea lanes to the Suez Canal.

The Gulf Arab states are entirely justified in resisting Tehran’s intrusion into their backyard. Yemen’s conflict has had more than its share of brutality, much of it caused by the Houthis’ inhumanity and ruthless exploitation of food-aid programs. Iran’s intervention and cynical manipulation of the disarray has compounded the humanitarian problem.

Blocking arms sales to the U.A.E. or Saudi Arabia wouldn’t ameliorate conditions in Yemen. The Emiratis have scaled back their involvement, and the Saudi-led coalition has taken much-needed steps to avoid civilian casualties. U.S. weapons are needed more urgently to defend against Iran’s threat in the Gulf. U.S. vacillation could thwart the emerging Israeli-Arab template for regional peace and stability. The Arabs are deeply concerned by President Trump’s policy gyrations, including troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. They fear that under Joe Biden the U.S. presence will recede further, leaving them increasingly vulnerable to Iran’s aspirations for hegemony.

Unlike in years past, Israel doesn’t object to the proposed arms deal. While it is too early to call Israel’s ties with the Arabs “alliances,” such relations could arise. In any case, they are all U.S. allies. Strengthening these links benefits America.

Other than virtue signaling, what conceivable reason is there to oppose arming a vulnerable ally, the U.A.E.? The most troubling possibility is that Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats cling to the romantic notion that Tehran’s ayatollahs long to join “the international community.” If only America and its regional allies dropped their hostility and Washington rejoined the 2015 deal, the argument goes, Iran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs would cease to be problems. Other issues could be negotiated and the Middle East would be at peace. This was nonsense in 2015 and still is.

The Biden team stresses constantly the need to strengthen relations with allies—conventional wisdom for all but Mr. Trump. But not every ally thinks alike. America’s Middle Eastern friends, who live well within range of Tehran’s missiles, drones, terrorist proxies and conventional forces, don’t buy the “peace in our time” theory. U.S. allies in Europe want to revitalize the nuclear deal, but does it tell us anything that Russia and China agree?

This is an early test: Does Mr. Biden know that Iran is the biggest threat to regional security? Will he realize how dramatically the ground in the Middle East has shifted?

U.S. policy should be to end the Islamic Republic before its 40th anniversary

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on January 16, 2018. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
January 16, 2018

President Trump seemingly served notice Friday that the days are dwindling for Barack Obama’s Iran agreement. Although deal proponents also gained time to pursue “fixes,” this is a forlorn option. No fix will remedy the diplomatic Waterloo Mr. Obama negotiated. Democrats will reject anything that endangers his prized international contrivance, and the Europeans are more interested in trade with Tehran than a stronger agreement.

There is an even more fundamental obstacle: Iran. Negotiating with Congress and Europe will not modify the actual deal’s terms, which Iran (buttressed by Russia and China) has no interest in changing. Increased inspections, for example, is a nonstarter for Tehran. Mr. Obama gave the ayatollahs what they wanted; they will not give it back.

Most important, there is no evidence Iran’s intention to obtain deliverable nuclear weapons has wavered. None of the proposed “fixes” change this basic, unanswerable reality.

Spending the next 120 days negotiating with ourselves will leave the West mired in stasis. Mr. Trump correctly sees Mr. Obama’s deal as a massive strategic blunder, but his advisers have inexplicably persuaded him not to withdraw. Last fall, deciding whether to reimpose sanctions and decertify the deal under the Corker-Cardin legislation, the administration also opted to keep the door open to “fixes”—a punt on third down. Let’s hope Friday’s decision is not another punt.

The Iran agreement rests on inadequate knowledge and fundamentally flawed premises. Mr. Obama threw away any prospect of learning basic facts about Iran’s capabilities. Provisions for international inspection of suspected military-related nuclear facilities are utterly inadequate, and the U.S. is likely not even aware of all the locations. Little is known, at least publicly, about longstanding Iranian-North Korean cooperation on nuclear and ballistic-missile technology. It is foolish to play down Tehran’s threat because of Pyongyang’s provocations. They are two sides of the same coin.

Some proponents of “strengthening” the deal propose to eliminate its sunset provisions. That would achieve nothing. Tehran’s nuclear menace, especially given the Pyongyang connection, is here now, not 10 years away. One bizarre idea is amending the Corker-Cardin law to avoid the certification headache every 90 days. Tehran would endorse this proposal, but it is like taking aspirin to relieve the pain of a sucking chest wound.

This article appeared in The Pittsburgh Tribune Review on December 9, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
November 21, 2017

President Trump’s announcement Wednesday that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was both correct and prudent from America’s perspective. Much more remains to be done to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but this was a vital first step.

What is now critical is implementing Trump’s decision. Will the State Department actually carry out the new U.S. policy — which State’s bureaucracy strongly opposed — or will the entrenched opponents of moving the embassy subvert it quietly by inaction and obfuscation?

In 1948, the United States, under Harry Truman, was the first country to recognize the modern state of Israel upon its declaration of independence. Nonetheless, Truman, at the State Department’s urging, declined to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a mistake continued by his successors. Trump has now corrected this error: Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital since 1948, and the sooner the American flag flies over the American embassy there, the better.

The expected protests and violence from the usual suspects in the Middle East have already begun, and more can be expected. Fear of these protests has deterred prior administrations from moving the embassy to Jerusalem. But it is wrong for America to bend to such efforts to intimidate us. Congressional support will be overwhelming, as it should be; over 20 years ago, the House and the Senate legislated almost unanimously that the president should relocate our embassy to Jerusalem. Given the inevitable bureaucratic obstructionism, however, Congress must continue playing an important role — by constantly prodding the State Department and by providing prompt and adequate funding for building a first-class new embassy.

At a stroke, Trump has also extinguished numerous fantasies still thriving at the United Nations and in many national capitals around the world. The first is that several General Assembly resolutions from the U.N.’s early days in the late 1940s still have any force or effect. Trump’s announcement, for example, means that Resolution 181 (creating an Arab and a Jewish state out of Britain’s Palestinian mandate and establishing Jerusalem as a corpus separatum — an independent city under U.N. Trusteeship Council authority) is a dead letter. Moreover, the so-called “right of return” for Palestinian refugees arising from Israel’s 1947-49 war of independence, long out of date and flatly rejected by Israel, is now also on history’s trash heap.

Trump’s embassy decision helps bring into focus the real issues that now need to be addressed. The Middle East peace process has long needed clarity and an injection of reality, and Trump has provided it. Palestinian leaders have for decades said that moving the embassy would bring negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to a grinding halt. That is true only if the Palestinians wish it, and would demonstrate that their commitment to true peace that recognizes the permanence of Israel was a snowflake, insincere from the start.

No lasting peace can be based on illusions, and Trump’s approach has made that objective more rather than less likely.

This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on November 13, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
November 13, 2017

Almost unnoticed in the coverage of President Trump’s Asia trip, Lebanon is slipping under Iran’s control. On Nov. 3, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni, resigned, citing fears of assassination by Hezbollah, the Shia terrorist group funded and controlled by Iran. No one can say Hariri’s fears are unjustified since his father, former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, was murdered in 2005 — almost certainly at Syrian or Iranian direction.

While the full ramifications of Saad Hariri’s resignation remain to be seen, Tehran’s ayatollahs have now significantly extended their malign reach in the Middle East. This is bad for the people of Lebanon; bad for Israel, with which Lebanon shares a common border and a contentious history; bad for Arab states like Jordan and the oil-producing Arabian Peninsula monarchies; and bad for America and its vital national interests in this critical region.

Sadly, Iran’s progress was foreseeable from the inception of Barack Obama’s strategy of using Iraqi military forces and Shia militia units as critical elements in the campaign to eradicate the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq. The Baghdad government is effectively Iran’s satellite. Accordingly, Obama’s decision to provide that regime with military assistance and advice strengthened Iran’s hand even further and materially contributed to its efforts to establish dominance in Iraq’s Shia regions.

Moreover, Iran itself, supported by Russian forces in Syria, aided and directed the Bashar Assad regime in fighting against both ISIS and the Syrian opposition. Iran also ordered Hezbollah to deploy from Lebanon into Syria, thus effectively creating a Shia-dominated arc of control from Iran itself to the Mediterranean.

Apparently, neither the Pentagon, nor the State Department, nor the National Security Council advised the new Trump administration of the implications of facilitating Iran’s Middle East grand strategy. Obama’s approach is, ironically, easier to understand, given his determination to secure his “legacy” by conceding vital U.S. national interests to nail down the Iran nuclear deal. Seeing Iran enhance its hegemonic aspirations throughout the region was, in his view, just another small price to pay to grease the way for the nuclear deal. Trump’s advisers have no such excuse.

Hariri’s resignation shows the inevitable consequences of blindly following Obama’s approach. Very little now stands in the way of Hezbollah’s total domination of the Lebanese government, thereby posing an immediate threat to Israel. In recent years, Tehran continued supplying the Assad regime and Hezbollah with weapons systems dangerous to Israel. Even more Israeli self-defense strikes are now likely, as Iran’s conventional threat on Israel’s borders grows.

Nearby Arab states also see the potential dangers of an unbroken Shia military arc of control on their northern periphery. The Middle East thus faces an advancing Syria, backed by Iran’s imminent nuclear-weapons capability, deliverable throughout the region — and likely able to reach America in short order.

The Trump administration cannot continue idly watching Iran advance without opposition. Washington and its regional allies need a comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran, not a series of ad hoc responses to regional developments. Time is fast running out.

America’s embassy in Israel should be moved to Jerusalem – NOW

This article appeared in FoxNews.com on November 8, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
November 8, 2017

Whether to move America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has long been a subject of political debate in the U.S. and abroad. It’s time now to resolve the debate by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city and relocating our embassy there on incontestably Israeli sovereign territory.

This relocation would be sensible, prudent and efficient for the United States. It would not adversely affect negotiations over Jerusalem’s final status or the broader Middle East peace process, nor would it impair our diplomatic relations among predominantly Arab and Muslim nations.

Over the years, as with many other aspects of Middle Eastern geopolitics, a near-theological view has developed here and abroad about the impact of moving the U.S. embassy. Now is the ideal time to sweep this detritus aside and initiate the long-overdue transfer.

Common sense dictates that America’s overseas diplomats should be located near the seat of government to which they are accredited, giving them proximity to political leaders and major government institutions. This also puts our diplomats near representatives of political, economic and social interests in the nations where the diplomats serve.

If the Middle East peace process is such a delicate snowflake that the U.S. embassy’s location in Israel could melt it, one has to doubt how viable it truly is.

Despite modern transportation and telecommunications capabilities, distance from the seat of government still imposes costs in time and resources, not to mention aggravation, on our diplomats in Israel. There is still no substitute for personal contact, face-to-face communications and easy accessibility – especially in times of crisis – with host-government officials and political leaders.

It’s legitimate for Congress to raise budgetary issues regarding both existing operations and the costs of a new embassy. Here, the verdict is clear. Congress staked out its position in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate.

Locating a new U.S. embassy in indisputably Israeli territory would be straightforward. Israel’s government has designated a site in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood, held in Israeli hands since the nation gained independence in 1948, for our new embassy.

Despite the overwhelming diplomatic and managerial advantages of relocating our embassy, numerous political issues have been advanced for keeping it in Tel Aviv. Some of these arguments are offered in good faith, including by those who wish Israel no harm.

But let’s be honest; many of these arguments are made for precisely the opposite reason – to continue to deny to Israel the acknowledgment that it is a legitimate state with a legitimate capital. There is a sense that perhaps repeating the arguments over time can make them more persuasive than their underlying merits.

The United States should treat respectfully all legitimate opinions regarding the embassy move. But we must not be held hostage to the misconceptions of those wishing neither us nor Israel well.

We should not discount our ability to justify our actions, even against propagandists attempting to falsify our intentions and integrity. Succumbing to threats for decades shows precisely the opposite about the character of our nation. It shows us susceptible to intimidation on the embassy location issue and, therefore, potentially also susceptible to intimidation on others.

Where the U.S. locates our embassy in Israel is a matter for America and Israel to decide.

One argument against moving the U.S. embassy is that so doing would prejudice the final status negotiations over Jerusalem. This argument is, at best, disingenuous. No serious proposal has ever suggested building embassy facilities anywhere east of the Green Line into territory Israel captured in the Six-Day War in 1967, in an area known as East Jerusalem.

Instead, proposals call for our embassy in the western portion of Jerusalem that has been Israel’s capital for as long as Israel has existed as a modern state. This is territory that Israel will hold unless its most ardent opponents get their wish and Israel is eradicated. Ironically, despite being the first country to recognize the new State of Israel in 1948, America has never formally recognized its sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem.

The origin of the opposition to establishing foreign embassies in Jerusalem stems from United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, adopted in November 1947, creating three entities out of what remained of Great Britain’s Palestinian Trusteeship: an Arab state, a Jewish state, and “the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.”

Resolution 181 designated Jerusalem as a corpus separatum – a Latin term meaning a city or region given special legal and political status different from the surrounding area, but not considered an independent city-state. Jerusalem was placed under the authority of the U.N. Trusteeship Council – the U.N. Charter body administering, among other things, former mandates under the League of Nations.

Today, just weeks before Resolution 181’s 70th anniversary, it is a dead letter. Whatever else Jerusalem’s final status may be, there is no serious advocacy that Jerusalem be internationalized, and no real-world possibility that it will happen.

Nonetheless, the lingering effects of the internationalization idea persist in the contention that uncertainty exists over whether any part of Jerusalem will ultimately become Israel’s capital city.

In April this year, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that: “We reaffirm our commitment to the U.N.-approved principles for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, which include the status of east Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. At the same time, we must state that in this context we view west Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

Moscow’s frank acknowledgement of Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital, and the near-total absence of reaction around the world – especially in the Middle East – evidences the reality into which a U.S. decision to relocate its embassy would fall.

If Russia can accept that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital without receiving massive blowback, then surely so can the United States.

The second argument against relocation of the U.S. embassy is that the broader Middle East peace process would be adversely impacted. Palestinian negotiator Saab Erekat said last December, for example, that moving the embassy would cause the “destruction of the peace process as a whole.”

Surely, quite apart from being the kind of threat we should treat with disdain, this argument proves too much to swallow. Given the amount of economic and military assistance Washington has supplied to Israel over the years – not to mention huge amounts of private donations and humanitarian assistance from U.S. citizens – American support for the permanence of modern Israel should not be surprising.

If the Middle East peace process is such a delicate snowflake that the U.S. embassy’s location in Israel could melt it, one has to doubt how viable it truly is. This question calls for realism, not the overheated rhetoric we have heard too often.

Washington’s role as honest broker in the peace process will not be enhanced or reduced in the slightest by moving our embassy to Jerusalem. To say otherwise is to mistake pretext for actual cause.

Moving our embassy may produce new talking points for those who have never reconciled themselves to Israel’s existence in the first place, but it will not “cause” any change in the existing geopolitical state of play.

Finally, we hear constantly the argument that concedes an eventual decision to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel, but pleads that “right now” is not the correct time. This approach argues for a temporary deferral of the move, but curiously, “temporary” deferral has now lasted for nearly 70 years. We hear it still today.