MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Pompeo’

How Bolton, Netanyahu and Pompeo sabotaged Trump’s dream of talks with Iran

Posted by M. C. on June 22, 2020

Bolton recounts this story with pride, and hints that the efforts by himself and Pompeo, with Netanyahu’s backing, stopped Trump from going for a broader U.S.-Iran deal, which was being pushed at the time by French President Emmanuel Macron.

https://outline.com/2s9RB6

Amir Tibon

In his new book, John Bolton recounts how a potential meeting between the U.S. president and Iran’s foreign minister spread panic among top U.S. and Israeli officials last summer

WASHINGTON – Benjamin Netanyahu is mentioned over 30 times in John Bolton’s new book, “The Room Where it Happened,” which details his tumultuous 18 months working as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

Most of the references to the Israeli prime minister are short descriptions of conversations between Netanyahu and Bolton regarding Iran, containing very little new or significant information.

One story Bolton tells in more detail, however, reveals how Netanyahu – together with Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – reportedly sabotaged Trump’s attempts to open diplomatic channels with Tehran last summer.

Bolton recounts this story with pride, and hints that the efforts by himself and Pompeo, with Netanyahu’s backing, stopped Trump from going for a broader U.S.-Iran deal, which was being pushed at the time by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The events Bolton describes happened in the lead-up to his own ouster from the White House. First, in June 2019, Trump surprised and disappointed Bolton and the other Iran hawks in his administration by canceling, at the last moment, a military strike against Iranian targets in retaliation for an Iranian attack on a U.S. military drone. Bolton describes that event as one of the most unprofessional decisions he had ever witnessed in his career in national security.

Later that summer, as tensions with Iran continued to rise, Macron began to offer Trump his help as a mediator between the two countries. His grand plan, according to Bolton, was for Trump to meet with a senior Iranian official in late August in the French coastal town of Biarritz, as France was hosting a meeting of the G-7 countries with the American president in attendance.

Bolton writes how he and Pompeo, the administration’s two most prominent Iran hawks, both worked during the summer to scuttle Macron’s diplomatic efforts and convince Trump to reject any proposal. But Macron, he explains, surprised them by inviting Mohammad Javad Zarif to the G-7 gathering, opening the door for a potential meeting between Iran’s foreign minister and Trump.

For Bolton, Pompeo and Netanyahu, this was unacceptable, especially because Macron was also promoting another idea: an international “credit line” to Iran that would ease some of the grave economic pressure placed on the country by Trump’s imposition of sanctions.

Bolton writes that when Trump arrived in Biarritz in August, he had an unscheduled one-on-one meeting with Macron, during which Iran was the sole topic under discussion. According to Bolton, Trump later described that conversation as “the best hour and a half he’d ever spent.”

The next day, rumors about Zarif’s imminent arrival in southern France began to surface. Bolton received a worried call from Pompeo, who had spoken earlier with Netanyahu about airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria that had been attributed to Israel. Bolton fails to mention in the book that all of this was happening just three weeks before Israel’s September 17 election, at a point in time when Netanyahu was down in the polls and short of the majority he needed in order to be granted immunity from prosecution on corruption charges.

After the call with Pompeo, Bolton heard from Trump’s personal staff that Macron had invited the president to meet with Zarif, and he was “eager” to take the meeting. Bolton’s reaction was to ask his own staff to prepare a flight for him to return to the United States: if the meeting were to go ahead, he would resign immediately from the White House.

Pompeo and Bolton continued to communicate in an attempt to stop Trump from meeting Zarif, and Bolton writes that both of them were at the same time also speaking to Netanyahu and his ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer. Bolton asked Pompeo to tell Netanyahu and Dermer that he “felt like the Light Brigade” – meaning that his efforts to stop the meeting were running into powerful forces he was not necessarily equipped to overcome.

In Bolton’s telling, two other senior administration officials – Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner – were in favor of taking the Zarif meeting. Pompeo complained to Bolton that “we have Mnuchin and Jared, two Democrats, running our foreign policy.”

Bolton told Pompeo of his intention to resign, and the secretary of state replied that if the meeting went through, he would do the same, according to Bolton.

Bolton wrote that he then had a conversation with Trump, in which he told the president that if the United States released even just a bit of the pressure placed on Iran, it would be “very difficult” to put it back in place. He urged Trump not to meet Zarif at all – not even for a private handshake, as Trump suggested at some point he wanted to do. Bolton said he was encouraged, however, by the fact that Trump had soured on the credit line idea, stating: “They’re not getting any line of credit until the whole deal is done.” This, Bolton writes, was the opposite of what Macron suggested – opening a line of credit as a gesture of goodwill that would lead to further negotiations.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, was trying to reach Trump directly to explain his strong opposition to the meeting but, in Bolton’s telling, could not get through to the president. Bolton said Kushner was against connecting the two men, because he found it inappropriate for a foreign leader to try to dictate to Trump whom he should speak to.

Bolton was convinced the meeting with Zarif would happen before the end of the G-7 summit, but he provides no clear explanation as to why it eventually didn’t. At the time, most analysts wrote that the meeting never took place mostly because of the Iranians, who demanded a concrete easing of sanctions before giving Trump the photo opportunity he was craving.

Bolton concludes the chapter by writing that he “couldn’t rule out” the possibility that Kushner or Mnuchin met with Zarif instead of Trump, in order to “create a future channel of communication,” and that this option caused great concern to Israeli officials and made Pompeo “livid.”

“I don’t know if I had talked Trump out of meeting Zarif,” Bolton concluded, “but the decision [not to hold the meeting] was enough” to stop Bolton from resigning, at least for a few more weeks. Eventually, he left the White House in early September 2019. In the year that has passed since those summer months, there has been no diplomatic progress between the United States and Iran.

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Tomgram: Danny Sjursen, Trump’s Own Military Mafia | TomDispatch

Posted by M. C. on May 1, 2020

And that’s my point, really. We have a system in Washington that couldn’t be more lawful and yet, by any definition, the class of ’86 represents one giant conflict of interest (and they don’t stand alone). Alums from that year are now ensconced in every level of the national security state: from the White House to the Pentagon to Congress to K Street to corporate boardrooms. And they have both power and a deep stake, financial or otherwise, in maintaining or expanding the (forever) warfare state.

https://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176686/tomgram%3A_danny_sjursen%2C_trump%27s_own_military_mafia_/

Posted by Danny Sjursen

I’m sure you still remember them. The president regularly called them “my generals.” They were, he claimed, from “central casting” and there were three of them: retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who was first appointed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and then White House chief of staff; Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who became the president’s national security advisor; and last (but hardly least) retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, whom Trump particularly adored for his nickname “Mad Dog” and appointed as secretary of defense. Of him, the president said, “If I’m doing a movie, I pick you, General Mattis, who’s doing really well.”

They were referred to in Washington and in the media more generally as “the adults in the room,” indicating what most observers (as well as insiders) seemed to think about the president — that he was, in effect, the impulsive, unpredictable, self-obsessed toddler in that same room. All of them had been commanders in the very conflicts that Donald Trump had labeled “ridiculous Endless Wars” and were distinctly hawkish and uncritical of those same wars (like the rest of the U.S. high command). It was even rumored that, as “adults,” Kelly and Mattis had made a private pact not to be out of the country at the same time for fear of what might happen in their absence. By the end of 2018, of course, all three were gone. “My generals” were no more, but the toddler remained.

As TomDispatch regular, West Point graduate (class of 2005), and retired Army Major Danny Sjursen explains in remarkable detail today, while the president finally tossed “his” generals in the nearest trash can, the “adults” (and you do have to keep that word in quotation marks) didn’t, in fact, leave the toddler alone in the Oval Office. They simply militarized and de-militarized at the same time. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the Trumpian moment. Tom

“Courage Never Quits”?
The Price of Power and West Point’s Class of 1986
By Danny Sjursen

Every West Point class votes on an official motto. Most are then inscribed on their class rings. Hence, the pejorative West Point label “ring knocker.” (As legend has it, at military meetings a West Pointer “need only knock his large ring on the table and all Pointers present are obliged to rally to his point of view.”) Last August, the class of 2023 announced theirs: “Freedom Is Not Free.” Mine from the class of 2005 was “Keeping Freedom Alive.” Each class takes pride in its motto and, at least theoretically, aspires to live according to its sentiments, while championing the accomplishments of fellow graduates.

But some cohorts do stand out. Take the class of 1986 (“Courage Never Quits“). As it happens, both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are members of that very class, as are a surprisingly wide range of influential leaders in Congress, corporate America, the Pentagon, the defense industry, lobbying firms, Big Pharma, high-end financial services, and even security-consulting firms. Still, given their striking hawkishness on the subject of American war-making, Esper and Pompeo rise above the rest. Even in a pandemic, they are as good as their class motto. When it comes to this country’s wars, neither of them ever quits.

Once upon a time, retired Lieutenant General Douglas Lute (Class of ’75), a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, taught both Esper and Pompeo in his West Point social sciences class. However, it was Pompeo, the class of ’86 valedictorian, whom Lute singled out for praise, remembering him as “a very strong student — fastidious, deliberate.” Of course, as the Afghanistan Papers, released by the Washington Post late last year, so starkly revealed, Lute told an interviewer that, like so many U.S. officials, he “didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking in Afghanistan.” Though at one point he was President George W. Bush’s “Afghan war czar,” the general never expressed such doubts publicly and his record of dissent is hardly an impressive one. Still, on one point at least, Lute was on target: Esper and Pompeo are smart and that’s what worries me (as in the phrase “too smart for their own good”).

Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist, had particularly hawkish views on Russia and China before he ever took over at the Pentagon and he wasn’t alone when it came to the urge to continue America’s wars. Pompeo, then a congressman, exhibited a striking pre-Trump-era foreign policy pugnacity, particularly vis-à-vis the Islamic world. It has since solidified into a veritable obsession with toppling the Iranian regime.

Their militarized obsessions have recently taken striking form in two ways: the secretary of defense instructed U.S. commanders to prepare plans to escalate combat against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, an order the mission’s senior leader there, Lieutenant General Robert “Pat” White, reportedly resisted; meanwhile, the secretary of state evidently is eager to convince President Trump to use the Covid-19 pandemic, now devastating Iran, to bomb that country and further strangle it with sanctions. Worse yet, Pompeo might be just cunning enough to convince his ill-informed, insecure boss (so open to clever flattery) that war is the answer.

The militarism of both men matters greatly, but they hardly pilot the ship of state alone, any more than Trump does (whatever he thinks). Would that it were the case. Sadly, even if voters threw them all out, the disease runs much deeper than them. Enter the rest of the illustrative class of ’86.

As it happens, Pompeo’s and Esper’s classmates permeate the deeper structure of imperial America. And let’s admit it, they are, by the numbers, an impressive crew.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Russia and China Assist European Nations – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 26, 2020

US/NATO bombs Serbia, EU ignores it, Russia and China save it.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/yvonne-lorenzo/russia-and-china-assist-european-nations/

By

Lew Rockwell recently in his powerful “War on China?” wrote that “People are understandably upset about the coronavirus epidemic, but if we’re not careful, an even greater danger lies ahead. Sinister forces in American political life are using the crisis to incite war with China and to stir up bad feelings towards the Chinese people. The Chinese people are in fact heroic. They are our friends, not our enemies. But the forces of evil want you to think otherwise.”

I don’t know if Washington would consider or China would be interested in providing medical protective gear and respirators to America, given recent statements by President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo. But even if the Chinese government is “authoritarian,” certainly, as I and others have written recently, America too has an authoritarian bent as well.

As is documented both on China’s CGTN channel on YouTube, and on RT, both nations are helping, especially in the case of Serbia whose request for EU aid was refused. Today, as I write these words, is the anniversary of the NATO bombing campaign on Serbia. From the article:

“Twenty-one years ago, NATO, without obtaining permission to intervene from the United Nations, launched armed aggression against Serbia, thus crudely violating the UN Declaration, the Helsinki Accords, a number of other international conventions and its own act on the creation of NATO of 1949,” the statement runs. “It has been and will remain a crime against peace and humanity. The act of aggression, committed in alliance with the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army, left an estimated 3,500-4,000 people dead and 12,500 others injured and caused tremendous economic damage. The use of depleted uranium rounds and other prohibited weapons was a long-term hazard to the people and the environment. NATO turned itself into an aggressive, interventionist alliance with an outspokenly expansionist policy targeting the East first and foremost.”

Therefore, I am not surprised that the EU refused Serbia’s request for assistance and China has been a major help, as these videos from CGTN show. This video posted on March 16th.

Serbia’s state of emergency: ‘China is the only country that can help’

This video also posted:

Serbian landmarks lit up red to salute China

“A number of landmarks in the Serbian capital were lit up in red on March 21 and 22 as a tribute to China. The local government used this gesture to thank the Chinese government for providing medical assistance and to pay tribute to the Chinese medical expert group.”

And this video was posted as well:

“Serbian president kisses Chinese national flag as support team arrives.”

“Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic greeted Chinese medics who arrived in Serbia on Saturday. He kissed the Chinese national flag in a show of gratitude for China’s timely support against the COVID-19 outbreak. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Asia Times | What Putin and Pompeo did not talk about | Article

Posted by M. C. on May 30, 2019

Russia and China are getting tight. The US has made itself the enemy.

While the US has been empire building China has developed cruise missile “carrier killers”. Russia has hypersonic missiles that supposedly are nearly impossible to shoot down. So they say.

The getting shorter range F-35 aircraft forces carriers closer to land targets. The future does not look good for this WW II technology thanks to interventionist foreign policy.

Both want to abandon the dollar as the standard monetary unit for oil sales. As does Venezuela which may be why the US is meddling there.

The superpower is its own worst enemy.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/article/what-putin-and-pompeo-did-not-talk-about/

ByPepe Escobar

ven veiled by thick layers of diplomatic fog, the overlapping meetings in Sochi between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov still offer tantalizing geopolitical nuggets.

Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov did his best to smooth the utterly intractable, admitting there was “no breakthrough yet” during the talks but at least the US “demonstrated a constructive approach.”

Putin told Pompeo that after his 90-minute phone call with Trump, initiated by the White House, and described by Ushakov as “very good,” the Russian president “got the impression that the [US] president was inclined to re-establish Russian-American relations and contacts to resolve together the issues that are of mutual interest to us.”

That would imply a Russiagate closure. Putin told Pompeo, in no uncertain terms, that Moscow never interfered in the US elections, and that the Mueller report proved that there was no connection between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

This adds to the fact Russiagate has been consistently debunked by the best independent American investigators such as the VIPS group.   

‘Interesting’ talk on Iran

Let’s briefly review what became public of the discussions on multiple (hot and cold) conflict fronts – Venezuela, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran.

Venezuela – Ushakov reiterated the Kremlin’s position: “Any steps that may provoke a civil war in the country are inadmissible.” The future of President Maduro was apparently not part of the discussion.

That brings to mind the recent Arctic Council summit. Both Lavrov and Pompeo were there. Here’s a significant exchange:

Lavrov: I believe you don’t represent the South American region, do you?

Pompeo: We represent the entire hemisphere.

Lavrov: Oh, the hemisphere. Then what’s the US doing in the Eastern Hemisphere, in Ukraine, for instance?

There was no response from Pompeo. 

North Korea – Even acknowledging that the Trump administration is “generally ready to continue working [with Pyongyang] despite the stalemate at the last meeting, Ushakov again reiterated the Kremlin’s position: Pyongyang will not give in to “any type of pressure,” and North Korea wants “a respectful approach” and international security guarantees.

Afghanistan – Ushakov noted Moscow is very much aware that the Taliban are getting stronger. So the only way out is to find a “balance of power.” There was a crucial trilateral in Moscow on April 25 featuring Russia, China and the US, where they all called on the Taliban to start talking with Kabul as soon as possible.

Iran – Ushakov said the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, was “briefly discussed.”.He would only say the discussion was “interesting.”

Talk about a larger than life euphemism. Moscow is extremely uneasy over the possibility of a destabilization of Iran that allows a free transit of jihadis from the Caspian to the Caucasus.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Diplomatic sources – from Russia and Iran – confirm, off the record, there have been secret talks among the three pillars of Eurasian integration – Russia, China and Iran – about Chinese and Russian guarantees in the event the Trump administration’s drive to strangle Tehran to death takes an ominous turn.

This is being discussed at the highest levels in Moscow and Beijing. The bottom line: Russia-China won’t allow Iran to be destroyed.

But it’s quite understandable that Ushakov wouldn’t let that information slip through a mere press briefing.

Wang Yi and other deals

On multiple fronts, what was not disclosed by Ushakov is way more fascinating than what’s now on the record. There’s absolutely no way Russian hypersonic weapons were not also discussed, as well as China’s intermediate-range missiles capable of reaching any US military base encircling or containing China…

Be seeing you

russia wants war

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

TWO Saudi oil tankers were hit by a “sabotage attack” off the United Arab Emirates, it was announced this morning – as tensions flare between the US and Iran.

Posted by M. C. on May 13, 2019

Dumb ‘ol Iran.  What a convenient time to stage an attack, just when Bolton and Pompeo ‘suggest’ such a thing may happen.

Rather convenient for John Bolton and McDonnell Douglas.

Oh wait…we don’t really know who staged the attack…wink, wink.

Hands Off My Fries: A Philosophical Objection to "Nudging ...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9060525/saudi-oil-tanker-sabotage-us-iran/

The ships were struck off the coast of the port of Fujairah – with one of the tankers due to be loaded with Saudi crude oil bound for the United States.

Saudi energy minister Khalid Al-Falih revealed the tankers suffered “significant damage” – although it was unclear what the attack involved.

He said: “Fortunately, the attack didn’t lead to any casualties or oil spill; however, it caused significant damage to the structures of the two vessels.”

Trading and shipping sources identified the Saudi ships as Bahri-owned very large crude carrier (VLCC) tanker Amjad and crude tanker Al Marzoqah.

A huge US naval presence has built up in the Gulf over recent days amid a fevered standoff between Washington and Tehran.

US intelligence revealed Iran was on the verge of carrying out offensive action to disrupt and attack American and partner interests in the region.

It led to the deployment of US aircraft carriers, Patriot missiles and B52 bombers over recent days…

U.S. and Them - Operation Ajax - Iran and the CIA coup ...

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

America’s Word Is Worthless – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on May 10, 2018

Will Russia finally wake up and stop inviting more dangerous situations by her extraordinary indecisiveness? If Putin doesn’t put his foot down, he is going to get us all killed.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/05/08/americas-word-worthless/

Paul Craig Roberts

We can now dismiss all hope that Trump’s campaign promises to pull out of Syria, normalize relations with Russia and stop the offshoring of American jobs will ever become US policies. By dishonoring the US government’s word and pulling out of the Iran nuclear non-proliferation agreement, an agreement signed by the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran, President Trump has revealed that his regime is totally in the hands of the Zionist warmongers. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »