(This article was written by Maria Maalouf and appeared in Arab News. Climate justice remains a theory on paper)

Before delving into the subject of climate change and how to reduce its risks, it is necessary to know exactly what it is. Climate change is mainly represented by long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be partially natural and occur due to changes in the solar cycle and radiation levels. However, human activities have, since the 19th century, been the fundamental cause of climate change, due to the large amounts of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, burned for various household uses, in factories and for land, sea and air transportation. This has resulted in greenhouse gas emissions being released into the atmosphere. These wrap around the globe, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere.

There are significant repercussions due to the phenomenon of climate change for all countries and regions in the world. But it is more dangerous for developing countries due to the widening phenomenon of desertification and their lack of financial and technological capabilities to confront the effects of climate change. This requires the provision of generous aid by developed, industrial countries so that developing countries can adapt and move toward greener economies to limit the effects of climate change. This is known as climate justice.

Effective solutions can be found to help adapt to climate change and economic benefits can be achieved if the process of improving and protecting the environment occurs. For this goal, global agreements have been concluded to guide progress and sustainable development, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement. There is a package of measures that must be taken, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change, along with the conversion of energy systems from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind.

The UN believes there is an urgent need to find a large coalition of countries to bring emissions to net zero by 2050. Emissions must first be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 if the world is to limit warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And fossil fuel production must decrease by about 6 percent per year between 2020 and 2030.

Observers believe that the best solution is achieving climate justice. Reports indicate that the annual cost to developing countries of loss and damage due to climate change will be between $290 billion and $580 billion by 2030.

However, climate justice has remained only a theory on paper. In practice, developed countries’ recognition of climate justice has not translated into a significant injection of money or aid, as reports indicate that the financing flows for international adaptation destined for developed countries are five to 10 times less than the estimated need.

Therefore, it can be asserted that efforts to fight the negative repercussions of climate change require both will and proper administration. A report issued by the UN indicated that the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy is a cornerstone in this matter, and this means not approving new oil and gas fields or coal mines so that all fossil fuel-fired power plants can be phased out by 2040.

Few countries have realized the importance of climate justice but, in this context, Saudi Arabia has launched many national strategies concerned with the environment and climate, such as its National Energy Strategy. The UAE, which will host the COP28 climate change summit later this year, has developed the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy and a carbon neutrality strategy.

Thanks to the recent important steps taken in this direction, the demand for fossil fuel energy sources will decline in the long run, which will limit the phenomenon of greenhouse gas emissions exacerbating climate change and its dangerous repercussions for the planet and its people.

This shift must not impede developed countries from financially supporting poor countries to limit the desertification phenomenon or providing them with assistance and advice. They must also highlight the importance of installing and using home solar energy systems with the help of civil society organizations and various companies. Without this step, it is not possible to reduce the impact of climate change or confront its huge repercussions. It is not the responsibility of a specific country.

Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Maria Maalouf and appeared in Arab News. Not even ‘Robin Hood’ Yassin Fawaz can save Lebanon from its rulers)

The political and economic crises in Lebanon reveal the ruling political system’s state of denial. So great is their delusion, the political elite for a time maintained, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the causes of Lebanon’s woes were foreign in nature.

But the truth always comes out and it was demonstrated by the Oct. 17 revolution in 2019: That the problems with the Lebanese political system come from within because that system adopted and mainlined corruption.

The Lebanese people took to the streets and erected a gallows in Martyrs’ Square in the center of the capital, Beirut. In so doing, they removed the fig leaf that the elite used to mask their illusions — a fig leaf that included the idea that the Amal Movement, a nominally peaceful Shiite establishment party, and Hezbollah, an international terrorist group, are fundamentally different.

The political elite sold those illusions, hidden behind that fig leaf, to Lebanese citizens, who were forced to become prisoners of an economic crisis classified as the worst financial disaster to befall any country in more than a century. This is what prompted Western countries to take the initiative in an attempt to save what could be salvaged, with the support of the US.

The Lebanese were told that, to be helped, they must first help themselves — and the Americans and others in the West bet on the people to bring about vital political change. They hoped that this would happen in the parliamentary elections that took place in May 2022, especially as they included, for the first time, candidates who offered a political and economic vision for the salvation of Lebanon and its people.

Perhaps the well-known Lebanese American businessman Yassin Fawaz (known as King Rolodex on social media and in the streets) could have been part of the necessary changing of the guard. Some said that, rather than Amal’s candidate for speaker of the parliament — Nabih Berri, an 85-year-old man who has been in office since 1992 — Fawaz, who represents the youth, could have taken the role.

But those who are part of the corrupt system in Lebanon had other ideas. Berri is Hezbollah’s man. Fawaz was intimidated and eventually forced into electoral oblivion because he was an enemy of the corrupt establishment and Hezbollah, which brought about the country’s collapse.

Fawaz ran as a Shiite candidate in last year’s parliamentary elections. He did so as an independent, stating that he could not run a real campaign as it was not a real election — because Lebanon does not have real democracy. This is something the people understand, he said.

If we had a real democracy, politicians would not remain in office forever. They would feel the consequences of their role in disasters such as the Beirut port explosion and the financial crisis. But until this changes, everything in Lebanon, including the media and politics, will continue to be controlled by the politicians and the establishment — people who have been in power forever.

Some have described Fawaz, who combines charismatic eloquence with political activism and philanthropy, as the “Robin Hood of Lebanon.” They say he is authentic in a way the elites cannot match because he is genuine, with no links to the corrupt political class. His castigation of the people who voted for the same old politicians in last year’s election went viral and struck a chord.

For many Lebanese, if Fawaz is Robin Hood, the country itself and its government is the villainous Prince John, robbing them of their savings, imposing harsh charges and rationing services. Fawaz can strive to raise awareness of poverty in Lebanon and help the people he meets, but lasting salvation for those who are suffering lies solely in the hands of the state — if it were willing to help. Robin Hood cannot save the kingdom on his own.

Observers see and know that Hezbollah is the cause of the economic collapse in Lebanon and the country’s isolation from its Arab neighbors. Hezbollah’s weapons, its terrorism, its military adventures in Syria and elsewhere abroad, and its leadership’s influence on the repression of Arab countries all contribute to Lebanon’s poverty and isolation.

As a result of all this, the crisis has deepened. The corrupt elite have blocked the political horizon for resolving the situation. The failure of the system in Lebanon to implement the structural reforms of the economy and politics that were promised to the international community, together with the elite’s procrastination, have led to disaster.

Lebanon’s leaders have had to be dealt with harshly and this has meant an international policy of imposing sanctions on all who obstruct political and economic reform, not to mention their disruption of vital government work.

Those affected by this package of sanctions include the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, a minister who stood in the shadow of his father-in-law — former President Michel Aoun — and basked in his reflected glory, thinking himself responsible for the accomplishments that earned the credit.

He is one of the reasons for Lebanon’s transformation into a failed state, due to the enormous waste and plentiful corruption at the Ministry of Energy, which he presided over. Much other responsibility can be laid at the feet of Bassil’s political team, which did whatever it wanted for more than a decade. Half of the Lebanese public debt is the result of the costs of supplying electricity and other arbitrary plans.

Still the politicians were not deterred, so it has been necessary for those in the international community who want to see reforms to escalate their efforts to target the Lebanese political and economic system.

Sources in the US have indicated that the administration of President Joe Biden is close to imposing sanctions on Riad Salameh, the governor of the country’s central bank, Banque du Liban, after the Treasury Department raised concerns about his relationship with Hezbollah and links between Hezbollah financiers and the bank.

American officials are confident in their assessment of Salameh’s relationship with Hezbollah. Some have linked this with the US Treasury’s decision to impose financial sanctions on money service company CTEX Exchange.

Its board of directors is headed by economist Hassan Moukalled, who is considered to have close links to Hezbollah on the one hand and the Russian business community on the other. He also has an excellent relationship with the governor of Banque du Liban, which granted him a banking license in March 2020 in the midst of the economic and financial crisis. Moukalled’s company was reportedly carrying out exchange operations for the benefit of the central bank, in coordination with Salameh.

The Treasury said it was sanctioning Moukalled and CTEX for facilitating the financing of Hezbollah through the company’s exchange centers.

It is clear that the crisis in Lebanon can only be resolved through a decisive and firm approach. The question now is not whether Lebanon’s Robin Hood and his friends can ride to the rescue and save the country but, sadly, will we be faced with more painful decisions caused by the corrupt political system?

Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

This article first appeared in the American Spectator Magazine: https://spectator.org/the-2022-titanic-vote-iceberg-ahead-or-are-we-already-sinking/)

The history surrounding the April 15, 1912 peacetime sinking of the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic has been exhaustively documented. The primary historical takeaway has been that the ship’s builders, and its boosters in government and industry, had fallen prey to technology hubris: ships could be built to withstand the worst natural hazards and calamities that Mother Nature could throw at them. A massive iceberg in the North Atlantic put paid to such conceits, with over 1,500 on board sent to their deaths in the briny deep. In the wake of last fall’s catastrophic mid-terms, the GOP may be discovering that the electorate—at least, those that went to the polls, inhabit political worlds different than imagined, different than polls suggested, and, above all, different than standard diagnoses indicated.

Many post-election diagnoses identify bad candidates, lack of positive issues, focus on 2020 election, Donald Trump, poor allocation of limited campaign resources, etc. All these points carry some salience. But they miss—excuse the pun—the elephant in the room: failure of GOP and independent voters to keep uppermost in mind what mid-terms above all represent: a referendum report card on the performance of the president.

In ordinary times this focus is less significant, and voters may choose to focus on the candidates on the ballot—Congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial candidates—even, at times, key high-visibility mayoral races. In the presidential year of 1960, the Kennedy-Nixon debates showcased remarkably similar positions; a common expression of the choice was Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In such times, off-year elections have less saliency.

Not so in 2022. Not when the country is seen the worst performance of a president’s first two years since at least the Civil War. Many have said that had President Biden purposefully set out to damage America, he hardly could have done worse; some indeed have asserted that he intentionally sought to weaken America. Who is correct on this proposition matters not at all.

What mattered most was stopping the president from another two years of inflicting catastrophic damage: (a) roaring inflation, the highest in 40 years; (b) runaway spending, added trillions to the national debt, already at record levels; (b) replacing a net energy surplus in 2020—the first in 70 years, with renewed dependence on foreign oil—necessitating tin-cup tours seeking access to increased oil production exports; (c) a literally open border, with record millions streaming across our undefended southern border—without screening for terrorists, or for Covid, despite such screening being supported by 80 percent of the voters;(d) allowing crossings by migrants under indentured servitude to the drug cartels and annually importing enough fentanyl to kill every American; and (e) an epic crime wave underway in America’s large cities.

With such calamities unfolding, a Red tsunami was essential, to keep to a minimum further damage during the president’s term. Instead we have what is barely a sidewalk puddle. This happened because Republican and independent voters did not turn out in sufficient numbers for the only poll that matters, cast in the voting booth. In doing so they voted for two more calamitous years. This holds regardless of their motives; voting machines tally actual votes, not the reasons behind voter choices.

In order to stop the president and his minions on Capitol Hill, the GOP needed enough of a margin to lose wavering Republican votes; unlike the Democrats, who have the internal discipline of a totalitarian party, the GOP has a bigger tent. Thus, John Boehner, who ascending to the House Speakership, in the wake of a GOP landslide in 2014, could not keep his flock in line with 255 votes; the Democrats can run the House with 218 votes. The House is now 221-214 Republican, and while Speaker Kevin McCarthy is off to a good start, the narrow margin will often severely limit what the GOP can accomplish. The 51-49 Senate means the Democrats can confirm another passel of hard-leftist judicial nominees, a collection of Kentanji clones.

Thus, voters unable to set aside their reservations about GOP candidates as to their positions on specific issues delivered what the president and his legislative leadership interpret as a mandate to continue the policies that are impoverishing, sundering and literally endangering the republic. In these highly partisan times—now arguably the most deeply divided since the Civil War—voters should have felt an overriding obligation to above all limit further vast damage inflicted on America by the party in power.

Democrats are further energized because: (a) despite blatant election fraud, an Arizona judge dismissed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s lawsuit; (b) most voters gave Biden what amounts to an ungentlemanly C—instead of a failing grade; (c) the GOP ran poorly with independents, winning 38 percent, way below the 51 percent Democrats won in 2018; (d) a hyper-partisan mainstream media deliberately covered up the border chaos with words calculated to obfuscate, leaving most voters blissfully unaware of the massive influx of illegals—unprecedented in modern times; (e) the government’s admission that it cannot even locate records of 378,000 migrants taken into custody—a number greater than a plurality of poll respondents gave for total 2021-2022 border crossings; (f) an avalanche of bogus asylum claims, creating de facto mass amnesty.

The full extent of the mainstream media immigration news blackout is made clear in this detailed description by Never-Trumper Andy McCarthy:

Broadly speaking, the country does not know how bad the situation at the border is. As the Center for Immigration Studies’ Andrew Arthur points out, in recent polling by Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies, just 13 percent knew that there were over 2 million illegal border crossings per year. Not only did the remaining 87 percent significantly underestimate the number of illegal entries, but more than half of them believed the number to be less than half a million.

McCarthy goes further, charting a course to bypass media disinformation and set the stage for Republicans winning on 2024 what they utterly failed to do in 2022. His article gives the staggering numbers for illegal migrants during Biden’s first 23 months: at least 6 million, or 2,600 per day. But that doe not allow for the steep increase in 2022, as it took months for the cartels to organize caravans, etc. McCarthy explains the results to date, and the likely consequences to come:

To provide some perspective, during the Obama–Biden years, the Department of Homeland Security regarded it as a crisis if the number of illegal-alien encounters inched up to 1,000 per day, which computes to 365,000 per year. “A thousand [per day] overwhelms the system,” Obama’s former DHS secretary, Jeh Johnson, acknowledged in a 2019 interview. At the time, the Trump administration was dealing with four times that amount due to a surge in border arrivals by alien family units and unaccompanied alien minors. (The surge was caused by the refusal of congressional Democrats to cooperate in Trump’s signature border-security priority; it was quelled, as Rich Lowry related, because Trump induced cooperation from other countries.)

Thanks to Biden’s wholesale adoption of transnational-progressive radicalism, we are now at seven times the number that Johnson conceded would constitute a crisis. Post–Title 42, we could find ourselves at 18 times that amount, or perhaps even more — and remember, that’s just the apprehensions, not the got-aways.

There is more. Three major polls released in late January/early February present sobering numbers: (a) a majority of voters call lack of leadership the top political issue; (b) a majority also say that President Biden has accomplished little, citing the economy, border crossings and Russia/Ukraine; (c) 41 percent say that their personal finances have worsened under Biden—the worst number in 37 years.

Then there is New York City, 41 percent of whose voters name crime as their top issue, miles ahead of affordable housing (17%), homelessness (12%), inflation and immigration (both 8%). Crime ranks first for 63 percent of GOP voters, 53 percent of independents and 30 percent of Democrats. Forty percent feel “less safe,” 53 percent, “about the same” and 8 percent feel “safer.” Mayor Eric Adams, 13 months into his mayoralty, is 21 points underwater, 57-36 percent; his disapprove number is 78 percent for GOP voters, 63 percent with independents and 48 percent among Democrats. With robbery up 32 percent, rape 11 percent and burglary 29 percent, who can blame them? Gov. Kathy Hochul refuses to blame “get out of jail free” bail “reform” for the rise. Yet NYC voters voted for Hochul over Lee Zeldin, who promised to fire Manhattan’s woke D.A. on his first day in office if elected. Had Zeldin even made the high-30s in the city, he’d have been elected governor. NYC Voters could have sent a message to Democrats nationwide with an upset win by Zeldin. Instead they voted—wittingly or unwittingly—for continued rising crime and unsafe streets.

Something is afoot here: Voter attitudes like these would normally signal a Red wave. Yet voters would not send a message to the Oval Office occupant. Either they opted to accept two more years of catastrophic decline, or they believe that Biden will improve. But a president who reads, as Biden did—the 2022 mid-term result as an endorsement of his policies—in his State of the Union speech, he asserted that “the State of the Union is strong”—is far more likely to double down than trim his sails.

A longtime conservative commentator wrote of the elections that Republican candidates failed on two counts: (a) they did not offer solutions to the problems created by the Biden administration; (b) they addressed abortion solely in terms of federalism—avoiding the substance of the issue. His article missed the boat, so to speak, on both counts. The party out of power cannot pass anything; at best, it can explain why the party in power is messing up. It is only in presidential election years that the party out of power must offer alternatives which, if the party captures the presidency, and wins a sufficient majority in Congress, it can pass and implement.

The party’s message that should suffice in off-year elections is: The first rule of the hole is to stop digging. Had the GOP made tsunami-level gains in 2022, it would have been positioned to stop the president’s program; and with the Senate, it could have forced the president to appoint left-wing moderates, instead of radicals like Kentanji, to the federal bench. A Red tsunami would have shocked Democrats in Congress facing re-election in 2024 to re-evalute their chances if they back the administration.

As to the second point: Federalism is a bedrock foundation of conservative governance. President Reagan made it a central theme of his presidency. And within each state, the principle of subsidiarity pushes solutions down to local levels. The whole point of the Dobbs decision was that Roe v. Wade had taken from the states their rightful role in determining social policy. The states are supposed to be laboratories where policies can be tried, and results tabulated, as to what policies work best. The importance of federalism is best illustrated by the Trump policy of, after a couple months of lockdown, letting the states pursue their own solutions. Had that not been done—had Hillary, or any other imaginable Democrat, been president—a national lockdown policy would be been imposed, following Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer (with, of course, a “we’re royalty“ exemption—rules for thee but not for we—for the president and pals). The courts would never have ruled against the lockdown policy in the absence of empirical evidence that anti-lockdown states were doing as well, even better, than lockdown states. Federalism thus saved America from a health policy tyranny.

Bottom Line. The off-year election is the one chance voters have during a presidential term to send a distress message to the occupant of the Oval Office. They chose not to do so in 2022. They will suffer, and deserve, the consequences (along with those who voted Republican and alas do not deserve the pain almost certain to come). As for 2024, all bets are off.

The 2022 election had all the elements in place for a Red tsunami. And the GOP did win 3 million more votes in House races, but did not get a commensurate return. Turnout was 46.5 percent. The latter number surprises. One would think that with all the bad news, and a president voters blamed for multiple calamities, voters would have understood the need to check the White House, and turn out in large enough numbers to flip both houses. But they did not see it that way.

True, there will be fewer GOP incumbent Senate seats at stake in 2024, and more opportunities for pickups. But given the gap between voter attitudes and how they voted, retaking the White House, keeping the GOP House micro-majority while electing a GOP Senate will likely be a tall order.

Which brings us back to RMS Titanic. What Henry Wadsworth Longfellow famously called “our Ship of State” may already have hit the iceberg.

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014)

(This article was written by Maria Maalouf and appeared in Arab News. West should not wait to give full support to Iranian protesters)

The Iranian proverb “spring does not come with one flower” applies to the fourth package of sanctions recently approved by the foreign ministers of the EU countries in response to a vote by the European Parliament that called for them to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.

The European calculations did not live up to the hopes of the Iranian people, who have risen up in protest at the regime’s killing of Mahsa Amini. Their protests have now turned into a revolution against the mullahs’ regime, which has been repressing the Iranian people for four and a half decades. The brutality with which the uprising is being repressed — as the authorities’ criminality has reached the point of shooting demonstrators in the eyes, as if they want to extinguish the light of the truth — has firmly established that this regime only understands the language of killing and oppression.

Although the sanctions package affected 37 entities affiliated with the mullahs’ regime, the decision did not live up to the European Parliament’s recommendation of designating the IRGC. This group is the Iranian regime’s thickest and most brutal stick. It is the one whose crimes transcend Iran’s borders. Its criminality inside and outside of Iran must be brought to an end.

If the politicians are falling short of calling the IRGC a terrorist organization, a court in an EU member state should issue a concrete legal conviction. This leads us to the question: What are European courts waiting for? Especially since the IRGC’s violations are visible from Iran to Yemen, passing through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, along with its intervention in the Ukraine war on the side of Moscow, which it is providing with drones.

The EU retains scant hope of reviving the Iran nuclear deal, which has been suspended since the US withdrawal under former President Donald Trump in 2018, based on the background of Tehran’s lack of commitment. Trump discovered early on that this regime does not understand mild language and diplomacy, and must instead be dealt with firmly.

In line with its strategy, Washington announced late last month the imposition of new trade restrictions on seven Iranian entities that effectively contributed to the production of drones that Russia has used to bomb Ukraine. The Department of Commerce said that these companies engaged in activities that threatened the US’ national security and foreign policy.

Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives last month approved, by 420 votes in favor to just one against, a resolution condemning the suppression of demonstrations and protests in Iran, as well as supporting the protesters in achieving their demands. Rep. Claudia Tenney said: “In this resolution, we condemn the gross violation of human rights by the Iranian regime in its suppression of the demonstrators who rose bravely against this terrorist regime to demand their rights.”

It is worth mentioning that Washington also imposed a package of sanctions on many senior Iranian officials.

Gregory Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, addressed the Iranian people, saying: “Be strong because freedom will always triumph over tyranny.” For his part, CIA Director William Burns said during a meeting at Georgetown University in Washington: “The turmoil resulting from the widespread protests in Iran has led to confusion in the Iranian regime.” He also praised the “courage” of the Iranian women who are disappointed with the conditions in their country.

It has been proved that the mullahs’ regime in Iran is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism. Therefore, the international community must move with greater force to counter this oppressive regime. The bombing of weapons factories in Isfahan and other cities, in addition to the bombing of convoys in Al-Bukamal, Syria, are just noise — it is time to mute them and unleash the freedom of the Iranians with full support.

Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Maria Maalouf and appeared in Arab News. How the US views potential Turkiye-Syria reconciliation)

There has been much talk lately about a reconciliation between Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkiye and Bashar Assad’s Syria. Erdogan wants this reconciliation as a way to strengthen his position ahead of June’s Turkish presidential election, as he needs a diplomatic achievement in the wake of his failure to achieve his goals in northern Syria.

Assad, meanwhile, has been exhausted by the war and, after imposing his bitter rhythm on Syria’s land and people, he realized that his bet on the Russians could not lead to the reconstruction of Syria without the consent of the US in particular and the West in general. This is not to mention the required support of the Arab world, led by Saudi Arabia, as King Salman affirmed at the opening of the third year of the eighth session of the Shoura Council last year, in the presence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that it was necessary to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions in a manner that preserves Syria’s sovereignty, stability and Arab identity.

The US administration may try to find a reasonable and internationally accepted solution to end the Syrian crisis without showing that it has given up or backed down.

Washington is trying to find a balance between many contradictory interests and goals. Chief among them is America’s support for the Kurds and its geopolitical relationship with Turkiye, a member of NATO. It wants to find a way to end the Syrian crisis and thus begin a peaceful political process in the country.

The US administration believes that Turkiye is an essential partner in the Middle East and seeks to work with it to achieve common goals.

Despite this, it deals with Erdogan in the matter of the Syrian crisis with concern for the sake of regional security and stability, especially since the Turkish president apparently has dreams of reviving the Ottoman Empire, which observers view as a pipe dream or an illusion. It is believed that the US administration will not go far in pressuring Erdogan to stop his reconciliation steps with Assad, based on the fact that the Turkish Parliament has not yet ratified Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO and these two countries joining the alliance would be seen by President Joe Biden as a significant geopolitical victory in the war against Russia.

Observers state that the Turkish-Syrian reconciliation may take place with an unannounced American green light, based on the fact that Biden wants to alleviate the crisis in Syria. At the same time, the US president does not want to clash with the Republicans, who will undoubtedly accuse him of weakness on the Syria file.

On the other hand, observers expect that the Biden administration will find itself in a complicated situation, as it has so far refused to reach any solutions in Syria.

While some believe that the US will have the final say on the success of the Turkish-Syrian reconciliation efforts, especially since ending the Kurdish control over northern Syria — whether by handing over the Kurdish areas to the Syrian government peacefully or through a military operation — requires Washington’s approval. The American military presence in Syria also has its strategic justifications, from fighting the remnants of Daesh to narrowing down the Iranian influence in Syria after it has desecrated it for years.

Accordingly, the US administration looks at the Turkish-Syrian reconciliation pragmatically.

Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

This article first appeared in the American Spectator Magazine: https://spectator.org/griner-and-bout-america-pays-ransom-yet-again/ )

By: John C Wohlstetter, Senior Fellow

President Biden’s swap of a birdbrain basketball celebrity who refused to come out of the locker room for the playing of the national anthem—whom, risibly, he called “the best of America”—for the world’s most notorious, brutal arms dealer, who openly declared in 2008 to the informants who were to turn him in, that he was “very eager and anxious to carry out this arms deal to kill Americans,” has given the “Merchant of Death” a chance to resume operations, this time working hand in glove with the Russians. Here is a detailed account of how Bout was taken down. The eleven years he spent in prison gives him that much more motivation to pursue his murderous design. Bout has already volunteered to help Russia in Ukraine.

Hostage-taking by our enemies can be a profitable business, one America all too rarely avoids. It is thus more accurate to regard these episodes as did ABC News after the Nov. 4, 1979 seizure of 52 American hostages at their Embassy in Tehran, ordered by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. ABC began its news coverage on Nov. 8, titling it The Iran Crisis—America Held Hostage. Originally hosted by ABC World News Tonight anchor Frank Reynolds as a 20-minute special, it became a half-hour Monday through Thursday show hosted by emerging media superstar Ted Koppel; after a few days with Koppel, a producer had the idea of affixing the number of days of captivity, with the day number increasing with each weekday show. During 1980 the program was renamed Nightline. In all, according to the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, named after an American hostage executed by ISIS Syria, 60 Americans are held captive, in various places around the world. The Richardson Center, a hostage-recovery operation founded by former Clinton UN ambassador Bill Richardson, was involved in the Bout-Griner swap. In 2015 then-president Obama established the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.

ABC had the right idea with its initial title: America was being held hostage. President Carter, who had coined the term “Rose Garden Strategy” in 1976, having then accused president Ford of hiding in the Rose Garden instead of campaigning, pursued his own Rose Garden strategy, ostensibly because he had to remain at the White House so long as the hostages remained in captivity. The hostages finally won their freedom on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 1981, their plane departing Tehran as president Reagan delivered his Inaugural Address; ex-president Carter greeted them upon their arrival in then-West Germany. Simultaneously, Iranian financial assets were unfrozen and sanctions lifted, per the Algiers Accord.

These episodes were part of a mostly dismal history that went back centuries. In 2015 TAS published my article, From Barbary to the Gulf: Corsairs Then and Now. As I noted than, Barbary corsairs had begun their marauding ways in the 12th century; the first American ship taken as a prize on the high seas was by pirates, in 1625. During the early years of the American republic the fledging United States paid ransom to various potentates in North Africa. It was left to James Madison to restore America’s honor by sending Commodores Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge to defeat the pirates in 1815. Envoys who begged bandits to release hostages were rebuffed with open contempt; but when there was a credible threat of military force they capitulated. As Frederick the Great once quipped: “Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.”

Thus, Teddy Roosevelt, who obtained release of an American businessman by threatening military action, fared better than presidents of both parties who either did not threaten force, or, tried using military force but failed.

Which tees up the main question: Is there a way to escape this dilemma?

The good news is that there are indeed ways that would bid fair to resolve the dilemma; the bad news is that it is doubtful that modern democratic governments have the intestinal fortitude to carry out a no-ransom policy.

Alas, even resolute democratic leaders may face irresistible political pressure to pay tribute. In addition to the danger facing hostages in captivity, there is intense media pressure, in the form of giving air time to family members who plead for action to obtain release of loved ones. The obvious counter-argument—releasing hostages only encourages our enemies to take more hostages in the future—cannot compete with hyper-sentimental videos of desperate families. What would we do if one or more hostages are seized by Libyan jihadists, who demand that we release the Lockerbie bomb-builder we now have in custody pending trial for mass murder? Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo added that the Griner swap gives incentives for hostage-takers to seize more celebrities.

The quintessential example, ironically, involves Israel, which is far more consistently resolute than any other civilized nation in conducting counter-terror policies. In 2006 Palestinian terrorists kidnapped Israel soldier Gilead Shalit in a cross-border raid, and held him for five years. To obtain his release Israel released 1,027 terrorists, who had been responsible for 569 deaths (no number is offered for injuries they caused). Prime Minister Netanyahu came under irresistible pressure from the media and the Israeli public to win Shalit’s release.

A contrary historical example comes from the annals of former Soviet Union. In 1986, Shia Muslim terrorists kidnapped four Soviet diplomats, demanding that the Soviets prevent pro-Syrian militias from attacking them. When the Soviets demurred, the militants executed one of the captives, shooting him in the head and dumping his body in the streets. The Soviets sent in KGB agents; they kidnapped and killed a relative who was a Hezbollah leader, and mailed body parts to the original kidnapper. Surprise, surprise: the kidnapping of Soviet diplomats in Lebanon stopped.

No Western country can do this, no matter how brutally effective such action would be.

So, what is left?

1. Swap only equivalents. During the Cold War the U.S. swapped Russian spy Rudolf Abel for downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. Abel was a spy, but not a top international terrorist. This can only work with a genuinely resolute administration in power—hardly the case now.

2. Freeze financial assets and impose economic sanctions. This can work against weak regimes, but rarely works well against strong regimes.

3. Prepare a list of high-risk countries: (a) whose governments have taken hostages in the past; or (b) where hostile non-state actors reside—e.g., Mexican drug cartels. We could conduct military operations against them, aimed at freeing hostages, killing captors, or both. These have worked from time to time, but it is hard to see this administration act so decisively. It tolerates cartels running migrants under indentured servitude into the U.S., and allows vast quantities of China-made ultra- lethal fentanyl to be sent across our largely undefended border.

4. Declare that hostage-taking creates a juridical state of war. This does not mean we start a shooting war, but would free us to take a broader range of actions. However, democratic publics are uneasy with this. Their civilized yearning for peace would resist this course of action.

So, swaps continue. Recently, Ukraine reportedly made a 65-prisoner swap with the Russians, involving prisoners detained in Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine; an American was one of the hostages the Russians released. Ukraine released dozens of Russian prisoners in return.

Three Americans remain hostages (6:28) inside Russia; the wife of one hostage, Marc Vogel, said: ” Teachers are just as important as basketball players.” Vogel was sentenced to 14 years in prison for carrying medical marijuana, prescribed for his ailing knees, and disclosed to authorities upon his landing in Moscow. Griner, who did not disclose to the authorities that she was carrying illicit cargo, went free—a prime example of celebrity justice. (Another factor: she is an ideological soulmate of Team Biden.)

Bottom Line. The Russians are laughing—literally—at us. Our enemies are emboldened anew. Expect more bad swaps; more obscene sums of ransom paid to terrorists and dictators; and hence, more American hostages taken.

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).

(This article was written by Maria Maalouf and appeared in Arab News. What US’ new defense budget means for the Middle East)

A week after Congress passed the US defense budget for the fiscal year 2023, President Joe Biden last month signed the budget — which amounted to $858 billion, exceeding his proposal by $45 billion — into law. It offers vital benefits, such as enhancing access to justice for military personnel and their families, as well as powers critical to supporting national defense, foreign affairs and homeland security.

The Defense Department’s massive final budget contains several notable provisions related to Middle Eastern security.

The secretary of defense has called for the creation of a strategy aimed at supporting regional air defense networks in the Middle East to protect the US’ allies and partners from missile attacks from Iran and its proxies. The aim is to implement an integrated air and missile defense structure to protect the people, infrastructure and territory of these countries.

The defense budget, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, also legislates a requirement for the US to establish an interagency strategy to disrupt and dismantle narcotics production, trafficking and affiliated networks linked to the Assad regime in Syria.

According to the American Coalition for Syria, Bashar Assad has turned Syria into a drug state, as traffickers produce and distribute huge quantities of Captagon pills. This is currently the most in-demand drug in the Middle East and neighboring Mediterranean countries, with more than 40 tons seized last year. In 2021, the Captagon trade generated an estimated $5.7 billion in revenue for the Syrian regime, allowing Assad to circumvent the sanctions aimed at denying him access to hard currency.

This year’s National Defense Authorization Act also amended the current required report on Iran to include the proxy groups associated with Tehran, particularly those assessed as being prepared to carry out terrorist operations on its behalf or in response to a military attack by another country related to Iran.

None of the amounts authorized under this act may be used to facilitate the transfer of currency platforms or currencies to the government of Iran. It also prohibits the allocation or transfer of any authorized funding to the Iraqi Badr Organization, which has close ties to Iran. This sends a strong warning to the Badr Organization that Washington is closely monitoring its activities and that it could face sanctions in the future.

The act demanded a report that will include a detailed assessment of whether the proliferation of Iranian weapons, particularly of drones, increased following the end of the UN arms embargo on Iran in October 2020.

Given that Israel is one of the staunchest friends and allies of the US, and that it faces a number of potential challenges at present, including continuing threats from Iran, the act affirmed the amendment and expansion of cooperation between the US and Israel to counter aerial systems, including directing energy capabilities and authorizing a $15 million increase in funding — to $40 million in total — to support it. The law also provides $80 million to the government of Israel to purchase components for the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, as well as providing $40 million for the so-called David’s Sling weapons system.

Based on the role played by the multinational forces in promoting stability and maintaining peace in the Sinai Peninsula, the US must continue to maintain its strong support. And the Department of Defense was also requested to “seek to expand cooperation with the Jordanian Ministry of Defense in military cybersecurity activities,” to include the establishment of a regional center for cybersecurity, bilateral activities and training in the field of cybersecurity, in addition to efforts aimed at effectively defending military networks, infrastructure and systems, and eliminating malicious cyber activities.

The act affirmed that the US must act decisively against counterintelligence threats posed by foreign commercial spyware, as well as individuals who lead entities that sell foreign commercial spyware and who are reasonably believed to be engaging in, or presenting a significant risk of, engaging in activities contrary to national security or the interests of US foreign policy.

It can be said that the items related to the countries of the Middle East in the national defense budget for the year 2023 are remarkably consistent with the existing US foreign policy orientation regarding reducing the country’s involvement in the region and turning toward Asia. At the same time, it commits to the campaign to combat Daesh to preserve US interests and maintain relationships with regional partners and allies to ensure regional stability and protect the US presence in the region from any potential threats, whether from Iran, its proxies or other terrorist groups.

Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in Warrior Maven. Does Size Matter in Nuclear Affairs?)

John Isaacs, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, writes in the National Interest on December 17, 2022, the number of nuclear weapons that the United States needs for deterrence is somewhere between two and three hundred warheads, some ninety percent less than the current force endorsed by the recently released 2022 Nuclear Posture Review.

He further declares that the United States can unilaterally reduce its numbers irrespective of the warhead levels deployed by China and Russia, which combined now can approach three thousand deployed strategic warheads.

He bases this number on what is needed to deter Russia and China, or Iran or North Korea, on the notion that three hundred nuclear warheads detonated on Russian soil have the same destructive capability similar to the metrics adopted by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as what was needed to deter the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War—which was to kill at least one-third of the Russian people and two-thirds of their industry.

However, McNamara was counting on a US force of many thousands of warheads. How one hundred deployed retaliatory weapons could achieve such destruction is not revealed by Issacs.

The basis for his plan starts with the premise that nuclear weapons are so destructive they have no utility on the battlefield and thus only can be used for deterrence, but, if necessary, engage in a retaliatory strike on Russian cities as a deterrent threat against Moscow using nuclear weapons first on the United States.

Apart from the horribly immoral nature of Issacs strategy, he forgets that totalitarian powers such as Russia and China killed 125 million of their own people simply to stay in power. They thus do not value their people. As Mao stated, losing a few hundred million people in a nuclear war didn’t bother him because as he said at the time China had many millions more people.

Issacs strategy would leave America’s adversaries with their nuclear weapons in a complete sanctuary, from which they can fire at will at the United States. Issacs must be aware of the period after Eisenhower’s deterrent strategy of massive retaliation was devoted to adopting a flexible response capability, a switch starting in the Kennedy administration. The US does not attack cities and population centers, although Russia does as the world has seen in Ukraine.

The US nuclear conflict targeting strategy is to hit four classes of targets: a) Nuclear leadership; b) Nuclear Infrastructure, C) Nuclear C3 Forces, and d) Key Nuclear and Security Forces.

The entire post MAD or mutual assured destruction strategy by the United States has been to hold at risk our adversaries most deadly weapons so that any first use of such weapons against the United States will result in the US in a retaliatory strike eliminating the enemy’s remaining weapons. Not destroying their entire society. And without these reserve weapons these enemies cannot enforce their hegemonic ambitions which would probably be the basis for their strike against the US in the first place.

Critically important is that Issacs doesn’t indicate how he would deploy America’s two or three hundred nuclear warheads but his longtime opposition to deployment of any ICBMs gives us a clue. If the US deployed these warheads on submarines such as the new Columbia class, each with 16 missiles, and each missile armed with three warheads, the United States could deploy all three hundred warheads on six submarines.

But our submarine force is not simultaneously deployed as one third of the subs would be undergoing a backfit, one-third would be in transit from or to the sub-bases, while one third would be on patrol. At most, one hundred warheads would be available for a retaliatory strike, implying the inability to hold at risk only a handful of Russian or Chinese military targets.

It is true, a simple city busting deterrent strategy using one hundred warheads could kill 20-50 million Russian people while destroying much of Russia’s fifty largest cities. But such a retaliatory strike would not eliminate a single Russian weapon aimed at the United States. And importantly, as David Trachtenberg of the National Institute of Public Policy has recently written, the US does not now have nor is it going to adopt a deterrent strategy of burning cities to the ground.

Further, Issacs minimalist strategy has serious flaws even beyond its fundamentally immoral character. It would be highly dangerous and potentially invite a disarming nuclear attack against the United States. For example, Mr. Isaacs’ minimal deterrent would reduce the US nuclear assets from over five hundred to six, a nearly 99% cut. For example, if the United States maintained six submarines at two ports, the targets the Russians or Chinese would need to destroy to put the US out of the nuclear business would be six: two nuclear submarine bases withone submarine at each, two submarines in transit and two submarines on patrol.

A bomber and submarine force as an alternative would not be much better—each leg of this DYAD would have at most 100-150 warheads. The bombers, however, are not fast flyers, and although with great capability, they still of course must reckon with air defenses, as well as the time it takes to get to target.

A 100-150 warhead reserve for submarines implies 30-50 missiles if each missile holds three warheads. That further implies two or three submarines, the possible end of a two-ocean deterrent force, only one Navy base, and a very minimal deterrent force in the face of a rising Russian and Chinese nuclear buildup, including only a handful of nuclear deterrent assets on which would rest the entirety of the US nuclear deterrent and extended deterrent for our allies.

With a breakthrough in anti-submarine warfare, just a small handful of Russian or Chinese conventional or nuclear munitions could eliminate the entire US nuclear deterrent. What then is the point of potentially making it easy for our enemies to disarm us?

Isaac refers a number of times that the US is engaging in some kind of arms race toward more nuclear weapons, apparently forgetting that the twelve thousand nuclear warheads the US once deployed have been “reduced” by ninety percent, a very big accomplishment indeed. And the entire US modernization efforts fits within the 2010 New START treaty, thus hardly qualifying as the initiation of some kind of arms race. In contrast, Russia’s full nuclear modernization does not fit within the New START limits.

However, what Issacs doesn’t say is the organization of which he has been part for half a century didn’t initially support the 90% reduction in nuclear warheads that has occurred under the 1991 START I treaty, and subsequently under the 2002 Moscow SORT, and 2010 New START agreements.

Issacs supported a nuclear freeze not the START I agreement that reduced accountable weapons by fifty percent, a remarkable achievement that the smart folks in Washington told Reagan was not possible. The arms control community universally said the Reagan proposal for reductions was a trick, including the proposal to eliminate all the Soviet SS-20 missiles in Europe and Asia, known as the zero-zero option.

The trick was proposing reductions the Soviets could not possibly accept, thus with the US pretending to support arms control but knowing the US proposals would never be adopted, and a major US arms race could continue.

And as for the 2002 Moscow or SORT agreement, that further 75% cut in nuclear weapons was dismissed by the disarmament folks as “not real arms control” because it was not a detailed multiple hundreds of pages.

The 1981 freeze proposal was a Soviet trick as at the time Moscow’s nuclear modernization effort was complete while the United States nuclear modernization effort had barely begun. A freeze would put the US over a proverbial nuclear barrel.

Issacs also opposed most of the Reagan era nuclear modernization programs which ironically without which we would not have the entirety of our current legacy nuclear forces—which a nuclear freeze would have stopped from being built. And the Reagan nuclear modernization plan was within the boundaries of the 1972 SALT agreement, hardly a reckless or unwarranted expansion of nuclear weapons as Issacs claims.

Although Issacs mistakenly opposed President Reagan’s proposals on arms control and missile defense, Reagan’s strategy was extraordinarily successful in reducing nuclear weapons deployed in the strategic theater by 90%, while ending the Soviet empire and the first Cold War, while also liberating hundreds of millions of people from the bondage of communism.

The dimensions of Reagan’s achievement needs to be better appreciated. Like the China buildup today, Issacs was unconcerned with the Soviet build-up Reagan warned about in the post 1972 SALT era that led to the window of vulnerability.

However, following Reagan’s election, Issacs and his disarmament colleagues campaigned against the deployment of the Peacekeeper, claiming that the large Soviet ICBM force threatened to take out in a bolt out of the blue the entirety of America’s 1000 ICBMs, exactly the very basis for Reagan’s concern over a growing window of vulnerability.

Many arms control groups at the time also opposed the complimentary SICBM or mobile Midgetman missile deployment which would have given the US ICBM force a degree of additional survivability. And still today oppose the deployment of the new Sentinel ICBM despite the reduction by near 90% of the Soviet era ICBM forces arrayed against the United States.

To favor Sentinel, for example, would require Issacs to acknowledge Reagan resolved the “window” through: (1) building a new Triad of nuclear forces that were more survivable; (2) securing new arms control that eventually cut deployed strategic Soviet and Russian forces some 90%; and (3) dismantled the Soviet empire, and in so doing slammed shut the dangerous window of vulnerability the Soviets had created.

The window vulnerability was a phrase coined by then candidate Ronald Reagan to describe the massive Soviet force capability built after the signing of the 1972 SALT arms control agreement that actually allowed for the increase of Soviet nuclear weapons from roughly 2000 to over 13,000 strategic warheads, appoint explored by Senator Dan Coates when discussing the ratification of START I.

Isaac support for a nuclear freeze would have frozen in place a major Soviet modernization advantage over the United States as well as prevented huge numbers of nuclear warheads from being dramatically reduced by Reagan’s inspired nuclear arms control agreements.

It is puzzling that Isaacs now says numbers don’t matter. Of course, if numbers don’t matter, then why is it that every arms control agreement the United States signed with the USSR and then Russia called for both sides to have no more nuclear warheads deployed than the other guy certainly implying that numbers do matter. In short, if numbers don’t matter, why have arms control in the first place?

The missing analysis by Mr. Isaac is that the Russians and the Chinese believe that numbers matter. (As apparently do the North Koreans which recently announced their goal of having the most formidable nuclear forces on the globe.

Issacs says we do not need to worry because the Chinese may have only 400 warheads deployed today. But they also have over twenty new nuclear systems undergoing deployment or development, which could easily give them a nuclear force in excess of 3000 warheads by 2035, a conclusion reached by a number of recent expert assessments including those by James Howe, Rick Fisher, Tony Cordesman, and this author.

Unfortunately, many in favor of global nuclear zero or a minimal deterrent strategy, have fallen for the fake Chinese narrative that while they’re increasing their military and economic might it is all a peaceful rise posing no threat to the United States.

Part of this Chinese fairytale has been to conclude that China only has a minimal deterrent of a few hundred nuclear warheads, has insufficient fissile material to build more, does not engage in any arms racing, has not transferred nuclear weapons technology to any country, and will never use nuclear weapons first or against a non-nuclear armed country.

We know now that these Chinese narratives are without foundation although they are often repeated without question by the US disarmament community and even elements within the US intelligence community. It is obvious a Chinese nuclear force of 1500 warheads is not a minimal deterrent.

Threatening Japan with nuclear Armageddon as China has done is not showing restraint about using nuclear weapons.

Announcing as Deng Xiaoping did secretly in 1981 to the Chinese Communist Party Politburo that China would actively transfer nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan and North Korea and subsequently through the Khan network to Libya, Iran, and Iraq is not complying with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) prohibition against transferring nuclear weapons technology.

And as the recent DOD report confirms, the NPEC assessment that China has sufficient nuclear fissile material to build thousands of nuclear weapons was right.

Should the United States take Mr. Isaacs advice and build only three hundred nuclear warheads based on six submarines, two of which are on patrol at any one time, the US very small deterrent or retaliatory capability could be largely destroyed by the deployment of a robust Russian and Chinese missile defense, cutting the US deterrent capability to such low levels as to render it ineffective, a development that would seriously undermine the US extended deterrent over NATO and the Western Pacific..

Let’s look at some numbers. China has built 360 new ICBM silos in which the DF 41 can be deployed, with each of these missiles capable of carrying anywhere from 3 to 10 warheads.

The Chinese also are deploying six nuclear armed submarines, each of which has a JL2 or JL3 missile capable of carrying anywhere from 1-10 warheads.

In addition, China has newly deployed strategically armed nuclear bombers each of which can hold multiple gravity bombs or cruise missiles.

Not only does China have 360 new ICBM silos but additional rail mobile ICBMs on which they spent on the order of $65 billion in a series of tunnels and railroad tracks carrying mobile land- based ICBMs, as military expert Phil Karber has explained.

Add to this force are at least 200 medium range theater Chinese ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, and China’s emerging theater range nuclear capability matches in numbers all US theater nuclear forces in Europe.

Most importantly however the critical issue here is what China and Russia intend to do with their nuclear deployments whether 400 or 3000 warheads.

Russia has long adopted a policy of nuclear weapons being a guarantor of Russian aggression, which can be undertaken while the United States is intimidated to stand down. In this sense, nuclear weapons are not deployed to deter and make sure aggression fails, but actually allow aggression to succeed.

The Chinese apparently may also adopt such a strategy implying that the adoption of a US minimal deterrent nuclear strategy plays right into the hands of the Chinese and Russian military as both are seeking to use nuclear weapons to coerce and blackmail the United States as they seek hegemonic roles to spread their brand of totalitarian communism.

Key to this was an April 29, 1999, decree issued by President Yeltsin of Russia in which he called upon the Russian industry to develop battlefield nuclear weapons that were usable— highly accurate and low yield which would enable Russia to escalate to win a conventional battle through the use of nuclear weapons.

Russia has built thousands of such weapons under the direction of President Putin and as we have seen in Ukraine, Putin has threatened multiple dozens of times to use nuclear weapons against the United States or allies should the United States move its conventional military forces into the region to defend Ukraine. It is highly likely that China has developed a similar strategy with respect to Taiwan.

Although strategic nuclear weapons have been markedly reduced in the United States and Russia through arms control, the Chinese are under no arms control limits with respect to both their strategic nuclear weapons and their theater systems.

Mr. Isaacs claims the United States has a stockpile of over 5000 nuclear weapons but a significant number of these weapons are being retired and dismantled, while the available war warheads for deployment or reserve requirements are significantly less, probably around 3600.

However, the maximum number of warheads the United States could deploy on the Columbia class submarines and the new Sentinel ICBM and the 60 nuclear capable bombers that we currently deploy, would be in the area of 3000 warheads.

But such a buildup would take four years of additional work to reach that number, assuming as well that the Department of Energy has the capability to refurbish and give a life extension to that number of new bombs in a relatively short period of time.

Given current deployment trends, China and Russia together could combined field some 4000 strategic and 2500 theater nuclear forces by 2035. This number would dwarf a minimal deterrent proposed by Issacs. China and Russia cooperatively could under reasonable assumptions, disarm the United States using only 1/5th of 1% of their deployed warheads!

If Isaacs thinks this is a stabilizing and safe balance of power, he and his global zero colleagues should get a member of Congress to propose a minimal USA nuclear strategy of having only 200-300 warheads. And then have a good robust debate about the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1963, where the US had a ten to one advantage over the Soviets in deployed nuclear warheads, including the new Polaris submarine launched missile and the new Minuteman ICBMS, respectively, both of which President Kennedy credited with keeping the peace and preventing Armageddon. Kennedy obviously thought numbers mattered.

Issacs attended many dozens of 1500+ nuclear breakfast seminars I have hosted between 1983- 2022. I’ll pledge to host just such an event where he or a speaker of his choice can lay out the argument for unilaterally jettisoning some 90% of the US nuclear deterrent and we will have an informed debate.

After such a debate, maybe we can get the House and Senate to vote on the idea.

My guess is the subsequent vote would be a combined 35 yes and 500 no.

However, maybe Congress doesn’t think numbers matter. Let us find out.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

The late Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, said: “The endeavors undertaken by women in the Emirates are important and bright and deserve appreciation.”

Women are an essential pillar in building societies and a pillar for balance. The Emirati leadership has experienced these facts. They have worked since the establishment of the Emirates to achieve that role and empower Emirati women to play the role assigned to them, and this was expressed by the founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, who encouraged The first is for her to play her role and preserve her rights in full. Emirati women have always been an essential and influential element in the march of the UAE’s progress and an integral part of its societal structure. They work with Emirati men to enable the UAE to achieve its lofty aspirations and undertake unparalleled achievements. It is the second wing with The wing of the man who flew the Emirates toward the summit.

It is worth mentioning that since the establishment of the Emirates, the wise leadership, headed by the founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, has realized the importance of Emirati women and their ability to achieve and has succeeded in employing and benefiting from their capabilities, as women have proven that they are up to the responsibility and showed their ability to balance family tasks and daily professional burdens…

Emirati women have achieved achievements in all fields, from education to work in the most challenging professions. Women have proven their success in establishing their role in the past, present, and future of the Emirates politically, economically, and socially, so they were qualified to assume leadership positions. Here, Shamma bint Suhail bin Faris Al Mazrouei recalls me. The function of Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Vice President of the Arab Youth Center, she was the youngest minister in the world when she took office at the age of twenty-two in 2016. Her Excellency Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director General of the Expo 2020 Bureau, and Emirati women. She sits on the Executive Board of the Advanced Technology Research Council. In the 2021 Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum, the UAE jumped 48 ranks at once in a year, as its level rose from 120 to 72 in the global gender gap index and ranked second in the world in the index of equal pay between the two genders at the same work.

The forward-looking and confident vision of the Emirati leadership contributed to the UAE’s ranking first among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in the field of gender equality, as the number of women members of the Federal National Council increased. Nora Al-Matroushi was chosen to be the first Emirati woman to join the UAE space program and to become Thus the first female astronaut in the Arab world.

This is not to mention that Emirati women tended to focus on scientific disciplines, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and if we go back to the numbers, we find that a third of all university graduates in the UAE are women, and 77% of them hold degrees in computer science, 44% in engineering and nearly half of the graduates are female. Female university majors in the field of information and communication technology.

In addition, women in the UAE occupy 75% of the total jobs in the education and healthcare sectors, and approximately 23,000 Emirati entrepreneurs manage projects worth more than 50 billion dirhams. As for the diplomatic service, Emirati women occupy about 20% of the country’s representation positions in the diplomatic arena. In the United Nations, women occupy 15% of all places on the boards of directors of chambers of commerce and industry.

The UAE is the first Gulf country and the second in the Arab world to launch a national strategy for the empowerment of women, and this is what we notice through the decision that raised the proportion of women’s representation in the Federal National Council to 50%. Within the context of the Emirati strategy for women’s empowerment, Abu Dhabi embraced the launch of the “Arab Declaration to Combat All Forms of Violence against Women and Girls between Text and Ways of Implementation” in the presence of Minister of Community Development Hessa bint Issa Bu Hamid, Minister of Community Development, and Arab and European figures and the United Nations.

Accordingly, we conclude that the future holds promising horizons for Emirati women who have set their sights on solving upcoming challenges that may seem “impossible,” as that word does not exist in the Emirati dictionary.

*The views in this article are the express opinions of the author

Maria Maalouf is a journalist, broadcaster, and owner of the capitol Tv show from Washington DC. She holds an MA in Political Sociology from the University of Lyon. You can find her on Twitter @bilarakib

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator: https://spectator.org/an-outside-speaker-a-constitutionally-dubious-bad-idea/)

The normally astute NY Post columnist Miranda Devine recently reported that House Republicans are considering appointing Lee Zeldin for a number of positions, including that of Speaker of the House. Zeldin’s term as a Representative ends with this Congress. Having run for governor of New York and lost, he will not sit in the new House, come January 2023.

No one not elected the the House has ever been named Speaker. True, the text of the Constitution does not expressly provide that a Speaker be a sitting Member. Art. I, sec. 2, cl. 5 merely states: “The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers. . . .” Yet tacitly, as set forth below, it does. And worse, it is a very bad idea.

In a 2021 article for the Federalist Society, Cleveland Marshall College of Law professor David Forte and federal appeals judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III offer a resounding “no” to the question. They trace the history of the parliamentary Office of Speaker back to 1377. In England, the Speaker was originally a powerful Member of the House of Commons; but by the end of the 18th century the Speaker was relegated to the role of being an umpire presiding over the debates.

Conversely, the American Speaker has always been a powerful Office. During the Articles of Confederation (1777-1788), the Speaker was always a sitting Member. The 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, drafted by John Adams and hence especially influential, so specified. The 1787 federal Constitution did not use comparably specific language, because the text as drafted by New York delegate Gouverneur Morris, in his role on the Committee of Style and Arrangement, reflected the drafters’ desire for a less wordy document.

The authors conclude:

Genuine originalism looks to the contemporary understanding of the text of the Constitution, including what is left out. In the carefully crafted separation of powers . . . . The House of Representatives represented the people as a whole. It would have been unthinkable [for the House to appoint as Speaker someone not elected by the people].

Three reports issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), since 1914 the principal research arm of Congress, collectively confirm this view. A 2017 CRS report discussed the role of the Speaker; a 2021 CRS report traced elections for Speaker, from 1913 through 2021; and a 2022 CRS report answered FAQs about the Speaker.

From the First Congress (1789) up to 1839, the Speaker was elected by cast ballot; in 1839 the House practices were amended to require votes viva voce—Medieval Latin for “with the living voice”—each voting Member speaks aloud “yea” and “nay” when voting on passage of legislation, and adds a preferred nominee’s name when voting for Speaker. (Because the Speaker is elected first, the procedure is guided by tradition rather than formal rules.) No time limit is imposed; in 1855 it took 133 ballots over two months to elect a Speaker. An increasingly important factor has been longevity of service: From 1789 to 1899, the average length of service for those elected Speaker was 7.1 years; from 1899 thorough 2015 the average length tripled, to 23.3 years.

Before 1995, votes for non-Members were rare; beginning with the election of Newt Gingrich as Speaker, non-Members have been nominated in 11 of 14 contests; the 118th Congress that convenes in January 2023 is likely to continue this recent trend. Since 1879, a Speaker need not get 218 votes to be elected, merely an absolute majority of the votes cast by those present and voting. Since the House reached its 435-Member size in 1913, six Speakers have been elected by fewer than 218 votes: James Beauchamp (“Champ”) Clark (D-MO), 217 in 1913; Frederick Gillet (D-MA), the last Speaker elected after multiple ballots, 215 in 1923; Sam Rayburn (D-TX), 217 in 1943; Newt Gingrich (R-GA), 216 in 1997; John Boehner (R-OH), 216 in 2015; and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), 216 in 2021.

Non-Members received votes in the elections of 1997, 2013, 2015 (both elections), 2019 and 2021. Most were either former Members, or senators. The most prominent outlier was Colin Powell, a former national security adviser (under Reagan), chairman of the Joint Chiefs (under Bush 41) and secretary of state (under Bush 43), who received votes in 2013, and in both 2015 contests. In 2019, Obama vice-president Joe Biden, and defeated 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Democrat Stacey Abrams—a persistent sour-grapes “election denier”—each received one vote.

Presidential Succession. The Constitution, per Art. II, sec. 1, cl. 6, empowers the Congress to provide for the line of presidential succession, in event of a double vacancy. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 put the Speaker of the House next after the vice-president in the line of succession. (The Speaker had been behind the Senate president pro tempore under the original succession law enacted in 1792; in event of a double vacancy, a special election for president and vice-president was to be held. The 1886 succession law put Cabinet members, in the order that their respective departments were created, after the vice-president; the Speaker and president pro tem were taken out of the line, because executive experience was then more valued than parliamentary experience. The 1947 law reinstated the Speaker and president pro tem, but reversed their order in the line of succession behind the vice-president.)

Truman’s main rationale for doing so was that unlike Cabinet officials, who are presidential appointees, as a Member of the House of Representatives, the Speaker is an elected official. Thus, clearly, in putting the Speaker in the line of succession, President Truman assumed that the Speaker would always be a sitting, duly elected Member of the House—and conversely, not an outside appointee. Others felt differently, but Truman prevailed.

Bottom Line. The history and traditions of the American constitutional republic strongly weigh against having a Speaker who is not a serving Member of the House. Especially in highly partisan times, following a double vacancy by elevating a Speaker from any political party other than that of the president and vice-president would be perceived as an act of regicide. Such elevation would be bereft of the legitimacy that comes from having a president and vice-president elected by consent of the voters.

Thus, the GOP would be well advised to steer clear of naming as Speaker of the House anyone not elected to the new Congress. And anyone offered the job who is not elected to the new Congress would be well advised to decline the offer.

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).