Monday Reading (UPDATED)

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Putin puppet Donald "Not Exonerated" Trump's Secretary of State, pompous Mike Pompeo, is on a mission to undercut the Iran nuclear deal and precipitate a war with Iran:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday arrived Brussels in an unplanned visit with European foreign ministers who had been meeting to bolster the faltering Iran nuclear deal against a U.S. assault.

The last-minute decision — announced as he hopped on a plane — set up a confrontation between Pompeo and European diplomats who have been scrambling to save the deal. [snip]

Pompeo scrapped a day of mostly ceremonial events in Moscow on Monday in favor of the Brussels stopover. He plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday. Many E.U. leaders are furious with Trump’s moves on Iran, and Brussels appeared set to welcome Pompeo only grudgingly, if at all.  (our emphasis)

It's not surprising Pompeo is reporting back to headquarters after trying to sink the nuclear deal our European allies have been trying to salvage.  Meanwhile, Iran archenemy Saudi Arabia is investigating the "sabotage" of two of its oil tankers in the Persian Gulf (perhaps by bonesaw?), setting up a potential pretext for attacks on Iran.  They're determined to use the weak- minded Trump to achieve their goal of eliminating a regional rival, to hell with the consequences.

A Washington Post editorial ties this in with a visit to our would- be autocrat by Hungarian despot Viktor Orban:

Mr. Trump’s affinity for this demagogue is matched by his administration’s steadily worsening relations with traditionally close U.S. allies such as Germany and France. On the same day that the White House announced Mr. Orban’s visit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abruptly canceled a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As Europe’s centrist parties struggle with a growing challenge from far-right parties with racist and authoritarian agendas, the United States ought to be doing all it can to bolster liberal democracy, especially in those parts of Europe where its roots are shallow. Instead, with increasing boldness, Mr. Trump is siding with democracy’s enemies.

The lights have gone from flashing yellow to red.

Meanwhile, Russian intelligence cutout and current British jailbird Julian Assange is having his rape investigation reopened by Sweden:

Swedish prosecutors are reopening an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Speaking Monday at a news conference in Stockholm, Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecutions, said there is “still a probable cause to suspect that Assange committed rape.” In her assessment, she said, “a new questioning of Assange is required.”

Last month, Assange was arrested by British police at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London and later sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail.

He fled to the embassy in 2012 after Sweden requested his extradition in a case involving sexual assault allegations, which Assange denies.

An Iraq war combat veteran writes about the dangers stemming from Trump's pardoning of war criminals:

In at least three instances, then, our commander in chief appears to have preferred to overlook serious war crimes in favor of a warped notion of patriotism and heroism. Trump subscribes to a “bad things happen in war” mentality — odd for a man who actively avoided military service.  [snip]

When Trump champions war criminals as brave patriots who are simply victims of political correctness, he seems to push for a climate that condones unethical and criminal behavior. He appears to write off war crimes as the cost of doing business. If this is the example our military is given, we should not be surprised to see more [Michael] Behennas and [Edward] Gallaghers. Referring to the infamous Army “kill team ” in Afghanistan in 2009-2010, a senior military official noted the importance of the brigade commander’s aggressive guidance, which rejected any attempt to “win hearts and minds.” The official observed that “clearly, the guys who were pulling the trigger are the proximate cause of the crime, but the culture itself is the enabler.” [snip]

 Leaders are constantly making policy, by what they do — and by what they don’t do. Trump’s posture endangers our deployed men and women by betraying the trust of host nations that we will prosecute those rare individuals who commit crimes against their people.  [our emphasis]

Finally, we offer our recommendation to check out Infidel 753's latest link round- up for the best smorgasbord of Internet offerings anywhere.  Make sure you at least make it to the link to the Anne Frank memorial posting.

UPDATE:  Apparently the Europeans weren't having any of pompous Pompeo's shenanigans--

A senior European diplo tells me @SecPompeo came to Brussels for a photo op -- Europe and US stand against Iran. "He wanted a photo op. We declined and stuck to the plan." #Iran #EU @FedericaMog

— laurence norman (@laurnorman) May 13, 2019

Well, we're sure the Russians will accommodate him.

Rejecting The Iran Nuclear Agreement Would Be "A Historic Mistake"

We're offering two good reads this morning on the Iran nuclear agreement which, to absolutely nobody's surprise, is under mindless assault by "just say no" Republicans and Likudniks alike.  Here are brief tastes, but please read the entire op/ eds.

Fareed Zakaria lays out some facts that make opposition to the agreement all the more incomprehensible and appalling:

Let’s imagine that the opponents of the nuclear agreement with Iran get their way: The U.S. Congress kills it. What is the most likely consequence? Within one year, Iran would have more than 25,000 centrifuges, its breakout time would shrink to mere weeks and the sanctions against it would crumble. How is this in the United States’ national interest? Or Israel’s? Or Saudi Arabia’s?

Philip Gordon takes a historical perspective and concludes:

If the U.S. Congress kills the current Iran deal and the alternative approach leads the Iranians to come back to the table and accept a much better agreement, it will deserve enormous credit. If, as seems far more likely, the death of this deal instead leads Iran to resume the expansion of its nuclear program even while under sanctions and the threat of force, just as it has for the past decade, Congress will have made a historic mistake. And the next generation will wonder why we did the same thing all over again and expected a different result. 

In the meantime, diplomats from Great Britain, France and Germany (all co-signers of the agreement with Iran) are in Washington to argue the case for the agreement.  We hope they're not wasting their time with Republicans, who want to deliver a defeat to President Obama no matter what the cost to U.S. and Israeli security;  best to deal with potential spineless Democratic defectors (=cough= Sen. Menendez =cough=) who may be influenced to do the right thing.

Today's Cartoon: "Side Effects Of Diplomacy"

(click on image to enlarge)

(Brian McFadden, via gocomics.com)

Republicans, and their Israeli doppelganger, Prime Minister Netanyahu (R-Tel Aviv), are fast at work trying to sabotage the Iran nuclear agreement (which would take some craven Democrats in the Senate to accomplish - of which there's no shortage).  Meanwhile, Jonathan Alter spoke to former Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon:

"When negotiations began, Iran was two months away from acquiring enough material for a [nuclear] bomb. Now it will be 12 months," Ayalon says, and the difference is significant to anyone with a background in intelligence. "Israelis are failing to distinguish between reducing Iran's nuclear capability and Iran being the biggest devil in the Middle East," he says.

Why has the response been more emotional than logical? "It's very easy to play with fears in a fearful society,” he says.

That's one of the things that bonds Republicans to their right-wing Likudnik allies:  using the tactic of fear to motivate.  But, as Alter goes on to point out,

For six years, Barack Obama has been cautious about calling out Iran. To convince China and Russia not to veto sanctions in the Security Council, he spoke softly. Harsh condemnations might have complicated the nuclear deal, which was rightly his first priority. The same went for pushing too hard on Iran’s outrageous imprisonment of four innocent Americans. 

Now the president will have a much freer hand to confront Iran on its non-nuclear behavior, and has more political incentive to do so. Like the deal itself, that’s good for the world in general, and Israel in particular.

(Identifying the rejectionists in the cartoon above: (top line) Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Scott Walker;  (second line) Jeb! Bush, John Boehner, Mike Huckabee, Bibi Netanyahu.)