"Monday Afternoon Massacre": USAID Employees Placed On Leave For Allegedly Circumventing Trump's Orders

Officials for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have been placed on paid (!) leave after allegedly trying to circumvent President Donald Trump's executive orders, according to a memorandum sent to agency staffers on Jan. 27.

USAID officials identified several actions that "appeared to be designed to circumvent the President’s Executive Orders and the mandate from the American people," according to acting administrator, Jason Gray.

"As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions," he added.

According to USAID's China policy lead Francisco Benscome, "People are calling it the Monday afternoon massacre," adding "This decision undermines our national security and emboldens our adversaries. … Instead of focusing on China, North Korea, or Russia, the Trump Administration is going after public servants who have served multiple administrations—including the first Trump administration."

Cry harder.

Democrats are freaking out over the 'massacre,' with Rep. Gregory Meeks (R-NY), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, saying in a statement that the move was harmful and had no benefit.

USAID, which notably gave Wuhan Labn collaborator EcoHealth Alliance a $4.67 million grant in 2021, then stonewalled when asked for documents - and handed Ukrainian energy giant Burisma a lucrative contract months after Hunter Biden joined its board, and gave $15 million to organizations linked to George Soros, is an 'independent' federal agency that leads US efforts on international development and 'humanitarian assistance' to other countries.

Republicans have been long critical of USAID's priorities, including providing funds to Afghanistan to distribute contraceptives.

"USAID needs to be dismantled," wrote Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) in a Monday post on X.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/monday-afternoon-massacre-usaid-employees-placed-leave-allegedly-circumventing-trumps

More PR for mass murders

Bill Gates Admits ‘Huge Mistake’ and ‘Foolish’ in Cozying Up to Convicted Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein

https://twitter.com/i/status/1883869374760550731

Since 2018, Over 75,000 Canadians Died Waiting for Health Care

If you think Canada has such a great nationalized health care system, you need to reconsider.

Death by Delay

SecondStreet reports 15,474 Canadians Died Waiting for Health Care in 2023-24

Today, SecondStreet.org released government data showing an additional 15,474 patients in Canada died in 2023-24 before receiving various surgeries or diagnostic scans. However, that number is incomplete, as several governments provide either partial data, or simply do not track the problem.

SecondStreet.org collected the data by filing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests across Canada. When the data collected is extrapolated across jurisdictions which did not provide data, the number actually nearly doubles, to around 28,077. These figures cover everything from cancer treatment and heart operations to cataract surgery and MRI scans.

“Canadians pay really high taxes and yet our health care system is failing when compared to better-performing universal systems in Europe,” said Harrison Fleming, Legislative and Policy Director at SecondStreet.org. “Thousands of Canadians across the country find themselves on waitlists — in some cases for several years -— with too many tragically dying before ever getting treated, or even diagnosed.”

Key Findings

At least 15,474 patients died in Canada while waiting for surgeries or diagnostic scans. This figure does not include Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and most of Manitoba. Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia only provided data on patients who died while waiting for surgeries – not diagnostic scans.

If one extrapolates the data provided across provinces and health regions that did not provide data, an estimated 28,077 patients died last year on health care waiting lists.

While some response data is vague, SecondStreet.org observed cases where patients died after waiting anywhere from less than a week for treatment to more than 14 years.

New data from Ontario Health suggests 378 patients died while waiting for cardiac surgery or a cardiac procedure.

Since April 2018, SecondStreet.org has identified a staggering 74,677 cases where Canadians died while waiting for care.

Another 15,000-Plus Euthanized

The National Review comments on Canada’s Socialized Health-Care Culture of Death

What a debacle. More than 15,000 people died in Canada in one year because they couldn’t access care in the country’s collapsing socialized health-care system.

But it gets worse. About the same number of people were euthanized in Canada in 2023. Some asked to be lethally jabbed because they couldn’t access health care in a timely fashion.

https://mishtalk.com/economics/since-2018-over-75000-canadians-died-waiting-for-health-care/

CIA, Israel and conspiracy theories: What to expect from the JFK files

Thousands of records about the US president’s assassination in 1963 still remain classified

How many documents are there?

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) says it has declassified 99% of some 320,000 documents related to the JFK assassination, as required by a law passed by Congress in 1992. The final deadline for declassification was October 2017, but the US intelligence community claimed it needed more time to review and redact the records.

According to multiple estimates, 2,140 documents remain fully or partially redacted, while another 2,500 records have been kept secret for other reasons, such as court orders or donor restrictions.

https://www.rt.com/news/611792-cia-jfk-files-trump/

Iron Dome for America: Hegseth teases Israeli-style air defense system order

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday the Pentagon will pursue an Iron Dome-style missile defense system for the United States, fulfilling a campaign promise by President Trump.

Walking into the five-sided building for the first time as leader of the American military, Hegseth told reporters they could expect a flurry of executive orders from Trump, 78 — including one that would order the deployment of a system similar to that used by the Jewish state, which blasts ballistic missiles out of the sky with an accuracy rate of roughly 90%.

“Today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support, on removing DEI inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of COVID mandates, Iron Dome for America,” he said. “This is happening quickly.”

The Israeli-made air defense system is heralded for its ability to target and shoot down incoming missiles, which has helped limit damage inside Israel from attacks by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis throughout the 15-month-old Middle East war.

Pursuing an Iron Dome for America was part of the Republican campaign platform in 2024.

“Republicans will ensure our Military is the most modern, lethal and powerful force in the world,” the document said. “We will invest in cutting-edge research and advanced technologies, including an Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield, support our troops with higher pay, and get woke leftwing Democrats fired as soon as possible.”

However, Israel is a small nation — roughly the size of New Jersey — that is located close to its enemies, raising questions about whether the US can actually hope to duplicate Iron Dome’s effectiveness.

Israel’s system is designed to target short-range ballistic missiles, rather than the inter-continental ballistic missiles America’s foes like Russia and China would have to fire to reach US territory.

The cost to acquire a system that would cover the airspace of all 50 states is also a potential sticking point.

Raytheon has created a similar system, dubbed the SkyHunter, which it claims “can be produced in the United States to expand availability and capacity for the US and its allies.”

https://nypost.com/2025/01/27/us-news/iron-dome-for-america-hegseth-teases-israeli-style-air-defense-system-order/

US-backed Syrian authorities conduct dozens of sectarian executions

Alawites, Christians, and members of other minority groups have been systematically targeted by Syria’s new government since it came to power

Syria’s government forces executed five Alawites in the countryside of the central governorate of Hama on 27 January and dozens of others in the past few days, according to the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

SOHR director Rami Abdul Rahman told Al-Hurra TV in an interview on Monday that “35 people were executed in the field during the past few days, and today, five others from the Alawite sect were executed by an armed group in the northern Hama countryside.”

The perpetrators belonged to groups under the command of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) Military Operations Department – which has been waging an indiscriminate crackdown on elements of the former Syrian Arab Army (SAA) since the new government came to power last month.

“These militants are loose and undisciplined groups that operate under the Operations Department, and [HTS] may not be able to control them” despite dozens of them having been arrested, Abdul Rahman added.

He confirmed that “these [people who were executed] are not remnants of the [former] regime,” adding that “we have moved to a new state for transitional justice, not revenge.”

The new government says it is clamping down on elements of the former government in Syria, which it claims are responsible for massacres. However, the campaign has taken a heavy toll on minorities.

SOHR reported earlier this month that at least 150 Alawites have been killed since the new government came to power. Heavy media censorship is being imposed, and the numbers are expected to remain on the rise. Alongside Alawites, members of the Christian community in Syria and their holy sites have been targeted.

In January, over 190 people were killed – including five women – in field executions or revenge killings, according to SOHR.

Hundreds of kidnappings have also been reported. Several Al-Qaeda-linked individuals have been appointed to top positions in the new Syrian government.

Foreign fighters who illegally entered the country to fight former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government during the US-backed war against Syria have been given ranks within the new armed forces.

A US terrorist designation on HTS’s leader Ahmad al-Sharaa – formerly an ISIS and Al-Qaeda chief who went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani – was removed last month after meeting with a delegation in Damascus.

The recent killings come as EU leaders have decided to lift some of the sanctions it had imposed on Syria’s finance, transportation, and energy sectors.

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-backed-syrian-authorities-conduct-dozens-of-sectarian-executions

UAE conglomerate buys $10m stake in Israeli tech security firm that detects drones

Abu Dhabi defense contractor EDGE to invest a further $12 million to develop and market Thirdeye Systems’ electro-optical recognition products

UAE-based advanced defense technology group EDGE will invest $10 million to buy a 30 percent stake in Israel’s Thirdeye Systems, a developer of AI-based electro-optical systems to detect drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The deal is subject to approval by Israel’s Defense Ministry. The Netanya-based defense tech startup said Tuesday that Abu Dhabi’s EDGE group has also committed to investing $12 million to create a joint venture with Thirdeye that will be tasked with the development and sales of electro-optical object recognition systems to new global regions and markets.

According to the agreement, EDGE will be the majority owner of the joint venture with a 51% stake, Thirdeye will hold 43% and a third party the remaining 6%.

Founded in 2010 by CEO Lior Segal, Yoel Motola and Gil Barak, Thirdeye develops fully automated electro-optical scanning systems to detect fast-evolving threats on the battlefield, including UAVs and enemy drones. The systems rely on dual imaging technology and combine thermal and sensor imaging that detect heat emissions and capture light reflections.

EDGE, an Abu Dhabi-based conglomerate of private firms and government-owned bodies, has 25 subsidiaries and employs 12,000 workers across various sectors: defense platforms and systems; missiles and precision-guided weapons; cyber defense; electronic warfare and intelligence; and mission support. The conglomerate operates in 140 countries and has an order backlog of $12.8 billion.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/uae-conglomerate-inks-10m-drone-tech-deal-to-buy-stake-in-israels-thirdeye/

Accusing Government of ‘Two-Tier Policing’, Talking About Child Rape Gangs Are Signs of Extremism, Says Leaked UK Gov’t Report

An internal report ordered by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper risks taking counter-terror police’s eye off radical Islamism and tarring “significant swathes” of the public with the “far-right” brush, critics warn, as widespread concerns have been labelled extremist by the government.

‘Understand’, an internal report on counter-extremism ordered by senior Labour politician Yvette Cooper last year after the anti-mass migration riots following the Southport child murders, has been leaked and reveals how civil servants advise the government to widen the net of the security services radically.

The report, which was leaked to the Policy Exchange think tank, took an extremely dismissive attitude towards important issues facing the country while branding concerns about them as obsessions of extremists. Objections over so-called two-tier policing — which is to say police treating various social, racial, and faith groups differently, in contravention of the concept of equality before the law — is an example of a “right-wing extremist narrative”. This attitude comes despite the idea of two-tier policing already being demonstrated as pretty widespread throughout the British public.

Policy Exchange warned: “There is an obvious risk here of tarring significant swathes of the public as Far Right. A similar danger may exist through the [review] categorising the Far Right as ‘hijacking extant local grievances about perceived inequalities around access to resources’.”

Meanwhile, the issue of so-called grooming gangs, the organised industrial-scale rape of young girls by predominantly Pakistani-heritage gangs in Britain’s regional towns and cities, is also airily dismissed by Yvette Cooper’s ‘Understand’. It states: “Right-wing extremists frequently exploit cases of alleged group-based sexual abuse to promote anti-Muslim sentiment as well as anti-government and anti-‘political correctness’ narratives”.

Policy Exchange drew attention to the fact civil servants felt the need to call it “alleged” abuse as if this was in question, as it dismisses any idea there may be any genuine concern about the rape of children among those holding right-wing views.

In an area of clear internal contradiction, if not outright hypocrisy, Policy Exchange also noted that the government document exhaustively talks about the danger of “extreme misogyny”, relating it to ideas like the “manosphere”, “Pick-Up Artists”, and “Incels”, but makes “little reference” to the perpetrators of some of the most horrendous violence against women in the UK in decades, those same Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs themselves.

Other areas of extremism name-checked included Hindu extremism, anarchism, and radical environmentalism.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/28/talking-about-two-tier-policing-rape-gangs-signs-of-extremism-says-uk/

Javier Milei Names His Top 6 Allies In The Global Fight For Freedom

“I don’t feel alone, because the world has embraced Argentina,” he said. “Argentina has become a global example of fiscal responsibility, of commitment to honoring our obligations and, obviously, a commitment to solve the inflation problem.”

He continued, “Nor do I feel alone because over the course of this year, I have found allies in this fight for the ideas of freedom in every corner of the world – from the amazing Elon Musk to that fierce Italian lady, my dear Giorgia Meloni; from Bukele in El Salvador to Viktor Orbán in Hungary; from Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel to Donald Trump in the United States – slowly an international alliance has been forming among all those nations which, like ours, want to be free and believe in the ideas of liberty.”

“And slowly, what once seemed like the absolute global hegemony of the woke left in politics and educational institutions, in the media, in supranational organizations, or even in forums like Davos, has begun to crumble,” he added. “And I hope for the ideas of freedom is starting to emerge.”

https://youtu.be/AQ1uhPiJr1c

https://www.domigood.com/2025/01/javier-milei-names-his-top-6-allies-in.html

America is being destroyed

Trump is in bed with every Deep state asshole

Terrorists in Syria and Israel

Tech pedos Gates Zuckerberg Altman etc

Wants Greenland and Canada = club of Rome NWO plan

Iron dome doesn't stop shit

Epstein Diddy list still secret

JFK files = files withheld

Bankers hello nothing about ending the FED

More bombs for Israel

Davos 2025: WEF Panel on 'Antisemitism' Pushes for Increased Social Media Censorship

"You think I am privileged, I think we are one government away from my going to the gas chamber." - American Federation of Teachers union boss Randi Weingarten explaining how she shuts down her critics

From WEF 2025: Jonathan Greenblatt, Randi Weingarten, and Jennifer Schenker Advocate for Increased Social Media Censorship to Combat Antisemitism:

At the 2025 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, a session titled "Confronting Antisemitism Amid Polarization" featured prominent speakers who advocated for stronger measures to compel social media platforms to censor content they consider harmful. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT); and Jennifer Schenker, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Innovator, expressed concerns about the influence of platforms like TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook on public discourse and the spread of antisemitism.

Jennifer Schenker set the tone for the discussion by claiming, "The flames of antisemitism are being fanned every second by TikTok and social media," and lamenting that "the Jewish community has not been able to effectively combat that online."

Jonathan Greenblatt labeled social media platforms "a super spreader of antisemitism and hate" and criticized their impact on younger audiences, stating, "Young people… get their news from TikTok, which is fairly terrifying, or from X or from Instagram." He also called Meta "a gigantic problem," highlighting the challenges posed by the platforms' size, business models, and governance structures.

Greenblatt further criticized Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), describing it as "a loophole… which exempts [social media companies] from liability." He called for regulatory and reputational pressure to compel these companies to act, suggesting that social pressure could deter top engineers from working for platforms perceived as unethical: "If their engineers feel like going to these companies and participating in something, you know, an evil enterprise, if you will, they don't wanna do that."

Greenblatt sounded quite desperate, frankly.

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64827

Will ‘We The People’ Be Represented In The Senate Confirmation Hearings This Time, Or Is There Still Only Room For ‘The Lobby(s)’?

The confirmation hearings in the US Senate for the newly inaugurated president’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (Robert Kennedy) have been scheduled for the 29th of January (at 10am local time). While it is of course most likely that the hearings will turn out to be just another succession of Big Pharma representatives and associates (in the guise of senators in this instance) lining up to condemn, discredit and disqualify Kennedy as quickly as possible (after the pharmaceutical industry’s first tactic – disqualification by mass media character assassination – was not successful), the hearings could be a rare opportunity for other experts and social sectors to ‘meddle’ in the country’s health policies – if Kennedy has an opportunity to present his case and introduce expert testimony and witnesses, or if public interest groups are able to mount an effective political and media campaign to confront and contest the prepackaged narrative orchestrated by the pharmaceutical industry’s media blitzkrieg campaign and extensive lobbying apparatus.

The stage is set for another carefully scripted tent show performance in the US Congress. In this instance the paramount objective will be to ensure that the coveted cabinet post of Secretary of Health and Human Resources remains in the hands of a reliable and obedient pharmaceutical industry/ medical Establishment apparatchik. In this latter-day ‘David & Goliath’ showdown, Kennedy will have a few hours to persuade the Senate that he is a worthy candidate for the post, while the pharmaceutical industry can count on ready access to most senators at any time through personal contacts as well as via a large lobbying apparatus that is permanently stationed in the national capital. Meanwhile, the largest shareholders of almost all of the major pharmaceutical companies also have enormous influence over the mainstream media, politicians and the medical Establishment more generally.

Nonetheless, the hearings could yet turn out to be a rare opportunity for non-industry health experts, civil society organizations and social sectors to ‘meddle’ in health policy – if they can mobilize and join forces to develop a proactive lobbying effort, so that Robert Kennedy has an opportunity to present his case and introduce expert testimony and witnesses to counter the media barrage with detailed evidence and arguments.

More

https://southfront.press/will-we-the-people-be-represented-in-the-senate-confirmation-hearings-this-time-or-is-there-still-only-room-for-the-lobbys/

Pence-Led Group Launches Ad Campaign Against RFK Jr. Nomination

An ad campaign opposing President Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services was launched on Wednesday by Advancing American Freedom, an advocacy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, The Hill has reported.

The six-figure campaign includes digital ads that will run the next few weeks in Washington, D.C., as Kennedy awaits his confirmation hearing, as well as a mobile billboard that will travel around Capitol Hill and the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion rally that will take place Friday on the National Mall.

The ads showcase Kennedy's past remarks backing abortion access during pregnancy, misinformation he shared concerning vaccines during a measles outbreak in American Samoa, claims that the polio vaccine was linked to cancer, and that vaccines cause autism.

Kennedy, who has not yet had a confirmation hearing scheduled, has been holding meetings with dozens of senators on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.

Most of the opposition to his nomination has been due to his anti-vaccine rhetoric, with thousands of doctors and public health officials having signed a letter warning that his "unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world," according to The Hill.

However, no Senate Republican has publicly stated they will oppose his nomination. Even if all Democrats vote against him, Kennedy can still be confirmed if he loses no more than three GOP votes.

Advancing American Freedom has opposed the choice of Kennedy from the beginning, having already sent a letter last week to senators urging them to vote against him due to his previous backing for abortion

"While RFK Jr. has made certain overtures to pro-life leaders that he would be mindful of their concerns at HHS, there is little reason for confidence at this time," the group's leaders wrote.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/rfk-mike-pence-robert-f-kennedy-jr/2025/01/22/id/1196082/

Catherine Austin Fitts: "If you were among those who supported Trump on the theory that he is going to end THE GREAT POISONING, I am afraid you will be sadly disappointed. The real goal here is to build the data-center infrastructure for a Control Grid, a Digital ID, and an All-Digital Financial System. Health-'care' is just the excuse".

MAGA IS THE MIRAGE of the AMERICAN "GOLDEN" AGE

CATHERINE AUSTIN FITTS CALLS OUT OPERATION WARP SPEED 2.0:

Here, Catherine Austin Fitts calls out the medical machinations of Trump 2.0:

In 2020, Trump 1.0 authorized Operation Warp Speed 1.0 and put 18 billion USD dollars behind it.

Now, Trump 2.0 has authorized Operation Warp Speed 2.0 and put 500 billion USD dollars behind that [and into the pockets of Larry Ellison and Sam Altman, who have track-records as total crooks].

The first LIE is that Operation Warp Speed 2.0 is being presented as "private investment". Not true. One way or another, that money is coming from the US Regime at taxpayer expense.

The second LIE is that Operation Warp Speed 2.0 involves "vaccines". It does not. It is really for toxic-poison mRNA bioweapons. They are calling it "vaccines" because they want indemnification and, financially, they simply cannot afford to murder and maim so many millions of slaves without being indemnified for the whole operation.

This is partly a kind of Manhattan Project to "win at AI" (in a competition against China).

The two biggest dangers of Operation Warp Speed 2.0 are that it will succeed in building the infrastructure for a digital concentration camp, and that it will kill a lot of slaves (must be a plan to relieve the social-welfare system).

Of course, the business model of toxic-poison mRNA bioweapons is that poisoning cases get declared to be "new diseases", which in turn require more toxic-poison mRNA bioweapons to "cure" or "fix" them.

You give people poison, they get symptoms of toxicity, you declare those "diseases", and make another poison to give them. That is a very profitable financial treadmill. And it is continuing because dozens of mega-factories for just-in-time "vaccines" are being built all over the world. And we already know that the "vaccines" being output contain secret ingredients again. This is for-profit genocide in the best traditions of "Team Antichrist".

If there is a move to force-inject the slaves with toxic-poison mRNA bioweapons, we are talking about a mass atrocity. At the very least, the slaves who get injected will have a privacy issue because, for the rest of their lives, the nanotech contents will be transmitting their data 24-7 to the Big Pharma Data Centers. But, at the worst, the slaves will have a death issue but the upshot is they will never draw their pensions.

Catherine sums up: "If you were among those who supported Trump on the theory that he is going to end THE GREAT POISONING, I am afraid you will be sadly disappointed. The real goal here is to build the data-center infrastructure for a Control Grid, a Digital ID, and an All-Digital Financial System. Health-'care' is just the excuse".

https://old.bitchute.com/video/x23dQvFempsZ/

>>22453714

TRUMP'S FOCUS:

#1 Re-engineer the current economic model and make it more economic.

#2 Maximize profits for his major donors and sponsors.

TRUMP'S LIKELY OPTIONS TO IMPLEMENT THE CONTROL MODEL (SLAVERY SYSTEM):

#1 Reinforce the swamp by implementing total tyranny under a Digitial ID.

#2 Build up the swamp by implementing an All-Digital Monetary System.

#3 Permit the DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, and other crooks, to enable the central-banksters to take over control of fiscal policy through corporate contractors. [This will be sold as "reducing" government.]

Trump also understands fully that if you do not do what "Team Antichrist" tells you, they will kill your family.

Catherine says "drain the swamp" is not going to happen because you cannot re-engineer the economic model, AND make money for your cronies, AND "drain the swamp" all at the same time.

She says: You don't change the system by one guy riding in on a white horse and fixing everything. You change the system by so many people shifting their time, their money, their intention, their prayers that the crowd moves THIS way and you cannot force them to go THAT way anymore.

Catherine says the USA's real problem is the hypocrisy of its people, who refuse to face the problems. She mentions that, in around 2000, a DOJ official said that the US economy launders between 500 billion and 1 trillion USD dollars in all the world's illegal cash-flows. So, today, it is much worse (twice as much?).

Catherine's "RED BUTTON THEORY" says that only 1 percent of people would move to SOLVE the problems by pressing a theoretical "RED BUTTON" because they stand to lose from that. The theoretical "RED BUTTON" was to stop all hard-narcotics trafficking in the USA, but only 1 percent were willing to press it.

Catherine quotes a major EU puppetician who once admitted: "We know what to do [to fix things] but we do not know how to get reelected after we do it".

>>22453744

>without warpspeed, you would still be locked down

Provide a stitch of proof about the above

New neocon manifesto: Keep US troops in the Middle East

The 'Vandenberg Coalition' wants Trump to prioritize Israel and maintain Iran as enemy number one

A leading neoconservative for most of the last half century has released a comprehensive series of recommendations on Middle East policy for the new Trump administration nearly all of which are ideas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party would happily embrace.

The 16-page report, entitled “Deals of the Century: Solving the Middle East,” is published by the Vandenberg Coalition, which was founded and chaired by Elliott Abrams, who has held senior foreign policy posts in every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan (except George H.W. Bush’s), including as Special Envoy for Venezuela and later for Iran during Trump’s first term.

Created shortly after former President Biden took office, the Coalition has acted as a latter-day Project for the New American Century, a letterhead organization that acted as a hub and platform for pro-Likud neoconservatives, aggressive nationalists, and the Christian Right in mobilizing public support for the “Global War on Terror,” the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the move away from a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly under the George W. Bush administration in which Abrams served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, surviving a number of purges of leading neoconservatives in that administration after the Iraq occupation went south.

The new report predictably calls for the new administration to “use all elements of [U.S.] national power” to prevent Iran, “the greatest threat to American interests in the Middle East and the cause of most of the region’s security problems,” from acquiring a nuclear bomb. It describes Israel as “our cornerstone ally in the region” to which Washington should provide all “the weapons it needs [to] help it win the war and prevent wider escalation.”

The recommendations also call for Washington to maintain its military presence in both Iraq and Syria, to suspend all aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) “until it demonstrates a willingness to oppose Hezbollah, accelerate U.S. arms sales and broaden intelligence cooperation with the UAE,” and enhance military and security cooperation with Saudi Arabia provided it “pivot[s] away from China and Russia.”

It also calls for the Saudis to “increase [its] foreign direct investment commitments in U.S industries,” and “cease public statements” critical of Israel and supportive of Iran. “…[En]hanced cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” the report insists, “should be contingent on their being unequivocal about what side they are on.”

Washington should also designate Iraq’s Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and related militias as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and stop engaging with them politically, and work with Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council against the Houthis whose designation as an FTO by the Trump administration last week was applauded in the report. On the new government in Syria, the report says that ongoing sanctions, which helped cripple the country’s economy, should not be lifted “unless the new government proves to be a responsible actor,” although it does not describe what that would mean in any detail.

Aside from Iran’s status as Enemy Number One in the report, special scorn was reserved for Qatar, which has played a central role in mediating between Israel and Hamas regarding the fate of Israelis held in Gaza and Palestinians detained in Israel. Similar contempt is reserved for the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, for various U.N. agencies, notably “the nefariousness [sic] UNRWA,” which has worked with Palestinian refugees and their families across the Middle East for more than 70 years, and for senior UN human rights officials who deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict in particular. Washington “should immediately cease all funding to UNRWA” and also to UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed along the Lebanese-Israeli border unless its troops are given the authority and demonstrate the will to confront Hezbollah forces in the area.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/elliott-abrams/