The Media Is Focused on Hurricane Relief and Guns, but Iran and North Korea Problems Have not Gone Away

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT HURRICANES AND GUN CONTROL RANTS HAVE TAKEN AMERICA's REAL PROBLEMS OFF THE FRONT PAGE. But, North Korea and Iran haven't gone away. • • • NORTH KOREA's MISSILE DEVELOPMENT 'MIRACLE.' On Wednesday, TheHill published an opinion piece by Bart Marcois, the principal deputy assistant secretary of energy for international affairs during the Bush administration and a former career foreign service officer who is now a director at the Richard Richards Foundation. Marcois says the key to North Korea's advancement in its missile technology in the past two years is European banks : "Although means, methods and personalities vary regionally, and even from deal to deal, there is one constant : eventually, all arms trades -- even illicit ones -- have to come to the bank. Some are done with the knowledge of the original arms manufacturers, who persuade government officials to look the other way while illegal activities take place. The banks look the other way also, caring only about the revenue from their lending activity." So, while two years ago, North Korean was testing missiles that often couldn't get off the ground, and when they did, they travelled erratically and couldn't deliver a heavy nuclear payload. But now, NK has an ICBM and missiles that fly reliable flight paths over significant distance. They apparently pose a credible threat to Guam, and perhaps soon to Hawaii or the continental United States. Macois says NK has produced these advanced missiles "by using high-quality rocket engines evidently supplied by Russia." Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies published an analysis that identified the engines as Soviet RD-250 types. Other analysts point to Iranian technical assistance. According to Macois : "Russia and China have long found North Korea a useful tool, using its unpredictable behavior to cause instability in the region. This is part of a pattern inherent in illicit arms trades : powerful, established bad actors recruit surrogates from among rogue nations, and fuel regional conflicts by opening markets for arms dealers who follow their political priorities." The Russians, says Macois, are "particularly brazen about it," and set up “false flag” operations so they can blame the trades on the US, Ukraine, or other enemies. Ukrainian military and political sources have told Macois that the Russians provided the engines to North Korea, masking them as Ukrainian. A Ukrainian opposition politician with a national security background told Macois : “I don’t like Poroshenko, and he is guilty of many things, but not of supplying engines to North Korea. Until recently, the North Koreans seldom fired missiles, but now they do it frequently, with no sign of scarcity. These did not come from the Ukrainian stockpile, they could only have come from Russian stockpiles.” A source close to South Korean intelligence circles indicated to Macois : “The engines are not RD-250, but RD-251, coming from Russia. Our reports show that they received 20 to 40 engines in just the past year. China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan are helping Pyongyang develop warheads, but our evidence suggests the rocket engines are coming from Russia.” • And, banks are key to the trade, says Macois : "The Trump administration is taking strong action against banks with any connection to North Korea. A Treasury spokesperson said, 'We don’t telegraph sanctions or comment on prospective actions.' Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker testified before the Senate Banking Committee on September 28 that Treasury is focusing specifically on foreign banks : banks worldwide should take note that we are acting to protect the US financial system from North Korean illicit financial activity...We now have the ability to suspend correspondent account access to, or designate and freeze the assets of, any foreign financial institution that knowingly conducts significant transactions in connection with any trade with North Korea or on behalf of any North Korea-related designated person...These types of sanctions were used to great effect in the Iran context, and present a stark choice to banks around the world.' " • Many of the banks financing the black arms trade are in Central Europe, and their common feature is Russian ownership. European officials almost certainly cannot guarantee that these banks have not financed any illicit arms deals. It's time for European banks to take a close look at their balance sheets and sever all ties with traders in illegal arms. • • • NORTH KOREAN WEAPONS ARE GOING TO EGYPT. The Washington Post said on Sunday that a North Korean ship was seized off Egypt with a huge cache of weapons destined for a surprising buyer -- Egypt. The WP reported that last August, a secret message was passed from Washington to Cairo warning about a mysterious vessel steaming toward the Suez Canal. The bulk freighter named Jie Shun was flying Cambodian colors but had sailed from North Korea, the warning said, with a North Korean crew and an unknown cargo shrouded by heavy tarps. Egyptian customs agents were waiting for the Jie Shun when it entered Egyptian waters. The WP says : "They swarmed the vessel and discovered, concealed under bins of iron ore, a cache of more than 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades. It was, as a United Nations report later concluded, the 'largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.' ” And, according to the WP : "A UN investigation uncovered a complex arrangement in which Egyptian business executives ordered millions of dollars worth of North Korean rockets for the country’s military while also taking pains to keep the transaction hidden, according to US officials and Western diplomats familiar with the findings. The incident, many details of which were never publicly revealed, prompted the latest in a series of intense, if private, US complaints over Egyptian efforts to obtain banned military hardware from Pyongyang, the officials said." • All this took place while Kim Jong-un's regime was under stiff new economic sanctions. But, the NK global arms trade has become an increasingly vital financial lifeline for NK leader Kim Jong-un in the wake of the unprecedented sanctions. While US officials have declined to publicly criticize Egypt, the Jie Shun incident -- coming on top of other reported weapons deals with North Korea in recent years -- contributed to the diplomatic blip in US-Egyptian relations under President Trump. US officials confirmed that the rockets were one of the factors leading to the Trump administration’s decision in July to freeze or delay $290 million in military aid to Egypt. The Washington Post reported that : "During Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi’s visit to Washington that month, President Trump praised the military strongman before TV cameras for 'doing a fantastic job.' But an official White House statement released afterward made clear that a warning had been delivered in private : 'President Trump stressed the need for all countries to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea, including the need to stop providing economic or military benefits to North Korea.' ” This may go a long way to explaining why Presdent Trump said last week that he told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that he's wasting his time trying to negotiate with North Korea. • A spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in Washington pointed to Egypt’s “transparency” and cooperation with UN officials in finding and destroying the contraband. Egyptian spokesman Karim Saad told reporters : “Egypt will continue to abide by all Security Council resolutions and will always be in conformity with these resolutions as they restrain military purchases from North Korea.” • The WP quotes unnamed analysts who say it is unclear whether Egypt "ever paid for the estimated $23 million rocket shipment...But the episode illustrates one of the key challenges faced by world leaders in seeking to change North Korea’s behavior through economic pressure. Even as the United States and its allies pile on the sanctions, Kim continues to quietly reap profits from selling cheap conventional weapons and military hardware to a list of customers and beneficiaries that has at times included Iran, Burma, Cuba, Syria, Eritrea and at least two terrorist groups, as well as key US allies such as Egypt." • Egypt buys North Korean rocket propelled grenades because Egypt was a Russian client state during the 1960s and 70s and the USSR "gave away conventional weapons -- and, in some cases, entire factories for producing them -- to developing countries as a way of winning allies and creating markets for Soviet military technology. Many of these client states would standardize the use of communist-bloc munitions and weapons systems in their armies, thus ensuring a steady demand for replacement parts and ammunition that would continue well into the future." North Korea, says the Washington Post, "obtained licenses to manufacture replicas of Soviet and Chinese weapons, ranging from assault rifles and artillery rockets to naval frigates and battle tanks. Arms factories sprouted in the 1960s that soon produced enough weapons to supply North Korea’s vast military, as well as a surplus that could be sold for cash. By the end of the Cold War, North Korea’s customer base spanned four continents and included dozens of countries, as well as armed insurgencies. The demand for discount North Korean weapons would continue long after the Soviet Union collapsed, and even after North Korea came under international censure and economic isolation because of its nuclear weapons program, said Andrea Berger, a North Korea specialist and senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California." Berger told the WP : "North Korea’s assistance created a legacy of dependency. The type of weaponry that these [client] countries still have in service is largely based on communist-bloc designs from the Cold War era. North Korea has started to innovate and move beyond those designs, but it is still willing to provide spare parts and maintenance. As the Russians and Chinese have moved away from this market, the North Koreans have stuck around.” And, Egypt still maintains diplomatic ties and has a history of military-to-military ties dating back to the 1970s with North Korea, according to Berger, who says incidents such as the Jie Shun show how hard it is to break old habits, especially for military managers seeking to extend the life of costly weapons systems that were originally of Soviet design. Among them are at least six types of anti-tank weapons, including the RPG-7, the 1960s-era grenade-launcher that uses the same PG-7 warhead as those discovered on the Jie Shun. The number of Egyptian RPG-7 tubes in active service numbers has been estimated at nearly 180,000. • The February UN report on the Jie Shun incident sidesteps the question of who was meant to receive the rockets, saying only that the munitions were destroyed by Egypt under UN supervision, and that “the destination and end user of the equipment was investigated by the Egyptian general prosecutor.” • Egypt is a recipient of large amounts of US military aid and a key partner in the Middle East. • • • IRAN SEEKS TO CONSOLIDATE POWER IN IRAQ IN 2018. That's what Michael Knights of the Washingotn Institute reports. His Cipher Brief on September 24 stated that "Iran wants its local allies to create a Shia political bloc or Hezbollah-like arrangement next door, but Washington can curb such ambitions so long as it does not repeat its vanishing trick of 2011." Knights points out that when Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown by the US in 2003, the new Iraq quickly fell under the leadership of powerful shiite islamist parties, most of whom had sheltered in Iran to avoid Saddam's persecution. One example, says Knights, is Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's Da'awa Party, "which has produced the prime ministers that have led Iraq for twelve of the fourteen years since Saddam fell. Another major party was the Islamic Supreme Council for Iraq (ISCI), a bloc formed in Iran by the Iranian government during the Iran-Iraq War. Since ISCI and Da'awa were willing to work with the Americans, they gained advantages in the new political system, and combined with Iranian media support and political funding, they dominated the parliament, the cabinet, and provincial councils in the Shia governorates." Another shiite islamist party, Hadi al-Ameri's Badr Organization, was, according to Knights, built as a military force by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to fight against Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War. After 2003, Badr placed its fighters in the new Iraqi security forces (ISF), exploiting the U.S.-led coalition's desperate need to rebuild the military. As a result, hundreds of Iranian-trained intelligence operatives were imbedded at the heart of the new US-built ISF in a process known as "dimaj" (amalgamation). And, extreme pro-Iranian Badr members formed "special groups" that directly attacked the US-led coalition after 2003. One example is Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a US-designated global terrorist wanted for terrorist attacks on US and Kuwaiti personnel, and for involvement in the deaths of coalition personnel in Iraq. Muhandis formed the US-designated terrorist movement Kata'ib Hezbollah, which is controlled directly by the IRGC Quds Force, another US-designated global terrorist entity led by the infamous General Qassem Soleimani. But, says Knights : "Here's the kicker : Muhandis is now the operational commander of the Prime Minister's Commission of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the volunteer units raised in 2014 to fight the Islamic State (IS). He had a state budget of $1.96 billion in 2017. Hadi al-Ameri is presently, according to reputable polling, Iraq's most popular Shia leader. And another Badr leader, Qassem al-Araji, is the Minister of Interior, running Iraq's largest ministry, despite having been in an orange jumpsuit at US detention facilities for 26 months during the occupation period prior to 2011, in connection with anti-US attacks. Many Shia Iraqis are proud of the long record of anti-Saddam resistance activities of these men and ambivalent or supportive of actions they may have taken against the US occupation. Since the victories of ISIS in 2014, the Iran-linked Shia militants have added to these credentials by leading the PMF on Iraqi and Syrian battlefields." • Now, with fewer Iraqi cities under ISIS control, Iran has clear objectives in Iraq, according to Knights : "At minimum, Teheran wants Iraq to be run by a bloc of Shia political parties after the May 2018 Iraqi general elections, and it wants those Shia parties to work together to form the government. A Shia majority at the core of the Iraqi government gives Iran reassurance that Iraq will never again become a threat to Shia-majority Iran. What Iran doesn't want is the Shia blocs splitting their support and individually allying with Sunni Arab, Kurdish, and secular blocs to form a new kind of cross-sectarian government, which is an idea that Prime Minister Abadi and the Shia nationalist leader Moqtada al-Sadr are considering. Iran would like the US military presence in Iraq to be disinvited by the next prime minister. Ideally, Iran would like to see PMF commanders like Muhandis and Hadi al-Ameri running Iraq, perhaps from behind the scenes, and cooperating fully with Lebanese Hezbollah and the Assad regime across a contiguous swathe of Iranian dominated lands running from central Asia to the Mediterranean -- the Iranian crescent is in the planning stages. "Knights says that a senior Iraqi cabinet official once told him : "Iran is our neighbor, you cannot expect us to have an American policy towards it." But, says Knights, some Iraqi forces are trying to build Iraq as a strong independent nation, including significant shiite partners like Abadi and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leader of the shiite religious establishment. Strange as it may seem, Knights says Moqtada al-Sadr is one of those forces. There are Iraqi shiite leaders who want Iraq to have a neutral foreign policy, as evidenced by Abadi's and Sadr's visits to Saudi Arabia this summer, and Sistani's refusal to meet with Iranian envoys, and Knights says : "The combination of moderate Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds is a mathematic lock to put Abadi or another moderate atop the next Iraqi government, so fixing the current mess over the Kurdish independence referendum is a priority before the Iraqi election. The US intervention against ISIS in the last two years has shown Iraqi leaders that there is a formula for US-Iraq relations that sits comfortably between Bush's occupation and Obama's 2011 vanishing trick. The United States can prevent Iranian dominance in Iraq just by staying politically and militarily engaged in Iraq over the long-term, thus providing Iraqi leaders with a strong ally to offset Iranian influence. Iran fills vacuums, so let's not repeat the mistake of 2011 by creating one." • • • THE KURD REFERENDUM. Knights believes the US role in Iraq is even more important following the September 25 statehood referendum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq that passed with 92.7% of the voters choosing "yes." Although the outcome does not trigger any administrative changes and is explicitly not a declaration of independence, Knights says : "the central government and parliament in Baghdad have reacted fiercely, while neighboring states such as Turkey and Iran are coordinating punitive measures with Iraqi officials. Some of the suggested punishments could damage US interests and hand more influence to Iran, which Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited on Wednesday....the United States needs to act quickly to shape Turkish and Iraqi calculations on post-referendum policy, preferably with backing from the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq and the coalition fighting [ISIS]. The Baghdad parliament issued a thirteen-point resolution in response to the vote that included such dire steps as taking military action against Kurdish-held disputed areas such as Kirkuk, sacking Kurdish federal government employees who voted in the referendum, removing Kirkuk governor Najmaldin Karim "by force," closing the borders of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) with the help of neighboring states, cutting off its oil exports, closing foreign consulates inside the KRG, taking legal action against KRG president Masoud Barzani, and making preparations to remove the ethnically Kurdish president of federal Iraq, Fuad Masum. While Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is unlikely to follow through on his parliement's recommendations, he has signaled that "economic measures" will be taken, and demanded that the KRG hand over all border entry points, airports, and oil exports. Teheran and Ankara are working with Iraq to establish shadow customs facilities inside Turkey that would collect fees before the KRG can levy them. These posts would also follow Iraqi and Turkish wishes to prevent KRG leaders from leaving the area without permission from Baghdad. Meanwhile, Turkish road trade with federal Iraq is being redirected via Iran, and Baghdad may begin metering KRG-administered oil exports inside Turkey. In the latter case, Ankara may transfer custodianship and marketing rights over KRG oil to Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization; in exchange, Baghdad would offer payments to KRG public employees. • This is in reality a de facto economic blockade, and negative impacts on US interests could be severe, says Knights. The campaign against ISIS would suffer, including the ongoing Hawija operation to reduce the group's largest and most dangerous pocket in northern Iraq. Coalition artillery, intelligence, and logistical efforts based in the KRG could be halted if the Kurds react badly to the blockade. Unless the potential losses in oil and customs revenue were rapidly replaced by Baghdad, they would bankrupt the KRG within weeks or months, resulting in instability, protests, and factional fighting. The Peshmerga units that hold long stretches of frontline against ISIS would immediately lose their pay, and many would be compelled to leave in order to support their families. And, of course, a blockade would hand more influence to Teheran, which seeks to punish the KRG severely for holding a referendum that could stir up thoughts of a referendum by Iranian Kurds. The KRG will always be America's "Plan B" in Iraq should Baghdad slip fully into the Iranian orbit, and the Kurds are the only local actors who have stood up to Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. Knights says that although the US must be "mindful of protecting the bigger prize -- relations with Baghdad -- the KRG backup plan remains valuable to US interests, and potentially to Turkey as well if its own infatuation with Baghdad falters. The Trump administration should therefore take immediate action to preserve international confidence in and connections to the KRG." • • • THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL. President Trump must make a decision by October 15 that could undermine the nuclear deal. Trump has often said that Iran is violating “the spirit” of the deal under which Teheran got sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program, and he has called it “the worst deal ever negotiated.” The prospect of Washington reneging on the agreement has worried key US allies that helped negotiate it, especially as the world grapples with the other nuclear crisis, North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile development. A senior EU diplomat told Reuters : "We all share US concerns about Iran’s destabilizing role in the region, but by mixing everything up, we risk losing everything.” • Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said recently that President Trump "really wants to redo" the Iran deal. Tillerson made the remark after Trump told the UN General assembly : “Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don't think you've heard the last of it, believe me.” Asked what the President meant by that, Tillerson told Fox News that the deal must be changed at the very least : “Well, if we are going to stick with the Iran deal, there has to be changes made to it. The sunset provision simply is not a sensible way forward. It's just simply kicking the can down the road again, for someone in the future to have to deal with. The President...takes his responsibilities seriously and that's why he's giving very, very careful consideration as to what's the best way to address that issue.” • The sunset provision allows Iran to proceed with the elements of its nuclear program in 10 to 15 years, much like what governments in the past did with North Korea -- simply entering into agreements that were short-lived or were easily cheated on. Tillerson told Fox : "And I think that's the President’s assessment of the Iranian nuclear agreement, that it’s not a stiff enough agreement. It doesn't slow their program enough. And holding them accountable is difficult under the agreement. But most importantly, the agreement comes to an end, and so we can almost start the countdown clock as to when they will resume their nuclear weapons capability." • President Trump faces an October 15 deadline to certify whether Iran is meeting its commitments under the nuclear deal. Iranian President Rouhani has warned that Iran would immediately resume its nuclear program if President Trump withdraws from the agreement. And press reports say America’s European allies do not want to renegotiate the deal. Beyond the nuclear deal, President Trump is concerned with the growing Iranian threat to the entire Middle East. Tillerson said : "And we've really got to begin to deal with Iran's destabilizing activities in Yemen and Syria....when Iran signed the nuclear agreement, there was clearly an expectation, I think, on the part of all the parties to that agreement, that by signing this nuclear agreement, Iran would begin to move to a place where it wanted to reintegrate itself with its neighbors. And that clearly did not happen. In fact, Iran has stepped up its destabilizing activities to the region, and we have to deal with that, so whether we deal with it through a renegotiation on nuclear or we deal with it in other ways--” • The US-Arab coalition, the imposition of further sanctions against the Iran’s regional meddling, and the end of the Iran's golden era under the Obama administration have given the Ayatollahs big challenges. Iran's terrorism in the region and its human rights abuses are also factors to be considered. The American Thinker says : "What makes the replacement of a tyrannical regime viable is the presence of a recognized alternative that has a distinct political, social and economic platform for the future, which enjoys the support of the international community. The existence of such a resistance and its international recognition is one of the main parameters that will pave the way for uprisings against the ruling dictatorship. Iran currently has a democratic alternative, led by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a Moslem woman who opposes fundamentalism and bases her faith on tolerance. Mrs. Rajavi’s ten-point plan has been praised and acknowledged by many political personalities, jurists, parliamentarians, and human rights activists across the world. Three decades of appeasement toward Teheran has not moderated the behavior of the Iranian regime -- it has made it worse. However, the foundations for change in Iran exist. What makes regime change in Iran unique is the fact that it requires no foreign intervention. The people of Iran and their organized resistance have the potential to bring about change from Inside Iran." • But, if we are to believe what US Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford told both the Senate and the House on Tuesday, they think it is in America's national security interest to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, even as President Trump has signaled he may pull out of the international pact. If the President does not certify Iran’s compliance, Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions. Dunford, who had his re-appointment hearing last week, said then that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal and that the agreement has achieved its intended result of curbing Iran’s nuclear program. He added, however, that the deal was specifically designed to only address Iran’s nuclear program and not four other threats coming from the country : its missile program, its maritime threat, its support for proxies and its cyber activities. • • • DEAR READERS, do we even need to ask who Congress would side with if Trump de-certifies the Iran nuclear deal and Congress has to decide on new sanctions? Mattis and Dunford must know what October 15 will bring from Trump -- a new 90-day certification that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is also reportedly urging Trump to certify Iran's compliance but make changes to address US concerns. • And, in what is surely the most puzzling news out of the Middle East this week, we learn that in the midst of the 4-month-old crisis between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, a publicly available independent political survey among Qatar's 300,000 citizens shows that they overwhelmingly want to settle this dispute in an amicable manner. Eighty-one percent say they support "a compromise, in which all the parties make some concessions to each other" -- including 36% who feel strongly that way. This willingness to compromise is all the more striking since not a single one of the respondents supports the boycott against Qatar by the four opposing Arab states. Equally surprising and significant are the mixed views of Qatar's citizens about the key issues in the intra-Arab dispute. First, while its leaders are seemingly courting Iran, Qataris are solidly opposed -- by 79% to 16% -- to its current regional policies. Iran's regional proxies fare even worse in Qatari public opinion -- both Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen get negative ratings from fully 90% of Qatar's adult population. And a narrow majority (53%) of Qataris even say that "the most important issue in this situation is to find the maximum degree of Arab cooperation against Iran." By comparison, Turkey is verly popular in Qatar today -- 81% of respondents like Turkey's current Middle East policy, and 90% say good ties with Turkey are valuable to Qatar. Also surprising is the negative Qatari popular attitude toward another major bone of contention in this intra-Arab impasse -- the Moslem Brotherhood. Although Qatar's government continues to support the Brotherhood, Qatar's citizens disapprove of it, by a margin of 56% to 41%. In sharp contrast, a third lightning rod in this international dispute, Qatar's Al Jazeera television channel, gets positive reviews from 74% of Qataris. The US role in the region is another issue on which Qatari public opinion defies the conventional wisdom about "the Arab street." Even though only 11% express a positive view of current US foreign policy, four times as many (42%) -- the same as in most other Arab countries polled lately -- also say it is "important for us to have good relations" with America. And 35% agree that, right now, "Arab countries need help from outside powers like the US in order to overcome their differences." Just 16% say the most useful gesture for the United States would be to "reduce its interference in the region." • Even the Qatari absolute monarchy must pay some attention to popular attitudes, and other Arab state leaders must be studying the results to better understand their own citizens as they sort through policy options -- for example, a middle-ground resolution of the Qatar-Arab states crisis, and creating greater distances from Iran and the Moslem Brotherhood. • Even in the darkest times, there is always a glimmer of hope, if we look just for it.