Pence and Pompeo Work to Bring Europe Back from Globalism and Iran Support, While Merkel and Soros Resist

THERE WERE TWO CONFERENCES IN EUROPE LAST WEEK. One was in Warsaw and the other in Munich. • • • THE ANNUAL NATO MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE GOT MEDIA TIME FOR BEING ANTI-TRUMP. The Daily Caller reported it : "Former Vice President Joe Biden blasted President Donald Trump in everything but name at a defense summit, as he declared America 'an embarrassment' before European allies. Biden, in an extended apology that prompted loud applause from the delegates at the NATO Munich Security Conference Saturday, suggested the United States had abandoned its bedrock principles and commitment to Europe, the Washington Examiner reports. Violating a decades-old tradition of leaving politics at home when addressing foreign nationals, the potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate spent much of his speech suggesting America had violated its commitment to 'human decency' and other cornerstones of democracy. Biden has said that he wishes to restore 'civility' and 'respect' to American politics." • Biden said : "The America I see values basic human decency, not snatching children from their parents or turning our back on refugees at our border. Americans know that’s not right. The American people understand plainly that this makes us an embarrassment. The American people know, overwhelmingly, that it is not right. That it is not who we are.” • Here we go again -- was Joe Biden channeling Obama's 2010 Cairo apology speech or was he warming up to run in 2020? In either case, he got it all wrong : "While I cannot speak today as an elected government official who is able to set policy, I can speak as a citizen. I can offer insight into my country. I know we’ve heard a lot today about leadership, but in my experience, leadership only exists if somebody -- and others -- are with you. Leadership in the absence of people who are with you is not leadership.” Biden suggested it was wrong “to disagree with your brothers and sisters in public. Today because of, I think, a lack of leadership coming from the other side of the Atlantic, we find ourselves in a different place, and it’s uncomfortable....I can assure you, that the American people, the ultimate wellspring of power in the United States of America, remain committed to engaging the world with decency and respect.” • Biden loves to think he is the only American politician who has the pulse of the 'ordinary Joe' in America. BUT, if that is so, why did the Democrats take a beating in 2016 when Donald Trump won by bringing back the "Deplorables" that the Democrats no longer wanted in their Party? And, if America continues to lack respect -- as was the case in the Obama-Biden years -- why do most world leaders now look to America and President Trump for leadership? Joe Biden picked the only place in the world where President Trump is belittled and ignored to the maximum extent possible -- Europe. But, Europe is paying its fair share of NATO costs now -- because President Trump made them an offer they couldn't refuse -- pay up or the US will leave you to the loving embrace of the Russian Bear. Even the socialist-prone and defense-deaf Europeans understand that language. And, they may even be cleaning out their ears to improve their hearing when it comes to Iran, the terrorist nation they prefer to America. That was some of the news out of the other conference last week -- in Warsaw. • Vice President Mike Pence was in Munich, along with Ivanka Trump. The Vice President rebuked European powers over Iran and Venezuela, rejecting a call by Germany’s chancellor to include Russia in global cooperation efforts. Pence described the results of the Trump presidency as “remarkable” and “extraordinary,” telling senior European and Asian officials that the EU should follow the United States in leaving the Iran nuclear deal and recognizing the head of Venezuela’s congress, Juan Guaido, as the country’s president. Pence was direct with attendees at the Munich Security Conference : “America is stronger than ever before and America is leading on the world stage once again.” He listed the administration's foreign policy successes from Afghanistan to North Korea. • European leaders reject President Trump’s rhetoric, calling it erratic and disruptive, citing his decision to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as undermining an arms control agreement that prevented Teheran from developing a nuclear bomb -- but as we, Europe has taken a fundamentally wrong position because the Iran deal was intended to free up Iran's nuclear weapons program after it expired. Pence, who last week during a visit to Poland accused Britain, Germany and France of undermining US sanctions on Iran -- repeated in Munich his demand that European powers withdraw from the deal. “The Iranian regime openly advocates another Holocaust and it seeks the means to achieve it,” Pence, who also visited the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, told delegates. “The time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and join with us as we bring the economic and diplomatic pressure,” Pence said, as he also called on the European Union to step forward for freedom and recognize Juan Guaido as the only legitimate president of Venezuela, labeling President Nicolas Maduro a dictator who must step down. • Vice President Pence's message contrasted sharply with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s defense of Germany’s foreign trade relations and ties with Russia. Speaking before Pence, Merkel questioned whether the US decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal and withdrawal from Syria was the best way to tackle Teheran in the region. Merkel also defended plans for a new natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that Pence again criticized. President Trump has accused Germany of being a “captive” of Russia due to its reliance on Russian energy. During a question-and-answer session, she added that it would be wrong to exclude Russia politically, but Pence said Washington was “holding Russia accountable” for its 2014 seizure of Ukraine and what the West says are efforts to destabilize it through cyber attacks, disinformation and covert operations. • • • THE WARSAW CONFERENCE OF THE MIDDLE EAST. The New York Sun offered a nostalgic title for its editorial on the Warsaw conference -- "A Tree Grows in Warsaw." The NY Sun editorial said this : "It’s amazing, to us at least, that so little comment is being issued in respect of the Warsaw meeting on the Middle East. What comment there has been out of Europe has mainly related to the Munich conference, where America was subjected the usual condescension from France and Germany -- capped off by a nauseating speech by Vice President Biden saying America had become an 'embarrassment.' What a contrast with the parley in Warsaw. Ministers from all sorts of countries came together in what Secretary of State Pompeo called a 'testament to our seriousness.' Said he : 'Arab and Israeli leaders were in the same room, sharing a meal and exchanging views. They all came together for a single reason, to discuss the real threats to our respective people emanating from the Middle East.' " • The NY Sun noted that the media's ignoring the Warsaw conference is : "...a mark of how determined the left is to deny the result of the 2016 election in America....hostility. 'Few Are Inspired,' was the headline phrase over the New York Times’ editorial. It saw the news as 'how few major powers are cheering along” in a parley that it put down as an 'anti-mullah pep rally.' " • As usual, the NYT indulged in Fake news to skew the reality of the Warsaw Conference to fit the ProgDem agenda. The NY Sun got it : "The Times thinks it’s Mr. Trump’s fault that Germany, France, Russia, and China aren’t with us. Britain sent its foreign minister to Warsaw, the Times notes, but France and Germany sent lower-level envoys, 'apparently reluctant to be part of such a bellicose bashing.' Or maybe they preferred to lurk at Munich and turn what the Wall Street Journal this morning calls 'deaf ears' to Vice President Pence’s call for help on Iran, while applauding a former vice president -- Joseph Biden -- as he says how embarrassing he finds his own country. Mr. Biden is supposedly wrestling, yet again, with the painful question of whether to run for President. If he does, his suggestion in Munich that America is an embarrassment could become his campaign slogan. Meantime, it looks to us like the administration is doing relatively well in Europe. Secretary Pompeo has shown himself to be an adroit operator in search of more enthusiastic partners than those in old Europe are proving to be." • The Washington Times opinion piece by Clifford D. May -- president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times -- called the Warsaw conference "an Arab-Israeli talk-fest for peace." Clifford May wrote : "In Warsaw last week, the Trump administration convened a conference on peace and security in the Middle East. The two-day ministerial did not change the world. But it did highlight significant ways in which the world has changed. Envoys arrived from more than 60 countries, including 10 Arab nations. The one head of state was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was clearly pleased to be getting together with his neighbors. And they did not seem displeased to be getting together with him. For this significant change there is a simple explanation : The Arab states and the Jewish state agree, as does the current US administration, that the most serious threat to peace and security in the Middle East is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our West European friends, by contrast, are ambivalent -- despite Teheran’s facilitation of mass murder by its client, Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad; its continuing development of ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads to targets in Europe or America; its hostage-taking; its attempt to bomb a rally of Iranian dissidents in Paris last summer, its attempt to assassinate a political foe in Denmark last October, and credible Dutch accusations last month of Iranian involvement with four additional assassination and bomb plots since 2015. The European Union’s chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini, declined to attend the conference. The German foreign ministry’s Niels Annen attended a celebration of the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in Berlin before proceeding to Warsaw. Worse, Germany, France and Britain, the EU’s so-called E3, have been attempting to devise a financial mechanism to avoid -- or, one might say, undermine -- US sanctions on Teheran." • Clifford May highlighted "the fraught state of the trans-Atlantic relationship"the second significant change that was on display in Warsaw -- the Europeans "certainly find President Trump’s problematic. But policy differences are hardly incidental. The West Europeans don’t appear to recognize that America’s adversaries are their adversaries as well. Or, if they do, their willingness to burden-share in pursuit of the common defense leaves much to be desired." • East Europeans, says Clifford May, with Russian President Vladimir Putin "breathing down their necks," have been "more willing to accommodate Washington." Poland’s co-hosting of the ministerial underscored that change (especially since Polish-Israeli relations are currently tense due to disagreements over the role Poles played in the Holocaust). • The Arab/Sunni diplomats gathered in Warsaw are probably not, in their heart of hearts, according to May, "enthusiastic about the exercise of self-determination by the Jewish people in part of its ancient homeland." But no other nation has both the will and the military power to stand up to the Shia mullahs-- "Israelis have become the strategic partner of the Sunni Arabs by default." • Clifford May spelled out the Iran problem for Europe : "In the past, the United States could be counted on to protect the pragmatic Arab states. President Obama, however, shook their confidence by agreeing with Iran on a nuclear deal which merely delays for a few years Teheran’s acquisition of a nuclear capability. Mr. Obama also admonished them 'to share the neighborhood' with a regime whose hostility is obvious and whose expansionist ambitions are undeniable. Though President Trump has taken a harder line, who knows what the next American election may bring? 'We will be back,' former Vice President Joe Biden said at another security conference, this one held in Munich over the weekend. In theory, increasing Arab-Israeli rapprochement should make it easier to find a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In practice, don’t bet on it. Palestinian officials denounced the Warsaw conference as a 'conspiracy aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause.'....For Hamas, the Palestinian cause is the extermination of Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a master of ambiguity, and savvy enough to understand that any agreement with Israel will be seen as a betrayal and a crime not just by Hamas but also by Teheran and all the many jihadi groups. So long as the Islamic Republic stands a chance of emerging as the regional hegemon, no Palestinian leader can sign a peace treaty with Israel — no matter how beneficial for Palestinians -- without painting a bull’s eye on his back." • Clifford May noted that : "In Warsaw, both Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid Al Khalifa and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir underscored that reality. 'Who is supporting Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, and undercutting the Palestinian Authority?' the latter asked. He then answered : 'Iran.' UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan even defended efforts to prevent Teheran from establishing military bases in Syria along the Israeli border. 'Every nation has the right to defend itself when it’s challenged by another nation,' he said." • The conclusion reached by Clifford May is interesting historically : "The last time Israelis and Arabs got together to discuss Middle Eastern peace and security was nearly 30 years ago. Conventional wisdom held that the Madrid conference of 1991 was a huge success. Conventional wisdom proved wrong. The Warsaw conference, by contrast, has been derided by 'progressives,' Obama administration loyalists and, of course, spokesmen and apologists for the Islamic Republic. In an editorial, the New York Times called it an 'anti-mullah pep rally' and a 'bellicose bashing.' Perhaps those appraisals will turn out to have been off the mark, too. 'People in the Middle East have suffered a lot because they have stuck to the past,' Omani Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi observed in Warsaw. 'Now we say, this is a new era, for the future.' In a region where history and historical grievances have consistently impeded progress, not remaining 'stuck to the past' would represent the most significant change of all." • • • ANOTHER VOICE FAVORS THE WARSAW CONFERENCE. The Washington Institute's Dennis Ross didn't agree with the NY Times position either. Dennis Ross was invited to moderate a panel at the “Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East,” co-hosted in Warsaw by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz on February 13-14. The panel included three senior Arab officials -- Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir, Emirati foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed, and Bahraini foreign minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa. Afterward, I interviewed Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who also attended the event. These and other conversations yielded several interesting -- and in many cases promising—takeaways." • Dennis Ross sees five important takeaways from the Warsaw conference : "First, the event was marked by a variety of convergences that should make Iran take notice. From the outset, Secretary Pompeo acknowledged the participants’ clear differences of opinion on certain regional issues, urging everyone to discuss these rifts openly and honestly as they worked to advance common positions. Regarding Iran, European ministers reemphasized that they would not walk away from the nuclear deal, yet they also embraced the need to counter unacceptable Iranian behaviors, including ballistic missile tests and threatening military actions in the Middle East. Second, the Europeans were alarmed by the strikingly similar stories they have heard from Arab ministers and Netanyahu in describing Iran’s efforts to destabilize the region and exploit conflicts, whether by smuggling arms into Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, using Shia militias to coerce governments, providing missiles to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, encouraging terrorism and subversion, deploying missiles on bases in Syria and western Iraq, or developing factories to build precision guidance capabilities for thousands of rockets in Lebanon and Syria. In essence, those on the frontlines of regional conflicts told their European friends that Iran will not stop fomenting trouble abroad unless its costs for doing so become far more acute. Interestingly, Arab ministers noted that sanctions are only part of the solution; in their view, creating consequences for Iran also entails unifying their own efforts, portraying a solid, collective front of opposition, and doing much more to tell the Iranian public about the costs of their government’s adventures. Third, the Arab-Israeli strategic landscape appears to be changing, even if the 'new Middle East' envisioned by the late Shimon Peres is not yet in the offing. The Warsaw meeting was not like other international gatherings or peace conferences involving top Arab and Israeli officials. Beginning with Madrid in 1991 and stretching to Annapolis in 2007, past meetings involved each side giving set-piece speeches with no real discussion or engagement. Warsaw was different: it was about moderated questions and comments, with all participants sitting in closed settings and listening to each other directly, including Arab foreign ministers and Israel’s prime minister. For example, during a discussion of how to counter Teheran’s low-cost tactic of using Shia militias abroad, I noted that Israel had carried out more than 200 operations against Iranian and proxy forces attempting to embed themselves in Syria. When I asked one of the Arab ministers for his reaction, he stated that Israel was exercising its 'right of self-defense.' Netanyahu was present for that remark and other notable statements by the seven Arab ministers in attendance, consistently agreeing with their analysis in later comments he made to me and others. This may not be normalization, but it is creating a new normal. Fourth, while the Palestinians made clear that they do not want any 'new normal' to emerge so long as nothing is happening to advance peace or alter Israel’s occupation, they lost out by boycotting the conference. Ironically, if PA officials had simply shown up, all of the Arab and European ministers would necessarily have raised Palestinian concerns, and not just in passing. Instead, the issue was just an afterthought at best, subordinated to higher-priority threats. Although the Palestinians reaffirmed their reputation as masters of defiance, they once again failed to advance their national movement -- the fatal flaw of any strategy based exclusively on defiance. Fifth, the participants showed consensus on several key Syria items. Everyone favored implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for ceasing hostilities, drafting a new constitution, and implementing a political transition over eighteen months. No surprise there, but I was struck by another point of consensus : that Russian and Iranian interests in Syria diverge, and that those differences can be exploited to limit Iran’s presence and perhaps even advance Resolution 2254." • Ross says that he is "deeply skeptical that these differences can be widened anytime soon, even if one ignores the fact that Bashar al-Assad has no intention of stepping aside, and that Moscow has shown no sign of curtailing its support for him. So long as Syria is undergoing even low-level insurgency, Russia will need Iranian/Shia boots on the ground." But, says Ross, these doubts do not detract from the other Warsaw takeaways. In the end, however, the conference’s true test will be whether "it results in tangible European steps to take tougher action against Iran’s regional meddling. Participants discussed certain measures toward that end (e.g., universally designating all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization rather than distinguishing between its political and military 'wings'), but no conclusions were reached. It remains to be seen whether the working groups proposed in Warsaw are willing to convene soon and make progress on sensitive issues. In any case, unless Iran’s decisionmakers begin to see the costs -- and not just the benefits -- of foreign interference by the Qods Force and other organs, there is little prospect of the regime altering its behavior." • But, as Dennis Ross points out, there is some possibility that the European Trump naysayers may have heard some fresh input form the countries most at risk if Iran is allowed to continue unchecked and aided by Europe. That alone made Warsaw far more important than Munich. After all, we know what Munich has fostered in the past -- Chamberlain's sell-out to Hitler, and the 1976 Palestinian Liberation Organization's attack and murder of Israeli athletes. Joe Biden could have chosen a better forum for his Trump-bashing. • • • GEORGE SOROS CRITICIZES THE EU. Even George Soros gets it right occasionally -- but always for the wrong reasons. Money and Markets says Soros has a "bold prediction" about the future of the European Union, saying the European conglomerate of countries is “sleepwalking into oblivion” and will collapse like the Soviet Union if big changes aren’t made : "Soros on Tuesday penned an op-ed in The Guardian, a UK newspaper, saying EU citizens should be more aware of the threats posed by anti-Europe political parties across the continent, and that 'the sleeping pro-European majority' must awaken and be mobilized 'to preserve the values on which the EU was founded.' 'Otherwise, the dream of a united Europe could become a 21st-century nightmare,' Soros wrote." • This is not a new thought form George Soros. He has said the EU is in an “existential crisis,” placing some of the blame of course on US President Donald Trump. But, states Money and Markets : "In his op-ed, Soros says the growth of anti-EU forces in the bloc’s biggest countries like Germany, Italy and the UK (at least until Brexit, which Soros is opposed to) before the parliament elections in late May make the threat much more urgent. Soros points to a 'competitive advantage' anti-EU candidates have in May’s elections for several reasons, 'including the outdated party system in most European countries.' 'The antiquated party system hampers those who want to preserve the values on which the EU was founded, but it helps those who want to replace those values with something radically different." • Soros should have mentioned that the "radically different" values are the thousand-year-old values of the countries that make up Europe. While saying in the Guardian op-ed that the German alliance is “unsustainable” and noting the rise of the AfD, the populist (he called the AfD right-wing) party that wants Germany to leave the EU unless big reforms are made, Soros cannot or will not see that these populist anti-EU parties are simply trying to take back their countries and cultures from the Globalist EU elites who are suppressing Europe's nation states. • Soros, who opposes Brexit and backs an anti-Brexit group, also said the UK’s “antiquated party structure prevents the popular will from finding proper expression,” and that its two biggest political parties are fracturing from within -- he got that half right because 7 Labour MPs just left the Labour Party in protest over its leader, Jeremy Corbyn and his anti-Semitism combined with ineffectual BREXIT leadership. And, on Wednesday, 3 Conservative Party members left Mrs. May's party because they don't like her BREXIT plan. • Italy’s pro-EU citizens have no party to vote for, Soros wrote, saying its dominant Democratic Party fell apart when the EU made the “fatal mistake” of leaving countries where most migrants first arrive, leaving countries like Italy, dealing with most of the crisis. Soros is right there -- but he should have added that the rebellion now in full swing in eastern Europe is largely driven by the determination of these countries to assert control of immigration into their countries. • Soros ended his op-ed by saying the EU can be saved if the pro-EU parties “put Europe’s interests ahead of their own....The current leadership is reminiscent of the politburo when the Soviet Union collapsed -- continuing to issue edicts as if they were still relevant." • • • DEAR READERS, George Soros did not mention -- it would be counter to his Globalist agenda -- that the EU suffers from the worst kind of Fake democracy -- 350 million people in 27 countries are being led by a handful of non-elected political appointees in Brussels, with only a weak European Parliament actually elected by member countries. And, one of the biggest problems citizens of any European country have is that their local, national priorities and cultures are ignored by the EU ruling elites. Immigration from Moslem countries heads that list. Many Europeans see the Iran issue as just one more way in which the EU elites are ruling without any thought for the potential consequences of such a policy on European-US relations -- for, despite what the mainstream media tells us, most Europeans outside politics appreciate President Trump and his policies. As an example, a French poll released on Tuesday shows that only 24% of French voters will vote for the party of President Macron in the May EU Parliament elections, while 20% will vote for those representing the populist party of Marine Le Pen. That is an amazingly close race for a populist Le Pen party vilified and ostracized by French media. • Secretary of State Pompeo understands this interior tension and fragility in Europe. He said in Warsaw : that ministers from all sorts of countries came together is a "testament to our seriousness....Arab and Israeli leaders were in the same room, sharing a meal and exchanging views. They all came together for a single reason, to discuss the real threats to our respective people emanating from the Middle East." • That is 100% more than the EU elites are doing for their own citizens. George Soros is too savvy not to recognize that fact, and so he tried to rally the Globalist-socialist EU leaders with his op-ed. • To end on another flawed Merkel analysis of Europe's condition -- Russian President Putin said on Wednesday morning that Russia's new missiles will target the United States if Washington ever deploys missiles in Europe. In a nationally televised speech, Putin said Russia has a new nuclear-capable glider and underwater drone that have been tested and that the weapons are ready to be added to the country's arsenal. • BUT, my money is on Pompeo and Trump to win the day in a Europe whose citizens are desperately looking for their shattered roots.