Iran, Venezuela, China Aggression : Do Isolationists and Mainstream Media Really Believe the US Should Sit Back and Let Small Nations Be 'Gulaged'?

IRAN CONFRONTATION BROADENS. We are now seeing Iran fight back at President Trump's warning that it should stay out of regional disputes. • • • SECRETARY OF STATE POMPEO IN IRAQ. The BBC reported on Wednesday morning that : "US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unscheduled, fleeting visit to Iraq, amid growing tensions with Iran. Mr Pompeo cancelled a trip to Berlin -- the BBC says Secretary Pompeo will visit London on Wednesday to meet Prime Minister Theresa May and British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt -- to meet Iraqi leaders during a four-hour stop in the capital Baghdad. He told the leaders that the US doesn't 'want anybody interfering in their country,' and asked them to protect US troops in Iraq. The visit came days after the US deployed an aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, to the region. Officials said the deployment was in response to threats to US forces and its allies from Iran. On Tuesday it was revealed the US was sending B-52 bombers. The US has given little information about the exact nature of the reported threat, which Iran has dismissed as nonsense. John Bolton, the US national security advisor, said only that the US was acting 'in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings' on announcing the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln on Sunday." • The BBC reported that : "Mr Pompeo later said that the leaders "provided assurances that they understood that was their responsibility." Secretary Pompeo stated : "We wanted them to know about the increased threat stream that we had seen, to give them a little bit more background so that they would have enough information that they could ensure that they were doing all that they could to provide protection for our team. They understood, too, it's important for their country. We don't want anybody interfering in their country, certainly not by attacking another nation inside of Iraq, and there was complete agreement." • Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he also directly linked the visit to the recent escalation with Iran, which neighbors Iraq. Pompeo said that he wanted to "speak with the leadership there [in Iraq], to assure them that we stood ready to continue to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation." The BBC said that Pompeo also said he "wanted to help them become less dependent on energy deals with Iran." • Acting Pentagon spokesman Charles Summers said in a statement that the US does "not seek war with the Iranian regime, but we will defend US personnel, our allies and our interests in the region. The deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force are considered a prudent step in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests." • John Bolton, President Trump's national security advisor, said when the USS Abraham Lincoln was deployed to the region that it was to send "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interest or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force." • The BBC also reported Iran's response -- Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that "the #B_Team is at it again. From announcements of naval movements (that actually occurred last month) to dire warnings about so-called 'Iranian threats'. If US and clients don't feel safe, it's because they're despised by the people of the region -- blaming Iran won't reverse that." BBC said Iran's state-run broadcaster Press TV also dismissed the deployment as "a 'regularly scheduled' one by the US Navy, and Bolton has just tried to talk it up." • Tensions between the US and Iran can be traced back to Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, which overthrew the pro-Western Shah and established a radical anti-US regime in its place, says the BBC, but "relations have been particularly fraught between the two nations since President Trump took office in 2017. This most recent escalation comes on the eve of the anniversary of Mr Trump unilaterally withdrawing from a landmark nuclear deal the US and other nations had agreed with Iran in 2015. Under the accord, Iran had agreed to limit its sensitive nuclear activities and allow in international inspectors in return for relief from sanctions -- sanctions that have since been reinstated. And last month, the White House said it would end exemptions from sanctions for five countries -- China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey -- that were still buying Iranian oil. At the same time the US also blacklisted Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, designating it as a foreign terrorist group. The Trump administration hopes to compel Iran to negotiate a 'new deal' that would cover not only its nuclear activities, but also its ballistic missile programme and what officials call its 'malign behavior' across the Middle East. The sanctions have led to a sharp downturn in Iran's economy, pushing the value of its currency to record lows, driving away foreign investors, and triggering protests. Iran has repeatedly threatened to retaliate to the US measures by blocking the Strait of Hormuz - though which about a fifth of all oil consumed globally pass." • • • IRAN BACKS AWAY FROM THE NUCLEAR DEAL. The Washington Post said on Tuesday : "In a televised speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would keep stockpiles of excess uranium and heavy water that is used in nuclear reactors. He gave a 60-day deadline for new terms to the nuclear accord, after which Teheran would resume higher uranium enrichment. The speech coincided with the anniversary of the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal last year, and came amid heightened American economic and military pressure on Iran that includes the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Middle East that US officials say was in response to credible indications Teheran planned to attack US interests in the region." • The Washington Post's Today's World View said on Wednesday that Rouhani's announcement of his government’s “diminished commitments” to the 2015 nuclear deal. WP's World View says that while "Iranian officials have indicated they may restart uranium enrichment activities previously curtailed by the nuclear deal...they will argue that these steps don’t mean that the regime is fully abandoning an agreement that Washington first abrogated." The WP cites the already-rising US-Iran tensions -- the US choking off all Iranian oil exports and listing the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, the first time the State Department has placed a foreign government entity in this category. But, according to the WP, John Bolton's Sunday statement that the United States was deploying a carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Persian Gulf “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force," went further, adding that the United States “is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.” AND, the WP stated that : "Though the aircraft carrier had been en route to the region since last month, US officials said they were responding to 'specific and credible' intelligence, furnished possibly by Israeli sources, of an increased threat." • The WP also quoted Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, who said in an interview with Deutsche Welle : "The presence of US warships in the Persian Gulf is not unusual. What is unusual is the Trump administration’s level of bellicosity toward Iran. With so much friction between Iran and the US -- and their respective allies in the region -- and with no channel of communication between these parties, the risk of a confrontation is worryingly high.” • • • THE US PROGRESSIVE LEFT LINES UP AGAINST BOLTON AND TRUMP ON IRAN. The Washington Post, clearly not a fan of John Bolton, called the US claims about the Iranian threats "vague" -- and added that the fact that Bolton, who has repeatedly advocated military action against Iran in the past, appeared to be leading the charge "sent alarm bells ringing among the administration’s critics." The WP also quoted Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a Washington nonproliferation organization : “We have been warning that Bolton’s appointment would lead to war. He has uncontested control of the national security apparatus and a history of cherry-picking intel and exaggerating threats. He is completely capable of goading Iran into war.” The WP continued : "Many cited a recent New Yorker profile of Bolton that focused on his questionable record during the administration of President George W. Bush. 'We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views,' Tony Blinken, a former Senate staffer and State Department official, told the New Yorker. 'If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue : he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn’t support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it.' [NOTE : the Washington Post failed to state that Tony Blinken served as United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017 and Deputy National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2015 under President Barack Obama.] • Now, according to the Washington Post, experts fear that Bolton and the Trump administration, by extension -- "is seeking to push Iran into a fight." Dina Esfandiary for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists told the WP : “Reframing a routine deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln strike force to the region only serves to unnecessarily heighten tensions and foster the potential for miscalculation. The only reason to do any of this is to push Iran into a corner, paving the way toward military confrontation -- something few want because it will achieve little.” • The WP quotes a Washington Post op-ed by Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), in which they warned "against repeating the mistakes that led the United States to rush into the 2003 invasion of Iraq." And they lambasted Bolton as “a far-right proponent of regime change” whose “machinations have empowered Trump’s most dangerous instincts....Today, the United States stands alone in breach of the agreement, bullying friends and foes alike with threats and sanctions. The lasting damage to our global standing has left us isolated with little opportunity to lead.” • The Washington Post also cites Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who suggested at a briefing last month with US journalists in New York City that Bolton is "driving US policy on Iran and suggested that the national security advisor was undermining his own President, whose eagerness to disentangle the United States from conflicts in the Middle East is well known." Zarif added that the Iranian regime had “a PhD in sanctions” and that it would be able to withstand and navigate around Trump’s pressure campaign. • BUT, the WP did say that : "Ordinary Iranians, though, are feeling the bite of the sanctions, which have led to the devaluation of the Iranian currency and raised prices on a vast range of goods. But rather than compelling the regime to curb its behavior along lines desired by Washington, the current state of play seems to have emboldened hard-line factions that long resented the nuclear deal and the attempted rapprochement with the United States. The intensification of animosities can only spell trouble. The WP tosses in another Obama-era quote from Colin Kahl, a former official in the Obama White House : “Unlike in the latter years of the Obama administration, there are currently no high-level lines of communication between Washington and Teheran to manage a crisis. And hard-liners on all sides seem keen for a fight, looking for opportunities to escalate, rather than de-escalate, tensions.” [NOTE : the Washington Post fails to state that Colin Kahl served as the National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden.] • The Washington Post also quoted one of its own reporters, Carol Morello : "Pompeo said he would provide assurances of continued US support to train Iraqi security forces, and urge them to pursue energy deals with Jordan and Egypt so they could reduce their dependency on the Iranian electrical grid....US officials say their strategy is designed to get the Islamic Republic to end its support for militant groups in the region and cease testing missiles. Pompeo has stopped short of calling for regime change. But his maximalist list of 12 demands aiming to get Iran acting like a ‘normal nation’ is so uncompromising that experts say there is little chance of Iran relenting.” • • • WHAT ARE IRAN'S NUCLEAR OPTIONS? The Washington Institute published a Policy Watch by Omer Carmi on Tuesday. Carmi says : "Hoping to pressure Europe into providing more concessions, Teheran may threaten to reduce its commitments under the nuclear deal, but can it avoid escalation with Washington while doing so? Exactly one year after President Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran is poised to announce retaliatory measures of its own on May 8. According to some Iranian outlets, President Hassan Rouhani will inform the leaders of the P4+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, and Germany) that his government will cease some of its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA, while Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will issue updates regarding the technicalities of this move. Teheran is apparently acting under Article 26 of the nuclear deal, which states that if Washington reimposes sanctions, the regime can treat it as 'grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part.' ” • In fact, in his televised speech, Rouhani said Iran would keep stockpiles of excess uranium and heavy water that is used in nuclear reactors. He gave a 60-day deadline for new terms to the nuclear accord, after which Teheran would resume higher uranium enrichment. • Omer Carmi concludes : "The ayatollahs have been burned by failed brinkmanship strategies over the past two decades, so they will likely take care to refrain from careless, uncalculated policies that might push Europe to join President Trump’s 'maximum pressure' approach. The question is whether it can keep this carefully structured roadmap of limited escalation from spiraling out of control. The Iranians have already learned in the past that escalation dynamics are dangerously unpredictable. And given how far away they are from realizing the demands they have made on Europe, they could push themselves into a corner by threatening to dilute the JCPOA." [Omer Carmi is vice president of intelligence at the Israeli cybersecurity firm Sixgill. Previously, he was a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute and led IDF analytical and research efforts pertaining to the Middle East.] • • • RUSSIA CHIMES IN. The Kremlin media outlet RT wrote on Tuesday that Iran "mocks Bolton for using carrier deployment as ‘psychological warfare." RT said : "The deployment of the USS ‘Abraham Lincoln’ to the Middle East...is old news being peddled to pressure Teheran, a senior Iranian official said. Bolton, the US national security adviser, described the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and its strike group as an 'unrelenting force' that will respond to any attack on US interests by Iran. Responding to the threat, Keyvan Khosravi, the spokesman for Iran’s National Security Council, dismissed Bolton’s statement as 'an unskillful use of a worn-out event to wage psychological war against Iran.' The Iranian official pointed out that the movement of the carrier strike group was known long before Bolton’s statement. US defense officials reported that the USS ‘Abraham Lincoln’ entered the Mediterranean Sea in early April, a week after leaving Norfolk, and was slated to circumnavigate the globe before reaching its homeport of San Diego....According to Axios, the US acted on a vague tip from the Israeli spy agency Mossad, which was relayed to the US on April 15. The date coincides with that which was pinpointed by Khosravi, who said on Monday that the Iranians had spotted the carrier entering the Mediterranean '21 days ago.' The naval force had actually been in the sea for about a week by that time, according to public information. The simultaneous presence of the USS ‘Abraham Lincoln’ and her fellow ship USS ‘John C. Stennis’ in the Mediterranean provided an opportunity for some grandstanding to another US official, Jon Huntsman, who serves as Washington’s ambassador to Russia. He touted the ships as '200,000 tons' of 'forward-operating diplomacy,' but failed to explain why he believed the show of force would make Russia change its foreign policies more to Washington’s liking." • So, Russia belittles Bolton and calls Jon Hunstman's comment "grandstanding." Does Vladimir Putin want a new US ambassador?? • • • AL JAZEERA HAD SOMETHING TO SAY, TOO. Al Jazeera News wroteo n Wednesday : "A year after US pullout from agreement, Iran says it is no longer committed to parts of the deal with world powers. Rouhani said Iran would increase its uranium enrichment level after 60 days. Iran will resume high-level enrichment of uranium if world powers do not keep their promises under a 2015 nuclear agreement, President Hassan Rouhani has said. In a speech broadcast on national television on Wednesday, Rouhani said the remaining signatories -- the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Russia -- had 60 days to implement their promises to protect Iran's oil and banking sectors from US sanctions. The move comes a year after United States President Donald Trump withdrew his country from the accord. Since then the US has restored crippling economic sanctions on Iran, even as Teheran continued to abide by the accord, according to the United Nations inspectors. Rouhani also announced that Iran would roll back some of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, saying it would keep excess enriched uranium, instead of selling it as called for by the nuclear deal. The Rouhani tweet read : "Starting today, Iran does not keep its enriched uranium and produced heavy water limited. The EU/E3+2 will face Iran's further actions if they can not fulfill their obligations within the next 60 days and secure Iran's interests. Win-Win conditions will be accepted.— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) May 8, 2019." • Al Jazeera quoted Iran's foreign ministry : "The decision of the high security council to 'stop acting on some of the Islamic Republic of Iran's commitments under the JCPOA [nuclear deal]' was communicated to the heads of state of the countries" still party to the deal. • Speaking to Al Jazeera from Teheran, Professor Mohamemd Marandi, an academic at the University of Teheran, said Iran's patience has run out over the nuclear deal : "I don't think the Iranians consider the nuclear deal to be dead although for practical purposes, it has been dead for quite a while. Under Obama, the US refrained from implementing the deal, but under Trump, the Americans have become very extremist, and ultimately they have ripped up the agreement. The Europeans, despite promises and nice words, they have been effectively abiding by the dictates of Trump....So, the Iranians are saying 'we cannot continue like this, we've been waiting for a year since the Americans exited the agreement, and we have been waiting to see what the Europeans will do. Now that we see they're doing nothing, we have to take some steps'....There were years of negotiations and Iran agreed to halt many elements of its nuclear programme. Iran made these commitments to create a better international atmosphere, to lessen tension in the region, and to show the international community...that it is not Iran that is seeking problems. This one year wait reinforced that...Now the government has decided 'enough is enough'. And they will start decreasing Iran's commitments, for the time being within the framework of the deal, to put pressure on the Europeans to start implementing their side of the bargain." • Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told his Russian counterpart on Wednesday that Teheran's decision to reduce its commitments was legal, the RIA news agency reported, according to Al Jazeera. Zarif, in Moscow for talks, told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Iran's actions did not violate the original terms of the nuclear agreement and that Teheran now had 60 days to take the necessary diplomatic steps. • Al Jazeera said that in response to the Iranian move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear arms : "This morning on my way here I heard that Iran intends to continue its nuclear program," Netanyahu said at a ceremony on Israel's annual day of remembrance for its war dead. "We shall not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon." • • • THE LIBERTARIAN RIGHT ALSO SPEAKS OUT. Newsmax published an article by Patrick Buchanan on Tuesday, under the title "Is Trump Being Steered to War With Iran?" Buchanan ripped through the Bolton - Pompeo agenda : "Last week, it was Venezuela in America's gun sights. 'While a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible,' thundered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 'If that's what is required, that's what the United States will do.' [I have never heard Mike Pompeo "thunder."] John Bolton tutored Vladimir Putin on the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine : 'This is our hemisphere. It's not where the Russians ought to be interfering.' After Venezuela's army decided not to rise up and overthrow Nicholas Maduro, by Sunday night, it was Iran that was in our gun sights. Bolton ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln, its carrier battle group and a bomber force to the Mideast 'to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.' What 'attack' was Bolton talking about? According to Axios, Israel had alerted Bolton that an Iranian strike on US interests in Iraq was imminent. Flying to Finland, Pompeo echoed Bolton's warning : 'We've seen escalatory actions from the Iranians, and...we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests....(If) these actions take place, if they do by some third-party proxy, whether that's a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hezbollah, we will hold the...Iranian leadership directly accountable for that.' Taken together, the Bolton-Pompeo threats add up to an ultimatum that any attack by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or Iran-backed militias -- on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE or US forces in Iraq, Syria or the Gulf states -- will bring a US retaliatory response on Iran itself." • Pat Buchanan asks : "Did President Donald Trump approve of this? For he appears to be going along. He has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions. Last week, he canceled waivers he had given eight nations to let them continue buying Iranian oil. Purpose: Reduce Iran's oil exports, 40% of GDP, to zero, to deepen an economic crisis that is already expected to cut Iran's GDP this year by 6%. Trump has also designated Iran a terrorist state and the Republican Guard a terrorist organization, the first time we have done that with the armed forces of a foreign nation. We don't even do that with North Korea. Iran responded last Tuesday by naming the US a state sponsor of terror and designating US forces in the Mideast as terrorists. Iran has also warned that if we choke off its oil exports that exit the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait could be closed to other nations. As 30% of the world's oil shipments transit the Strait, closing it could cause a global crash....While a Gulf war with Iran might be popular at the outset, what would it do for the US economy or our ability to exit the forever war of the Mideast, as Trump has pledged to do? In late April, in an interview with Fox News, Iran's foreign minister identified those he believes truly want a US-Iranian war. Asked if Trump was seeking the confrontation and the 'regime change' that Bolton championed before becoming his national security advisor, Mohammad Javad Zarif said no. 'I do not believe President Trump wants to do that. I believe President Trump ran on a campaign promise of not bringing the United States into another war. President Trump himself has said that the US spent $7 trillion in our region ... and the only outcome of that was that we have more terror, we have more insecurity, and we have more instability. People in our region are making the determination that the presence of the United States is inherently destabilizing. I think President Trump agrees with that.' " • It isn't clear whether Buchanan agrees with Zarif or whether he's afraid a war in the Mideast could cause the President to lose in 2020. Buchanan mentions the effect the 1973 embargo had on the 1976 election. Then, he says : "But if it is not Trump pushing for confrontation and war with Iran, who is? Said Zarif, 'I believe 'the B-team' wants to actually push the United States, lure President Trump, into a confrontation that he doesn't want.' And who makes up 'the B-team'? Zarif identifies them: Bolton, Benjamin Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed." • Here is Buchanan's kicker : "Should the B-team succeed in its ambitions -- it will be Trump's war, and Trump's presidency will pay the price." • • • ISOLATIONISM CAN BE DANGEROUS. On May 3, when Pat Buchanan suggested that the US should stay out of Venezuela's socialist nightmare humanitarian crisis, he wrote from a libertarian point of view : "This civil conflict is not our war. We have not been attacked. Not only is there no justification for US military intervention, but also any arrival of US troops on Venezuelan soil could turn into yet another 21st-century strategic debacle. There could be again Americans killing and dying in a country where no vital interest was imperiled, no matter how obnoxious the regime. There is no Tiananmen Square slaughter, no massive human rights violations going on in Venezuela to justify military intervention. Indeed, there appears to be a conscious effort on the part of Maduro to minimize casualties and bloodshed [Really, Pat?], and the consequences they could bring. Troops are not firing indiscriminately on protestors, though rock-throwers in the streets are provoking the soldiers. Planeloads of Russian or Cuban troops are not pouring into the country [Really, Pat?]. US intervention in a nation of 30 million people, with an army of scores of thousands of troops, would enable Maduro to cast himself in the role of martyr of Yankee imperialism. Finally, time is on our side, not Maduro's. The Venezuelan economy, one of the richest in the hemisphere owing to the world's largest oil resources, is now in shambles. Some 3 million people, 1 in every 10 Venezuelans, have fled the disaster that Maduro and his mentor Hugo Chavez created. The currency is sinking to Weimar levels. Oil exports are falling. Shortages of food and medicine are spreading. Power blackouts have been reported. It is difficult to foresee any turnaround the Maduro regime can execute to revive the economy or prevent the continued exodus of its people. Most of the nations of Latin America are with us and against Maduro. Venezuela's situation is not sustainable. Let the fate of the Marxist Socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro be decided by the people of Venezuela." • It is more than clear that the Venezuelan people are trying to do just that, and have been for several years. But, a dictator and his army are not easy to defeat. Remember what we wrote last week about Hungary and Czechoslovakia under the USSR regime when we discussed the Tucker Carlson statement about staying out of Venezuela. • So, when Pat Buchanan lays into the Bolton-Pompeo duo who are trying to at least contain Iran, he is, I would guess, being careful not to express an overtly libertarian isolationist opinion because this isn't just a couple of "hawks," it is the President -- Buchanan's President. But, he comes very close to pure libertarian isolationism, which ignores the ballistic missile nuclear warhead threat posed by Iran not only to Israel but to Europe as well. It also ignores the real possibility that Iran will use nuclear blackmail on the world while annihilating Israel IF it is ever in control of a nuclear-armed ICBM. Agreeing with Iran or shying away from confronting its aggression and terrorist threats and acts is the proverbial ostrich head-in-the-sand trick. The ayatollahs fooled Barack Obama and John Kerry. And, Iran is now paying the price for their lies about their nuclear program and glib suggestions that their leaders were reformists. President Trump and his senior team won't make the same mistake. • • • DEAR READERS, I wonder what Buchanan and Carlson will have to say about the Washington Free Beacon article by China expert journalist Bill Gertz. On Wednesday, Gertz wrote : "The Navy conducted the latest freedom of navigation operation in the contested South China Sea on Monday, sending two guided missile destroyers near the Spratly Islands. 'The guided missile destroyers USS Preble and USS Chung Hoon conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea May 6,' said Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet. 'Preble and Chung Hoon sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Gaven and Johnson Reefs in order to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law.' China denounced the warship passage, stating that Chinese warships and aircraft were dispatched to warn the Navy ships to leave the area. Gaven Reef, according to satellite photos taken in November 2017, included a multi-story Chinese administrative building, gun emplacements, radar domes, wind turbines, and sensor communications equipment. Johnson Reef also has a multi-story building, a point defense gun emplacement, radar and communications equipment, and several observation towers. All were built within the past five years." Gertz said the warship passage came five days after Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan "issued a stern warning to Congress on what he termed 'the China threat,' including efforts to take over the South China Sea. 'Make no mistake -- China is extending that reach [in the Indo-Pacific] by increasing its overt military and coercive activities vis-à-vis its neighbors. China's increasingly provocative behavior in the Indo-Pacific, particularly the South China Sea (SCS), should concern us all," Shanahan said, adding, "We do not have to use our imaginations. China habitually threatens this freedom, using both conventional military force projection and ‘gray zone' or irregular warfare activities....China's force projection inside and outside the [South China Sea] disrespects and undermines our rules-based international order and threatens regional stability and security. Between 2013 and 2018 China increased air and sea incursions into the South China Sea by a factor of 12. Within those five years, it also increased deployments of offensive and defensive weapons systems to the [South China Sea] by the same order of magnitude." Gertz explained : "The Pentagon's annual report on China's military power said that during 2018 China continued to militarize disputed islands in the sea with deployments of anti-ship cruise missiles, including YJ-12B missiles, and long-range surface-to-air missiles in the Spratlys. The deployment violated a 2015 pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping who announced that 'China does not intend to pursue militarization' of the Spratlys. The report noted that China appeared to be seeking to protect its oil supply lines by trying to take over the sea. About 78% of China's oil imports and 16% of natural gas imports transited the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca." • Gorman, the US Pacific Fleet spokesman, declined to say whether the Navy ships encountered resistance from the PLA. No photos or videos of the operations were released. "US Forces operate in the Indo-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea," Gorman said. 'All operations are designed in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows. That is true in the South China Sea as in other places around the globe." Gorman said freedom of navigation operations are "routine and regular" and are "not about any one country, nor are they about making political statements." At the Chinese Foreign Ministry, another spokesman, Geng Shuang, also criticized the warship passage, as quoted by Gertz : "The trespass of US warships is a violation of China's sovereignty. It undermines peace, security, and good order in the relevant waters. China deplores and firmly opposes such moves." • Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam object to China's encroachment into the international seaways of the South China Sea. Would Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson tell the US to back off and let these little nations deal with the Chinese monster themselves?? I say no more Gulags.