Blinken asks China, others to rein in Iran on Israel

chakokat

Why doesn’t Blinken/Biden/US ask Israel to stop it’s genocide?

chakokat

NATO forces have been unable to deter the pro-Palestine operations of the Yemeni armed forces despite heavily militarizing the Red Sea

chakokat

Insanity? Hypocrisy? Irony?

President Biden reiterated the unwavering commitment of the United States to the defense of Japan under Article V of the Treaty, using its full range of capabilities, including nuclear capabilities.

chakokat

Chilling.

chakokat

Iran is "threatening to launch a significant attack on Israel," Biden told a news conference, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. "As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel's security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad."

"Let me say it again - ironclad. We're going to do all we can to protect Israel's security."

chakokat

Isn’t it interesting how some bad pennies just keep recirculating?

chakokat

Retaliation?

chakokat

Washington wants to ensure that Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project is “dead in the water,” the State Department has said

The US is aiming to halt the development of the Russian energy sector, including a major new LNG project in the Arctic, senior State Department official Geoffrey Pyatt has said.

Speaking at a Financial Times summit on Monday, Pyatt stated that the US is specifically targeting the Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia’s northern Yamal Region, which is being developed by private energy giant Novatek.

“Our goal is to ensure that Arctic LNG 2 is dead in the water,” Pyatt, who serves as assistant secretary of state for energy resources, was quoted as saying by the British newspaper. “We’re very focused on ensuring that Russia is not able to develop new projects in order to [redirect] the gas that it had previously sent into Europe.”

The US has imposed several rounds of economic restrictions on Arctic LNG 2, the most recent of which was announced in November 2023.

Cutting Europe off from cheap Russian pipeline gas has been a key component of Western retaliation since Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in 2022. While American LNG producers have seized a large share of the market, Russian gas continues to flow to some EU member states.

According to a Reuters estimate, the EU boosted purchases of Russian LNG in 2023 to compensate for the loss of pipeline gas. LNG currently holds a 15% share of the market, up from roughly 8% before 2022. The share of the Russian pipeline gas was previously 37%. ( bold mine )

chakokat

U.S. ~~Israel~~ is enough under the ~~U.S.~~ Israel thumb

FIFY

chakokat

Trita Parsi places Israel’s objective in attacking the Iranian Consulate in Damascus in a different context:

“An important aspect of Israel’s conduct – and Biden’s acquiescence to it – is that Israel is engaged in a deliberate and systematic effort to destroy existing laws and norms around warfare.

Even during wartime, embassies are off-limits [yet] Israel just bombed an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus.

Bombing hospitals is a war crime, [yet] Israel has bombed EVERY hospital in Gaza. It has even assassinated doctors and patients inside hospitals.

The ICJ obligated Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Israel actively prevents aid from coming in.

Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited under international humanitarian law. Israel has deliberately created a famine in Gaza.

Indiscriminate bombings are illegal under international humanitarian law. Biden himself admits that Israel is bombing Gaza indiscriminately”.

The list goes on and on … However, Israel’s breach of Vienna Convention immunity accorded to diplomatic premises – plus the stature of those killed – is highly significant. It is a major signal: Israel wants war – but with U.S. support, of course.

Israel’s aim, firstly, is to destroy the norms, conventions and laws of warfare; to create geo-political anarchy in which anything goes, and by which, with the White House frustrated, yet acquiescing to each norm of conduct obtrusively trodden underfoot, allows Netanyahu to grip the U.S. bridle and lead the White House horse to water – towards his regional End of Times ‘Great Victory’; a necessarily brutal war – beyond existing red lines and devoid of limits.

As symbolically significant as the Damascus attack is that the U.S., France and Britain – after a brief ‘hat tip’ to the Vienna Convention – refused to condemn the levelling of the Iranian Consulate, thus placing the shadow of doubt over the Vienna Convention’s immunity for diplomatic premises.

Implicitly, this refusal to condemn will be widely understood as a soft condoning of Israel’s first tentative step towards war with Hizbullah and Iran.

chakokat