[Rudaw] Germany will not provide funding for “Islamists” in Syria, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Rudaw in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, emphasizing that Berlin’s support for the new leadership in Damascus depends on the country’s leading a democratic and inclusive political process.
“Germany and Europe are not prepared to provide funding for Islamists. This is our clear message. We are ready to help them lift sanctions for reconstruction, but there must be a political process in which all parties and all actors participate,” Baerbock said.
In December, a coalition of opposition groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, toppled the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In late January, Sharaa was appointed as Syria’s interim president and pledged commitment to an inclusive political process.
Baerbock remarked on Wednesday, “We have heard many good words [from the new leadership in Damascus], but words and talk alone are not enough. If it's just talk, without action, Syria will continue to be in crisis, and our assistance depends on these principles.”
Last week, Baerbock led a high-profile delegation to Damascus, where she met with Sharaa and oversaw the reopening of Germany’s embassy after a 13-year diplomatic hiatus. She then emphasized that Germany is monitoring developments in Syria, and “has a paramount interest in a stable Syria.”
On Wednesday, the German foreign minister told Rudaw that during her trip to Syria, she told the new leadership in Damascus “clearly,” that if things advance “in the wrong direction, we will not support it.”
Germany is also a key member of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS). Baerbock told Rudaw that she had asked the interim Syrian government in Damascus, “very clearly, why don't you become part of the anti-ISIS coalition?”
Although Baerbock was keen on visiting northeast Syria (Rojava) during her Syria trip, she told Rudaw she couldn’t due to security concerns. However, she praised the Kurds in Rojava who “were able to protect their security and forced ISIS to retreat.” She urged Kurdish parties there to “decide which path to take,” and “in unity, make a joint decision to take this path together.”
The following is the full transcript of the discussion with Baerbock.
[Clarice Feldman @ AT] While numerous federal district court judges have issued ill-conceived restraining orders against the administration, I have long believed that it will prevail in its efforts to place control of the state in the hands of the elected executive, away from the deep state bureaucracy and its black-robed judicial allies. As the litigation of these matters proceeds, I think my belief will be justified. We will return to a constitutional republican form of government. For a day-to-day look at the progress of these multiple cases, I urge you to go to X and follow Professor Margot Cleveland, who is (bless her) keeping track of them and providing links to the pleadings and orders.
In a sign that the Administration was prepared for this eventuality, the next day, the Solicitor General filed a motion to vacate the order in the Supreme Court. I concur with Bill Shipley’s take:
This is the third case this week where DOJ has raised this issue before the Supreme Court. Earlier it asked SCOTUS to vacate the Injunction issued by the federal judge in San Francisco ordering the reinstatement of approximately 16,000 employees who were terminated while still in their probationary period. The Court has ordered the plaintiffs in that case to respond to the DOJ motion by today.
Yesterday DOJ filed a motion seeking to vacate the order by a Judge in Massachusetts that the Administration restore $65 million in grants to states to address teacher shortages because the grants expressly required that DEI be used in the decision-making for hiring new teachers. The Administration demanded that the DEI conditions be removed, and the states refused.
At first glance these three cases may not seem to have much in common beyond the fact that single district judges in three different locations -- Washington D.C., Boston, and San Francisco -- have used their positions to obstruct the efforts of the Administration [snip] The California case, where it was ordered by a federal judge to reinstate 16,000 terminated employees, goes to its power over the Executive branch in making efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce and make it operate in a more efficient manner.
Taking up the case involving the grants for hiring teachers goes to its authority to reverse policies -- not laws -- of the Biden Administration requiring the consideration of DEI issues in hiring. The Trump Administration policy is the opposite -- if a state wants federal money, it must accept the strings that come attached.
Now taking up the Venezuelan TdA removal case is an expression of Executive power under Article II to deal with national security threats within our borders, involving citizens of quasi-hostile foreign countries who have been identified based on their dangerousness, not their nationality. The district judge has rushed in to assert that their individual rights -- to the extent alien enemies sent to unlawfully enter the United States by a hostile foreign government have any rights
Darn it — I want to write like that!
-- are elevated above the power of the Executive Branch to deal with the threat they pose.
The Executive’s default position is “We’ve identified them as alien enemies who pose a threat to the peace and safety of U.S. citizens and must be removed.”
This philosophy works for the 300+ pro-Hamas activists whose student visas and green cards have thus far been yanked, too.
In sum, as Shipley writes, the Department of Justice is telling the Supreme Court that these rulings by district courts have “become so commonplace that the Executive Branch’s basic functions are in peril,” and the Supreme Court needs to act, the sooner, the better.
Her next section is the meaning of DOGE at the CIA, which has me cheering.
The legal attacks are intended to sink DOGE before the DOGE team heads out to Langley and Deep State Central.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2025 10:26 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11163 views]
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#1
Not even remotely the end of the fight.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/30/2025 14:39 Comments ||
Top||
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[ColonelCassad] Destruction of a wall with a mural of George Floyd in the USA.
Earlier in Washington, a huge Black Lives Matter sign was removed from the city center.
The issue of tearing down two monuments to George Floyd is being seriously discussed.
Now all that remains is to release police officer Derek Chauvin and dig up Floyd's golden coffin.
Also today, it is reported that the Trump administration is demanding that European companies providing services to the US government abandon racial and gender programs as part of the previously implemented agenda. Those who persist are threatened with excommunication from American contracts.
Perestroika. Glasnost. New thinking. Rozhin subscribes to the notion that the USA is undergoing our own Glasnost, a bit of revenge for the 1990s. I'd have to agree with Rozhin. Perestroika (restructuring) definitely applies. Glasnost (transparency) seems like a pretty good fit after the Obama-Biden dictatorships. The rampant corruption of both, plus the political slime tactics that characterized the Dems' "сопротивление" (Resistance) during the first Trump administration gave us sixteen years of political nightmares and has pretty much given Trump a free hand, just like the August '91 coup attempt by the old guard generals pretty much a.) discredited Gorbachev because it almost worked, b.) gave rise to Yeltsin and the democratization movement and finally c.) gave us Putin to deal with because Yeltsin was a drunk and a piss poor administrator even when he was sober. Putin wanted to reestablish the "normality" of the Soviet era. Notice that General Aleksandr Lebed, who was a genuine hero (Moldova and Chechnya), tragically perished in a "helicopter crash" (sound familiar?) in 2002, like so many subsequent pains in the Putin underwear. Lebed grew up in Novocherkassk, where 23 people, including the requisite women and kiddies, were killed and disappeared in the suppression of food riots (the Новочеркасский расстрел) that were hidden until Glasnost kicked in.
[Jpost] It is paramount, therefore, that the current campaign be augmented and that the administration’s bite matches its bark.
The Trump administration’s renewed bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen features the correct rhetoric against the Iranian regime but, so far, appears short on translating that rhetoric into kinetic action.
If US President Donald Trump wishes to avoid yet another unsuccessful and costly failure – both financially and in terms of munitions expenditure – to restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the current operation will need to be expanded. It must include a ground component using local Yemeni anti-Houthi forces,
<...based on the little I know on the subject — I’m not even an armchair private — I’d not trust that lot to accomplish anything useful…
a far more dedicated interdiction element, and strikes targeting the Iranian regime itself.
That’s the next step, after they’ve had their chance to proactively surrender. They were given a deadline…
Thus far, although the operation is clearly coercive rather than merely defensive or retaliatory and not calibrated to avoid casualties or reduce escalation risks – both steps in the right direction – it appears to be little more than a more aggressive version of the Biden administration’s Operation Poseidon Archer.
Does it really?
But no matter how intense the US bombing gets, it is very unlikely to force the Houthis to halt attacks. Any successful operation would have to involve substantial strikes against the Iranian regime, something the administration, at least rhetorically, recognizes.
President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on March 17, “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz also emphasized that Iranian targets would be “on the table.”
To date, however, no such action has been taken.
THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE FOR TWO PRIMARY REASONS
First, the Houthis – more correctly known as Ansar Allah (“Partisans of God”) – are not independent decision-makers.
The organization is a direct outgrowth of the Islamic Revolution that conquered Iran in 1979 and is a veritable branch of the guardians of that Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, much like its sister group in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Indeed, an IRGC Quds Force brigadier-general and his Hezbollah deputy sit on the Houthi “Jihad Council,” the group’s supreme decision-making body.
The de facto commander of its missile and drone forces is the infamous IRGC-QF commander in Yemen, Abdul Reza Shahlai, who ordered and directed the opening salvo in 2023 against international shipping. All Houthi attacks are planned, directly ordered, and overseen by IRGC commanders, including from Hezbollah, stationed in Yemen. All components, weapons, and nearly all targeting intelligence used in the attacks are from the IRGC.
Thus, Iranian assets in or near Yemen, particularly intelligence ships like the Behshad and Safiz, are critical targets to degrade the IRGC’s capacity to close the Red Sea or attack naval vessels. Furthermore, the actual decision-makers behind Houthi piracy are in Tehran, not Sanaa. It is they who need to face not only economic pressure but also targeted strikes that threaten their ability to control their regional Islamic empire, of which Yemen is but a satrapy.
Second, if the president is yet again blustering with no follow-through, it could be the coup de grâce to already severely eroded US credibility and deterrence. Another North Korean “fire and fury” moment with no action – especially after threatening Hamas multiple times with no action – will be seen by US adversaries as a green light to do whatever they want.
Unfortunately, Trump has made very clear in word and deed over the past decade that he’s not interested in getting involved in a serious overseas conflict, suggesting that the chances of serious strikes against Iranian regime targets are slim.
Or he could just get out of Israel’s way. They have plans…
An even worse outcome, however, would be a repeat of the disastrous deal with the Taliban, in which Trump loses patience with a protracted bombing campaign, as he did in Afghanistan. Trump could make a worthless agreement with the Houthis in which they promise not to target American ships and then claim victory, potentially even withdrawing US troops and assets from the region, something he tried and failed to do in his first term.
It doesn’t help that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Trump trusts implicitly,
He does?
is a strategic ally of the Iranian regime and, aside from engaging in talks to provide the Houthis with anti-ship missiles and other materiel, has also provided targeting intelligence to the Houthis for their campaign against international shipping and Western navies. This even allegedly included Russian military intelligence advisers deployed in Yemen.
If the administration’s rhetoric reflects its actual intent and is translated into concrete action, then this campaign could eventually succeed where others have failed. The alternative, in which, despite the administration’s tough rhetoric, the US ineffectively bombs the Houthis for several days or weeks with no ground component, no increased interdiction campaign, and no strikes against the Iranian regime, is likely to dramatically embolden already-emboldened Western adversaries.
It is paramount, therefore, that the current campaign be augmented and that the administration’s bite matches its bark.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
03/30/2025 05:41 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11139 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
...I'm wondering if going after Yemen isn't the point. That is, we turn the place into hopeless craters while telling Tehran - loudly and publicly - that there's not a damned thing they can do about it.
That would send the mullahs into a frenzy. There's a lot of chances for a strategy like that to go sideways, but it'll make a point.
#2
First things first. The Hooties are an immediate problem that needs to be dealt with. Doing so in a thorough and enthusiastic manner is bound to have a bit of "kill a chicken to scare the monkey" on Tehran. And if push comes to shove later on, our pieces are already on the board. Let the mullahs stew in their own juices for a while.
The Iran hostage crisis was an international crisis (1979–81) in which militants seized 66 Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 of them hostage for more than a year. It took place after Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1978–79 and poisoned U.S.-Iranian relations for decades.
#4
There is a lot of unfinished business between Iran and the US on both sides. Boomers in the US were very influenced by the hostage crisis - their counterparts in Iran lost family and friends to SAVAK
#5
No, you really wanna hurt Iran, hit the only to oil export facilities it has. In in the Persian gulf and the other newer one outside it. It also imports all of its gasoline so hit the couple harbors where ships offload it.
No more money for Iran, no gas to move things around. Check.
#6
Just crush Iran and Kabul economically. Drop the price of oil and stop funding the Taliban and the Syrian terrorists. Plug the Houti leadership and any Iranian boats helping with targeting.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 16:30 Comments ||
Top||
#7
"Occupy Cha Bahar!" used to be a popular phrase or sumpthin
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2025 16:57 Comments ||
Top||
#8
^i wonder if Irish Rage Biy is sailing there to seize it himself.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 21:22 Comments ||
Top||
#9
^ Who wants to play Letters of Marque and Reprisal?
[Townhall] After more than 45 years of holy manal dictatorship, the Iranian people deserve freedom. The Islamic Theocratic Republic is a terrorist regime responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and across the region.
A diplomatic belief in reform was always a fool’s game for two simple reasons: First, Iranian elections cannot change a regime policy set by unelected figures like Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> . Second, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exists solely to protect the theocratic regime from the Iranian people. Diplomats are naïve to believe that regime reformism is real; in reality, the reformers entrap Western officials in a game of good cop-bad cop. As former Iranian President Muhammad Khatami’s front man explained in 2008, "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities."
As former Iranian President Muhammad Khatami’s front man explained in 2008, "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities."
The irony of the Iranian regime is that it has greater legitimacy among the West’s useful idiots than it does among the Iranian people. For more than a quarter century, Iranians have poured out into the streets with increasing frequency. The murder of Jina "Mahsa" Amini "Woman, Life, Freedom" Movement was the last straw for many Iranians, who openly called for death to Khamenei. Such an event may not be far off: Iran’s dictator is 85-years-old, has had cancer, and is partially paralyzed from a 1981 liquidation attempt.
Iranians have myriad views about what comes next, though they also have remarkable consensus on three things:
First, they do not want external regime change. Iran is not Iraq. They want support, but will win freedom themselves, not at the barrel of a foreign gun. Second, they do not want Iran divided. When Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he spoke about cleaving away "Arabistan," his name for the traditionally Arab-populated, oil-producing province of Khuzestan. Iranians rightly rallied to defend their country from Iraq, but the distraction of war allowed Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to wrap himself in a nationalist flag to avoid accountability for his revolution’s failures and betrayal. The third point of consensus is disdain for the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
This third point remains interwoven with the first two in the minds of most Iranians. The MKO—and Maryam Rajavi, for 40-years, its president-elect—were once fierce proponents of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution. Rajavi has a right to be personally furious with Khomeini: Like he did with so many other supporters, he betrayed Rajavi and the MKO. Many MKO members fled to Iraq, Iran’s archrival that was at the time killing Iranian conscripts after having invaded the country. Most Iranians despise Khomeini—how else to explain why they would put dog excrement into his tomb—but they could not understand a group allying itself with an Arab dictator bent upon dismantling Iran itself.
Ultimately, Iranians will determine their own future, hopefully through a democratic process once the theocracy collapses. Some Iranians may support the son of the late shah as a unifying figure who can preside over a constitutional convention. Others may prefer a president, and still others may advocate for a parliamentary system presided over by a prime minister. Ethnic or religious groups dominant in one province or another may also seek greater local decision-making. Most Iranian groups debate such structures and cooperate with those with whom they disagree.
The MKO, however, stands apart in vision, in opacity, and in tactics. While Iranian women risk their lives for freedom from forced veiling, not only does Rajavi strictly cover herself, but she also requires that all the women of her group cover their hair. What Iranians want is not a different flavor of Islamic Theocratic Republic, but rather no Islamic Theocratic Republic.
Iranians also want democracy. Too many once believed Khomeini’s promises of democracy; they realize the danger of insincere promises. This translates into deep suspicion about the MKO. After all, how can a group that embraced first Khomeini and then Saddam stand for democracy? To suggest the MKO is pro-American is risible. Prior to the Islamic Revolution, the MKO killed American businessmen and military officers. While that was hardly unique among leftist groups during the Cold War, what makes the MKO different today is it denies its history rather than apologizes for it. Indeed, when Americans are not in the room its anti-Americanism flourishes.
The biggest problem with the MKO, however, is that it actively undermines grassroots opposition by disrupting events that do not pay homage to Rajavi or libeling or slandering those who raise questions about the MKO’s record.
I have been a victim of MKO tactics. Ali Safavi, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance® of Iran, the political umbrella for the MKO, has six columns here libeling me in response to my criticism of the MKO. None of his columns address criticisms I made about the MKO. Rather, Safavi’s responses range from the bizarre to the conspiratorial: He accuses me of being an Iranian regime agent because, in his imagination, American Jews who worked in President George W. Bush’s administration and have advocated for regime change in Commentary and the Wall Street Journal over a quarter century must be closet Islamists. Sure, I went to Iran. Yale University funded me. I wrote my dissertation on telegraphy in 19th century Iran and penned several spinoff articles about Persian cryptology, Armenian and Baha’i telegraph workers, and the like. That no more makes me an Iranian agent than the many American students that the regime subsequently took hostage. By Safavi’s logic, am I also al Qaeda because I went to the Taliban ...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan... ’s Afghanistan? Am I a communist because I went to Cuba? In reality, my job is to study how rogue regimes think, and I consider the Islamic Theocratic Republic the marquee rogue.
Washington policy debate is rough-and-tumble. During the Iraq war, partisans cast aspersions easily. Those that Safavi repeats—about my supposed role shepherding Ahmad Chalabi—originated in convicted fraudster Lyndon LaRouche’s magazine (Actually, I worked mostly with Iraqi Kurds). Ditto, a New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... news hound once accused me of being part of the Lincoln Group, which planted news stories in the Iraqi press. Sorry, Ali. Congress investigated the Lincoln Group; I was not part of it. Don’t be the only Townhall columnist that takes the New York Times at face value. And don’t be the only Iranian who, with the Chalabi calumny, appears to lament Saddam’s fall.
I’ve got thick skin, but such tactics matter. First, how can Washington policymakers take the MKO seriously when it cites LaRouche as a reliable source? Or deflects policy debate with ad hominem attacks? Or argues that security-cleared, American Jewish neoconservative Iran hawks are really just closet Revolutionary Guards agents?
More seriously, the aspersions Safavi casts toward me are mild compared to how the MKO treats the Iranian opposition. Rather than work jointly toward the goal of ending an odious regime in Tehran, the MKO would rather attack any Iranians who do not blindly submit to Rajavi, live in her group homes, and fork over their income and, in some cases, children.
During the Cold War, there were Communists, anti-Communists, and anti-anti-Communists who cared more about knocking down critics of the Soviet Union than about defeating the Evil Empire itself. This is the dynamic now at play with the MKO as it obsessively attacks critics of the Islamic Theocratic Republic. There could be no bigger gift to Khamenei than the MKO’s efforts to delegitimize its critics.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan...
