Biden Wants Talks While China's Xi Prepares for War

In this mailing: - Gordon G. Chang: Biden Wants Talks While China's Xi Prepares for War - Alan M. Dershowitz: A Big Difference between Israel and the Palestinians - Amir Taheri: Iran: Looking for a Booted Savior [] [Biden Wants Talks While China's Xi Prepares for War]( by Gordon G. Chang • November 13, 2022 at 5:00 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - The meeting, as crucial as everyone believes it will be, should not occur. It is long past time for America to stop talking with the Chinese regime and start imposing costs for dangerous and other unacceptable behavior. - Talking sounds as if it should work but in fact has produced horrible results, for more than three decades. In short, dialogue enables China to buy time and often run out the clock. - Biden as president has already had five phone or video calls with Xi, so by now it should be clear what his red lines are. Moreover, on any day, People's Daily lists them. - [T]he Chinese are not real believers in the importance of dialogue; they break it off whenever they feel it is to their advantage. - [D]uring summits presidents often convey warnings, seek understanding, or propose joint action. "There is no reason to think Xi Jinping is prepared to seek understanding or would take constructive joint action," he said. "It also is extremely unlikely that he believes or respects words of warning from the Biden administration. Given that, a side meeting on the margins of the G20 is pointless or counterproductive." — Steve Yates, chairman of the China Policy Initiative of the America First Policy Institute, to Gatestone, November 2022. - It is time... for America to get ready for the war that is coming. That means, among other things, bolstering those defending free societies, not emboldening those intent on attacking them. - "Refusing to speak is what children do when they are angry," the Economist states. No, refusing to speak is what leaders do when speaking for decades has created one of the most dangerous moments in history. It is long past time for America to stop talking with the Chinese regime and start imposing costs for dangerous and other unacceptable behavior. Pictured: U.S. President Joe Biden participates in a video meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 15, 2021. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) President Joe Biden will meet with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping on November 14 in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. The talks will be, as Gideon Rachman wrote, "the first global summit of the second cold war." The meeting, as crucial as everyone believes it will be, should not occur. It is long past time for America to stop talking with the Chinese regime and start imposing costs for dangerous and other unacceptable behavior. Yes, China is crucial to the resolution of every major problem in the world — in large part because it has caused or aggravated them — yet China's central role does not, as Americans believe, automatically require them to talk to Chinese leaders. Talking at this time, unfortunately, is making problems even harder to resolve. So why does Biden want to meet Xi? [Continue Reading Article]( [] [A Big Difference between Israel and the Palestinians]( by Alan M. Dershowitz • November 13, 2022 at 4:30 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - Part of the reason for the Palestinian Authority's unwillingness to let the people decide [in elections] is their understandable concern that Hamas will once again prevail. - [T]here is an added reason for why Israelis who used to vote for the left have moved rightward: Hamas rockets, Hezbollah tunnels, Palestinian terrorism, and the unwillingness of the Palestinian Authority to accept generous peace offers in 2000, 2001 and 2008. - It is not enough to remind the world that most Arab and Muslim countries have anti-gay, anti-female and anti-freedom-of-religion policies. More must be said and done. - The same may be true of the United States. But only Israel is condemned.... - For many long-term Israel-bashers, the recent election merely provides a new excuse for an old bigotry. Part of the reason for the Palestinian Authority's unwillingness to let the people decide in elections is their understandable concern that Hamas will once again prevail. Pictured: Senior Hamas politburo members Fathi Hammad (center) and Mahmoud al-Zahar (second from left) take part in a rally marking Hamas's 29th anniversary, on December 14, 2016, in Gaza City. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images) Israel has too many elections. The Palestinians have too few. In the last four years, Israel has had five elections. Since 2006 -- when Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council -- the Palestinians have had none. Mahmoud Abbas has been serving his "four-year term" as president of the Palestinian Authority since 2005, and there is little evidence that he -- or anyone else -- will be up for election anytime soon. Part of the reason for the Palestinian Authority's unwillingness to let the people decide is their understandable concern that Hamas will once again prevail. [Continue Reading Article]( [] [Iran: Looking for a Booted Savior]( by Amir Taheri • November 13, 2022 at 4:00 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - Iran already has a military-security regime that uses a pseudo-religious narrative as a cover for what is a very this-worldly and brutal pursuit of power and wealth. - If the mullahs created the IRGC to protect their power and privilege, the IRGC, in turn created the Basij militia and a dozen other instruments of oppression to protect its own power and wealth. - Those who describe the present regime in Iran as a theocracy are victims of a visual error by not noticing the military cap under the turban. - The IRGC cannot deliver Iran from the Khomeinist nightmare because it has been and remains the key instrument pushing Iran into that nightmare. - Iran doesn't need a military coup to replace one form of despotism with another. What it needs is a national consensus to restore our constitutional system and its aspirations that produced Reza Shah in the context of national sovereignty and the rule of law. - In other words stop looking for boots and start looking at the path chosen by those on the march towards a better future for Iran. Iran already has a military-security regime that uses a pseudo-religious narrative as a cover for what is a very this-worldly and brutal pursuit of power and wealth. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cannot deliver Iran from the Khomeinist nightmare because it has been and remains the key instrument pushing Iran into that nightmare. Pictured: IRGC members on parade, marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, on September 22, 2018, in Tehran. (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images) As Iran enters a third month of popular protests, or a revolutionary uprising as some analysts assert, it seems that the troubled country may be heading for an impasse in which the ruling clique is neither able to calm down the situation nor capable of crushing it as it did on a number of previous occasions. Taken by surprise by what seems to be a spontaneous upsurge of political energy against a moribund system, the regime's many opponents both inside and outside Iran have so far failed to channel that energy towards regime change. Thus both the regime and its opponents are looking for a deus ex-machina to slide down his celestial chute and cut the Gordian knot with a single blow. In other words, they are desperately seeking a pair of boots to kick the mullahs back into their mosques and madrassas while coaxing the rebellious youth back to universities, high schools, primary schools and even kindergartens. But where could the boots come from? 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