If Donald Trump
is something of the darkhorse candidate than Hillary Clinton is the candidate
that we sadly know all too well.
As she never
hesitates to remind us Hillary Clinton was US Secretary of State between 2008
and 2012. In the area of foreign policy in particular this gives us a pretty
clear idea of what a Hillary Clinton Presidency will look like.
Hillary Clinton
cites her greatest achievement as Secretary of State the program of sanctions
which were brought to an end under John Kerry in April 2015 with a deal to end
Iran's nuclear program.
At current
estimates Hezbollah has an arsenal of 150,000 missiles stationed in southern
Lebanon pointing directly at Israel. Assuming these are all the Zalzel-2
missile and they are all fitted with the maximum 600kg (1320lb) high explosive
warhead this represents a potential threat of 9 Kilotons of explosive power. If
they are the smaller Fadj-5 missile all fitted with the maximum 90kg (200lb)
warhead you are still talking about a potential threat of 1.3 Kilotons.
This is
more than enough to destroy a country just 21,000kmsq (12,500msq) in area with
a population of just 8 million people.
These weapons
are predominately supplied by Iran and Syria both via Iraq and Syria and by a
range of complex smuggling routes across the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and
East Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. Keeping track of these weapon shipments
requires a complex network of intelligence gathering involving technological
surveillance such as satellite tracking and good old fashioned secret agents.
Protecting particularly those human intelligence sources is itself a complex
task and not one that people are happy to have discussed openly.
Also phrases
such as; "A mixture of X number of Zalzel-2 missiles fitted with a
combination of 600kg warheads and 400kg warheads combined with X Fadj-5
missiles with a mixture of 90kg and 40kg warheads" is not exactly a headline
grabber. So when talking about Israel's security people have long found it
easier to talk about; 'The Iranian Nuclear Threat!'
Sadly due to the
sanctions Hillary Clinton helped impose as Secretary of State and the skilled
negotiations led by John Kerry that got those sanctions scrapped the US has
eliminated Iran's actual nuclear program. With the Iranian nuclear program
always being more or a mirage - or 'existential' issue - rather than a concrete threat to Israel's
security all this has achieved is to force skilled diplomats to come up with
new ways to talk about the conventional missile threat to Israel.
Quite apart from
having an extremely negative effect both on Israel and the entire Middle-East,
North Africa (MENA) region Hillary Clinton's sanctions on Iran have also had an
extremely effect negative on America's economic standing in the World.
The US currently
runs one of the largest national debts in the World standing at around $19.5 Trillion. The reason why the US is able to run a national debt that would drive
most nations into bankruptcy is because it's currency - the US Dollar - is the
global reserve currency. That means that if any nation were to call in the US'
debts driving it to bankruptcy the first thing that would happen is that the
value of the dollar would collapse driving all the nations that hold dollar
reserves into bankruptcy. A sort of economic Mutually Assured Destruction.
The reason why
the US Dollar is the global reserve currency is because back at the end of the
Second World War the US did a deal with the World's largest oil producer -
Saudi Arabia. In return for the US guaranteeing the security of the Saudi Royal
Family Saudi Arabia agreed to only sell its oil in US Dollars. That meant that
anybody wanting to buy oil had to have a reserve of US Dollars.
Obviously much
like the rest of the western world the US has not purchased oil from Iran since
the 1979 Revolution. However other nations - most notably China - have been
perfectly happy to buy oil from Iran over the past 30 odd years. Being global
the sanctions that Hillary Clinton introduced prevented those nations from
buying oil from Iran forcing them to buy oil from Saudi Arabia instead.
Due to their
huge demand for oil and therefore purchasing power China has not been happy
about buying oil in the currency of their great economic rival. Saudi Arabia
has been more than happy to oblige them and welched on its deal with the US by
selling China oil in its own currency - the Renminbi (Yuan).
Despite the
value of the Renminbi being set by the Chinese government rather than the value
of the free market - currency manipulation in short - the increased volume of
oil sales in the currency have led to the Renminbi being included in the
International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of
currencies. These are the types of currency that the IMF accepts and makes
payments in. The Renminbi's inclusion in the SDR basket is a significant step
towards eliminating the US Dollar as the global reserve currency.
So although this
is quite a technical and not exactly headline grabbing issue this is one of the
structural pillars of the US economy and American power that Hillary Clinton
has merrily been taking a sledgehammer to throughout her time as Secretary of
State.
If Hillary
Clinton's approach to Iran was the result of almost Autistic naivety then her
own attempts to counter the rise of Chinese power belie an almost nihilistic
recklessness. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was instrumental in the
formation of the US' "Pivot Towards the Pacific" policy.
This has been
intended to contain the rise of China by bringing nation's in the South-East
Asia/Pacific region out of China's sphere of influence and into America's. This
has really been a two-track process involving both economics and security.
The economic
track has been focused on increasing trade between the US and South East Asian
Nations (SEAN) that the US had previously been at war with or refused to trade
with such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma).
The US' only
interest has been to open up new low wage economies to outsource to in order to
depress wages in both the US and China in order to prevent China shifting to
consumer economy. In this race to the bottom the US has suddenly been happy to
do business with nations with absolutely appalling human rights records. In the
space of just 8 years the US went from supporting popular protests to overthrow
Burma's military dictatorship to inviting members of that dictatorship to the
White House.
It is on the
security track though that this Pivot Towards the Pacific policy has been at its
most dangerous.
Here the US has
focused on building up the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North
Korea) into a nuclear armed regional bogeyman. With any potential collapse of
the DPRK risking a mass refugee crisis to its immediate neighbour China the US
has obviously been more free to use inflammatory rhetoric to condemn the DPRK
and call for ever tougher economic sanctions. The thinking being that this will
convince nations in the region to move away from China and look to the US to
protect them from the DPRK.
Although my
focus is on the MENA rather than the Pacific region this plan does not seem to
be working.
Back in 2014
Japan announced that it was amending its post-war constitution to allow it to
play a more active role in its own defence rather than relying on the US.
Following the recent September 2016 DPRK nuclear test the Republic of Korea (RoK/South
Korea) announced that it was drawing up its own plans to pre-emptively attack
the DPRK and kill its leader Kim Jong Un before the DPRK can destroy the RoK.
In the run-up to
the US Presidential election the RoK has been engulfed in a political scandal
of its own.
This centres
around a woman called Choi Soon-sil who is often described as the right hand of
the President Park Geun-hye. Choi is accused of using her longstanding
friendship with the President solicit large donations to a charitable
foundation she runs. President Park herself stands accused of improperly
storing classified and secret government documents by sharing them with Ms
Choi.
It seems to me
that the only difference between that scandal and the scandal currently
engulfing Hillary Clinton and her own right-hand woman Huma Abedin is that the
South Koreans have decided to prosecute.
It's almost as
if amid the extremely high stakes of nuclear confrontation the US' traditional
regional allies no longer view it as reliable and competent partner.
As Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton was also one of the main architects of the US-led attack
on Libya that resulted in the overthrow of the government of its longtime
President Muammar Qaddafi in 2010. Alongside NATO airstrikes this was achieved
by training and equipping Islamist militia's in places such as Tunisia to fight
on the ground.
Following the
overthrow of the Libyan govt in 2011 the nation rapidly plunged into chaos
taking it to the brink of becoming a failed state. All the different Islamist
militias that the US trained and armed almost immediately starting fighting
each other over territory, smuggling routes and Libya's vast oil reserves. Into
this security vacuum has emerged the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL). As with so much else a large part of John Kerry's tenure as Secretary
of State has been spent trying to tidy up this mess.
Hillary
Clinton's decision to overthrow the Libyan government not only plunged that
nation into chaos but also many other nations in the region.
Fuelled by
weapons and fighters from Libya in January 2012 an Islamist terror group - the
Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) - established a
self-proclaimed Islamist Caliphate in an area of northern Mali roughly the same
size as France or twice the size of the US state of Texas. In January 2015 a
small French force intervened in Mali and swept this terrorist Caliphate aside
in just six weeks.
Unfortunately
many of the fighters from Mali fled to near-by Nigeria where they joined the
Boko Haram group which has now affiliated itself with ISIL. Since then Boko
Haram have waged war against not only Nigeria but neighbouring states such as
Cameroon, Chad and Niger. However Michelle Obama did once post a social media
picture of herself holding a sign saying; "Bring Back Our Girls" so
I'm sure that's all fine.
With Islamist
violence and instability across Africa's Sahel belt hundreds of thousands of
people have been forced to flee their homes to live as refugees. Prior to 2010
the majority of these refugees would settle in rich and stable nations close to
their homelands such as Libya. However with Hillary Clinton plunging Libya into
chaos many more of these refugees are being forced to cross the Mediterranean
to seek shelter in Europe.
Just in 2015
1.02 million refugees attempted this crossing with 3,771 being killed in the
process. Already in 2016 327,800 have made the crossing with 3,800 being
killed. Sadly this is considered a marked improvement.
The pressure
that this migration crisis is placing on Europe is threatening to tear the
European Union (EU) apart. Italy where most of these migrants land is
threatening to veto the EU budget if other member states to not do more to
help. Nations such as Hungary and Poland have erected barbed wire fences and
are refusing to help nations such as Italy. Far-right and downright Nazi
political parties are on the rise across the EU and Britain has already voted
to leave.
In September
2016 the British Parliament published the results of its inquiry into the overthrowing
of the Libyan government. Despite not exactly being a pro-Qaddafi lobby group
the British Parliamentary inquiry was absolutely stinging in its criticism.
It's main
finding was that the main justification for launching military action - to
protect civilians - was entirely false. Singling out Hillary Clinton in
particular it found that far too much emphasis was placed on the often
theatrical public statements of Muammer Qaddafi and those comments were
selectively edited in an attempt to fabricate evidence of a threat to
civilians.
In short the
British Parliament found that the war against Libya was undertaken on the basis
of a lie that was just as, if not more, serious than the dodgy dossier with
it's claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) being launched in just 45
minutes that was used by the US to invade Iraq in 2003.
The Iraqi
dossier was of course presented to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Hillary Clinton seems quite proud
of the fact that despite being a Republican Colin Powell has endorsed her for
the Presidency.
The British
Parliamentary inquiry into the war against Libya also singled out an almost
complete lack of planning for the country following the overthrow of its
government.
As far as I can
tell the only preparation made for Libya following the overthrow of its
government was to raid the nation's arsenal and scoop up as many weapons and
Islamist terrorists in order to transport them to Syria.
The idea being
to use those Islamist terrorists to mount an equally illegal attempt to
overthrow the Syrian government.
Next Part to Follow.
13:20 on 5/11/16 (UK date).
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