Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

ISRAEL

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda has concluded her preliminary examination into the so-called “situation in Palestine” and asked the ICC judges to confirm that the Court may exercise jurisdiction over the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. By taking this action, he pointed out, “the Prosecutor expressly recognized that there are serious legal questions about the Court’s authority to proceed with an investigation.”

The United States firmly opposes actions seeking to target Israel unfairly. Previously, Washington noted that as was made clear when the Palestinians purported to join the Rome Statute, the US does not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and they therefore are not qualified to obtain full membership, or participate as a state in international organizations, entities, or conferences, including the ICC.

IRAN

Iran has been a state sponsor of terrorism for many years using a campaign of plausible deniability to hide behind their proxies. A senior State Department official in recognizing this point said: “Well, that’s not us; it’s Hizballah,” or, “That’s not us; it’s the militias in Bahrain that are blowing up oil pipelines.”

He stated that the united States has “stripped away the veneer of deniability with our designation and made clear that it’s not just Iran supporting terrorism, it’s Iran engaging in terrorism itself. I think that messaging is important.” There are practical consequences of the terrorist designation. The most important of those, according to the official, is the material support statute. “So, when the Secretary of State designates a group as a foreign terrorist organization, that unleashes a federal criminal prohibition on providing material support or resources to that group. That prohibition was not in place when we had previously sanctioned the IRGC under different sanctions authorities,” he said. Now that that FTO criminal liability regime is in place, that substantially increases the legal risk that second parties and third parties face when they engage with the IRGC.

VENEZUELA

In a recent special briefing at the State Department, Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams, and the charge d’affaires of the US’s Venezuelan Affairs Unit James Story presented the latest developments with regard to the situation on the ground in Venezuela. Abrams pointed out that the National Assembly is the last bastion of Democracy left in the country and it is under attack by the Maduro regime. Of the 167 deputies, 32 have been detained, forced into exile, or had their constitutional immunities from prosecution revoked, he said.

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Reports indicate these attacks have increased in the last week. Abrams pointed out that the “regime’s captive supreme court removed the immunity of four additional parliamentarians so they can be tried for alleged crimes against the state, including treason, after the regime’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, accused them of being involved in an alleged terrorist plot.” In addition, he added, “…on December 17, two of the four denounced SEBIN intelligence agents for threatening their homes and their families. Why? The two deputies said the regime’s motive was to stop the deputies from voting in favor of Juan Guaido on January 5th in favor of his reelection as National Assembly president.”

James Story noted that “The National Assembly will vote on January 5, and the regime is using a combination of threats, arrests, and bribes – up to $500,000 per vote, we have been told – to stop the reelection of Juan Guaido. Threaten, exile, detain, bribe – that is step one. Step two will be to try to grab control of the National Assembly by preventing free elections in 2020. The Venezuelan constitution calls for National Assembly elections next year, and opinion polls make it obvious the opposition will win them – if they’re free.”

“The United States, the other nearly 60 nations that have recognized Juan Guaido as interim president because the May 2018 elections were fraudulent, and every country that seeks a peaceful way out for Venezuela through free elections can see exactly what’s going on in Caracas,” according to Abrams. That is why, he said, the United States will continue the sanctions and strengthen them.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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