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In midst of North Korea summit and Cohen testimony, WH belatedly announced Jared Kushner met with Saudi Arabia's crown prince Tuesday in first face-to-face encounter since the brutal murder and disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The readout does not mention Khashoggi.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 28, 2019
Hey, better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? Move fast and break stuff! Politico:
… According to the White House, Kushner met with the crown prince and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to build on previous conversations about increasing cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Trump administration’s hopes to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The State Department referred to the White House an inquiry about whether Khashoggi was discussed at the meeting. Multiple White House officials did not respond.
The encounter, part of Kushner’s seven-day tour through the Middle East, comes weeks after the Trump administration reserved the right to decline lawmakers’ demands that the White House issue a report to Congress determining who is responsible for the murder of Khashoggi. The move caused an uproar among legislators on both sides of the aisle, some of whom claimed the president’s actions amounted to a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government and a violation of the law…
Kushner had cultivated a relationship with the crown prince, who, like the president’s son-in-law, is in his 30s. These ties to bin Salman have come under scrutiny in the wake of Khashoggi’s killing amid tensions over whether the crown prince, who serves as the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, ordered the death of the journalist.Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook accompanied Kushner to the meeting, according to the White House. The two nations’ delegations also discussed “ways to improve the condition of the entire region through economic investment,” the White House said.
Related discussions, per Reuters:
White House adviser Jared Kushner made a whirlwind visit this week to rally U.S.-allied Gulf Arab allies to support his still-unannounced Middle East peace plan, the leaked contours of which suggest little has been done to address Arab demands.
Kushner’s approach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not appear to have progressed since his last regional tour in June, focusing largely on economic initiatives at the expense of a land-for-peace deal long central to the official Arab position, two sources in the Gulf told Reuters on Wednesday…
One of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the plan presented this week did not appear to take into consideration previously stated Arab demands on the status of Jerusalem, the right of Palestinian refugees to return and Israeli settlements in occupied territory…
The source said Kushner, a real estate developer with little experience of international diplomacy or political negotiation, wanted to make a deal first and then agree on details.
The source added that the plan envisages a “substantial” financial contribution from Gulf states, but did not provide details…
Kushner was given responsibility for Israel-Palestinian policy two years ago, but has still not provided concrete details of U.S. efforts, which Trump has dubbed “the deal of the century”.
Kushner said in an interview on Monday that Washington would present the peace plan only after Israel’s election on April 9, though previous targets have passed without any announcement…
By my far-less-than-expert standards, the clip below is… well, I know it’s the MBA-speak with which J-Kush is most familiar, but is an American (however notoriously unqualified) official on camera talking about ‘eliminating the borders’ in the Middle East *really* a good idea?
Kushner says aim is to eliminate the borders as they are today, "in order to guarantee freedom of movement for people and goods"https://t.co/z7INvryfXa pic.twitter.com/ql3hABwz2b
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) February 26, 2019
Adam L Silverman
I think this is an attempt to normalize the one state solution, or a variant of it, that Bibi and all the other members of his coalition have been floating since 2014 without it sounding like he’s just stated that the US has officially abandoned the policy of a two state solution.
Adam L Silverman
Also, whatever plastic surgery he had done on his face in the past three years looks like crap.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: goddam, now that you mention it… looks like he went to Billy Crystal’s guy instead of Ivanka’s
Adam L Silverman
So much winning! Good job everyone. Well done. Meritorious civilian service medals and commendations for everyone!
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: David Duke hooked him up with his plastic surgeon.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s like he went in with a picture of Olivia Nuzzi’s face, pointed at her cheek bone structure, and said: “I want that”. Don’t get me wrong, Nuzzi’s got nice cheek bones, but just because they look good on her doesn’t mean they’re going to look good on you.
Viva BrisVegas
@Adam L Silverman:
So I wonder what Trump is willing to concede to Kim in order to be allowed to give Kim everything he wants?
Jerzy Russian
This is very surprising. I thought that given all of his qualifications, Mr. Kushner would have solved this whole Middle East thing within a few days of being given the task.
Adam L Silverman
@Viva BrisVegas: I’d like to be wrong, but I expect we’re going to find out that US Forces Korea will be casing its colors immediately. This is something that Putin wants almost as much as Kim does.
AThornton
If we could turn ignorance, greed, and incompetence into a fuel the Trump administration would eliminate the need for oil imports.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: No. Really?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: trump thinks it’s a waste of money, that’s how he sees the whole world, and I myself have lost about all confidence in either the hawks (Lindsey Graham, etc) or alleged grown-ups (Mattis, Powell) to even raise their voices
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: That is my and a number of people’s worry: that he’ll either offer to and/or agree to pull US troops off of the Korean peninsula. This is part of what Kim means by denuclearization, as both Cheryl and I have written about here before on the front page. And it is also one of Putin’s major strategic objectives for reestablishing Russia’s sphere of interest and near abroad in the Asia-Pacific region. It is far easier for Putin to do that if US Forces Korea doesn’t exist and US troops have been pulled back and removed from the Korean peninsula.
Keith P.
Was it established that the Saudi’s did *not* ask permission (from Jared) to kill Kashoggi? I’ve always assumed that Jared personally traded Trump’s OK to kill Kashoggi for some kind of quick win (that’s probably already forgotten)
clay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: To be fair to Mattis… he isn’t there any more.
AThornton
The only thing Putin will accomplish if Russia tries dominate its western border, fight a proxy war in the Ukraine, move into Syria, and regain the Tsarist Eastern Empire is Imperial over-reach. The Russian economy is a joke:
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And in addition, he wildly exaggerates the cost of anything he has decided is a waste of money, including this.
Sebastian
@AThornton:
A division of Amazon makes more profit per quarter than these yahoos. How can they afford 1000s of warheads?
Plato
How easily and casually the 3rd rate media has accepted and normalized a totally unqualified nepotism hire as a ‘white house advisor’. Fucking fifth columnists.
Jay
@Sebastian:
They built over 10,000 of them when they were the Soviet Union, then with the first round of denuclearization, kept only the bestest and newest.
Sebastian
@Jay:
Even if they have to maintain “only” a 1,000, that’s a lot of money. How do they afford that? Are those export recenues per year? But that’s just revenues, not profits. I feel like I am completely missing something
Jay
@Sebastian:
Once built, maintaining them consists of changing the batteries when they draw down, and every several decades, changing the explosives and dentonaters if they degrade. They arn’t that expensive to maintain, cheaper than a 1991 Lada.
WilliamC
Adam, I have questions, as an American lurker now living abroad (Peru, hey there jackals!)
1)yes, P*ssygrabber shouldn’t be meeting with KJU, yes, they are a rouge state, yes, they have only escalated their production of fissile materials, yes, they seem to just be stringing this moron along until they have real nuclear capability. Do we let them have nukes? Do we war to stop them? If he removes all the US troops from S. Korea, what’s Japan’s response? Ask for the troops to come there, even though that is currently not ok with them, do they change their minds when P*ssygrabber just gave Korea to KJU?
2) I get that Russia wants this, just so they can sell their measly goods to NK and make us look like even bigger fools because of the President they gave us But, China can’t be happy about an empowered KJU. They can absorb the numbers of people from a collapsing NK, or kill them all or imprison them all, you know, China stuff. How does a nuclear NK make sense to China or Japan or anyone not an exKGB agent in the region?
3) I’m one of those people that doesn’t think Putin is a genius, he’s just playing a version of 1980s geopolitics (neoRealpolitik?), he just sees himself as the Regan in the situation. How does the next Democratic President not wage holy war on Russia in retaliation for what’s been happening the last few years?
Sorry for the long questions, but here in Lima, where I’ve been since just after Christmas, part of my routine here is to read the Tweet stream for about 5 mins every 4 hours that I’m awake, browse this here blog and TPM, (less than an hour over the day for the time nerds out there) and that’s my American news. Sorry, but what’s going on down here dwarfs what we have going on up there (minus the nukes and institutional racism, plus even worse cultural misogyny). So naturally I have questions about American foreign policy.
Martin
@AThornton: California’s economy is twice the size of Russia’s and vastly less dependent on a single commodity good.
Sebastian
@Jay:
Not the bombs, but rather the missiles (short-medium-ICBM), silos, launch trucks, nuclear submarines, and bombers. Crews and support systems for all that, early warning and detection systems, simulators and all the high performance computers, … I could go on and on.
Where’s the money coming from? Being a nuclear power is super expensive.
oatler.
Guardian has a new story that the summit was cut short without a signing.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
So I should probably make sure that the airfare for my boss’s trip to Korea at the end of April is refundable?
Jay
@Sebastian:
Aside from the subs and aircraft, everything from the missiles to the silos are expensive to build, cheap to maintain, mostly needing new batteries every decade or so.
The Soviet/Russian sub fleet is falling apart, but at the end of the Cold War, they found a solution. Rather than sortie them out into the Atlantic and Pacific on long patrols at danger from NATO, the new, longer ranged and more accurate missiles allows the subs to sit in “basins” like the Sea of Ohtosk. Instead of getting worn out travelling thousands of miles, they sit a few hundred km off the Russian coasts, just waiting. The “basins” are sealed off from NATO subs by regular Navy, Coast Guard and Border Security patrols that they would be doing anyway.
As for aircraft, the Soviet Union abandoned Strategic Nuclear Bombers a long time ago. The Bears and Blinders were adapted to carry nuclear tipped missiles to target Carriers. The Bear is a robust beast but for many years, there was no money for carrying out long range patrols, just local maritime survelliance. The Blinders were mothballed. Now that there’s more money in both the Russian economy and the defence budget, the Bears can afford the fuel for long range patrols and the Blinders are being upgraded and returning to the air, about one a year.
All of the Soviet/Russian gear was designed around a conscript army. No need for extensive training to use it or maintain it, and built to last.
Being a nuclear superpower is only expensive if all your crap is gold plated.
China for example adopted Brodies theory of Minimally Assured Destruction. 150 – 300 nukes, across two platforms, gives you just enough nukes to survive a first strike, but enough nukes to completely kill your enemy.
While the US/USSR built almost 40,000 nukes between them during the Cold War, China built 300 – 350 and spent the rest of the money on infrastructure and bullet trains.
Ladyraxterinok
@Adam L Silverman: My dad was a major news junky. While I was in grade school in the late 40s we would eat supper .while listening to the news on the radio. I remember the tension filled reports during the beginning of the Korean war.
The big take-away I got as a kid from all the reports was that the Soviets had gotten angry about something and had walked off the UN Security Council. Their absence enabled the Council to decide to take military action in Korea. The Soviets resolved to never again walk off the Council.
My memories from over half a century ago. Siiigh
Sebastian
@Jay:
Brilliant summary. Thank you, Jay!
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: pushing for no borders in the ME while throwing a fit and DEMANDING a border wall on our southern border
Oy.?
David Evans
@Jay: Modern nuclear weapons require tritium, which decays with a half-life of 12 years and therefore needs replacing every few years. It is created in specialist nuclear reactors, and this article argues that the US doesn’t have enough of them.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/03/06/commentary-the-looming-crisis-for-us-tritium-production/
Uncle Cosmo
@Jay: Eh, not quite that simple, but almost: Tritium (yield booster in smaller/lighter warheads) has a 12.3 year half-life & needs periodic replacement/replenishment. Tweak a reactor to produce the stuff, open access panel, insert needle (NB I speak generically), no problem – somewhere between rocket science & bottle-rocket science.
Uncle Cosmo
@sukabi: That’s the plan, man: Ca$h moves at the speed of light, goods move at the speed of flight, chasing profits, while the little people can’t move at all. It’s the Global Oligarchy Policy. (Gee, where have I seen those initials before? Lemme think…)
Jay
@David Evans: @Uncle Cosmo:
While the Soviets tested boosted weapons, they never built them, or deployed them.
As as a result, Soviet cores have a significantly longer shelf life than US cores. They traded greater mass and lower, less clean energy out put for lower costs and simplicity.