A Chinese envoy said Monday that China is committed to playing a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East and the Gulf region.

”China follows the situation very closely and the pressing task at the moment is to prevent the situation from further escalating and running out of control. As a permanent member of the Security Council, China is carrying out active diplomatic efforts,” Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has had phone conversations with Russian, French and Iranian foreign ministers in firm commitment to regional peace and stability, and China opposes arbitrary use of force in international relations, according to the envoy.

”The U.S. unilateral adventurist acts have violated basic norms governing international relations and led to aggravation of tensions,” Zhang said.

”We urge the U.S. side not to abuse force and call on relevant parties to exercise restraint and seek solution through dialogue. At the same time, the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Iraq should be respected,” said the envoy. Läs artikel

All members of the Atlantic alliance stood behind the United States in the Middle East after it briefed NATO on its drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday.

“We are united in condemning Iran’s support of a variety of different terrorist groups,” Stoltenberg said. “At the meeting today, allies called for restraint and de-escalation. A new conflict would be in no one’s interest. So Iran must refrain from further violence and provocations.”

Despite anger last year among European NATO allies over U.S. strategy in the Middle East under President Donald Trump, two diplomats present confirmed that the two-hour meeting at NATO headquarters went smoothly.

They said that no envoy challenged U.S. State Department and Department of Defense officials, who briefed via video conference, over the merits of Friday’s drone strike. Läs artikel

[…]  The assassination of General Soleimani also revealed Washington’s continuing assumption of a right to violate the sovereignty of any country in the world if it deems it in its interest to do so. And this time Iraq will surely expel all US troops from Iraq in response to this violation. Not that withdrawal of US troops from this war, ill-conceived from the start, is necessarily a bad thing from the perspective of many, but it surely represents an ignominious end to a failing, pointless, and brutal invasion that Washington had actually believed would swing Iraq over into the “pro-US column” as an ally of the US in the Middle East.

Such naivete further reflects another American deeply cherished assumption that countries with semi-democratic political systems will automatically be pro-American. Has nobody ever heard of national interests?  Or do we believe that US interests globally are now basically coterminous with the global interests of all peoples (deep down)? […]

This latest act of “foreign policy by assassination” will be largely rejected by most in the world. Only a few craven Gulf kings and princes—and Israel—will applaud it. And worst of all, the US has now taken one more giant step towards convincing the world that the US has indeed become a “rogue nation” no longer willing to follow the rules of international law and procedure—and wisdom—that it claims to lead. Fewer and fewer countries anywhere are going to sign up for war or searches for “alliances” that can be turned against Russia or China. Läs artikel

Atter en gang vil Russland drive marineøvelser i internasjonalt farvann utenfor norskekysten. Det samme skjedde under NATO-øvelsen Trident Juncture høsten 2018. Tidligere har slike russiske øvelser bare foregått i Barentshavet. Grunn til det endrede russiske øvingsmønsteret er å finne i norsk utenriks- og forsvarspolitikk.

For å forstå grunnen til endringene må vi gå tilbake til 1949 og baseerklæringen til Sovjetsamveldet. Den sa at i Norge skal det ikke stasjoneres utenlandske baser eller kjernefysiske våpen. Dette er bekreftet ved fotnoter i NATO-erklæringen. Med et godt vernepliktsforsvar hvilte Norges sikkerhet på de to solide søylene, passivt i fred men med god evne til motstand i krig. NATO-medlemskapet var politisk ryggdekning, men heller ikke mer enn det. Forholdet til Sovjetsamveldet var formelt, og fungerte godt. […]

I 2018 holdt sjef for Forsvarets Etterretningstjeneste et ugradert foredrag i Oslo Militære Samfunn. Der sa han overraskende at den største militære trussel mot Norge er i Nord-Atlanterhavet. Deretter kom like overraskende en ny militær langtidsplan for forsvaret, der hovedoppgaven er å sikre en troverdig avskrekking. Inntil da var hovedoppgaven å utgjøre en krigsforebyggende terskel. Leseren bes tenke over betydningen av begrepene: Norge har forlatt å være militært passiv i fred, til å uttale vilje til å være aggressivt. Å gi opp den trygge politikken uten utenlandske baser, men med et godt nasjonalt forsvar har fått følger i form av russisk flåteaktivitet. Läs artikel

Det irakiska parlamentet röstade under söndagen igenom en resolution som kräver att regeringen ska begära att den USA-ledda koalitionen som strider mot IS ska dra tillbaka från Irak.

Det försämrade säkerhetsläget efter att USA natten mot fredagen dödade den iranske toppgeneralenQassem Soleimani har inneburit förändringar i OIR-insatsen, vars högsta befälhavare är den amerikanske generallöjtnanten Pat White.

Arméns operationschef, brigadgeneral Rami Saari, som bär ansvar för de finländska soldaterna i insatsen, säger till HBL att koalitionen har höjt säkerhetsnivån vilket har inneburit att utbildningsverksamheten är avbruten på obestämd tid.

Totalt deltar 80 finländska soldater i operationen.

– De skärpta säkerhetsåtgärderna innebär bland annat att soldaternas möjligheter att röra sig i området har begränsats. Vi har också utfärdat nya direktiv om skyddsutrustning, säger Saari. […]

Rami Saari säger att man inte har fått några motiveringar till varför utbildningen har avbrutits. I stället för att utbilda peshmergasoldater kommer finländarna nu att ägna sig åt andra saker.

– Vi övar oss i att skydda oss mot eventuella attacker och granskar evakueringsplanen. Det gäller att alltid vara förberedd på det värsta, säger Saari.

Rami Saari påpekar att det skärpta säkerhetsläget ändå inte är att betrakta som exceptionellt. Också i somras avbröts utbildningsverksamheten för att sedan återupptas igen.

– Ur vår synvinkel handlar det här om normala variationer, säger Saari.

Även försvarsalliansen Nato har valt att avbryta sina pågående träningsoperationer i Irak, rapporterar nyhetsbyrån AFP. Läs artikel

][…] With the Suleimani killing, Trump has effectively thrown in the towel. The wars he promised to end will continue. America’s enemies list never gets smaller; the body count grows ever larger.

They will do so in no small part because the Congress is pusillanimous and supine, having long since forfeited its constitutionally prescribed authority regarding war. The Democratic members of the Senate and House who whine about not having been consulted or at least notified in advance of the drone attack that took out the Quds commander deserve not a respectful hearing but contempt. Their behavior over the past decade and more in giving presidents a free hand to wage war however they see fit cannot be described as anything but cowardly. It was, after all, President Obama who pioneered the role of assassin-in-chief to which Trump has now laid claim.

More importantly, the U.S.’ Middle East wars will continue due to the intellectual bankruptcy of the foreign policy establishment, which remains wedded to a highly militarized conception of “American global leadership.”[…]

This is an election year. In a serious democracy, the casting of ballots is preceded by a thorough public vetting of the vital issues of the day. The worsening crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations certainly qualifies as one such issue. Yet far surpassing that issue in importance are even larger questions pertaining to the misuse of American military power in the Middle East and to the normalization of war. Läs artikel

The U.S. government justified the strike as an act of self-defense, saying that Qassem Soleimani, the leader of an elite Iranian military and intelligence unit, had been plotting attacks on Americans – an allegation that few analysts seriously doubt, given his track record as the architect of Iranian attacks abroad. […]

”We have carried out the attack on the territory of a state that plainly did not give us permission,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor and an expert on international disputes at the University of Notre Dame. ”The attack was unlawful, the assassination was not justifiable.” The U.S. government doesn’t see it that way, and hasn’t for a long time, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. ”The U.S. government does not believe it is bound by human rights law treaties vis-à-vis our operations overseas,” said Bobby Chesney, the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. Läs artikel

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing on Friday said the President Trump-approved drone strike against Qassim Soleimani, Iran’s top general, violated international human rights law.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Agnès Callamard said that “outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” adding that the US would need to prove the person targeted constituted an imminent threat to others.

She also took issue with the justification for using drones in another country on the basis of self-defense.

“Under customary international law States can take military action if the threatened attack is imminent, no other means would deflect it, and the action is proportionate,” she wrote. Läs artikel