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Biden says strike killing ISIS leader sends 'powerful message' to terrorists

President Biden on Tuesday hailed a successful U.S. airstrike against an ISIS leader in Syria, saying it would degrade the terror group and send a “powerful message” to terrorists that threaten the United States.  

In a written statement issued by the White House Biden thanked the U.S. military officials involved in the strike against Maher al Agal, the leader of ISIS in Syria, and said that the U.S. and its allies would be safer as a result.  

“His death in Syria takes a key terrorist off the field and significantly degrades the ability of ISIS to plan, resource, and conduct their operations in the region,” Biden said.  

“This airstrike represents the culmination of determined and meticulous intelligence work and stands as testament to the bravery and skill of our armed forces,” he continued. “It also demonstrates that the United States does not require thousands of troops in combat missions to identify and eliminate threats to our country.” 

The U.S. Central Command earlier Tuesday confirmed that a strike had been carried out in northwest Syria that killed al Agal and “seriously injured” another ISIS associate. Centcom said that an initial review suggested there were no civilian casualties in the airstrike.  

U.S. forces have conducted a series of successful operations against ISIS targets in the region in recent months.  

Last month, U.S.-led coalition forces said they captured Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi, another senior ISIS leader, in a raid in northern Syria.  

A U.S. counterterrorism raid in northwest Syria back in February also killed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who at the time was the leader of ISIS, the most significant U.S. raid in the country since the 2019 operation that killed his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 

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Judge tosses out Sean Spicer lawsuit over Naval Academy board dismissal

A Washington, D.C. federal judge tossed out former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s lawsuit against President Biden over his dismissal from the U.S. Naval Academy Board of Visitors last year.

In a six-page order filed Monday, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich found that federal law “did not insulate” Spicer from removal from his position. Therefore, the plaintiffs failed to state a claim for relief.

The back-and-forth began in September, when Biden sought the resignations of Spicer and former Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought from the Naval Academy Board.

Former President Trump appointed them to the board in the final weeks of his presidency, as he looked to stock advisory boards with loyalists. Spicer’s term was slated to end in December, and Vought’s at the end of next year.

The president also asked former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who Trump tapped to serve on the U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, to resign her position.

At the time, the White House defended the move, saying that Biden wanted to ensure he had people on the boards who were “qualified to serve and who are aligned with your values.”

Friedrich denied a motion for preliminary injunction that would have forced Biden to reinstate Spicer and Vought in December, rejecting their arguments that their removal would silent dissenting views and that their positions carried three-year terms.

Monday’s opinion largely maintained that view, finding that the plaintiffs hadn’t identified specific protections from removal.

The Hill has reached out to the White House and America First Legal, which is representing the plaintiffs, for comment.

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No. 2 Senate Democrat explains his change of heart on abortion

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, detailed his change of heart on abortion laws on Tuesday after GOP members of the committee pointed out his past desire to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

At the committee’s hearing on legal concerns in a post-Roe America, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), submitted a copy of a letter that Durbin wrote in 1989 in which he condemned “abortion on demand” and wrote, “I continue to believe the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade should be reversed.”  

“The doomsday calls from those on the left are ignoring common sense,” Lee said. “They’re ignoring what human instinct tells us about protecting the most vulnerable among us. Members of this committee, including some who are now attacking the Dobbs decision, once shared these views.” 

The Supreme Court last month overturned the federal right to abortion in a case from Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaving it to states to set abortion laws. More than a dozen GOP-led states have since moved to ban abortion with few exceptions, though courts have blocked a number of the laws amid legal challenges.

At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Durbin told the committee and the panelists that the letter and his past views on abortion were not new, but went on to explain how his mind had been changed on reproductive rights during a meeting young people in Illinois.

“I sat down with two young women who were about to turn 18 — one a victim of incest, one a victim of rape — and they told me their stories. I didn’t ask them to, but they wanted to tell me. I left that meeting with a kind of understanding that I had never had before about the complexity of the decision behind the abortion procedure,” Durbin said. 

“I thought to myself, ‘As an individual member of Congress, are you ready to pass a law that applies to every woman in America?’ No. It really has to be her decision. And we can regulate it as we should, but at that point I made my break,” he added.

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Cornyn shuts door on additional gun control talks

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the lead Republican negotiator of a gun safety bill that President Biden signed into law last month, is shutting the door on additional negotiations on other proposals to limit the availability of assault weapons or expand background checks.  

Cornyn, who has taken some fire from the right because of his role in negotiating the law, said he’s not going to engage in a new round of gun control talks in the wake of a mass shooting in Highland Park, Ill., on July 4.  

“No, we’re done,” Cornyn said when asked whether Republicans would negotiate with Democrats on limiting access to assault-style rifles or other gun control reforms.  

Cornyn made his statement after Biden renewed his call for an assault weapons ban during an event Monday at the White House.  

“We’re living in a country awash in weapons of war,” Biden said. “I am determined to ban these weapons again and high-capacity magazines that hold 30 rounds and let mass shooters fire hundreds of bullets in a matter of minutes. I’m not going to stop until we do it.”  

The president also called on Congress to encourage gun owners to keep their firearms locked up safely. He made his remarks at an event celebrating the enactment of Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which also enhanced background checks for gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21 and provided billions of dollars for mental health services.  

But Cornyn on Tuesday poured cold water on hopes that Congress might pass additional gun control legislation this year. 

“It seemed to me to be yesterday the president talked about everything that they wanted but they didn’t get in the bill,” he said. “But the sort of things he was calling for, don’t have support in the Senate or in the Congress on a bipartisan basis. In other words, they can’t get done.” 

The senator was booed at a Texas Republican convention in Houston last month because of his role in negotiating the legislation, which the National Rifle Association opposed. 

Cornyn said he hasn’t received any contact from Democratic senators to kindle a new round of talks.  

Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, said he met Tuesday with the families of the victims of the mass shootings in Uvalde and Highland Park.  

“I met with a couple of the families from Uvalde who lost kids,” he said. “They simply don’t understand why this country allows for the sale of assault weapons. I’m going to continue to press for change.”  

Several Democratic leaders, including Vice President Harris and Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), have made new calls for an assault weapons ban in the wake of the Highland Park shooting that left seven people dead on July 4.

Source: TEST FEED1

Iran is close to crossing Israel’s nuclear ‘red line’

What are Israel’s political and security aims regarding Iran, and are they now matched by their military capabilities? In May, Israel completed the most significant and comprehensive war games in its history, “Chariots of Fire.” Hundreds upon hundreds of Israeli warplanes in coordination with its elite special forces, the regular army and reserves, trained in anticipation of scenarios Israel may confront on multiple fronts. 

They emphasized being nimble to coordinate and adapt, since an enemy rarely follows one’s war plans. The scope and scale of these war games were unprecedented for Israel. My meetings this month with some of Israel’s intelligence and security officials corroborated that there is no ambiguity about the need to stop Iran’s aims to dominate the Middle East with nuclear weapons.  

Israel knows that if it is forced to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, it will unleash Hezbollah’s 150,000 missiles in Lebanon, Hamas’s rocket arsenal in Gaza, and attacks from Iran’s newest bases in Syria and Iraq. That would dwarf the 2006 Hezbollah Second Lebanon War and the combined five Hamas-led Gazan wars. Palestinian unrest in the disputed territories and within Israel would be an additional complicating factor. 

New alliances and changing relationships are developing in response to the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran. They include Russia’s relationship with Iran supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s seemingly contradictory relationship with Israel, allowing it unfettered access to strike Iranian weapons factories. In addition, we have Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman behind the scenes but moving toward closer cooperation with Israel in response to Iranian expansionism and threshold nuclear weapons status. Add to this U.S. allies Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan — all are affected by how far Iran might go and how far Israel can bend before it is compelled to act.  

The Iranian leaders are intelligent and pragmatic, despite their ideological Islamist extremism and hatred for the Jewish state. They are fully aware that Israel would feel compelled to act when their nuclear weapons program crosses some line. But where is that line?

The potential for miscalculation is high. Iran’s flaunting of its obligations to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and restrictions on peaceful atomic development in the Obama administration’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) walks right up to Israel’s nuclear “red line.” A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reportedly details that Iran increased its nuclear enrichment on the eve of President Biden’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

If Iran is confident that it knows where Israel draws the line, its leaders likely will stop before crossing it and then accept the Biden administration’s prompting to return to the JCPOA — with all its economic lifelines. A return to such an agreement would have happened already if Iran could not sell oil to China at a high price without any significant U.S. sanction or penalty.

Hopefully, the Biden administration knows that — whether Israel’s interim prime minister, Yair Lapid, remains in power or Benjamin Netanyahu returns to the political helm after the November Israeli election — Israel’s leadership will be committed to acting militarily to prevent Iran from having an atomic bomb.

But, what does that mean? Is it a certain amount of enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon that would trigger Israeli aircraft to strike Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow? We know Iran can enrich uranium to 90 percent if it chooses, based on its ability to enrich it to 60 percent and its work with advanced centrifuges. Israel also knows that Iran has ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to Tel Aviv and striking more than 80 percent of Israel’s civilian population.

This brings us to one area where there is a consensus: Iran’s inability at this time to weaponize a nuclear warhead. Iran has advanced quite a bit on this last front. The IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said last year that “inspectors had confirmed that Iran had produced 200 grams of uranium metal,” a crucial step for the weaponization of a nuclear warhead. Since the terms of the JCPOA prohibited international inspections on military sites, only covert intelligence would know if Iran was using clandestine military facilities for even more advanced nuclear weapons development — which could be another trigger for an Israeli attack.

Israel is capable of striking Iran to set back its nuclear weapons project. There has been an acceleration in Israel’s cyber attacks, sabotage and alleged targeted assassinations over the years. Detractors claim a major Israeli strike would slow Iran’s program for only three to five years. But, based on my meetings with policymakers, the deterrence that timeframe would afford is worth the risk to Israel. Furthermore, the assumption that the Iranian nuclear program will restart immediately may be unfounded.  

I am convinced that Israel believes it cannot accept a nuclear weapons-capable Iran with the leverage that Iranian nuclear-armed missiles would give its hegemonic ambitions in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and possibly Jordan in the future. There is no analogy between the deterrence afforded by Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War and what Israel could tolerate with a nuclear Supreme Leader. 

The former head of Israel’s National Security Council, Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, has said that “Israel will likely need to attack Iran directly to stop it from developing nuclear weapons.” And with a nuclear umbrella, “Iran would be free to build a ring of fire around Israel” from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and Iran. If the U.S. and Iran restore the JCPOA, “Israel will have no choice but to act militarily to prevent Iran from manufacturing a nuclear weapon.”  

Israel’s Arab allies in the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East are counting on Israel to stop a nuclear Iran. The Biden administration should understand that Israel doesn’t expect the U.S. to join it in any attack on Iran’s nuclear arms facilities; it only wants the U.S. to not stand in the way if and when Israel finds it necessary to strike.

Dr. Eric R. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network. He regularly briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy aides. He is the senior security editor for the Jerusalem Report. Follow him on Twitter @MepinOrg.

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate advances Steve Dettelbach to head ATF 

The Senate voted mostly along party lines on Tuesday to advance the nomination of Steve Dettelbach to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a 48-46 vote.  

In advancing Dettelbach, the Senate bypassed a filibuster of the nominee, despite the absences of Senate Majority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who have tested positive for COVID.  

Two Republicans voted to advance the nominee, Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Rob Portman (Ohio), who also voted to discharge him from a deadlocked Senate panel last month.  

Dettelbach would be the first Senate-confirmed director to head the ATF since 2015.  

Schumer last month called the absence of a Senate-confirmed ATF director over the past seven years “outrageous at a time when we need one more than ever.” 

Biden nominated Dettelbach in April after his first nominee to lead the ATF, David Chipman, foundered in the face of stiff opposition from gun rights groups.  

Biden withdrew Chipman’s nomination in September after centrist Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mon.) held back their support.  

Dettelbach is a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio who later co-led white collar investigations at the law firm BakerHostetler.  

Biden in April praised him as “immensely qualified” to lead the ATF. 

ATF agents helped investigate the recent mass shootings in Buffalo , N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, according to the White House.  

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Dave Chappelle Netflix special accused of transphobia lands Emmy nomination

Dave Chappelle’s controversial Netflix special “The Closer” is among this year’s Emmy Award contenders.

Both Chappelle and the streaming giant faced an avalanche of criticism for the TV project, which mocked members of the transgender community and used crude terms to refer to a transgender person’s anatomy.

The National Black Justice Coalition and GLAAD were among the critics that condemned the standup comedy special when it debuted last year, calling it transphobic.

GLAAD said at the time that Chappelle’s brand had “become synonymous with ridiculing trans people.”

On Tuesday, “The Closer” was named one of five nominees in the Emmys’s “Outstanding Variety Special Pre-Recorded” category.

Other nominees include: “Adele: One Night Only,” “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts,” “Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special,” and “One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.”

“The Closer” also received a nomination for outstanding directing for a variety special.

The Emmy Awards airs Sep. 12 on NBC.

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An essential reset to US-Mexico relations starts today

The world watched last month as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pulled a figurative fake handshake and backed away from President Joe Biden’s Los Angeles invitation. President Biden’s response presents an important opportunity.

From the outset, the Biden administration has sought to reestablish the U.S.-Mexico relationship. The objective was to move it from one that is personality-based, transactional and centered around trade and migration to a more broadly focused relationship managed at the cabinet level. 

The administration has worked collaboratively and respectfully with the López Obrador administration when responding to shared challenges of pandemic recovery, climate change and migration. Mexico was one of the first countries to receive donations of COVID-19 vaccines. 

Facing concerns that the López Obrador administration would withhold cooperation and create additional domestic political challenges as the 2022 midterms approached, the Biden administration met frequently with Mexican officials to try to improve the operation of the Migrant Protection Protocols — known as Remain in Mexico — that were negotiated by the Trump administration. Further, the Biden administration responded cautiously to López Obrador’s proposed energy reform despite considerable pressure from U.S. stakeholders to voice commercial and environmental concerns. 

Over the past 18 months, U.S. and Mexican officials have used new or reconstituted bilateral (and trilateral) mechanisms to develop action plans to address issues affecting the two nations. Stakeholders in both countries have welcomed these efforts to achieve equitable economic growth and development and to resolve challenges such as climate change, water usage and pandemic recovery. 

While the collaborative approach has restored the institutional architecture and created an important dialogue at the cabinet level, it does not appear to have engendered similar respect on the part of López Obrador.  

López Obrador announced that he would not attend the Summit of the Americas if the Biden administration did not invite all Western hemisphere leaders — specifically those of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — days after his April 29 virtual bilateral meeting with President Biden. When the invitations were not issued, he made good on his promise and stayed home while foreign secretary Marcelo Ebrard led the Mexican delegation.

López Obrador’s announcement coming with no advance warning to the White House is not surprising. Since President Biden took office, López Obrador has rarely demurred from commenting on U.S. domestic political issues, including the lack of congressional action on migration, U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine and the extradition of Julian Assange. 

Additionally, López Obrador blaming the failure of U.S. migration policy for the recent deaths of 51 migrants found in a trailer near San Antonio, Texas, combined with the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the Biden administration on Remain in Mexico, will further heighten White House concerns and those of its domestic policy team. 

Simultaneously, López Obrador regularly dismisses comments by Biden administration officials and members of Congress about the murder of journalists, the suppression of independent institutions and investigations into corruption in Mexico as “interventionism” and uninformed.

Less than a month after the summit, the White House announced today’s visit. Such invitations are not extended lightly and have been less frequent in the COVID-19 era. Following López Obrador’s boycott, the visit is even more surprising as it may be interpreted as a reward — or at least a confirmation that his actions did not harm the bilateral relationship.

The meeting is expected to include discussions on migration (including human trafficking and the treatment of displaced persons), the flows of drugs and weapons between countries, opportunities to promote near-shoring to strengthen North America and climate change (including electricity reform). 

Though President Biden should not go so far as to reciprocate the fake handshake in public, he should make abundantly clear to his counterpart that U.S. security and commercial interests and our long-held democratic values are not only non-negotiable, they are as important as addressing the current migration crisis and other shared interests. Even among friends, fake handshakes are not always a joke.  

Andrew I. Rudman is the director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former Foreign Service officer and director of the Office of NAFTA and Inter-American Affairs at the Commerce Department, he has worked on Mexico and U.S.-Mexican relations throughout his public and private sector careers.

Source: TEST FEED1

Family of American girl killed in pizzeria bombing calls to meet Biden in Jerusalem

The bereaved parents of a slain American-Israeli girl killed in a 2001 Palestinian suicide bombing are urging President Biden to meet with them in Jerusalem when he arrives in Israel this week, pushing for a resolution on their daughter’s death. 

Frimet and Arnold Roth are calling for the president to pressure the Jordanian government to send Ahlam Tamimi to the U.S. for trial. Tamimi was the alleged architect of the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including their American daughter, Malki, and another American. 

At least 122 people were injured in the bombing, including four Americans.

In an interview with The Hill on Tuesday, Arnold Roth the family has engaged with Biden administration officials in Jerusalem in recent months, but they have little expectation that the president will meet with them, or that the U.S. will push Jordan to fulfill Tamimi’s extradition.

Tamimi has lived in Jordan since being released from an Israeli jail in a 2011 prisoner exchange.

Jordan argues that its constitution prevents the extradition of Jordanian nationals. 

“They’re really not interested in our case in the smallest way,” Roth said, of the Biden administration, speaking over Zoom from his home in Jerusalem. “The human dimension of this is just humiliating.”

A spokesperson for the National Security Council, responding to a request for comment from The Hill, said “The U.S. government continues to seek her extradition and the Government of Jordan’s assistance in bringing her to justice for her role in the heinous attack that killed 15 people, including two Americans, in 2001.”

Roth criticized the response by the NSC in an interview with The Associated Press, as “illegitimate” and further blasted the White House for, so far, refusing to make contact with him and his family. 

“The White House decided not to respond to us, but they did respond to AP,” he said. 

Biden is traveling to Israel and Saudi Arabia between July 13 and 16. He is not expected to have a bilateral meeting with Jordanian officials, but will likely see them during the summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah towards the end of the week. 

Roth said he and his wife were motivated to write a letter to the president following a highly critical plea from the family of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who have urged Biden to meet with the family and push for release of information related to her shooting death.

Abu Akleh was allegedly killed in May by Israeli forces while covering an Israeli security raid in the Palestinian city of Jenin.

“If they end up going to the family of Abu Akleh, that’s going to be a real crisis for us,” Roth said. “At that point, from our point of view, the gloves are off. We’re still hoping to have some dialogue, but it’s not going to be with the White House, it won’t be with Mr. Biden.”

Roth’s daughter Malki was 15 when she was killed. The middle of seven children, Roth describes her as “adored” by everyone.

In 2003, Tamimi pleaded guilty in an Israeli court to multiple counts of murder connected to the suicide bomb attack, and was given 16 life sentences. In 2011, she was set free in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas and was sent to her native Jordan where she continues to reside as a free woman. 

Roth and his wife Frimet have written on their blog “This Ongoing War” that Tamimi travels freely across Jordan and the Arab world “to address rallies and make blood-curdling pro-terror speeches” and is the presenter of her own TV program “devoted to terror, terrorists and the need to support both.” 

The Department of Justice revealed in 2017 that it had issued a warrant for Tamimi’s arrest, charging her with “conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death.” 

Roth said that Tamimi’s extradition in the U.S. to appear in an American court is important for the family in their pursuit of justice. 

“We’re not out for revenge… we want her brought in front of an American court, charged and prosecuted, if found guilty, put behind bars and for everyone who stands with her, to watch and see, this is where it ends,” Roth said. 

“Until we can get that, it really is as if we haven’t been able to bury our child and help ourselves get peace.”

Source: TEST FEED1