In this mailing:
- Soeren Kern: Turkey Flooding Europe with Migrants
- Malcolm Lowe: Boris Johnson's Bold Brexit Proposal
- Majid Rafizadeh: Iran: Acting to Make Trump a One-Term President
by Soeren Kern • October 10, 2019 at 5:00 am
The Greek government has said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally controls the migration flows to Greece and turns them on and off to extract more money and other political concessions from the European Union. In recent months, the Turkish government has repeatedly threatened to open the floodgates of mass migration to Greece, and, by extension, to the rest of Europe.
"If they [the European Union] do not give us the necessary support in this struggle, then we will not be able to stop the 3.5 million refugees from Syria and another two million people who will reach our borders from Idlib." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
"If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience." — Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.
More than six million migrants are believed to be waiting in countries around the Mediterranean to cross into Europe, according to a classified German government report leaked to the newspaper Bild... More than three million others are waiting in Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other members of his government to flood Europe with migrants. On September 5, Erdoğan said that Turkey plans to repatriate one million Syrian migrants to a "safe zone" in northern Syria and threatened to reopen the route for migrants into Europe if he does not receive adequate international support for the plan: "This either happens or otherwise we will have to open the gates." Pictured: Erdoğan speaks at the UN on September 24, 2019. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Greece has once again become "ground zero" for Europe's migration crisis. More than 40,000 migrants arrived in Greece during the first nine months of 2019, and more than half of those arrived during just the past three months, according to new data compiled by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The surge in migrant arrivals to Greece during the third quarter of 2019 — 5,903 arrivals in July; 9,341 in August; and 10,294 in September — has coincided with repeated threats by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other members of his government to flood Europe with Muslim migrants.
Although the number of migrant arrivals to Greece is still far below the number of arrivals at the height of the migration crisis in 2015, when more than a million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East poured into Europe, the recent surge in newcomers suggests that Erdoğan's threats to resume mass migration are becoming a reality.
by Malcolm Lowe • October 10, 2019 at 4:30 am
It must be acknowledged that Johnson's proposal for a replacement Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland has evident merits. But if EU leaders do agree – even against expectations – that Johnson's proposal is the way forward, why rush to complete all the legal complexities of that agreement in a few days instead of gratefully accepting an extension of time in order to let a good job be done?
If Johnson's approach does not get off the ground, the UK could still fall back to one last attempt to leave without no-deal. It is to demand a change to Article 20 of the original Protocol, the so-called "Backstop," such that instead of enduring for ever unless both sides agree to terminate it, the Protocol will endure for only an initial year, but can be renewed annually if both sides agree to continue it. If the EU refuses even this minimal demand, then it will have made it clear to the UK government, Parliament and the public that no-deal is indeed the UK's only way of escape.
In the turbulent weeks since Boris Johnson became prime minister of the United Kingdom, he has registered his first comparative success with his proposal for a change in Theresa May's Brexit deal. (Photo by Leon Neal - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
In the turbulent weeks since Boris Johnson became prime minister of the United Kingdom, he has registered his first comparative success with his proposal for a change in Theresa May's Brexit deal. On the one hand, he has forced the EU negotiators to abandon their adamant refusal hitherto to reopen the wording of that deal; on the other, his proposal – with its firm emphasis upon the UK's essential interests – has united almost all Conservative MPs behind it.
by Majid Rafizadeh • October 10, 2019 at 4:00 am
The second initiative in which the Iranian government is engaged is to increase tensions in the region, destabilize the region, target the global energy market, cause oil and gas prices to increase, and then blame all these problems on the Trump administration.
The threat Iran poses to US presidential elections is real and urgent -- for Iran to be stopped, it should finally be held accountable.
Tehran has been actively escalating tensions in the Gulf. The recent seizure of the UK-flagged Stena Impero by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) appears to be part of a wider effort to blackmail the US and the EU into keeping funds flowing, as US sanctions continue to bite. Pictured: The Stena Impero and one of the Iranian gunboats that seized it. (Image source: Fars News/CC BY 4.0 [cropped])
Do not underestimate the power of the Iranian government to influence public opinion in the US, interfere in elections, and sway the 2020 presidential elections in its favor.
Iran began its post-Islamic-Revolution era by taking 52 American diplomats and citizens from the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and holding them as hostages for 444 days.
The newly established theocratic government evidently wanted to project the new power it possessed to manipulate its new enemy, which it called the "Great Satan." Minutes after President Ronald Reagan's inauguration, however, on January 20, 1981, Iran released the hostages. It was obvious that Iran's move to create the hostage crisis and the inability of President Jimmy Carter to bring the American citizens home was doubtless one of the reasons for his defeat in the presidential election of 1980.
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