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Brace yourself for 2022, a year of living dangerously.

Many of the world's most profound gains of the post-World War II era will be tested. The security of Europe and Asia, the resilience of democratic governance, the advance of open markets, the sanctity of individual rights and the certainty of human progress all are in the balance.

Never in the 30 years since the Cold War's end has a U.S. president entered a new year confronting such an explosive brew of geopolitical and domestic political uncertainty. They are intertwined like a Gordian knot that only bold action can untangle.

The convergence of these external and internal perils, amid deep U.S. political divisiveness and international diffidence, raises the difficulty level for any effective response.

Then layer onto all that the most disturbing rise of inflation in three decades and the persistent torment of Covid-19. Add to that the certainty that all these issues will drive an even greater wedge between rich and poor countries and peoples, and increased global volatility seems inevitable.

All that said, these are the three external factors that should concern us most immediately in 2022:

A revanchist Russia is bent on regaining control of Ukraine; China, similarly, is escalating its threats to Taiwan's independence (don't fool yourself that Ukrainian and Taiwanese freedoms can be separated); and Iran is so rapidly moving toward nuclear-weapons breakout capability that Israel may be forced to respond.

These dangers are escalating at a time when Chinese, Russian and Iranian leaders alike having witnessed the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan and its understandable focus on domestic issues may see 2022 as the best moment yet to advance their geopolitical ambitions.

The optimists among us can take some comfort in the fact that there is a possible path through this briar patch. Advances in technology, health care, and wider human access to knowledge may very well usher in a new epoch of global progress.

There's also more than enough evidence that democracies, particularly the United States, have sufficient resilience to rebound and regroup.

History also has shown that the most authoritarian forms of government prove ultimately to be the most fragile.

China's remarkable rise as the world's first capitalist-communist experiment is running up against a series of setbacks, mostly self-inflicted.

President Xi Jinping is doubling down on domestic repression and reinforcing Communist Party control over China's most successful companies, particularly in the technology space. In so doing, he is choking them off from international financial markets and he may be killing the panda that laid China's economic miracle.

Vladimir Putin's Russia seems to be a country on the march, pumped up by spiking energy prices and geopolitical muscle-flexing from Syria to the Donbas.However, the weight of existing and new economic sanctions, Russia's demographic challenges, and an economy entirely reliant on energy will hamstring Putin's aspirations to undo the humiliations of his lifetime.

In a documentary that aired on Russian television last Sunday, Putin said the fall of the Soviet Union three decades ago remained a tragedy for most of his fellow citizens. He talked for the first time publicly about how he had to work driving a taxi during that period to make ends meet.

"After all, what is the collapse of the Soviet Union?" he asked. "This is the collapse of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union."

Regarding Iran, how much longer can the regime endure -such rampant corruption? The republic has produced so few goods for its people, while engaging in countless, expensive adventures abroad in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Yet perhaps this all points to the greatest danger of 2022: the swirl of uncertainties around the United States. Adversaries and allies alike question our internal cohesiveness and our external capability and willingness to act.

The glue that has held the global system together during most of the period after WWII, the United States, looks unstuck to many in the world. America doesn't want China or anyone else to replace its traditional global leadership role, and it's not retiring from the scene. But it's struggling to find updated and effective means to shape world affairs.

To be fair, the Biden administration and its remarkably accomplished foreign relations team diagnosed each of these challenges early and brilliantly.

Indeed, in this space a year ago, I wrote, "Joe Biden has that rarest of opportunities that history provides: the chance to be a transformative foreign policy president."

In March, Biden himself declared, "Our world is at an inflection point. Global dynamics have shifted. New crises demand our attention. One thing is certain: we will only succeed in advancing American interests and upholding our universal values by working in common cause with our closest allies and partners, and by renewing our own enduring sources of national strength."

It's never easy to turn rhetoric into execution, but that is what 2022 needs to be about. A president's first year in office is always messy, and this one has been particularly so.

The true test of Biden's second year will be less over whether his administration understands the historic nature of the challenges (it does) and more about whether it can organize itself domestically and internationally to manage 2022's geopolitical challenges.

Worse than questioning our values, our partners and allies are worried about our capability and competence to act.

This year of living dangerously will get off to a brisk start with the Winter Olympics in Beijing and more Russian troop movements near Ukraine. It will wrap up with a Chinese Communist Party Congress likely to make Xi leader for life and U.S. midterm elections.

In this year of living dangerously, however, it may be the U.S., more than any other actor, whose actions and inactions will drive the plot.

Frederick Kempeis the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Council.

Originally posted here:
Op-ed: Welcome to 2022, the year of living dangerously with China, Russia and Iran but the U.S. will drive the plot - CNBC

The debate over what kind of capability to give to Israel and how quickly is an old one in Washington. In 2008, President George W. Bush deflected requests from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for specialized bunker-busting bombs and the B-2 bomber, and to rent about 10 flying tankers, which Mr. Olmert said would be needed in any Israeli attack on Irans main nuclear complex at Natanz. Part of the operation would have involved borrowing U.S. refueling capabilities.

Vice President Dick Cheney argued at the time that the United States should give Israel exactly what it sought, but he lost the argument, Bush administration officials later said. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney allude to the episode in their memoirs, but they do not mention that they told the Israelis that they were authorizing covert action intended to sabotage Irans effort with a new generation of cyberweapons.

That program, code-named Olympic Games, ultimately became the joint Israeli-American effort that produced the Stuxnet worm and ultimately destroyed more than a thousand Iranian centrifuges.

Israel later developed other capabilities and trained for them. On several occasions during the Obama administration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was on the brink of ordering a strike, according to Israeli officials and a Times interview with Mr. Netanyahu in 2019. But the prime minister backed off at the last minute, in large part because of fear of an irreparable breach with Washington.

But in 2017, when the Israeli air force determined that it needed to replacing its refueling planes, Mr. Netanyahus government did not immediately place an order. Irans nuclear program seemed under control largely because it had shipped 97 percent of its nuclear fuel out of the country under the 2015 agreement that Mr. Netanyahu had vociferously opposed. Training for strikes against Iran slowed.

They have been revived. Israeli planners, according to several current and former officials, believe that if they do conduct an attack, it will take many repeated bombings of some of the facilities especially Fordow, a fuel enrichment center buried deep in a mountain on an Iranian military base. But time will be short, they contend, and so they would have to refuel quickly.

U.S. officials say that they do not believe an attack is imminent and that they think Mr. Bennett, in so publicly preparing for military action, may be seeking far tougher terms in an ultimate deal between Iran and the West.

David E. Sanger and Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

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Israel Finds Planes That Could Be Key to a Strike on Iran Badly Back-Ordered - The New York Times

Iran is negotiating with Chinese and Turkish companies for building affordable government housing in a possible oil barter deal oil, an official said on Saturday.

Irans President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) has promised to build one million apartment every year, during his four-year term to solve rising housing costs for ordinary Iranians squeezed by high inflation and a worsening economic crisis.

Ahmad Donyamali, a member of the state housing council told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) that the government is in talks with Chinese, Turkish and even a European company for contracting out part of the construction job and pay for it in oil.

News about Chinese companies participating in the construction project emerged in October but it was swiftly denied at the time.

Tehran faces two impediments in contracting with foreign firms. The first hurdle is to pay for goods and services amid a US banking sanction that threatens foreign banks with third-party sanctions if they deal with Iran. The second problem is lack of foreign currency.

US oil sanctions have substantially reduced Irans dollar earnings since 2018, forcing the country to dip into its foreign currency reserves, which observers say declines substantially in three years, although they might have marginally recovered this year.

An oil barter deal might specially work for Chinese companies that already import Iranian oil under the radar of US sanctions.

However, the promise to build 4 million apartments in 4 years amid an economic crisis might be more of a wish than a reasonable project for Iran.

Nuclear talks with the United States that could help lift sanctions are stalled at the moment and the outlook for Irans economy is bleak. The national currency that has declined tenfold in four years might dip to unprecedented lows if sanctions continue for another year.

The US has threatened to tighten the application of sanctions. Diplomats visited the United Arab Emirates this week to pursue the issue of actors in the region abiding by the US sanctions.

Donyamali, without naming any companies, said that negotiations have proven foreign firms are offering much better prices than their Iranian counterparts. A price of $100 per square meter ($9 per sqf) has been offered for building cheap, prefab apartment buildings. This means more than a $24 billion investment for 4 million apartments, money that Iran does not have now. He emphasized that Irans position is not pay any cash to foreign companies and is basing the talks on the principle of oil barter.

Iranian companies are asking almost double of what foreign firms are ready to accept, Donyamali said. Most Iranian companies in such a large project would be state or quasi-sate entities, some possibly linked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC.

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Iran Wants To Barter Oil With Foreign Firms To Build Housing - Iran International

An Iranian human rights group says rights defenders in Iran in 2021 received a total of 479 years in prison and were subjected to a host of inhumane treatments.

Human Rights in Iran, based in New York, in a report issued on December 16, titled 100 Iran Human Rights Defenders 2021, has provided updates on the status of 100 human and civil rights defenders who are either in prison, released on bail or were subjected to harassment by authorities. Those who were convicted this year received a total of 479 years in prison and 907 lashes.

In every case, the accused were tried without due process of law, being either denied a lawyer or forced to accept government-approved attorneys, without full access to case material.

Iran Human Rights Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: The world must not be a silent witness to the high price Iranian human rights defenders are paying for fundamental rights.

Human rights defenders, activists and families of victims who received sentences or were subjected to harassment and intimidation doubled in 2021, the report says. The 100 people profiled in the report are lawyers, journalists, teachers, womens, workers and civil rights activists, environmentalists, minorities and whistleblowers.

Continued here:
Rights Defenders In Iran Received A Total Of 479 Years In Jail In 2021 - Iran International

Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo briefed ambassadors on developments surrounding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which sets out rules for international monitoring of the countrys nuclear programme.

Iran signed the JCPOA in 2015 alongside China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, together with Germany and the European Union.

Negotiations are underway in Vienna to revive the deal after the US pulled out in 2018 under the Trump administration.

In recent days, both Iran and the United States have again affirmed their seriousness in seeking to return to full implementation of the JCPOA, Ms. DiCarlo told the Council.

The Secretary-General is encouraged by these pledges and calls on both countries to expeditiously translate these commitments into a mutually acceptable agreement.

Ms. DiCarlo recalled that the JCPOA is widely regarded as a cornerstone of nuclear non-proliferation, and an example of what dialogue and diplomacy can achieve.

A Security Council resolution endorses the deal, and guarantees that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to Irans nuclear programme.

The Secretary-General hopes that in their current negotiations, the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mobilize the same spirit and commitment that resulted in the JCPOA. There is simply no viable alternative to the full and effective implementation of the Plan and the resolution, she stressed.

In this regard, Ms. DiCarlo said that alongside the UN chief, she appealed to the US to lift or waive sanctions against Iran, as outlined in the plan, and extend waivers regarding oil trade with the country.

Also important is the extension of US waivers regarding certain civilian nuclear-related activities taking place at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the Fordow Facility, and the Arak reactor, she continued.

Waiver extensions are also required for the transfer of enriched uranium out of the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for natural uranium.

The UN official also called on Iran to reverse the steps it has taken that are not consistent with its nuclear-related commitments under the Plan.

The IAEA has indicated that research and development activities related to uranium metal production continue.

Furthermore, although the agency has been unable to verify Irans stockpile of enriched uranium, estimates indicate more has been accumulated at limits that exceed the agreement.

The IAEA has also reported that its verification and monitoring activities have been seriously undermined by Irans decision to stop implementing its nuclear-related commitments, while continuity of knowledge on its nuclear activities has also been hampered.

Ms. DiCarlo also reported on measures under the Council resolution, including concerns by several countries surrounding a ballistic missile launch in May and two space launch vehicle tests by Iran a month later.

She said debris from six ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and several unarmed aerial vehicles (UAVs) used in attacks against Saudi Arabia has been examined. Saudi authorities believe the weapons had been transferred to Houthi fighter in Yemen.

Similarly, debris from an alleged Iranian UAV that had entered Israeli airspace via Jordan was also examined. Israeli authorities believe the UAV was launched from either Iraq or Syria.

Ms. DiCarlo said the information collected is being analysed and a report is forthcoming.

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'Additional effort and patience' needed to revive Iran nuclear deal - UN News