(July 21, 2022 / JNS) As a child of Holocaust survivors, my family have been victims of hideous Jew-hatred. They saw the murderous violence and deceit that barred the creation of Israel.

As a nearly lifelong Michiganian, I expect congressional representatives to promote human rights, fight terrorism and promote U.S. relations with its long-time ally Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy.

Let’s review the record of Michigan’s Democratic Reps. Andy Levin and Rashida Tlaib on these issues.

Rep. Andy Levin

Levin recently spoke at an EmgageAction event, saying, “You have the most effective political outside organization of my campaign.” EmgageAction is an anti-Israel, radical Islamist group that masks its extremism as political advocacy. It is part of a consortium of South Florida’s radical Islamic organizations and terror-related mosques.

EmgageAction has endorsed Levin’s campaign, and its leaders and staff canvas and campaign for him. Wa’el N. Alzayat, EmgageAction’s CEO, calls Levin an “ally of Palestine.” EmagageAction leaders spread falsehoods that Israel is an apartheid and settler-colonial regime that withholds COVID vaccines from Palestinians. The organization also promotes boycotts of Israel. How can Levin claim to support Israel, yet use Emgage to campaign for him?

Levin’s public statements may tell us why. In a 2021 webinar, for example, Levin stated that anti-Semitism cannot truly be defeated until “Palestinian human rights are respected.” Absurdly, he blames Israel and Jewish victims of terrorism for causing anti-Semitism.

The congressman also sponsored the “Two-State Solution Act” bill, which shows no compassion for the innocent American and Israeli victims of terrorism. In particular, the bill overrides the Taylor Force Act, a law that blocks U.S. economic assistance to the Palestinian Authority until it dismantles its Martyr’s Fund. In a policy often called “pay-to-slay,” the fund gives monthly payments to the families of terrorists who have committed murderous acts against Israeli or American citizens. The more Jews killed, the higher the monthly stipend paid to the murderers.

The bill doesn’t stop there. It overrides the 1987 Anti-Terrorism Act that designates the PLO a terrorist organization. It subverts the U.S.-Israel alliance by barring Israel from using weapons it receives to fight terrorism. It also legitimizes the anti-Semitic BDS campaign against Israel, which parallels the Arab League and Nazi Germany’s boycotts of Jews.

Levin proudly touts his friendship with Tlaib.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib

Tlaib was recently featured at an anti-Israel rally in Dearborn, Mich., that promoted terrorism in both Michigan and Israel, calling for “stones, guns, planes, drones, rockets, hands” to be used to commit atrocities. The hate-filled rally hosted numerous speakers who support terrorism.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding, which publicly mourns the death of ISIS terrorists, is Tlaib’s favorite BDS-promoting group. She falsely claims that Israel is a “racist country” and calls the creation of Israel a catastrophe. Unsurprisingly, she further calls for the elimination of Israel, the world’s only Jewish country, and its replacement with an Arab-majority state. She has also accused Americans who support Israel of dual loyalty.

Incredibly, Tlaib has stated that thinking about the Holocaust always gives her a “calming feeling.”

Levin has never confronted his friend’s hate-filled extremism and insensitive Holocaust comments, saying his “relationship with Tlaib could serve as a model for Jewish-Palestinian dialogue.”

Sheldon L. Freilich is president of the Zionist Organization of America-Michigan Region.

CIA Director Bill Burns gave an unusually candid assessment this week, when he told attendees at the Aspen Institute’s annual security confab that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “entirely too healthy”.

Burns was careful to qualify apparently tongue-in-cheek remarks, saying they didn’t constitute “a formal intelligence judgment”.

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When asked directly if Putin was unhealthy or unstable, Burns said: “There are lots of rumours about President Putin’s health and, as far as we can tell, he’s entirely too healthy.”

So what are we to make of speculation about Putin’s health? These rumours are nothing new.

His body language, speech and gait have all been relentlessly scrutinised.

And every time Putin disappears from public view for a few days – or even makes a slight misstep, such as he did recently after touching down in Tehran – it can set off a round of intense, tabloid-style speculation about his physical wellbeing.

That’s the nature of Putinism, a sort of postmodern dictatorship built around one man.

The Kremlin has worked hard to create an aura around Putin as the country’s sole problem-solver: He hosts an annual call-in show where he literally takes on the role of pothole-fixer-in-chief.

And over the course of two decades, he has consolidated power, building a system that is driven by the whims and fixations of one person (obvious case in point: the invasion of Ukraine).

So without a clear successor to Putin, Russia is always a few sneezes away from a full-blown political crisis.

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The Kremlin routinely ridicules any speculation about Putin’s health; on Thursday, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin felt “fine” and in “good health” before describing speculation to the contrary as “nothing but hoaxes”.

But Burns’ statement, even if made in jest, perhaps tells us a lot more about Western policymakers than it does about Putin’s fitness.

For starters, it reflects a strong element of wishful thinking when it comes to the Kremlin leader.

It suggests that the most worrying international crises might simply evaporate if one person – Putin – disappears from the world scene.

And that’s a potential misreading of Russia. To be sure, the decision to invade Ukraine came down to one person: Putin, who seems to be driven by his own warped reading of history and a dose of imperial ambition.

And Russia’s confrontation with the West has been driven for years by the personal grievances of a person who famously lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But it is naive to hope that Putinism might not live on without Putin.

Nearly half a year after the invasion, Putin’s heavy battlefield losses have not sparked, say, widespread draft resistance.

The Russian population – with the exception of thousands who have been arrested in anti-war protests – has more or less passively accepted the economic pain of new sanctions imposed on their country.

Putin’s ratings, if the findings of state-run pollster WCIOM are to be believed, have actually gone up since the February 24 invasion.

The CIA director’s remarks, in context, reflect how challenging it is to understand Putin, someone whose decision-making processes are opaque to the outside world.

Burns noted Putin’s narrowing circle of trusted advisers. But during the pandemic, Putin’s isolation took on a very physical dimension, as seen in his meetings with some world leaders at an absurdly long table.

Putin’s extreme social distancing appears to reflect the lengths the Kremlin is willing to go to protect his physical health – and by extension, any information about his health.

Just before the invasion, French President Emmanuel Macron declined the Kremlin’s request for a Russian COVID test, the Elysee said, while refusing to comment on media reports that Macron did not want Russian doctors getting their hands on his DNA.

CIA Director Bill Burns gave a candid assessment this week, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ‘entirely too healthy’. Credit: EPA

It’s fair to speculate that Putin’s entourage would go to similar lengths to avoid providing any clues about his health to any prying foreign intelligence service.

Analysing Russia often comes down to the study of one person.

But as Burns might recall, the consensus-driven policymaking of the late Soviet Politburo still managed to blunder into the disastrous Afghanistan war in 1979.

And, as many Ukrainians are quick to point out, Russians have yet to have a real reckoning with their Soviet imperial past.

Any hope of change is distant: If Burns is to be believed, and if history is any guide, Putin is likely to be around until he reaches peak Brezhnev.

President Trump’s former Covid-19 adviser Dr. Deborah Birx has made several stunning admissions of late – first telling the Daily Mail that Covid-19 “came out of the box ready to infect” when it hit Wuhan, China in 2019 – and that it may have been created by Chinese scientists who were “working on coronavirus vaccines.”

But it goes further than that.

As Fox News’ Jesse Waters lays out, Birx admitted in her new book that she and Dr. Anthony Fauci were essentially shooting from the hip when it came to national directives such as “two weeks to stop the spread,” and social distancing requirements.

According to Waters, Birx “admitted to making things up,” adding that she and Fauci “were lying to the president and to the American people about their COVID protocols.”

With the first lie; ’15 days to stop the spread’ – Birx writes “No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of the two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it.”

“So that 15 days to slow the spread was just a sneaky way to get their hooks into us, so they could lock us down for longer,” Waters opines. “And if you dared to leave your house, Birx told us, the only way to stay safe was to social distance.”

To that end, Birx writes that she “I had settled on 10 (feet) knowing that even that was too many, but I figured that ten would at least be palatable for most Americans – high enough to allow for most gatherings of immediate family but not enough for large dinner parties and, critically, large weddings, birthday parties, and other mass social events…”

Watch:

“Scarf Lady” committed scientific fraud and misled the president and the nation into unnecessary lock-downs and restrictions based on the false presumption that the virus spread among health people (asymptomatic spread) that was disproved by Cao et al Madewell et al. pic.twitter.com/Doeion4tu7

— Peter McCullough, MD MPH (@P_McCulloughMD) July 20, 2022

Various Russian figures and allies of President Vladimir Putin have recently used the Ukraine war as an excuse to target the LGBTQ+ community.

Among them is Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic and a longtime supporter of Putin. In a message on his Telegram channel, he took aim at transgender people, saying that he does not want his “children and the children of their children to grow up in an atmosphere of satanic ideas of gender disgrace and for the sake of the economies of other states.”

Well-known Russia-1 host Olga Skabeyeva has also used hateful rhetoric toward LGBTQ+ people on at least two recent occasions, according to tweets from BBC reporter Francis Scarr. On Tuesday, Scarr shared a video of Skabeyeva saying Russia will also have to “denazify” the “trans-fascists” in addition to Ukraine. Scarr posted another clip on Thursday of Skabeyeva saying Russia can ultimately win out over Western powers by waiting for the West to run out of people due to a lack of human reproduction in connection to LBGTQ+ people.

Last month, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) wrote that while LGBTQ+ rights were bad in Russia before the war in Ukraine, the situation has only gotten worse since Putin ordered his troops to invade the country in late February. The think tank wrote that after the war began, “homophobic propaganda has been expanded from one of the supporting pillars of Russian quasi-ideology to include justification for its war of aggression.”

CEPA also noted that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a strong ally of Putin, stated during a March sermon that fighting against LGBTQ+ ideals was part of the justification for the war in Ukraine.

Various supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin have used the war in Ukraine as an excuse to hit out at the LGBTQ+ community. In this photo, Putin is seen speaking during the Powerful Ideas for New Times Forum on July 20 in Moscow.
Getty Images

Apti Alaudinov, a commander in the Chechen Republic’s military, has also made comments with sentiments similar to those in Kadyrov’s statements. During an appearance on Russia-1, a Kremlin-run station, Alaudinov said that Putin’s forces in Ukraine are fighting a “holy war” against LGBTQ+ ideology and the Antichrist, according to a translated clip posted Sunday on Twitter by Russian propaganda expert Julia Davis.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers are also seeking to further restrict LGBTQ+ rights. Currently, a Russian federal law passed in 2013 bans the promotion of “nontraditional sexual relations” to minors. Russia’s State Duma seeks to expand that, though. On Tuesday, Duma members introduced legislation that likens LGBTQ+ messaging to war propaganda, according to the state-controlled RT network.

RT wrote that a note accompanied the State Duma bill that offered an explanation for its intent.

“In Russia, at the legislative level, it is not allowed to promote suicide, drugs, extremism, criminal behavior, as they are considered negative and socially dangerous phenomena. At the same time, formally, until now, there is no ban on propaganda of the denial of family values and non-traditional sexual relations, including with the use of film distribution,” the note reportedly said.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.

ASPEN, Colo. — America’s internal division is reducing its international influence, China is not 10 feet tall, Iran doesn’t really want a nuclear deal, and Russia is “about to run out of steam” in Ukraine, said Britain’s spy chief in a rare and frank interview about global threats and the state of Western intelligence services.

“Epic fails” is how Richard Moore described the Russian invasion’s three main goals: remove Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, capture Kyiv, and sow disunity within NATO. Moore, who is chief of UK’s Secret Intelligence Service—better known as MI6— spoke at the high-powered Aspen Security Conference here on Thursday.

While U.S. officials have recently called the Russia-Ukraine war a “stalemate,” Moore argued Ukrainians can still win, especially if they are able to strike as Russia regroups after recent territorial gains. Moore argued that those advances were only “some incremental progress over recent weeks and months…It’s tiny amounts.”

Yet those advances depleted the Russia army, which now occupies cities it leveled and earth it scorched to push back Ukraine’s Western-armed resistance, he said.

“I think they’re about to run out of steam. I think our assessment is that the Russians will increasingly find it difficult to supply manpower [and] material over the next few weeks. They will have to pause in some way and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back,” Moore said. 

A successful counterpunch will also be crucial for Ukrainian morale, he said. 

“I also think, to be honest, it will be an important reminder to the rest of Europe, that this is a winnable campaign by the Ukrainians because we are about to go into a pretty tough winter,” he said. “We’re in for a tough time.”

Moore’s appearance in Aspen followed a similarly rare public interview by CIA Director Bill Burns, who on Wednesday shot down rumors that Putin is in ill health. Moore backed that up Thursday. “I won’t go too far into what sort of coverage we have around Putin’s circle but there’s no evidence that Putin is suffering from serious ill health,” he said.

The UK spy chief said British intelligence knew of Putin’s designs on Ukraine before the invasion. He declined to say how well-sourced he is today, as Putin’s inner circle has deteriorated or closed off. 

When CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked for an assessment of Russian intelligence about Ukraine, Moore replied, “If I reflect on our Russian counterparts, like the Russian military, I don’t think they’re having a great war. They clearly completely misunderstood Ukrainian nationalism. They completely underestimated the degree of resistance that the Russian military would face.” 

Moore said he believed Russian intelligence before the war was not being briefed up to Putin, and in its aftermath MI6 has pounced. Since the start of the war, Moore said, “We’ve taken some pretty concerted efforts against them. So across Europe…something north of 400 Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover have been expelled.” Additionally, intelligence services have rounded up Russian sleeper agents posing as illegal aliens across Europe.  

Moore said he hopes Russian intelligence officers in Europe will consider turning on Putin, as many turned against the Soviet Union in the 1960s. “Our door is always open,” he said.

Moore also was asked whether British intelligence has assessed America’s internal division and its impact. Unlike CIA, MI6 doesn’t do analysis. Still, he said, “Of course, the health of the society you represent the economic strength of that society, all of that parlays into one’s influence overseas, and that includes the Secret Intelligence Service. So, of course it counts.” 

“The UK has been through a pretty turbulent time in its history over the last few years, but that has not affected the work of the service and frankly, it hasn’t affected the sort of partnerships we’ve had with the United States.”

On China, Moore sounded less bellicose than America’s political leaders, downplaying everything from China’s attractiveness to the world to its cyber capabilities. 

“MI6 has never had any illusions whatsoever of communist China,” he said. “We now devote more effort to China than any other single subject.” 

Moore said the Five Eyes collective of intelligence services is tightly united and capable of facing China.

“They’re not 10 feet tall. And they are certainly possible to work against, and that’s what we’re determined to do. And we have this huge advantage that the Chinese don’t. We have friends, we have allies, we have an ability to work in a trusted way to try and take on this challenge.”

He said that while China’s Xi Jinping openly states his strategic intent, the West has less insight into the details. ”How they implement, how they organize, how they–what their tactical intent is and then what are the capabilities they’re building up? That’s a black box.” 

Moore said he worries that Xi has “a very entrenched narrative of Western weakness…I worry about that because I think he underestimates us, our resolve and power, and that might lead him to miscalculate over the sort of issues that we’ve been talking about over the last couple of days, particularly over Taiwan.”

Moore also described the relationship between China and Russia as “not an equal partnership…. Moscow is very much the junior partner and the Chinese are very much in the driving seat.” 

Moore called out China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, who brought a well-known suite of Communist Party talking points to the forum on Wednesday, drawing frequent groans from the audience. China, Moore said, is clearly “beating the Russian drum and selling the Russian narrative around Ukraine. And doing it without any sense of irony. This is a country that spends a lot of time banging on about sovereignty and territorial integrity. Here is the most egregious example,” he said, “and the Chinese keep on selling their snake oil all around the world.”

“Let’s not overplay the power and the attractiveness of the Chinese model,” Moore said. He said MI6 is seeing evidence that debt and data traps of China’s Belt & Road initiative are starting to wear on countries, like Sri Lanka. 

On Iran, Moore said, “I continue to believe that for all of the limitations” of the 2015 nuclear deal called JCPOA, “if we can get a deal, it’s probably the best means still available to constrain the Iranian nuclear program. I’m not convinced we’re gonna get there.” 

He added, “I don’t think the Supreme Leader of Iran wants to cut a deal. Iran won’t want to end the talks either.” 

Iran’s interest in drones and uninhabited vehicles really goes back to the Iran-Iraq war in the mid-1980s. The Iranians have been in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) business for several decades. The first generation of the Ababil that was used during the Iran-Iraq war appears to have been a low-cost attack munition, rather than an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform. 

Why did it build a drone fleet? 

There are a number of reasons why Iran became interested in UAVs. During the Iran-Iraq war, air power was important but the attrition rates for crewed combat aircraft were high. The UAVs let Iran fill some of these roles with a much cheaper, much easier to manufacture capability. Both cost and the technology allowed Iran to go down this path. It imported some technologies as well in the early days. UAVs filled roles that Iran’s air force otherwise might not be able to meet at an acceptable loss-rate of aircraft.

What UAVs allow Tehran to do – compared to a crewed combat aircraft – is mitigate the risk of loss. For example, UAVs can be flown much closer to the opposition forces and take imagery. If the drone gets shot down, then Tehran has lost the equivalent of a small, ‘radio-controlled’ aircraft. Iran doesn’t have to worry about getting the crew back. If they lose a pilot or crew downed in hostile territory, it becomes an issue. That just isn’t the case with UAVs. They are also much cheaper than manned aircraft – at least at the low-end of the capability spectrum.

What types of drones are in Iran’s fleet? 

In 2021, Iran’s systems go from small, lightweight short-range systems all the way up through medium-to-heavy UAVs in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance roles (ISR). Not only has the portfolio grown in terms of the breadth of capabilities, but also the size of the vehicles themselves has grown. The larger the UAV, in relative terms, then the greater the payload. Iranian systems can be fitted with a variety of electro-optical sensors and weapons.

How did Iran acquire UAVs?

There are, broadly speaking, two entry points for acquiring UAVs. One route is to already possess an advanced aerospace research and development and technology base. The United States and Israel, which were early adopters, both already had capable defense aerospace industries, that could develop high-end unmanned systems. Both countries developed high-end and or medium-to-high end capabilities comparatively early. In Iran’s case, it was the other way around. Iran came in with a pretty low initial capability, but UAVs were something they could either acquire or develop internally. 

How does Iran use its drones? 

Iran has a dual-track approach. Within the conventional military, UAVs fulfill traditional operational roles—such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—at a variety of ranges depending on the vehicle and the sensors on board. Some of the UAVs also carry weapons. Many of Iran’s UAVs seem to be operated by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), although the conventional Army and Navy also deployed drones as of 2021. The IRGC also reportedly provides these systems, along with the design and manufacturing skills, to its regional proxies, which offers Iran plausible or perhaps implausible deniability about links to any attack source. The Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq all field UAVs or direct attack munitions (also known as suicide or kamikaze drones) that have an Iranian fingerprint.

What percentage are purchased? What percentage (roughly) are manufactured domestically?

During the 1980s and into the 1990s, Tehran benefitted from defense cooperation with China, including the purchase of a variety of mainly anti-ship missile systems. It is possible, if not likely, that Iran may have been influenced during this period by Chinese designs. Some early Iranian drones have a “Chinese look” about them.

As Iran developed and grew its UAV portfolio, the vast majority were produced at home. The current fleet is overwhelmingly domestically manufactured. Some components may have been acquired in the gray market or were acquired covertly. There are indications in U. N. reports that this remains the case. But in terms of the overall design, manufacturing is now done inside Iran.

How many of Iran’s drones are based on models they have downed and/or copied?

The Iranians are pragmatic. If they get the opportunity to look at how somebody else is doing something and think it’s a good idea, the Iranians will copy it. Tehran has managed to knock a few American drones out of the sky. At one point, they appeared to copy the U.S. ScanEagle, which is a small UAV. Given its inability to buy components in the open market, Iran’s approach has to be based on domestic technology.

The extent to which Iran could successfully reverse engineer has got to be treated with some caution, particularly the RQ-170, a U.S. drone shot down by Iran in December 2011. The Iranians claim that they are now manufacturing an equivalent. One has to take that with a very substantial pinch of salt. It’s one thing to make a model of a similar shape. It’s another thing completely to have replicated that capability in its totality, which is doubtful. Some claims are made for internal propaganda purposes. That’s not to say Iran doesn’t have a capable UAV inventory. But it is nowhere near on par with the United States, China or Israel.

 

Do other states in the Gulf have drone fleets?

The regional powers have looked at the development of UAV technology and its adoption by the first and second tier armed forces of the world and decided that they need these capabilities as well. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) all have bought UAVs. Often the first port of call was the United States. But the United States had a fairly restrictive approach in terms of sale to the region until very recently. The United States has sold advanced drones to the UAE, and it sold some smaller systems throughout the region.

The next port of call for most of these Arab nations was China, particularly when the interest was in an armed system. China has taken a much more transactional approach. U.S. reluctance provided a market opportunity for China that it was quick to take advantage. There are armed Chinese systems in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are keen to develop their own industrial base and to produce domestic UAVs in parallel to acquiring off the shelf.

How do Iran’s drones compare with others in the region?  

There is quite a gulf in terms of technology. Western equivalents are going to be considerably more capable than what Iran produces. Iran’s medium-to-large UAVs can probably stay in the air for up to 20 hours while carrying fairly sophisticated sensors, payloads and a range of weapons. That’s the other element that we’ve seen Iran develop – small weapons suitable for UAV carrying and use.

While Iran’s drones don’t stack up in terms of technology, their capabilities can’t be dismissed. These systems are designed around what Tehran needs. Iran doesn’t necessarily want an extremely capable system which may demand highly capable operators, which it may yet not have. And the UAVs and direct attack munitions have to be cost effective.

Has Iran exported its drones to regional allies or proxies? 

Yes. Drone exports help build relationships with regional actors. Iran has supplied drones to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Tehran puts these capabilities in the hands of its network of regional actors so it can influence their behavior. Iran can also make considerable mischief for some of its regional rivals. The Houthis have claimed a variety of attacks using UAVs, ballistic systems and cruise missiles. An awful lot of that technology doesn’t actually originate from inside Yemen. These systems strongly resemble Iranian systems. Exporting systems also allows Iran to see how their systems behave in a combat environment. It’s a battle lab: Have I designed this properly? Does it work the way I want it to? Does it provide the information that I want to get to my ground forces? Does it let me attack the targets that I want to attack with these weapons? Are the weapons effective?

In what quantities has Iran exported drones and how are they used?

Iran has exported a significant number of UAVs, which is obvious because of the range of the attacks. As of mid-2021, the Houthis have used direct attack munitions at least tens of times on Saudi Arabia. The smaller UAVs are easy to smuggle and easy to take apart. Iran sticks them in a dhow and then moves the parts down the coast. They land the dhows in Yemen. Iran’s export of its UAV designs and manufacturing know-how to non-state actors in the region is just as important as its export of UAV stock and weaponry.

Does Iran’s drone fleet pose a threat to U.S. military or its presence in the Middle East or South Asia? 

UAVs are something the U.S. military undoubtedly factors in. The United States would be foolish to ignore it. UAVs are part and parcel of what the U.S. thinks about when it looks at Iran’s military capability: How do we deal with this? How do we manage it?

Does Iran’s drone fleet change the military balance or the balance of intelligence capabilities in the region?

 In terms of the overall military balance, I don’t think it does. Why did the Iranians go down the UAV path? It was initially to offset what they saw as a conventional weakness or conventional limitations, at least in terms of its combat air inventory.

The Iranians manned combat air inventory is based around what the shah acquired from the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a small number of Soviet and Chinese aircraft. It’s an aging fleet. The Phantom fleet, the F-14 fleet, these are all old aircraft now. The fact that the Iranians have managed to keep some of those types airborne for as long as they have speaks to their competency in defense aerospace engineering. To still have these in operational numbers is an achievement in itself. That aerospace engineering capability spilled over into the UAV field.

The Iranian UAVs that provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance are adequate in a low-to-no threat environment. But as soon as its drones come up against an opponent with a capable air-to-air and surface-to-air missile engagement capacity, Tehran has a problem. Iran can start to lose UAVs very quickly. None of their drones are stealthy. Most of them are pretty slow. Against a capable opponent, their ISR and attack capabilities are going to be limited. But the drones’ limited capabilities doesn’t mean you can discount them.

How do drones fit into Iran’s wider military strategy in the Middle East?

UAVs are partially to offset perceived weaknesses or other limitations in their military. Iran’s conventional air power is based on aging systems. UAVs offset that to an extent. UAVs are not a replacement for crewed aircraft, but they give Iran some capability. In terms of wider regional influence, UAVs allow Iran to provide capabilities to regional proxies and to complicate the threat picture for regional opponents.

If we assume that the U.N. arms embargo on Iran is lifted – and that’s an assumption – it’ll be interesting to see where the Iranians might go next. The Russians and the Chinese will almost certainly see Iran as an interesting potential marketplace for combat aircraft and indeed for more capable UAVs. Whether or not the Iranians will be interested in buying UAVs off-the-shelf or looking to develop indigenous versions is an open question. Iran has shown interest in very capable Russian combat aircraft. I would assume that they’ll also be looking at similar Chinese combat aircraft. If you look at the Chinese approach to UAV sales in the region, then the Chinese have some capable systems that they could offer to Iran.

Douglas Barrie is senior fellow for military aerospace with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He previously worked as the London bureau chief for Aviation Week and Space Technology, European editor of Defense News, defense aviation editor for Flight International and deputy news editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly.

This article was originally published on August 20, 2020. It was updated on July 1, 2021. 

Photo credits: Fotros Drone via Tasnim News Agency (CC by 4.0); Shahed-129 via Fars News Agency (CC by 4.0); Remains of Shaheh-123 by Lisa Ferdinando via Department of Defense (Public Domain); IRGC showcases downed U.S. drone via Tasnim News Agency (CC by 4.0)

The front page of the July 20 edition of the Tehran Times is a real collector’s item.

Hovering over a picture of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei sitting across from visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin in a sparse, almost empty room – adorned only with an official portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a neatly displayed flag of the Islamic Republic – was the understated, subtle yet dramatic headline: “New world order.”

A new world order announced by Iran, no less.

Putin’s visit to Tehran may have achieved little (don’t be too impressed by the Gazprom-Iran $40-billion deal on energy cooperation) and is certainly not a harbinger of a “new world order.” Rather, it is evidence of Putin’s weakness, limited room for maneuver and political destituteness.

It should also be a wake-up call to those in Israel who for years have argued forcefully and with conviction that Russia is a true ally, and that in due time Putin is Israel’s natural partner in expelling Iran from Syria. They also claimed repeatedly that Russia has no interest in a nuclear Iran.

This “Putin is a dependable regional ally” concept led Israel to its bizarre, unwarranted and morally depraved policy of neutrality on Ukraine.

It is somewhat redundant here to relitigate the colossal failure of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine: his deeply flawed basic assumptions on Ukraine’s will to fight; his arrogant dismissal of U.S. and NATO resolve; his delusions of withstanding sanctions; and, most glaringly, his grossly underperforming military.

The pseudo-dramatic hype created by some military analysts about “decisive” Russian advances in eastern Ukraine, some tactical successes in overrunning this or that city in the Donbas, and how a war of attrition is bound to suit Russia’s quantitative advantages, doesn’t change the trajectory of the Russian president’s strategic debacle.

Putin may have recalibrated, adjusted expectations and reset objectives given those setbacks and failures. He may be playing the long game. He is assuming the November 2022 congressional midterm elections will undermine U.S. President Joe Biden’s political standing and inhibit his proactive and resources-rich Ukraine policy. He most probably is betting on, certainly hoping for, a Biden – or any other Democratic candidate – defeat in 2024.

A Trump or a Trumpite clone, in his mind, will precipitate a course correction in U.S. foreign policy: less alliance-oriented policy, less alliance management, less NATO, less foreign commitments, less concern about Russia and Ukraine.

The front page of the Tehran Times proclaims a ‘New World Order’ featuring an image of Putin and Khamenei. Is it so?

Fiona Hill, an eminent Russia expert and former senior official at the National Security Council, told Foreign Policy last week that for Putin, “it’s not just January 6. It’s this idea that the United States is out of control.”

This was Putin’s strategy since well before, but specifically around, the 2016 U.S. presidential election: weaken the United States; create and instill constant doubts about the political system; break any trust the American people have (left) in institutions, processes, elections and, effectively, democracy itself.

Putin’s new timetable is to withstand the pressures until 2024. Whether he’s wrong or right is at best conjecture. What he wanted now is to demonstrate that he still has power and influence, and carries clout in international politics.

Here was Vladimir Putin, who five months ago thought he was going to negotiate a new European security architecture with Biden, now sitting in an empty room with Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran. Here was the self-declared reincarnation of Peter the Great seeking and possibly finding a new ally, Iran. Two ostracized, sanctioned and outcast countries trying to break out of isolation by assisting each other.

To add prestige to the meeting, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined the summit, which was a sort of Biden-in-the-Middle East anti-party or rogues-night-out event.

In Tehran, Putin was courting political companionship to prove that he’s still in the game. He got it from Raisi, which came as no surprise given Iran’s relative isolation and the low probability of a new nuclear deal. (U.S. special envoy for Iran Rob Malley told CNN Wednesday that the window to revive a nuclear deal is “closing quite rapidly.”)

What was somewhat of a surprise was the statement from Erdogan. After insulting Putin by making him wait idly for a scheduled meeting, the Turkish president came up with this gem: “America has to leave east of the Euphrates now,” he said, adding that the U.S. presence “feeds the terrorist groups there.”

The entire setting, and particularly Erdogan’s remark, could pass as political comedy were it not for the fact that Russia has 6,000 nuclear warheads, Iran is progressing steadily on the nuclear “threshold state” spectrum and fosters a web of proxy terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, and Turkey is a member of NATO with a critical strategic and geopolitical location.

When all three entertain delusions of grandeur, you cannot dismiss the potential and ominous significance of the meeting.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran on Tuesday.Credit: SERGEI SAVOSTYANOV – AFP

Apparently, Putin also came with a shopping list: Iranian drones. That he needs Iranian military assistance and platforms – reportedly Shahed 129 and Shahed 191 combat drones – is a compelling testament to the scale of the Russian debacle in Ukraine. The United States immediately warned of the impending sale, although it is unclear whether that carries any weight or significance.

“We would advise Iran not to do that. We think it’s a really, really bad idea,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday, when asked about Iranian weapons sales to Russia.

CIA Director William Burns confirmed that drones were the issue, but scaled down the importance and implications by saying that the two sanctioned countries needed each other right now, but there’s a limit to what they can do because “they don’t really trust each other.”

Burns then made a more consequential comment about how Russia’s failed invasion may cause China to rethink any ideas it may have of invading Taiwan. That comment only highlighted the conspicuous absence of President Xi Jinping from the Tehran gathering. If this was about an alternative, counter-American world order, where was China?

The original (and real) Tehran Conference took place on November 28 – December 1, 1943, attended by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet President Joseph Stalin. Any comparison and analogy to this week’s gathering is by definition flimsy, but it is worth noting that in a conference focusing on the eventual opening of a second western front against Nazi Germany – an idea that materialized six months later in Normandy – Stalin insisted that the USSR should retain the frontiers provided by the 1939 Soviet-German nonaggression pact, aka the “Molotov-Ribbentrop” agreement.

The analogy is relevant in the context of Iran expressing heartfelt and solid support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, its declaration that Russia’s borders were threatened by the United States and the Russian foreign minister, the jovial Sergey Lavrov declaring at the same time that Russia’s territorial demands do not stop at Donetsk and Luhansk.

A durable Russian-Iranian alliance or axis is probably a short-lived necessity and as such is not insignificant for the Middle East. But in terms of how he sees Russia and himself, it was barely a consolation prize for Putin.

An actively exploited Chrome zero-day that Google patched on July 4 has been linked to an Israeli spyware company and used in targeted attacks aimed at entities in the Middle East.

Google was informed about the vulnerability and attacks exploiting it on July 1 by cybersecurity company Avast, which observed it being used against its customers in the Middle East as part of what appeared to be highly targeted operations.

The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-2294 and it has been described as a heap buffer overflow in WebRTC. The zero-day has been patched with the release of a Chrome 103 update for Windows. This is the fourth actively exploited Chrome vulnerability patched by Google this year.

According to Avast’s threat intelligence team, targeted individuals included journalists in Lebanon, with other targets spotted in Turkey, Yemen and Palestine.

“In Lebanon, the attackers seem to have compromised a website used by employees of a news agency,” said Jan Vojtesek, malware researcher at Avast. “We can’t say for sure what the attackers might have been after, however often the reason why attackers go after journalists is to spy on them and the stories they’re working on directly, or to get to their sources and gather compromising information and sensitive data they shared with the press. An attack like this could pose a threat for press freedom.”

Based on an analysis of the malware and tactics used in these attacks, Avast has attributed the use of the Chrome zero-day to an Israel-based spyware vendor named Candiru.

Candiru, also known as Saito Tech, has been described as a “mercenary spyware firm” that provides surveillance tools to government customers. These types of companies typically claim to provide their tools and services for lawful surveillance to governments, but their products have often been found to be used by authoritarian regimes against their opponents.

In the recent attacks observed by Avast, threat actors first collected roughly 50 data points to create a profile of the victim’s browser. This data included language, time zone, screen information, device type, browser plugins, and device memory.

The Chrome zero-day exploit appears to have only been delivered — through an encrypted channel — to users who were considered of value by the hackers. After gaining access to the targeted machine, the attackers delivered a piece of malware named DevilsTongue.

DevilsTongue is a sophisticated piece of malware that can be used to steal files, run commands, query databases, steal credentials from LSASS and browsers, steal cookies that can be used to access social media and email accounts, and obtain conversations from the Signal messaging app.

Last year, Microsoft, Citizen Lab and Google issued reports about zero-day exploits created by Candiru and provided to government-backed threat actors. The exploits target Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices, as well as the Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari browsers.

In April this year, Citizen Lab reported that tools made by Candiru — as well as the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group — had been used in Spain.

Related: Secretive Israeli Exploit Company Behind Wave of Zero-Day Exploits

Related: Google Attempts to Explain Surge in Chrome Zero-Day Exploitation

Related: North Korea Gov Hackers Caught Sharing Chrome Zero-Day

An actively exploited Chrome zero-day that Google patched on July 4 has been linked to an Israeli spyware company and used in targeted attacks aimed at entities in the Middle East.

Google was informed about the vulnerability and attacks exploiting it on July 1 by cybersecurity company Avast, which observed it being used against its customers in the Middle East as part of what appeared to be highly targeted operations.

The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-2294 and it has been described as a heap buffer overflow in WebRTC. The zero-day has been patched with the release of a Chrome 103 update for Windows. This is the fourth actively exploited Chrome vulnerability patched by Google this year.

According to Avast’s threat intelligence team, targeted individuals included journalists in Lebanon, with other targets spotted in Turkey, Yemen and Palestine.

“In Lebanon, the attackers seem to have compromised a website used by employees of a news agency,” said Jan Vojtesek, malware researcher at Avast. “We can’t say for sure what the attackers might have been after, however often the reason why attackers go after journalists is to spy on them and the stories they’re working on directly, or to get to their sources and gather compromising information and sensitive data they shared with the press. An attack like this could pose a threat for press freedom.”

Based on an analysis of the malware and tactics used in these attacks, Avast has attributed the use of the Chrome zero-day to an Israel-based spyware vendor named Candiru.

Candiru, also known as Saito Tech, has been described as a “mercenary spyware firm” that provides surveillance tools to government customers. These types of companies typically claim to provide their tools and services for lawful surveillance to governments, but their products have often been found to be used by authoritarian regimes against their opponents.

In the recent attacks observed by Avast, threat actors first collected roughly 50 data points to create a profile of the victim’s browser. This data included language, time zone, screen information, device type, browser plugins, and device memory.

The Chrome zero-day exploit appears to have only been delivered — through an encrypted channel — to users who were considered of value by the hackers. After gaining access to the targeted machine, the attackers delivered a piece of malware named DevilsTongue.

DevilsTongue is a sophisticated piece of malware that can be used to steal files, run commands, query databases, steal credentials from LSASS and browsers, steal cookies that can be used to access social media and email accounts, and obtain conversations from the Signal messaging app.

Last year, Microsoft, Citizen Lab and Google issued reports about zero-day exploits created by Candiru and provided to government-backed threat actors. The exploits target Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices, as well as the Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari browsers.

In April this year, Citizen Lab reported that tools made by Candiru — as well as the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group — had been used in Spain.

Related: Secretive Israeli Exploit Company Behind Wave of Zero-Day Exploits

Related: Google Attempts to Explain Surge in Chrome Zero-Day Exploitation

Related: North Korea Gov Hackers Caught Sharing Chrome Zero-Day

This article links to a state controlled Russian media. Read more.

As regrettable and tragic as the crisis in Ukraine is, the ensuing peace talks may yet be the catalyst to redress long-standing sources of acrimony in the region. The course of military developments is likely to bear a heavy influence on the final outcome on the Ukraine crisis. However, the following essay is a proposal for a radical but rigorous long-term solution.

If there is one mundane fact that Russians and Ukrainians can agree on, it is that the mediaeval state of Kievan Rus is at some level ancestral to both Russia and Ukraine. Events over the centuries, from the Mongol-Turk invasion to the Bolshevik Revolution, cleaved the two apart, with Russia inheriting the classical line of descent. As its confused name suggests, Ukraine is a region on the periphery; a border-land. Its population composition reflects this buffer-state pedigree, with the north-west of the country transitionally differing from the south-east in terms of language, identity and politics.

In view of this extant polarity and the irretrievable course of events following 2014, it seems inevitable that only a national divorce and major geopolitical surgery can ameliorate such irreconcilable differences. A stable and unified Ukraine capable of being administered through Helvetic cantons is not going to happen. Typically, the entropy of such conflicts leads to a partitioning (balkanisation) or confederation. In the case of Ukraine, a combination of the two is warranted.

The unification (or re-unification) of Russia and Ukraine into a confederacy may hardly seem like a viable option at this point in time, but the question of fraternal destiny is bigger than current conflict, the Putin regime or Western intrigues. Opposition to the crisis in Ukraine has garnered significant support from all corners of Russian society. The priority while peace talks ensue should be to keep open future possibilities of merged statehood, despite the seeming remoteness such ideas currently intimate.

A mere decade ago, signatures were being collected in Moscow for unification of the states, being led by high-ranking members of the clergy.[1] Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych was President of Ukraine, having previously defeated the Western-allied Yulia Tymoshenko by a clear margin, reflecting the vision most voters had for Ukraine’s alignment. Then came the black ops and colour revolution.

This is not to say that the response of the Putin regime has been judicious or even consistent with its own rhetoric. From the annexation of Crimea to Donbass separatism and finally a full military invasion—under no circumstances are such actions congruent with the ethos of Russo-Ukrainian brotherhood. 

Likewise, the slurring of Ukraine as a false or illegitimate state is as redundant an argument as it is tasteless. For while it may be easy to portray Ukraine as little more than a bloated toponym and vestigial entity, playing such a game ends with the Swedes claiming paternity of Kievan-Rus. Furthermore, lengthy and patronizing historical essays as published by the Kremlin[2] seem a strange way to appeal to Ukrainian sensibilities, let alone special military operations being sold as liberating crusades. Russia’s de facto policy in recent years has been to engage in territorial salami tactics on their smaller brother, while still heralding unification plans right up to the eve of the special operation.[3] Of course, with each slice Russia only forsakes the remaining territory to greater resentment. Sacrificing the whole for short term partial gains does not seem to be a worthwhile trade-off, even if such border changes are seen to be future internal ones of a common state.

Ironically, whether a Russian nationalist or union romanticist—the shrewd approach for both in achieving their irredentist goals should come down to a similar strategy. Namely, the promotion of a grandiose project, affirmative destiny, mutual and brotherly respect, unconditional commitment to equal political status, and indefatigable patience. For whatever reason, a grass-roots movement is essentially non-existent or poorly organised, and not so much as a vision or proposal overview can be easily found through official channels and amateur ranks alike.       

But what might a confederacy look like? If Ukraine is to be persuaded and history is to be honoured, Kiev should be no less than a joint capital city along with Moscow. If Moscow is considered the Third Rome, then Kiev could become the Second Constantinople. Voting sovereignty would also have to be preserved at a confederal level, not limited to the decision to leave the confederacy with the borders that they entered it. With this proviso, Russia could then offer to relinquish control of Crimea and Donbass, as further enticement and gesture of good will, which would be a small gambit in view of the big picture.

At this point, the question of West Ukraine deserves special consideration on account of it (rather than Kiev) being the origin and centre of gravity for Ukrainian identity and nationalism. In fact, if there was to be any partitioning of Ukrainian territory, it should have been in the west of the country, not in the Russophilic east. Additionally, there is historical precedent for such secessionism, namely the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic and earlier Kingdom of Galicia-Lodomeria. Since confederation may be unpalatable to too great a segment of Western Ukrainians, this region could form the basis for a new state: Greater Halychia.[4]

With its capital city of Lviv—worthy of being a political and cultural prominence on the European cartograph—Greater Halychia would be free to find its destiny as a Central European state; be that as part of the EU, Visegrad Group or NATO. As further incentive still, Russia could sponsor the transfer of territory from old Polish Galicia to the new state, using its exclave of Kaliningrad to barter with the Poles.[5] Poland would be only too willing to lose its border with Russia, gain prime real-estate on the Baltic; while Russia would be satisfied with new frontiers on the Black Sea, Romania and the opportunity to reunite with its long lost orphan Transnistria. Since such a Carpathian shuffle already involves significant movement of borders, it would pay good diligence to address the Slovakia question and whether a large portion would be suited to join a Greater Halychia. When the Slovak Republic is not being confused with Slovenia, it is stereotyped as perhaps Europe’s most mediocre country—not exactly flattering but neither too insulting. The country’s population is rather polarized, with the far-Western capital having little to do with those living in the east. Among those who dwell in the eastern realms is the indomitable minority of Rusyns, for whom Greater Halychia would finally unite them all in one country. Southern Slovakia wishes to unite with Hungary, while Western Slovaks are nostalgic for reunion with Czechia. The solution is obvious.

At the very end of this chain of territorial adjustments would be Croatia, a state with its ethnogenesis in Halychia, and whose post war territorial devastation like Hungary earns it some commission from its ally in the form of territory south of Boszenfa[6]—lands blood-soaked from the heroic sacrifice of Šubić-Zrinski and thousands of Croats who saved Europe from the Ottomans.

But as convoluted a mission of international diplomacy as treaties are when involving multiple parties, the weight of universal benefit is a force difficult to restrain. Russia is the lynchpin on the battlefield as well as in the boardroom of high-stakes geopolitics. The initiative falls on the shoulders of the Russian leadership to pursue a sagacious path out of the crisis and onward to sensible nation-building. Mr President, your exemplary career in politics was forged in one of the most challenging positions of our time. You’ve had your thrill on Blueberry Hill—do not allow Ukraine to become your Waterloo. 

*Tihomir Zorić – Faculty of Political Science, University of Sarajevo / Универзитет у Сарајеву

 [1] У Москві розпочали збір підписів за об’єднання Росії, України і Білорусі. 24 Вересня 2012. Українська правда.[2] See President Putin’s essay “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” published last year.[3] The statement of a State Duma deputy Leonid Kalashnikov three days before the launch of the special operation in Ukraine.[4] Ukrainian: Велика Галичина (Velyka Halychyna). The English exonym Halychia is based on a compromise between the older form Galicia and the modern Ukrainian endonym Halychyna. It also removes confusion with the autonomous community of Galicia in Spain.[5] Not an extreme proposition. Influential political thinker Alexandr Dugin has proposed returning Kaliningrad to Germany for the mere favour of securing it as an ally of Russia. Kaliningrad’s maritime territory could be exchanged at a rate of one third land value.

[6] Amounts to just 5664 square kilometres, from Nagybaracska to Mohacs, Komlo & Somogybukkosd.