British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that "there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria." In a rare rebuke of an allied military leader, U.S. Central Command said Ghika's comments "run counter to the identified credible threats" from "Iranian-backed forces in the region."
But Ghika is hardly alone in his apparent skepticism of recent U.S. warnings about Iran and its unspecified plots against U.S. "interests" in the Middle East.
"Intelligence and military officials in Europe as well as in the United States said that over the past year, most aggressive moves have originated not in Tehran, but in Washington," specifically from National Security Adviser John Bolton, The New York Times reports. One American official told the Times that "the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was 'small stuff,'" and "the ultimate goal of the yearlong economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States."
The Trump administration's "anti-Iran push has proved difficult even among the allies, which remember a similar campaign against Iraq that was led in part by Mr. Bolton and was fueled by false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," the Times reports. "Privately, several European officials" suggested Bolton and fellow Iran hawk Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are "pushing an unsuspecting" President Trump toward war with Iran "before the president realizes it."
On Monday, Pompeo "unsuccessfully crashed a gathering of European foreign ministers, hoping to gin up a united front on Iran" but leaving rebuked, Ishaan Tharoor writes at The Washington Post. Spain announced Tuesday it's "withdrawing a frigate from a U.S.-led naval group in the Persian Gulf because Madrid wanted no part in an explicitly anti-Iran mission." Iraqi officials told the Times they are also skeptical of U.S. intelligence Pompeo shared about purported threats to U.S. facilities and personnel. Peter Weber
President Trump really wants a Nobel Peace Prize.
At the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, a member of the Pakistani press reportedly suggested to Trump that he would be deserving of such an honor if he mediated a solution to the tensions between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region. While Trump was reportedly flattered by the questions he was receiving from the Pakistani press, the Nobel-themed comment reminded him that former President Barack Obama already has such a prize, leading him to question the fairness of the committee. "I think I'm going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly," Trump said. "Which they don't."
He added that the only thing he ever agreed on with Obama was his predecessor's surprise at receiving the award. "He had no idea why he got it," Trump said while seated next to Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan, who reportedly laughed at the comment.
Trump went on to tout himself as a potential mediator between India and Pakistan, arguing that he has a good relationship with Khan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that he has "never failed as an arbitrator." Tim O'Donnell
Sixteen adolescents, including Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, are suing five countries for violating their rights as children by not taking sufficient measures against climate change. But they don't want money, they want action.
The lawsuit was announced Monday shortly after Thunberg's emotional speech in front of the United Nations General Assembly. The five countries named are Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey — the children filing the suit, all under 18, are from 12 different countries, including four of the five named in the suit, reports Gizmodo.
They claim the countries did not uphold the 30-year-old U.N. treaty Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the most widely ratified in history, and lays out rights to life, health, and peace.
The plaintiffs expressed how climate change is negatively impacting them, ranging from worsening asthma to having to leave their homes for fear of running out of water — showing that pollution of the environment has no borders.
The complaint is to be heard by a committee of children's rights experts, and, if successful, the U.N. will classify the climate crisis as a children's rights crisis, according to Gizmodo. Then the five countries must exit the convention or address climate change.
Two of the largest carbon dioxide emitters, China and the United States, are not named, as they did not ratify the part of the treaty that allows children to file a suit against the countries signed onto the protocol. Read more at Gizmodo. Taylor Watson
Stanford University's attempts to compensate Chanel Miller for her sexual assault on campus severely missed the mark.
For instance, the university told Miller it would put up a memorial garden and a plaque near where Brock Turner raped her on campus in 2015. But when she selected quotes from her viral impact statement to put on it, the university turned them all down, NPR reports from a preview of Miller's memoir Know My Name.
Before revealing her name in a 60 Minutes interview earlier this month, Miller was known as "Emily Doe" — an anonymous sexual assault victim. Turner ended up serving just three months of a six-month sentence, but Miller's impact statement was published and ensured his name wasn't forgotten.
But it seems that Turner wasn't the only one trying to preserve his reputation. Stanford, Miller writes, didn't seem to care so much about her attack once it realized she wasn't a student there. It offered her money for therapy in an attempt to stop her from suing the school, making her realize she was "visible not as a person, but a legal threat, a grave liability," she writes. And when Miller offered Stanford pieces of her statement to put on a plaque near where the attack happened, it turned her down in hopes she would give it "something reassuring and inane, something that implied all was forgiven," NPR writes. Miller and Stanford negotiated for a while, but Miller eventually turned the school down.
Read more from Miller's book at NPR, or preorder it here. Kathryn Krawczyk
Europe's attempts to ease the tensions between the United States and Iran have gotten a little more challenging, The New York Times reports.
At this time last year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had mostly won over European support, as leaders hoped to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal. Indeed, President Trump received most of the blame for its fragile state after he pulled the U.S. out of the pact. Now, as the world's leader gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, there's reportedly a growing amount of European skepticism when it comes to Iran, thanks largely to attacks on two major Saudi Arabian oil facilities earlier this month. Washington and Riyadh are convinced Tehran was behind the strikes, despite denials from Zarif and his fellow leaders.
European leaders have been less vocal about the attacks than Washington, but French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters Sunday that the strikes were a "game changer," placing French President Emmanuel Macron's once-promising mediation efforts in jeopardy. Now France's priorities have reportedly shifted from renegotiating the nuclear deal to preventing a military conflict between Tehran and Washington. "The priority subject is whether we can restart a de-escalation path with the different actors," Le Drian said.
Ellie Geranmayeh, the deputy head of Middle East and North Africa studies for the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Iran has received "a real wake-up call that what they are able to get from Europeans is no more than some limited political cover for support of the nuclear deal." Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell
Drone footage posted anonymously on YouTube last week appears to shed some light on how China is treating its ethnic minority prisoners, The Guardian reports.
The video reportedly shows Uighur or other ethnic and religious minorities wearing blue and yellow uniforms with clean shaven heads, blindfolds, and handcuffs sitting on the ground before being led away by police. The video has not been officially verified, but Nathan Ruser, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's international cyber policy center, reportedly used landmarks and the position of the sun to determine its legitimacy. He told The Guardian he believes it was likely shot at a train station in the Xinjiang province, where there is a large population of Uighurs, in August 2018. Ruser added that the prisoners were possibly being transferred to a region where the crackdown against the Uighurs, who are a Muslim minority, has been particularly strong.
In total, China has reportedly placed as many as two million Uighurs in "re-education" camps, citing "extremist behavior" as their reason for doing so. While Chinese authorities have been taking diplomats and even some journalists on tours of Xinjiang to showcase what they say is an exemplary anti-terrorism campaign, Ruser noted that the drone footage "counters the propaganda offensive China is trying to show."
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized China for its treatment of Uighurs and other minority groups Sunday. "I want to make clear that China's repressive campaign in Xinjiang is not about terrorism," he said. "It's about China's attempt to erase its own citizens." Read more at The Guardian. Tim O'Donnell