Also on today’s menu:
US Senate Kills Majorkas Impeachment Effort
Iran’s Attack On Israel Provides Clues To Nation’s Might
Heavy rain that began on April 16 has been causing flash floods in the United Arab Emirates and other locations in the Gulf Peninsula, creating chaos at Dubai International Airport, a major hub for connecting flights to every continent. On April 17, about 290 flights were canceled, and 440 flights were delayed.
Tuesday’s was the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the UAE, killing at least one person and damaging homes and businesses, according to the UAE government. In Oman, at least 19 people died in severe flooding over three consecutive days, according to state media.
Last year, Dubai International Airport served more than 80 million passengers, second only to Atlanta, Georgia. Authorities warned that more thunderstorms, heavy rain, and strong winds were in the forecast, and many low-lying areas were still under water.
Discussion: There has been wide speculation that the heavy rains were the result of cloud-seeding, which the UAE has been experimenting with for several years to bring rain to arid locations. Cloud-seeding has not been scientifically proven to produce significant results — typically less than 4 or 5 inches of rain a year. Never has it produced an amount great enough to produce flooding. Meteorologists say they had been predicting the storm from weather patterns that had been developing for several days.
US Senate Kills Majorkas Impeachment Effort
The US Senate voted to kill impeachment procedures against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas, whom Republicans have accused of refusing to enforce immigration law. The US House of Representatives, in filing articles of impeachment two months ago, also accused Majorka of undermining the public trust by making false statements during congressional testimony.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had proposed allowing Republicans to speak and offer procedural motions before the vote on April 17, but Republicans demanded they proceed with a full trial. Before senators voted to dismiss the two articles of impeachment on near-party-line votes, Republicans made several unsuccessful attempts to delay that vote, which Democrats blocked.
It was the first time in almost 150 years — and only the second time in US history — that the Senate had considered the impeachment of a cabinet secretary.
Discussion: The whole matter was part of the Washington Republicans’ efforts to divert attention away from their inability to pass any meaningful legislation. It was apparent from the beginning that Majorkas was simply following the law as it existed, and rather than voting on the bipartisan bill that would tighten up border security, the House listened to former president Donald Trump, who had ordered them not to pass any legislation that would make President Joe Biden Jr. look good in this election year. They knew when filing the articles of impeachment that the effort would go nowhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate. It was a waste of time when they could have been focusing on the real work that needs to take place in Congress.
Iran’s Attack On Israel Provides Clues To Nation’s Might
Iran’s first direct attack on Israel on April 13 demonstrated both the country’s military might and its limitations, analysts say. “Iran basically threw everything it had that could reach Israel’s territory,” said John Krzyzaniak, a researcher who studies Iran’s missile programs at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. The deployment of more than 100 ballistic missiles in a single wave suggests that previous estimates that Iran has about 3,000 ballistic missiles stockpiled are probably accurate, and could even be on the low end. “If this is just round one of an unknown number of rounds to come, you wouldn’t fire a significant fraction of what you have just in the first round,” Krzyzaniak said.
Iran’s mostly home-grown ballistic missile arsenal is the largest of any country in the Middle East, and with more than 300 drones and missiles launched in a layered onslaught, it was Iran’s largest-ever conventional show of force, the Washington Post reports. Experts noted that the attack did not include Sejjil-1 and Shahab-3 missiles. Fabian Hinz, an Iran analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin, said Shahab-3 “wasn’t used because it’s so old,” and “The Sejjil is a bit of a mysterious missile” that Iran has used “very, very little during maneuvers.”
Krzyzaniak said that the firing of more than 100 ballistic missiles in the space of a few minutes also indicates that Iran has at least 100 launchers. At the same time, with 99 percent of the missiles and drones being intercepted or failing to launch, it appears that many of Iran’s munitions are of low quality.
Discussion: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi boasted, “The operation showed that our armed forces are ready,” but said that the strikes was “limited” and “not comprehensive”. He continued, “If it was supposed to be a large-scale action, nothing would have been left of the Zionist regime.” However, there are doubts that any future attack could be any more successful in getting through Israeli defenses.