WarSclerotic

Netanyahu Scoffs at Iranian Overtures, Setting Stage for Showdown With U.S. – NYTimes.com.

By JODI RUDOREN

¶ JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, moved quickly to block even tentative steps by Iran and the United States to ease tensions and move toward negotiations to end the nuclear crisis, signaling what is likely to be a sustained campaign by Israel to head off any deal.

¶ Mr. Netanyahu’s office dismissed as “media spin” a flurry of statements by Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, about the goals of his nation’s nuclear program and his willingness to engage in diplomacy regarding it. His remarks were made amid news that Mr. Obama had reached out to Mr. Rouhani with a private letter, and renewed discussion in Washington of negotiations that could lift sanctions against Iran.

¶ “There is no need to be fooled by the words,” said a lengthy statement issued late Thursday in response to Mr. Rouhani’s interview this week with NBC News. “The test is not in what Rouhani says, but in the deeds of the Iranian regime, which continues to advance its nuclear program with vigor while Rouhani is being interviewed.”

¶ Mr. Netanyahu, who has described Mr. Rouhani as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” has stepped up his longstanding campaign against Iranian nuclear development in recent days, and plans to make it the focus of his Sept. 30 meeting with President Obama in Washington and his upcoming speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

¶ Washington and Jerusalem share the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but have often disagreed on the timetable and strategy for doing so. Israel, which sees an Iranian bomb as a threat to its existence, has pressed for a more forceful and immediate military threat. The United States, while stressing that all options are on the table, has urged Israel to hold its fire and give diplomacy and sanctions more time. Tehran maintains that its nuclear development is for civilian purposes.

¶ “It’s certainly different perspectives looking at the same picture,” said Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former Netanyahu aide. “Israel is clearly focused on Iranian action, and the messages in Washington seem more hopeful about Iranian intentions.”

¶ Since Mr. Netanyahu’s United Nations speech last year laying out his red lines on Iran, and especially since Mr. Obama’s visit to Israel in March, the two countries have seemed more in sync. But many Israeli leaders and analysts saw Mr. t Obama’s handling of the Syrian chemical weapons situation over the last month as a bad omen for his resolve in stopping Iran.

¶ “Netanyahu’s words were most likely meant for the ears of the members of Congress, so they will not let Obama get carried away by Rouhani’s overtures,” Ron Ben-Yishai, a respected journalist, wrote in an analysis published on Ynet, an Israeli news site. “The Israelis are also telling their American counterparts that just like in the case of the Syrian crisis, a credible military threat is needed in order to get results on the diplomatic track.”

¶ Mr. Netanyahu himself said last week, “The message in Syria will also be heard very well in Iran,” and, “The world needs to make sure that anyone who uses weapons of mass destruction will pay a heavy price for it.” On Thursday, he reiterated a four-step formula he laid out two days before, saying, “The international community must increase the pressure on Iran” until it halts uranium enrichment, removes enriched uranium from the country, dismantles the Fordo nuclear plant and stops the plutonium track.

¶ “Rouhani has boasted in the past about how he deceived the international community in nuclear talks, while Iran continued with its nuclear program,” the statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office said. “The goal of the regime in Iran,” it added, is a deal to “give up a secondary part of its nuclear program” but “preserve and fortify the principal element of its capabilities, which will allow it to race to obtain a nuclear weapon within a short time, the moment it chooses to do so.”

¶ Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, said in an interview published Friday that the Iranians were six months away from developing a bomb, and that “there is no more time to hold negotiations.” He told the right-leaning newspaper Israel Today that Washington’s “all options on the table” catchphrase had not been enough.

¶ “Today the Iranians take into account that they have room to maneuver, and that is the most dangerous thing,” Mr. Steinitz said. “It must be understood that no one will come to help us if, heaven forfend, we lose the ability to defend ourselves.”

¶ In a separate development, the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday rejected a bid put forward by Arab countries to criticize Israel for the nuclear arsenal it is believed to possess.

¶ At an agency meeting in Vienna, the Arab states had proposed a nonbinding resolution expressing concern about “Israeli nuclear capabilities,” calling on Israel to join a global antinuclear weapons treaty and to place its nuclear facilities under monitoring by the I.A.E.A., the United Nations nuclear agency.

¶ An identical motion was passed by a slim majority four years ago, but defeated the following year under pressure from Western countries. In the past two years, Arab countries have refrained from introducing a similar motion so as not to undermine efforts to convene an international conference to free the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, Israel Radio reported.

¶ The United States had opposed this year’s resolution, saying it would harm the broader diplomatic effort to eliminate such weapons.

¶ Israel has long maintained a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying that it possesses nuclear weapons.

¶ The I.A.E.A. vote “demonstrates that there is significant international understanding for Israel’s vital national security interests given the threats and challenges it faces in the region,” said Jeremy Issacharoff, deputy director general for strategic affairs at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

¶ As for Mr. Rouhani’s recent statements and actions in advance of his visit to the United States next week, Israeli experts on Iran differed on what to make of them. Emily Landau of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said she saw “no indication of any willingness to reverse course on the nuclear front,” citing 1,000 recently installed centrifuges and Mr. Rouhani’s insistence that he will not consider suspending uranium enrichment.

¶ “Rouhani is no moderate as far as Israel is concerned,” Ms. Landau said in an e-mail Friday afternoon. “One of his first foreign policy statements accused Israel of being behind the crisis in Syria, and now he adds that Israel, the ‘warmonger,’ is responsible for all instability in the region.”

¶ But Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya who wrote a book on Iran’s nuclear program, said Friday that Mr. Rouhani could be promising real change and that a meeting between him and Mr. Obama would be positive for Israel.

¶ “As a result of the sanctions, the regime in Iran is under real pressure, and Rouhani comes to save the regime” Mr. Javedanfar told Israel Radio. “If Rouhani does the work, this is good for Israel. If the Iranians do the job, our pilots and soldiers don’t have to.”

¶ Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, did not limit his criticism of Mr. Rouhani to the nuclear question. His statement also addressed the Iranian president’s ducking of a question in his NBC interview about whether he, like his predecessor, believed that the Holocaust was a myth.

¶ Mr. Rouhani answered, “I’m not a historian, I’m a politician.” Mr. Netanyahu’s statement declared, “It does not take a historian to recognize the existence of the Holocaust — it just requires being a human being.”

¶

The American Muslim (TAM).

( Methinks she protests too much… – JW )

by Sheila Musaji

As I pointed out in a previous article Washington Navy Yard Tragedy Shamelessly Exploited by Islamophobes, the Islamophobia echo chamber jumped to wrong conclusions about the perpetrator before the facts were in, and before most of the victims had even been identified.

Now we have a lot more information.  Hundreds of interviews have been conducted with friends and family, and thousands of articles have been written about the man.  All confirming that he was a Buddhist and regularly attended a Buddhist Temple, had served in the military, had mental health issues, previous run ins with the law, etc.  But one article and one passage in that article is what has focused the Islamophobia echo chamber on the “real” issue.

An NBC News article on Aaron Alexis included this brief passage:

“Law enforcement officials told NBC News that Alexis created a webpage with the name “Mohammed Salem,” but they said he never did anything with it. They said they had found nothing else that might indicate any interest in violent jihad or even in Islam.”

That’s it, one brief passage in a long list of what we know about the perpetrator of the Navy Yard shooting.  He once created some sort of webpage which he never used, and used a Muslim name to do so.  No one knows why he chose that name, or what he planned to post on that page.  For all anyone knows, he planned to use it like Werner Reimann who has a much used webpage under the name Sheikh Yer’Mami where he posts anti-Muslim propaganda.  That is at least in the realm of possibility since many news reports have noted that Aaron Alexis told his friends that he had been in New York when the 9/11 tragedy happened and was distressed by that event.  We have no facts, and any thoughts on the why of this webpage are only speculation.

Not having facts never stands in the way of the Islamophobia echo chamber.

Robert Spencer wrote Navy Yard murderer Aaron Alexis created webpage with name “Mohammed Salem” saying: “There has been no other published indication that Aaron Alexis was a Muslim or had any interest in Islam. It may be, however, that in his delusional madness, he began to identify with the jihadists who have committed mass murder in the name of their bloodthirsty god.”

Libertarian Republican wrote Confirmed! Aaron “Mohammed Salem” Alexis saying:  ”…  We now learn, 5 days after the attacks, that Aaron Alexis at one time, at the least, actively flirted with Islam.  …  Building a web page is no small task.  Most times it takes hours, sometimes it can take days, and even weeks.”

Pamela Geller wrote Navy Yard murderer Aaron Alexis created webpage with name “Mohammed Salem” in which she says:

Law enforcement officials told NBC News that Alexis created a webpage with the name “Mohammed Salem,. This is the first I am hearing of this and have seen no media mention of it (although the fact that he had been a Buddhist has been headlined and recounted numerous times, despite the fact is that there is no compulsion to violence, oppression and ethnic cleansing in the teachings of Buddhism.)

It is striking that he would create a page “Mohammed Saelm [sic].” Perhaps as he became more violent he identified with the homicidal doctrine of jihad. I do not expect the jihad-aligned media to look into this aspect of the case.

Clearly, Muslim Brotherhood groups were concerned it was jihad. Hamas-CAIR canceled a press conference on Tuesday that was going to expose the funding of the “islamophobia” industry. What funding? I mean, really.  And devout Muslims cheered and suggested responsibility for Navy Yard shooting that killed 13. And many jihadists “expressed their joy” that the Nazy shooting was a response to Muslim leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ‘s strikes in America.

Actually, CAIR rescheduled a press conference planned for Tuesday the 17th because they, like other Americans were mourning the Navy Yard shooting that happened the day before. The day after such a national tragedy would not have been an appropriate time for a press conference.  What funding of the Islamophobia industry was CAIR going to release?  CAIR has now released the report exposing that funding of at least $119 Million between 2008 to 2011.  It is titled “Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States” and can be read here in PDF format.

Using a name doesn’t prove that Aaron Alexis “actively flirted with Islam” unless the same can be said for Sheikh Yer’Mami and many others.  You would have to be even less tech savvy than me to think creating a basic webpage is a major accomplishment.  Almost anyone who can follow simple directions can put up a basic WordPress or other webpage in a very short time.

The people who were reported as cheering the Navy Yard shooting tragedy were NOT “devout Muslims”, but al-Qaeda criminals.  Some of them also falsely claimed responsibility for this action.  That’s pretty much what is to be expected from criminals.  Such a criminal action could never be a jihad, no matter what criminals claim.

It is important to remember that these are the same Islamophobes who thought the fact that Seung-Hui Cho the Virginia Tech shooter’s father had worked in Saudi Arabia before he was born, and that Cho had written the words “Ismail Axe”  were meaningful facts.  These are the same people who thought the fact that Joel Henry Hinrichs, the University of Oklahoma bomber walked through the parking lot of a mosque was a meaningful fact. These are the same people who tried to connect Tyler Brehm, the Hollywood shooter to Islam.  In fact, they consistently try to find any tenuous connection to Islam in any criminal act.  If they can’t find anything, they simply make something up, and if their lies are exposed they attempt to conceal the evidence.

The resources below are a useful place to begin understanding why these individuals can’t be trusted.

Navy Yard murderer Aaron Alexis created webpage with name “Mohammed Salem” – Atlas Shrugs.

• Alexis, who served as a naval reservist from 2007 to 2011 and worked more recently as a civilian contractor, had a military disciplinary record that included disorderly conduct, insubordination and unexcused absences.

Newport, R.I., police said he called them Aug. 7 to say he had changed hotels twice because he believed people were chasing him and sending vibrations through the walls to keep him from sleeping.

Police said they had forwarded their report to police at the naval station in Newport. Military officials told NBC News on Wednesday that they had found no evidence that naval police forwarded the information to any higher command outside the base.

• The Department of Veterans Affairs said Wednesday that it saw Alexis twice. He went to a VA emergency room in Providence, R.I., on Aug. 23 complaining of insomnia and was given sleep medicine and told to follow up with a doctor, the agency said. Five days later, Alexis showed up at a VA emergency room in Washington to get a refill and was again encouraged to see a doctor, the VA said.

The VA said Alexis denied struggling with anxiety or depression or having thoughts about hurting himself or others. It also said he enrolled in VA health care in February 2011 and never sought an appointment for mental health.

• Alexis also had run-ins with the law over gun violence. He was accused in 2004 of having shot out the tires of a car in Seattle and in 2010 of having fired a gun into an upstairs apartment in Fort Worth, Texas.

• Friends and relatives have also said he had a preoccupation with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, felt slighted as a veteran, had money problems and was so unhappy with his life that he considered leaving the U.S.

Law enforcement officials told NBC News that Alexis created a webpage with the name “Mohammed Salem,” but they said he never did anything with it. They said they had found nothing else that might indicate any interest in violent jihad or even in Islam.

BOYCOTT WHO? | Chicago Venture Magazine.

A short time ago, Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khomenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people.

In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

“Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by Dr. Ehrlich, a Jew. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

“A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube.

Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil.

If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege.

Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate.

Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.

Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the “Schick” reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

“Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram.

They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.

“Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.

Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts.

“In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott.”

Oh, and by the way, don’t call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer.

Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the Muslims made?”

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world’s population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 – Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 – Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 – Elias James Corey
1994 – Yaser Arafat:
1999 – Ahmed Zewai

Economics:
(zero)

Physics:
(zero)

Medicine:
1960 – Peter Brian Medawar
1998 – Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world’s population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 – Paul Heyse
1927 – Henri Bergson
1958 – Boris Pasternak
1966 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 – Nelly Sachs
1976 – Saul Bellow
1978 – Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 – Elias Canetti
1987 – Joseph Brodsky
1991 – Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 – Alfred Fried
1911 – Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 – Rene Cassin
1973 – Henry Kissinger
1978 – Menachem Begin
1986 – Elie Wiesel
1994 – Shimon Peres
1994 – Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 – Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 – Henri Moissan
1907 – Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 – Gabriel Lippmann
1910 – Otto Wallach
1915 – Richard Willstaetter
1918 – Fritz Haber
1921 – Albert Einstein
1922 – Niels Bohr
1925 – James Franck
1925 – Gustav Hertz
1943 – Gustav Stern
1943 – George Charles de Hevesy
1944 – Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 – Felix Bloch
1954 – Max Born
1958 – Igor Tamm
1959 – Emilio Segre
1960 – Donald A. Glaser
1961 – Robert Hofstadter
1961 – Melvin Calvin
1962 – Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 – Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 – Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 – Julian Schwinger
1969 – Murray Gell-Mann
1971 – Dennis Gabor
1972 – William Howard Stein
1973 – Brian David Josephson
1975 – Benjamin Mottleson
1976 – Burton Richter
1977 – Ilya Prigogine
1978 – Arno Allan Penzias
1978 – Peter L Kapitza
1979 – Stephen Weinberg
1979 – Sheldon Glashow
1979 – Herbert Charles Brown
1980 – Paul Berg
1980 – Walter Gilbert
1981 – Roald Hoffmann
1982 – Aaron Klug
1985 – Albert A. Hauptman
1985 – Jerome Karle
1986 – Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 – Robert Huber
1988 – Leon Lederman
1988 – Melvin Schwartz
1988 – Jack Steinberger
1989 – Sidney Altman
1990 – Jerome Friedman
1992 – Rudolph Marcus
1995 – Martin Perl
2000 – Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 – Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 – Simon Kuznets
1972 – Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 – Leonid Kantorovich
1976 – Milton Friedman
1978 – Herbert A. Simon
1980 – Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 – Franco Modigliani
1987 – Robert M. Solow
1990 – Harry Markowitz
1990 – Merton Miller
1992 – Gary Becker
1993 – Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 – Elie Metchnikoff
1908 – Paul Erlich
1914 – Robert Barany
1922 – Otto Meyerhof
1930 – Karl Landsteiner
1931 – Otto Warburg
1936 – Otto Loewi
1944 – Joseph Erlanger
1944 – Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 – Ernst Boris Chain
1946 – Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 – Tadeus Reichstein
1952 – Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 – Hans Krebs
1953 – Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 – Joshua Lederberg
1959 – Arthur Kornberg
1964 – Konrad Bloch
1965 – Francois Jacob
1965 – Andre Lwoff
1967 – George Wald
1968 – Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 – Salvador Luria
1970 – Julius Axelrod
1970 – Sir Bernard Katz
1972 – Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 – Howard Martin Temin
1976 – Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 – Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 – Daniel Nathans
1980 – Baruj Benacerraf
1984 – Cesar Milstein
1985 – Michael Stuart Brown
1985 – Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 – Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 – Gertrude Elion
1989 – Harold Varmus
1991 – Erwin Neher
1991 – Bert Sakmann
1993 – Richard J. Roberts
1993 – Phillip Sharp
1994 – Alfred Gilman
1995 – Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims.

The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.

There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don’t traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world’s Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask ‘what can they do for humankind’ before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel ‘s part, the following two sentences really say it all:

‘If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”

Benjamin Netanyahu: General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect: ‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened’

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred.

It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 65 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth,’ it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center ‘NEVER HAPPENED’ because it offends some Muslim in the United States?

Rohani’s charm offensive poses difficult challenge for Netanyahu – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz.

The Iranian’s sophistication coupled with America’s disdain for confrontation begs the question: where is Ahmadinejad when we really need him?

Iranian President Hassan Rohani speaks to NBC’s Ann Curry in Tehran, September 18, 2013. Photo by Reuters

Call it a charm offensive, seduction sortie, bewitchment blitz or wooing war, one thing is certain: Iranian President Hassan Rohani is waging an all-out public relations onslaught on American hearts and minds that poses unprecedented new challenges for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli policymakers.

Following initial skirmishes and reconnaissance patrols over the past few weeks on Twitter and Facebook, Rohani has now unleashed a preparatory salvo of moderate-sounding, peace-hugging statements on NBC and in the Washington Post. The main thrust of his campaign will be rolled out next week in New York, where Rohani will use his status as the star sensation of this year’s United Nations General Assembly to launch a barrage of interviews, speeches and public appearances, all aimed at convincing America of Iran’s benevolent policies and benign nuclear plans.

The attention, some of it fawning, that is already being bestowed on the so-called “moderate” Iranian president has confirmed the widespread assumption of most analysts following Rohani’s election in August as Iran’s 7th president: that it wouldn’t take long for Israel and other critics of Iran to sorely miss his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

After all, for the past 8 years, Israel’s efforts to convince the world and especially the U.S. to tackle Iran’s nuclear designs head on relied on two main figures: the relentless Netanyahu and the equally adamant, Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad. And with all due respect to Netanyahu’s formidable public relations prowess, it was Ahmadinejad who served as Israel’s number one talking point, its strategic propaganda asset, a poster boy who self-explained Tehran’s sinister designs.

Rohani, it should already be obvious, is a different kettle of fish altogether, a sharp and formidable foe that should not be underestimated. He is experienced, sophisticated and wise to the ways and wishes of Western audiences. Compared to Ahmadinejad’s deterring demeanor, Rohani appearance seems completely benign: his resemblance to Homeland’s likeable Mandy Patinkin has already become a viral Facebook hit.

As Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Rohani has confessed to engaging European concerns as a cover for accelerating Tehran’s nuclear program. His interview on NBC and his carefully crafted oped in the Washington Post show his capacity to appeal to American audiences while trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the “pressure groups” that support “troublemaker” Israel.

Confronting Rohani after years of dealing with the coarse and uncouth Ahmadinejad was bound to be a daunting task under any circumstances. Disparaging knee-jerk reactions, such as the one issued on Thursday by the Prime Minister’s Office about the Iranian president’s “fraudulent words” along with the obligatory too-clever-by-half pun about “spinning” the media in order to keep the centrifuges “spinning” wouldn’t have cut it any more, even in the best of times.

And the Syria chemical weapons confrontation may have created the worst of times, in fact, as far as making the case against Iran is concerned.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the deal hashed out between Russia and the U.S. to dispose of Syria’s chemical weapons, events of the past two weeks have diluted the credibility of an American military threat against Iran, a sine qua non, in Netanyahu’s eyes at least, to convincing Tehran to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Obama’s decision to ask for Congressional approval for a military attack against President Assad’s regime achieved the opposite of what the president presumably intended: it solidified public and political opposition to a military attack, especially in cases where there has been no direct attack on American targets or U.S. personnel. The more the issue was discussed, the more the public’s opposition to an attack was cemented in stone. By the time the Russians intervened, America had effectively handed in its badge as the world’s only policeman.

The Syria debate has changed America’s political landscape on war and peace in ways that can’t be quantified before the dust finally settles. The reemergence of a strong anti-war faction on the Democratic Party’s left coupled with a widespread isolationist sentiment in the Republican party – even if it was partly motivated by anti-Obama sentiments – has created a political fait accompli in the form of a strong, bipartisan Congressional anti-war caucus.

When Netanyahu addressed Congress in May 2011 and received scores of standing ovations for his staunch anti-Iranian message, as well as throughout the recent presidential campaign, Democrats were still loyal to their president and Republicans were still the uber-hawkish opposition lambasting the president for not bombing Israel’s enemies to smithereens. Other than John McCain, everything has now changed.

And while Obama may feel indebted to Netanyahu, AIPAC and other Jewish organizations for enlisting in his cause of persuading Congress to support a military strike against Assad, it’s far from certain that the American public feels the same way. Whatever the justification for lobbying on Obama’s side – and there were a number of good reasons, including a direct, can’t-be-refused presidential appeal – the bottom line is that the Administration ultimately bailed and Israel and its supporters were left holding the proverbial bag.

To catapult straightaway from pushing an unpopular proposal to embroil the US in Syria to playing Debbie Downer on Rohani’s encouraging flirtations is a precarious undertaking which could lend credence to hostile claims of Israeli warmongering. It is a fine line that needs to be walked, one that requires less sledgehammer and more finesse, a trait not usually associated with Israeli hasbara efforts.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to overcome is that Americans are in a peace-in-our-time kind of mood, in which they would like to imagine that Vladimir Putin can really turn into a savior and Iran to a constructive mediator, a role that Rohani cleverly volunteered to fill in his Washington Post article.

It’s not so much American naiveté as a willing suspension of disbelief, for the sake of keeping American troops at home, its airplanes on the ground and its Tomahawk missiles in their pressurized canisters.

It’s like that old Tim Hardin song, made famous by Rod Stewart: “If I listened long enough to you, I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true,Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried, Still I look to find a reason to believe.”

Netanyahu, who will come to America after the conclusion of next week’s mating rituals between Rohani and Obama at UN headquarters in New York, should bear in mind that refrain: Americans are looking for a reason to believe, not the other way round.

In the poker game with Obama on Syria, Putin playing the Israel card – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz.

After deal to get rid of Syria’s chemical weapons, Russia is dragging the Israeli nuclear issue into the Middle East negotiations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the final plenary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in the Novgorod Region, Russia. Photo by AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Syria’s chemical weapons cache was built up in response to Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons stockpile, and that these nuclear capabilities make Israel into a target.

“Syrian chemical weapons were built in response to Israel’s nuclear weapons,” Putin said, responding to a question about the chances of persuading Syria to give up its arsenal, as agreed under a deal proposed by the Kremlin last week.

Speaking at the Valdai International Discussion Club in the Novgorod Region, north of Moscow, Putin said there are people in Israel who oppose nuclear weapons. Referring to nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, Putin said Vanunu was not anti-Israel, and that he did not change his stance on nuclear weapons even after years in prison.

Putin said that dismantling weapons of mass destruction was a key issue and that “Israel’s technological superiority means that it doesn’t have to have nuclear weapons.” Israel’s nuclear weapons “only make her into a target,” he said.

In a conversation after the panel, Putin told one of the conference participants that Israel will have to agree to get rid of its nuclear weapons, as Syria was giving up its chemical weapons. The difference between Israel and Russia concerning nuclear arms, he said, was that Russia is one of the five legitimate nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Playing the Israel card

Putin’s statement is a new card in the Russians’ poker game against the Americans vis-à-vis Syria’s chemical weapons, former Israeli ambassador to Russia Eli Magen said. Putin’s statement, he added, followed two similar remarks by senior Kremlin officials in closed conference sessions.

“Russia is dragging the Israeli nuclear issue into the Middle East negotiations,” said Magen, today a senior researcher in the Institute for National Security Studies. “Perhaps this is a turning point in Russia’s approach to Israel. So far Moscow has kept normal relations with Jerusalem.”

But the move may have implications regarding Iran as well. Since Hassan Rohani‘s rise to power, he has been exchanging messages with the West, especially with the United States. If Washington and Tehran start direct negotiations, the Russians will be neutralized in yet another Middle Eastern arena they had been active in, after the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were resumed under American patronage without Moscow’s involvement, he explained.

The Russians, who are also trying to resume dialogue with Iran, are even proposing renewing weapons and military supplies (S-300 air defense missile systems and a new nuclear reactor), Magen said, but added that as of now, it seems that this was not tempting enough for the Iranians. “Perhaps raising the Israeli issue will persuade Tehran to resume their talks with the Russians, since the Americans cannot deliver that,” he said.

However, Vitaly Naumkin, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Chair of Faculty of World Politics, Moscow State University, said Putin did not intend to link Israel’s nuclear weapons to Syria’s chemical weapons.

“Putin said it was preferable for the Middle East to become clean of mass destruction weapons. It’s an old idea Russia has been espousing for years. The Russians see it as the most effective way to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East,” he said.

Naumkin said Putin is not conditioning dismantling Syrian chemical weapons on dismantling Israeli nuclear weapons. “The chemical weapons will be removed from Syria unconditionally,” he said.

As far as the Russians are concerned, the ball is now in the UN Security Council’s court. Moscow says it is interested to assist the UN inspectors, in any way possible, to disarm Syria of chemical weapons. However, Putin’s words left some room for doubt.

“Syria agreed to join the Chemical [Weapons] Convention. Will we be able to accomplish it all? There is no one hundred percent certainty,” he told a crowd of journalists and Russian experts, “But everything we have seen so far in recent days gives us confidence that this will happen … I hope so.” At one of the closed sessions, he sounded even more skeptical: “every effort that will enable us to dismantle,” according to a Kremlin official.

Some experts view these reservations as signs of insincerity on the Russian part. As Magen sees it, for Moscow this is yet another bargaining chip in their attempt to receive a higher return from Washington for disarming Syria. In one scenario, he speculates, Bashar Assad could be left in power, as part of an agreement with the U.S. that would prohibit a military offensive. Another scenario could be something to do with the second Geneva peace conference, where Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his American counterpart John Kerry will discuss ways to end the war in Syria.

The Valdai International Discussion Club is an annual event, held in a different location in Russia every year, in which academics and journalists meet with Russian officials for a series of conferences and forums. The event, organized by the Russian RIA Novosti news agency, provides a unique opportunity to hear the Kremlin’s take on central international events.

Taking part in the forums are some 200 “Russian and international experts on history, politics, economics and international relations” according to the organizers. Marking its tenth anniversary, the event is being held in its inaugural location – a hotel on the shores of Lake Valdayskoye, a favorite vacationing spot for the Russian elites in Soviet times. Despite a décor face-lift, the place still exudes a certain Soviet spirit, for better or for worse.

Moscow considers the event an important venue for promoting the nation’s image, as part of its efforts to portray Russia in a positive light which highlights its complexities. Participants sample the best in Russian cuisine, of course – including a meal served by nuns from the nearby Valday Iversky Monastery, a central site of the Russian-Orthodox Church.

Among the participants are senior Russian opposition members, who are bestowed with a chance to present their views. This year, one of them was Kseniya Sobchak, a TV anchor turned opposition leader. Attending the forums were also senior figures of the Russian church, leaders of the Russian Muslim community and a representative of Russia’s Jewry, who participated in a panel devoted to Russian interreligious dialogue.

‘Garage-manufactured’ chemical ammo

This year, the topic of Syria dominated the conference. Besides Putin, the official Kremlin position was presented in the forum by Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Kremlin’s Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov.

In their dispute with the UN inspectors – and with the West in general – the Russians maintained their position on the culpability for the usage of chemical weapons in Syria. Putin, Assad’s main ally in the more than two-year-old civil war, said he had strong grounds to believe that an August 21 chemical attack in Syria was staged by opponents of the Syrian regime.

“We always talk about the responsibility of the Assad government, if he was the one who used it (a chemical weapon). What if the opposition used it?” Putin said. “We have every reason to believe it was a cunning provocation.”

Russia argues that it has never supplied Syria with ammunition suited for chemical weapons use – and thus the Cyrillic script on shells found to have been used in the August 21 chemical attack in the outskirts of Damascus prove it was carried out using improvised weapons, made, as one official put it, “in garages.” Or as Putin put it, the use of Soviet ammunition could be construed as ”a clever provocation.”

Moreover, Moscow continues to claim ground samples it obtained prove improvised chemical weapons were used by rebels near Aleppo on March 19, adding it is willing to share this evidence. This attack on Kham al-Assal, was at the focus of the UN inspectors’ Syria original mission, before attention was turned toward the large-scale attack near Damascus, for which both the rebels and the Syrian government trade blame.

On a fundamental level, Russia’s policy is an objection to unilateral action in the international arena or one that is not within the framework of international law. As a senior Russian official said, every military action not sanctioned by the UN Security Council or not in self-defense is an act of aggression.

“We see an attempt to violate the principles of international law and create a unipolar world,” said Putin. “Russia is convinced that decisions must be made jointly and not according to the interests of one country. We must understand that there are regions in the world that cannot live according to the same model, whether it is the American model or the European model. They have other traditions.”

The uprising in the Arab world in recent years, he argued, prove his point. “In Egypt we have returned to the starting point. In Libya, they (the West) had noble goals. Now the country is falling apart and everyone is fighting with everyone. Where is the democracy there?”

The founders of the UN had stated that the matters of war and peace should be decided unanimously, Putin noted, and added that if one country would act unilaterally it would undermine international order and the Security Council.

American and Israeli fears

To Israelis, Putin’s statements sound hackneyed. Israel is used to acting in contravention of international law and it views every one of its attacks is viewed as being in self-defense, regardless of the international community’s position.

But for Russia, holding firm on these principles stems from its desire to limit American influence in the world and putting an end to what it sees as arrogance of bringing democracy by force to oppressive countries. Moscow wants to end American military actions across the globe, which are carried out in the name of protecting human rights, but are not supported by Russia.

Russia is reminding that unilateral actions by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya caused in the long run more harm than good. The “Libyan example,” a reference to the disappearance of large quantity of shoulder-fire missiles from Libyan army stockpiles and their transfer into 12 countries, is repeatedly mentioned by senior Russian officials. In their view, there is a clear and direct line heading from what happened in Libya to the events in Syria. When just 25 percent of the rebels in Syria support the West, as they Russians claim, Syrian chemical weapons falling into the rebels’ hands constitutes a threat to the entire world. These warnings speak to both American and Israeli fears.

During his appearance at the conference, Putin mentioned the op-ed piece he wrote that was published in The New York Times. “It was my idea,” he said. “I noticed that [U.S.] President Obama had transferred the discussion over an attack on Syria to the Senate, and I wanted to provide the decision-makers with my position.”

With his characteristic cutting humor, Putin wrote off the response essay written by U.S. Senator John McCain that was published in Russian media and had called Putin a corrupt dictator. “I think that he has a certain deficit of information about our country,” Putin said in reference to the U.S. senator. “He wanted to be published in a newspaper that is most authoritative… Pravda is a respected publication the Communist party, now in the opposition, but the level of its distribution in the country is minimal.”

UN nuclear assembly votes down Arab push targeting Israel | JPost | Israel News.

Israel Says ‘Time’s Up’ for Iran Nuclear Talks – Forward.com.

Netanyahu Aide Says Six Months to A-Bomb

By Reuters

Iran is on course to develop a nuclear bomb within six months and time has run out for further negotiations, a senior Israeli minister said.

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said Iran still believed it had room for manoeuvre in dealing with world powers, and that unless it faced a credible threat of U.S. military action, it would not stop its nuclear activities.

“There is no more time to hold negotiations,” Steinitz, who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in an interview with the Israel Hayom daily published on Friday.

The United States and its allies suspect Iran is working towards a nuclear weapons capability despite Tehran’s insistence that its atomic program has only peaceful aims.

During four years of international negotiations over its disputed nuclear programme, during which U.N.-sponsored sanctions have hit Iran’s economy hard, Steinitz said the Islamic Republic had only improved its capabilities.

“If the Iranians continue to run, in another half a year they will have bomb capability,” he said.

Israel has dismissed overtures to the West by new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and his pledge in an interview on U.S. television that Iran would never develop nuclear weapons.

“One must not be fooled by the Iranian president’s fraudulent words,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Thursday. “The Iranians are spinning in the media so that the centrifuges can keep on spinning.”

Both Israel and the United States have hinted at possible military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran should sanctions and diplomacy fail to curb its atomic programme.

But Steinitz said a phrase used often in the past by U.S. and Israeli leaders – that “all options are on the table” in confronting Iran – was not enough to persuade Tehran to stop its uranium enrichment.

“I am sure that had there been three aircraft carriers with an American declaration that in the event the Iranians do not honour the Security Council decisions, the Americans are expected to attack by 2013, they would have acted differently,” he said.

“Today the Iranians take into account that they have room to manoeuvre, and that is the most dangerous thing,” he said.

Iran says its nuclear work is entirely peaceful and calls Israel’s presumed atomic arsenal the bigger danger to the region.

Steinitz said Netanyahu had learned a lesson from Syria, where the world has stood largely by while over 100,000 people have died in two and a half years of civil war.

“It must be understood that no one will come to help us if, heaven forfend, we lose the ability to defend ourselves. Therefore we must do everything to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Netanyahu is due to meet U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Sept. 30 and has said that he wants to focus on Iran during the talks.

Israel Hayom | The Neo-Soviet man.

Clifford D. May

Israel Hayom | ANALYSIS: Obama may extend his hand to Iran’s Rouhani at UN.

White House says brief meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani during next week’s General Assembly possible • “The extended hand has been there from the moment the president was sworn in,” White House spokesman says.