WarSclerotic

Obama: I’m Concerned About a Loose Nuke Being Detonated in Manhattan – The Weekly Standard.

(Oh My God. I can’t bear it any longer.
After he threatened Russia with consequences what did Putin do?
That’s right. He gave him the middle finger and went ahead.
What is the clown’s answer?
“Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neigbors, not out of strength, but out weakness.”
I guess if someone detonates a nuke in Manhattan, it will also because that someone is weak.
What is Mr. Hope and Change  doing to prevent Iran from aquiring nukes?
Yep, killing potential sanctions, killing the Tomahawk and Hellfire missile programs and hoping that Putin is a nice boy and that he does not sabotage his negtiations with Iran.
Well, clown in chief, what if Putin because of his ‘weakness’ does exactly that?
It’s unbelievable how much this guy lives in lala land.
– Artaxes)

Romney still wrong about Russia, says Obama.

11:56 AM, Mar 25, 2014 • By DANIEL HALPER

Speaking at a brief news conference in the Hague, President Obama said he’s more worried about a loose nuke being detonated in Manhattan than he is about Russia:
 

“With respect to Mr. Romney’s assertion that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe, the truth of the matter is that America has a whole lot of challenges,” said the president.

“Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neigbors, not out of strength, but out weakness.

“Ukraine has been a country which Russia had enormous influence for decades, since the break-up of the Soviet Union, and we have considerable influence on our neighbors, we generally don’t need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them. The fact that Russia felt compelled to go in militarily and laid bear these violations of internationl law indicates less influence not more.

“So my response then continues to be what I believe today, which is: Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan,” said Obama.

Daniel Halper is online editor of The Weekly Standard and author of the forthcoming book Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.

Report: Former head of al Qaeda’s network in Iran now operates in Syria – The Long War Journal.
By Thomas Joscelyn          March 25, 2014

Muhsin al Fadhli, a senior al Qaeda leader who once headed the organization’s network in Iran, relocated to Syria in mid-2013, according to a report in The Arab Times on March 21. Citing anonymous sources, the publication reports that al Fadhli has joined the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria. He was apparently sent to the country after a dispute broke out between Al Nusrah and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS).

Al Fadhli was one of the trusted operatives who reported back to Ayman al Zawahiri on the dispute, according to the Arab Times, and he influenced al Qaeda’s decision to eventually disown ISIS.

Today, al Fadhli reportedly recruits European Muslims to join the jihad in Syria and “trains them on how to execute terror operations in the western countries, focusing mostly on means of public transportation such as trains and airplanes.”

The Arab Times account does not identify its sources and parts of it do not ring true. For example, al Fadhli’s “four main targets” inside Syria are supposedly Bashar al Assad’s forces, the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front, and ISIS. However, only two of these targets make sense in the current operational environment. The Al Nusrah Front is closely cooperating with the Islamic Front, which is a coalition of several jihadist and Islamist rebel groups, and also works with the Free Syrian Army.

Still, the story makes sense in the context of other known aspects of al Qaeda’s operations.

Al Fadhli became the leader of al Qaeda’s network inside Iran after a senior al Qaeda leader known as Yasin al Suri was detained by Iranian authorities. In July 2011, the US Treasury Department identified al Suri as the head of the network, which it said operates under an agreement between the Iranian regime and al Qaeda. Several months later, in December 2011, the State Department announced a reward of $10 million for information leading to al Suri’s arrest.

This put pressure on the Iranians to shelve al Suri for a time. In February 2012, press reporting indicated that al Fadhli had replaced al Suri as al Qaeda’s chief inside Iran. And in October 2012 the Treasury Department confirmed that al Fadhli had indeed filled in for al Suri.

But earlier this year, the US government announced that al Suri had assumed his leadership role inside Iran once again. In late January, Treasury and State Department officials spoke with Al Jazeera, saying that al Suri was supporting the Al Nusrah Front from Iranian soil despite the fact that Al Nusrah is currently fighting Iran’s ally and proxies in Syria. In early February, the Treasury Department officially confirmed that al Suri has “resumed leadership of al Qaeda’s Iran-based network after being temporarily detained there in late 2011.”

With al Suri back in the game, al Qaeda had the operational freedom to deploy al Fadhli to Syria. Al Qaeda’s senior leaders dispatched trusted operatives to Syria once the dispute between Al Nusrah and ISIS became heated. Therefore, al Fadhli’s reported presence inside Syria makes sense in the context of al Qaeda’s decision to reshuffle its personnel.

The Arab Times report draws from Kuwaiti sources, who have an interest in tracking al Fadhli since he is a native of their country. In 2009, the publication accurately reported that al Fadhli was then living along the Iran-Afghanistan border.

And according to the US government, al Qaeda’s Iran-based network relies on Kuwait-based donors and facilitators, who support the Al Nusrah Front and other parts of al Qaeda’s operations. This provides even more reasons for Kuwaiti authorities to keep close tabs on al Fadhli’s movements.

Connected to high-profile terrorist plots against Western interests

If al Fadhli is indeed inside Syria and training recruits to attack the West, then this is a significant cause for concern among counterterrorism authorities.

Al Fadhli was first designated as a terrorist by the US Treasury Department in 2005. Treasury noted at the time that his dossier was extensive.

Al Fadhli has long been an elite member of al Qaeda. In early September 2001, Treasury explained, he “possibly received forewarning that US interests would be struck.” The Sept. 11 operation was compartmentalized and only select members of the network received advance notice.

The Kuwaiti al Qaeda operative has been tied to the Oct. 6, 2002 attack on the French ship MV Limburg and the Oct. 8, 2002 attack against US Marines stationed on Kuwait’s Faylaka Island. One Marine was killed during the Faylaka Island shootout. He may have also been involved in the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000.

He went on to support Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s operations inside Iraq.

An al Qaeda cell responsible for the 2009 plot against Camp Arifjan, a US military installation in Kuwait, had ties to al Fadhli. That cell was broken up by Kuwaiti authorities before it could launch an attack.

And Egyptian officials have alleged that still another plot, targeting the US Embassy in Cairo and other Western interests, involved al Qaeda’s Iran-based network. The May 2013 plot was tied to a terrorist known as Dawud al Asadi, who had been in contact with the cell responsible in the months beforehand.

Dawud al Asadi is one of the aliases used by Muhsin al Fadhli, but Egyptian officials have not publicly confirmed al Asadi’s real identity. Al Asadi reportedly put members of the cell in contact with Muhammad Jamal al Kashef, a longtime subordinate to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri, as well as with other members of Jamal’s network.

Washington and the Middle East: What in the world is the US playing at? | JPost | Israel News.

03/24/2014 21:45

America is disengaging itself from the Middle East while seemingly encouraging extremist forces. It is a well-known fact that nature abhors a vacuum. What happens next is anybody’s guess.

An unidentified source at the US State Department recently told the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t constitute a danger to the United States, adding that no one has asked Washington to put it on the list of terrorist organizations.

The last part of this statement is probably true, but was it the right moment for such a public declaration when that same organization is engaged in a terrorist war against Egypt – Washington’s long-standing Arab ally in the Middle East? When Cairo has declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization?

This statement looks more like a political gesture than an innocuous piece of information. The Muslim brothers certainly interpreted it as a mark of continued support for their cause. The fact it that since the demonstrations started against Hosni Mubarak in January 2011 Washington has been unfailingly supporting the Brotherhood, and went as far as suspending most of its military assistance to Egypt after the ousting of Mohammed Morsi.

One may well ask what the rationale is behind this policy. Not so long ago the Obama administration was bragging it had killed Osama bin-Laden, America’s archenemy and a devoted follower of such dedicated Muslim Brothers as Abdulla Azzam and Mahmud Qutb. The first, a Palestinian member of the Egyptian MB, was bin-Laden’s teacher and mentor and among the founders of al-Qaida; the second, brother of Sayyed Qutb, taught bin-Laden at King Abd Al Aziz University in Jeddah. Sayyed Qutb’s teachings are considered the fount of ideology that gave rise to radical Islam in the 20th century, with disastrous consequences for the whole world. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik who masterminded the first attack on the world trade center 1993 and is now serving a life sentence in a US prison, was the leader of the Gama’a al-Islamia, an offshoot of the Brotherhood responsible for the Sadat assassination in 1981, and a friend of bin-Laden from their shared fight in Afghanistan. One could go on and on.

For the past 85 years the Brotherhood and the groups it spawned have been spreading terror and mayhem both against fellow Muslims and against the West. Yet the American administration does not hesitate to say publicly that the Brotherhood is not a threat. There are rumors about a number of Arab Americans connected to the Brotherhood allegedly in the White House, the State Department and even the Counter Terrorism Bureau. Lists of names are circulating, but one is loath to believe it could be true.

Egypt is the most conspicuous victim of this bizarre policy. It is in urgent need of some of the military equipment withheld by American administration – such as Apache helicopters and sophisticated monitoring devices – in its fight against the Brotherhood and jihadist terror. Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahami said lately that the US is even delaying the return of a number of Apache helicopters sent for periodical revision.

German customs authorities also recently seized recently a perfectly legitimate shipment of weapons from Poland destined to Egypt consecutive to the embargo on weapons imposed by the European Union. In other words the US and the EU are jointly ostracizing Egypt, the largest Arab country fighting radical Islam. Left with no other option, Egypt turned to Russia for closer cooperation; a major arms deal is being processed. And under the pressure of the war against terrorism Egypt now asks the Russians to hasten the shipment of the Russian combat helicopters.

AMERICAN POLICY has also brought a rift with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, which already feel they have been betrayed after learning that Washington had negotiated behind their back with Iran, their declared enemy, on a compromise regarding its nuclear plans. Challenging Washington, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Kuwait let it be known that they would finance the Egyptian- Russian weapons deal. President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to the kingdom in mid-March for some fence-mending was canceled or at least postponed because of sharp differences with the Gulf countries.

The relations between Saudi Arabia and the US have never been the same since 9/11 when it was discovered that 16 out of the 18 terrorists involved were Saudis. Riyadh tried to make up for it by banning the Brotherhood from the kingdom. Saudi imams have even issued a fatwa forbidding terrorism, including attacks against third countries. This explains why Saudi Arabia applauded the ouster of Morsi; it is also at the heart of its feud with Qatar, a staunch supporter of the Brotherhood. Indeed Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Bahrain lately recalled their ambassadors from Doha and warned the emir to change its policy.

The Middle East has never been a stable region. Its short history since World War I is replete with wars, military coups and massacres. The countries of that region never fully developed their economies in spite of their vast natural resources, and were always leaning on the great powers of England, France, the US or the Soviet Union. The disappearance of England and France as colonial powers and the disintegration of the Soviet Union left America the sole ally of the pragmatic Arab countries facing Iran and al-Qaida. Now even that is fast disappearing. The failed Arab spring made the situation worse and the Middle East is now in shambles. Somalia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen are fast dislocating. Lebanon is tottering on the brink; so is Sudan. Egypt is in crisis.

Only the traditional kingdoms – Gulf countries, Jordan and Morocco – have kept their stability but, for how long? The disintegration of Libya is a disaster since its huge stockpiles of sophisticated weapons have been looted and are now fueling terror in Egypt and other Arab countries. The all-important alliance in the region which kept Iran at bay is no more. Traditional allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries cannot rely any more on America. Extremism and fanaticism are on the rise and the Middle East has become a ticking time-bomb.

It is hard to fathom US policy in the Middle East. However what is beyond dispute is that America is disengaging itself from the Middle East while seemingly encouraging extremist forces. It is a well-known fact that nature abhors a vacuum. What happens next is anybody’s guess.

The author is a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt.

To get at Obama and Kerry, Arab League summit drafts hard-line ultimatums for Israeli-Palestinian peace track, DEBKAfile, March 25, 2014

(U.S. relations in the Middle East continue to deteriorate. Does President Obama have even an inkling about why? — DM)

The radical stance the Arab rulers have adopted on Mid East peacemaking is designed to warn the US president to expect a hard time in his talks with Saudi leaders in Riyadh. A large group of Arab nations – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait – is telling him through the vehicle of a hard line on Mid East peacemaking that they can be just as unyielding on other issues, starting with their vendetta against the Brotherhood.

Arab leaders whose summit begins in Kuwait Tuesday, March 25, are set to carry hard-line ultimatums for the US-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli negotiations as a means of derailing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s stubborn effort for a peace accord, and as a red flag for President Barack Obama three days before he lands in Riyadh..

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report the Arab League summit’s two-day agenda includes a veto on recognizing Israel as the Jewish national state,a resolution that will be binding on all members including Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Another resolution would mandate the proclamation of all parts of East Jerusalem, including Al Quds al Sharif (Temple Mount) and the entire Old City of Jerusalem, the location of the shrines of three faiths, as the capital of a Palestinian state. This is diametrically opposed to US and Israeli positions.

Another ultimatum the Arab leaders propose to issue would halt Jewish settlement on the West Bank and Jerusalem, freeze development and ultimately dismantle all traces of a Jewish presence in a future Palestinian state.

Yet another demand will be for “the immediate release of all the Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails” – by which they mean all Palestinians serving time after being convicted of terrorist crimes, including Israeli Arabs.

The special US envoy for the peace talks, Martin Indyk, spent the past week in a desperate bid to avert the passage of these extreme all-or-nothing demands by the Kuwait summit. He leaned hard on Jordan’s King Abdullah and the Palestinian leader to hold back from voting on these resolutions (which must be unanimous under the Arab League charter). He maintained that their impact would be inevitably to bury yet another Israel-Palestinian peace track.

Indyk’s effort was in vain. He was also disappointed by the pointed lack of support he received from Anne Patterson, Assistant US Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and former ambassador to Cairo, where she became a fervent supporter of an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood – an organization which most Arab League leaders meeting in Kuwait view as a threat to their stability. For Patterson, Indyk is an outsider.

The radical stance the Arab rulers have adopted on Mid East peacemaking is designed to warn the US president to expect a hard time in his talks with Saudi leaders in Riyadh. A large group of Arab nations – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait – is telling him through the vehicle of a hard line on Mid East peacemaking that they can be just as unyielding on other issues, starting with their vendetta against the Brotherhood.

That vendetta tops their agenda, although it is worded as a draft resolution calling for “a collective Arab position in the war on terror.” It was rated as important enough for the conference to choose Egypt’s interim president Adly Mansour to address the opening session of the conference with a speech devoted to the subject of “terrorism.”

And indeed, Sunday, March 23, just ahead of the Arab League summit, an Egyptian court sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood adherents to death for attacking government centers and killing soldiers and police officers.

It is more than likely that the Egyptian strongman, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, will allow the sentences to be executed as a brutal message to the Brothers not to expect any let-up in the war he is pursuing to stamp out their influence.

Another key item on the summit agenda revolves around the same issue. It is the campaign the same group of Arab leaders is waging against Qatar over its support for the Brotherhood. The Saudi, Egyptian, UAE, Bahraini and Kuwaiti governments have recalled their ambassadors from Doha; and Riyadh has threatened Qatar with a military, land and air blockade unless it withdraws this support and shuts down the Al Jazeera TV broadcasting station.

Palestinians Dream of Destroying Israel, Peace Treaty or Not, Gatestone Institute,  Khaled Abu Toameh, March 25, 2014

(Do the rose colored glasses perpetually worn by President Obama, Secretary Kerry et al obscure from view the Palestinians helping PA President Abbas to end the “peace process?” Perhaps it should be renamed: “the terrorism perpetuation process.” — DM)

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry may be able to force Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, under threats and pressure, to sign a “framework agreement” with Israel. But as this week’s rally of hatred in the Gaza Strip shows, even after the signing of a Palestinian-Israeli “peace” treaty, a large number of Palestinians will not abandon there dream of destroying Israel.

“Jihad in Palestine is not terrorism. Jihad in Palestine is a sacred duty.” — Yusef Rizka, representative of Hamas.

A mass rally held in the Gaza Strip on March 23 showed that Hamas continues to enjoy popular support among Palestinians. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to attend the rally commemorating the 10^thanniversary of the assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Hamas officials claim that nearly one million Palestinians attended the rally in the center of Gaza City.

The mass rally supporting Hamas in Gaza, March 23, 2014. (Image source: The Palestinian Information Center)

This means that Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, remains as strong as ever in the Gaza Strip, despite Egypt’s undeclared war against the Palestinian Islamist movement.

The Egyptian war has indeed hurt Hamas, especially in wake of the destruction of hundreds of smuggling tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians, however, as shown by the mass rally, evidently remains unaffected.

Addressing the crowd, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh admitted that the Egyptian war has harmed his movement. “Hamas is going through difficult times,” he said. “We are also facing harsh challenges.”

Haniyeh added that despite Egyptian security measures against his movement and the Gaza Strip, Hamas was not in a state of panic.

At the rally, defiant Hamas leaders repeated threats to pursue terror attacks against Israel. One Hamas official, Fathi Hammad, even expressed optimism that his movement and other Palestinian terror groups would be able to destroy the “Zionist entity in a few years.”

Hamas seems to be hoping, however, that the rally will send a message not only to Israel, but also to the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. The message that Hamas is seeking to relay to Egypt is that, despite the ongoing Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, the movement is not showing any sign of weakness.

As Hamas representative Yusef Rizka explained, “This is a message to those who are trying to undermine Hamas and damage its reputation. We do not meddle in the internal affairs of Arab countries.”

Addressing the Egyptians, who have accused Hamas of involvement in terrorist attacks inside Egypt, Rizka said, “Jihad in Palestine is not terrorism. Jihad in Palestine is a scared duty.”

Still, the strongest message coming out of the rally was directed toward the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas has good reason to be worried in the aftermath of the latest show of force by Hamas. When tens of thousands of Palestinians take to the streets of the Gaza Strip to call for the destruction of Israel and an end to the peace talks between the PA and Israel, it is clear that a large segment of Palestinian society remains opposed to any compromise with Israel.

The pro-Hamas rally is also aimed at sending a message to the U.S. Administration that Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate to sign any document that declares an end to the conflict with Israel.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry may be able to force Abbas, under threats and pressure, to sign a “framework agreement” with Israel. But as this week’s rally of hatred in the Gaza Strip shows, even after the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian “peace” treaty, a large number of Palestinians will not abandon their dream of destroying Israel .

Today we Greeks celebrate our independence day.
On March 17, 1821 the Maniots (the descendants of the Spartans) were the very first to rise up in rebellion and on March 25, 1821 the revolution to liberate Greece from the Ottoman yoke was proclaimed.
Following a bloody war of independence under the motto “Liberty or death”, in 1829 Greece was the first country of the Ottoman Empire to gain its independence.
I always found inspiration in the fact that my people after almost 400 years of oppression finally fought and gained its freedom.
This story is as inspiring as the story of the return of the Jewish people to its homeland after 2000 years of exile.

To all the Greeks out there: Happy independence day.
To all the others: May this day be an inspiration in your struggle for freedom and in the defense of your liberty.

Artaxes

Articles: Putin’s Iran Threat is good for Israel.

Saudi Arabia Moves to Confront Regional Rivals – The Weekly Standard.

Disarray in the Persian Gulf reflects White House Middle East policy.

11:49 AM, Mar 24, 2014 • By HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN

Kuwait City
The Gulf Cooperation Council, consisting of Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and led by Persian Gulf superpower Saudi Arabia, has fallen into disarray. After the Saudis, Emiratis, and Bahrainis withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar two weeks ago, they are planning to turn the heat up further on this GCC spoiler. In addition, they’ve also decided to raise the stakes on Iran by backing forces, like the Yemeni military and the Syrian rebels, squared off against Iranian proxies.

The view here from Kuwait City, which is hosting the 25th Annual Arab summit this week, is that without a turnaround in the White House’s Iran policy, there’s not much anyone can do to change the equation. Kuwait has tried its hand at GCC reconciliation, but the emirate often referred to as “everybody’s friend” has had little success. Saudi Arabia believes it is under existential threat with uprisings across the region threatening the status quo order and Qatar is helping to undermine it. And most dauntingly, Riyadh sees the United States reaching out to Iran for a deal that the Saudis fear will come at their expense.

If Gulf watchers believed that the appointment of 33-year-old Sheikh Tamim Al-Thani to replace his father Hamad as the emir of Qatar last June would moderate Doha’s adventurist foreign policy, those assessments have been proven wrong. Saudi Arabia is furious with Qatar for continuing to fund Islamist groups in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere since the Saudis consider the Islamists a threat to their own rule. Further, Qatar’s infamous Al-Jazeera TV has raised Saudi ire with its bombastic broadcasts and “revolutionary” overtones. Perhaps most dangerously, Qatar had tried to seek its own advantage by playing Saudi Arabia and Iran against each other. In Syria, for example, Qatar has stood with Saudi Arabia by demanding that Bashar al-Assad step down. Yet at the same time, Qatar has sponsored radical Islamists, who in turn have fought the more moderate Saudi-sponsored factions. As the U.S. designation last month of an Iranian al-Qaeda network showed, many of the al-Qaeda elements fighting in Syria have come via Iran, and many Gulf officials believe that their brutality has alienated many Syrians and reinforced the regime’s narrative depicting all rebels as terrorists. 

After several warnings to Qatar, Saudi Arabia was moving to take more aggressive steps against Doha when Kuwait intervened and attempted to mediate. In November, the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah, took Sheikh Tamim Al-Thani to meet the King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud in Riyadh, where the new Qatari emir promised the elder Saudi sovereign that Doha would fall in line behind the GCC leader. 

At first, Kuwaiti efforts bore fruit. In December, Kuwait hosted the annual GCC summit where the Saudis had hoped that the council would announce steps toward GCC unity that would bar the Iranians from encroaching on Gulf affairs. Two of the key concerns were Bahrain, where the Iranians are believed to be sponsoring the violent part of political unrest, and Yemen, where Tehran funds and trains the rebellious Houthis in the north.

Another issue was Oman, which the Obama administration had been using as a back channel to negotiate with Iran. From Riyadh’s perspective, the role that Tehran and the White House had carved out for Oman undermined Gulf unity. Kuwait’s 84-year old sovereign counseled patience and compelled Qatar’s Prince Tamim to keep his promises, which they now believe he has broken. According to sources involved in the Kuwaiti reconciliation effort, UAE’s Vice President Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashed Al-Maktoum is angered that Tamim “lied” to him.

Amidst the internal squabbling, the raging civil war in Syria, the turbulence in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, and Iran’s march toward to nuclear weapons program, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain drew a line in the sand. They decided not only to cut off Qatar but also to confront Iran. The Yemeni army will receive substantial support to beat the Houthis, and so will Syria’s rebels. If the rebels cannot topple Assad, they will at least bog down his forces and strain Iranian resources in an endless war of attrition. Sympathizers with Iran or Hezbollah will lose their high-paying jobs and will be ejected from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 

Kuwait again tried its hand with mediation as it prepared to host the Arab Summit. But this time Saudi leaders told their Kuwaiti counterparts that while they value their friendship, they were not in the mood for reconciliation with Qatar, Oman or Iraq, effectively under Iranian tutelage now thanks to the divisive sectarian policies of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Therefore, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman, who came to Kuwait City in December for the Gulf summit, will likely be skipping the Arab summit. UAE’s Sheikh Mohamed and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Issa, who both participated in December, have already announced their decision not to attend. 

To avoid offending the host country and keep the Kuwaitis from losing face, the Saudis leaked through their official media that Gulf mediation would resume after the summit. However, according to sources here, there will be no rapprochement between the Saudis and the Qataris. Moreover, Riyadh is planning to further escalate against Doha by closing airspace to Qatari overflights and outbidding the Qataris in Syria and Egypt in order to shut down the Islamists—and Qatar’s adventurist regional policy.

It is against this background of internal GCC dissension that Obama will arrive in Riyadh later this week to meet King Abdullah. Sources on both sides explain that Obama will “assure” the Saudis that the alliance between the two countries remains strong, and that the administration is committed to the security of Saudi Arabia against any foreign aggression and that Riyadh should not fear that US-Iranian negotiations will come at Saudi’s expense.

Legendary Marine General James Mattis: Here’s What Happens If Iran Gets A Nuke – Business Insider.

Paul Szoldra
Mar. 20, 2014, 4:51 PM

BERKELEY, Calif. — Responding to questions following a lecture at the University of California-Berkeley on Wednesday, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis said that if Iran eventually builds a nuclear weapon, there would be “bleak options” in response, no matter who happens to be in the White House.

While Israel has long opposed an Iranian nuclear program, touting a “red line” that cannot be crossed, Mattis also offered his opinion of whether Israel would indeed launch an attack.

“Of course that’s the $64,000 question,” Mattis said. ” … Do I think Israel will act in its own best interest? Yes. Will they automatically attack? No, it’ll be a calculated decision if they do.”

If there is a diplomatic agreement reached between the U.S. and Iran, but it does not include limits to the number of nuclear centrifuges and allow U.N. the freedom to inspect the sites, then “we’ve got a problem,” Mattis said.

“To get a deal like that, you’ve got a bad deal, and that’s worse.”

In addition to the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, the former commander of Central Command reasoned that other Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and U.A.E. would build their own nuclear weapons programs in response.

“If the Iranians come away from this with a nuclear program intact, I think there are very bleak options.”

“Americans certainly have no appetite for attack,” Mattis said, then paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s opinion of how the U.S. responds to challenges, “‘[But] once the Americans exhaust all possible alternatives, they’ll do the right thing.”

Although, he said, “Another war in that part of the world would be terrible.”

Cautious about “forecasting” exactly what would occur, the general said that economic sanctions and diplomacy can help avoid a war, “but something’s got to happen.”

EU, UN Blame Settlements, not Palestinian Violence, Commentary Magazine, Tom Wilson, March 24, 2014

The talk of “expanding” settlements gives the sense of more territory being enveloped by Israel. In reality all building in these communities takes place within the existing perimeter boundaries of already established settlements. And the suggestion that creating more homes in these towns in any way prejudges “final status issues” is no less problematic. It has long been understood that the major settlement blocks would be annexed to Israel under any peace agreement.

These international diplomats live in a topsy-turvy version of reality in which homes for Jews are antithetical to peace, while the proliferation of Islamist terror groups in the West Bank are unworthy of comment. Indeed, in his Bloomberg interview President Obama repeatedly described settlements as “aggressive” so as to create the sense that building homes for Jews is comparable with acts of violence.

In recent days both the European Union and the United Nations have issued statements condemning Israel for issuing housing permits to build additional homes in West Bank Jewish communities. Naturally, both statements equated these moves to Israel sabotaging the peace process, a completely dishonest claim that only makes it easier for the Palestinian side to use these moves as the very pretext that they are looking for to flee negotiations. In opposing the building of homes for Jews in communities that under just about any conceivable arrangement would remain part of Israel, these international bodies utterly ignore the most critical threat to peace in the area: the growing levels of Islamist violence in the territories, and the Palestinian Authority’s total neglect of its responsibility to confront this.

Indeed, the same Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), which issued the statement condemning the settlement construction, issued another statement only days earlier criticizing the activities of Israeli security forces operating in the West Bank, calling for investigations of any violations of international law.

In response to the publication of Israeli plans to move ahead with the construction of new housing projects in existing West Bank settlements, the EU’s Catherine Ashton said she was “deeply disappointed by the Israeli plans to expand settlements” and bemoaned how “unilateral action prejudging final status issues threatens the current peace negotiations.” Yet this is simply a misrepresentation of what is actually happening here. The talk of “expanding” settlements gives the sense of more territory being enveloped by Israel. In reality all building in these communities takes place within the existing perimeter boundaries of already established settlements. And the suggestion that creating more homes in these towns in any way prejudges “final status issues” is no less problematic. It has long been understood that the major settlement blocks would be annexed to Israel under any peace agreement.

For those who support the two-state proposal, there is a fundamental question to be answered about why settlements are indeed so problematic for their plan. Two-state plans almost always envisage the settlements either being annexed to Israel or otherwise evacuated. Yet, the need for such arrangements only highlights the fact that just as the Palestinians are refusing to agree to live alongside a Jewish state, they even refuse to live peacefully alongside Jewish neighbors. They have made it very clear that they have absolutely no intention of tolerating a Jewish minority within their state in the same way that Israel has always embraced having an Arab minority within its borders. When Ashton addresses the settlement issue, it seems she does not stop for a moment to ask herself why she is backing the establishment of a Jew-free state.

Even if EU and UN officials genuinely believe that unilateral actions will hurt prospects for an agreement, where are all their statements giving equal condemnation of Palestinian moves? It would seem that they are deaf to what are now almost daily statements coming from president Abbas, declaring his refusal to sign up to the U.S.-sponsored framework and his intention to end the talks and return to pursuing Palestinian statehood unilaterally.

Given that Palestinian schools and broadcast media (in many instances funded by both the EU and the UN) put out a never-ending stream of incitement against Israel, in direct contravention of agreements that the PA is signed up to, wouldn’t you expect to occasionally hear some protest about this from Ashton or the UN’s special Middle East envoy Robert Serry? Instead, both of these figures pave Abbas’s way to fleeing talks by endorsing his narrative that settlement construction warrants just such a reaction.

These international diplomats live in a topsy-turvy version of reality in which homes for Jews are antithetical to peace, while the proliferation of Islamist terror groups in the West Bank are unworthy of comment. Indeed, in his Bloomberg interview President Obama repeatedly described settlements as “aggressive” so as to create the sense that building homes for Jews is comparable with acts of violence. Meanwhile Obama praised Abbas as having rejected violence. In truth Abbas’s PA continues to glorify and honor terrorism, but it also now seems that Abbas has adopted a parallel policy of inaction that only makes the proliferation of terrorism against Israelis more likely.

The growing threat of terror coming from the West Bank has become ever more apparent in recent months. It appears that, under pressure from a Palestinian public supportive of jihadist groups, the PA security forces have simply stopped policing certain neighborhoods of such radicalized cities as Jenin and Nablus. This has obliged the Israeli military to step up its involvement in these areas and over the weekend the IDF was engaged in a firefight in Jenin as they pursued Hamas operative Hamza Abu al-Hija, having already attempted to arrest him back in December. Despite the fact that these measures were necessitated by PA inaction, the Palestinian Authority actually condemned this incursion by Israel.

On Sunday Israeli border police officers were also injured by Palestinian rioters during aviolent flare-up close to the Jewish holy site of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. Meanwhile Palestinians assaulted an Israeli man near a Nablus village after PA police dispersed a group of Israelis visiting the site of the former Jewish community of Homesh. These are the kinds of activities that by their very nature break the peace and yet while Robert Serry apparently chooses to remain silent about the activities of terrorist groups, his office has no such qualms about chastising the Israeli security forces that have to try and deal with this threat.

Ashton accuses Israel of “squandering” opportunities for peace. What word, then, would she use to describe Abbas’s policy of presiding over a government that at once promotes and permits this kind of violence?