WarSclerotic

Nuclear talks in jeopardy: Khamenei orders Rev Guards to mass-produce missiles – regardless.

DEBKAfile Special Report May 11, 2014, 7:56 PM (IDT)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw a large spanner in the works of nuclear diplomacy Sunday, May 11. Less than a week before the next round of talks with the six powers, he said: “The Revolutionary Guards should definitely… not be satisfied with the present level [of missile production]. They should mass produce.”

Referring to Western concerns that Iran is designing missiles able to carry nuclear warheads, Khamenei said: “They [the West] expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action. So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation.”

Khameni spoke during a visit to the aeronautics fair organized by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which are responsible for Iran’s missile and nuclear programs.

In recent weeks, Washington, Tehran, Moscow and the International Atomic Energy in Vienna have pumped out a stream of optimistic reports about the progress made in drafting a comprehensive nuclear accord and Tehran’s faithful observance of the interim deal reach last November.

debkafile’s sources, however, persisted in pointing out that this progress was possibly only because the six powers, led by the US, refrained from addressing the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program and its planned production of missiles for carrying nuclear warheads. Therefore, the text of the comprehensive accord, drafted in collaboration with the Iranian team under the guidance of President Hassan Rouhani, left the military aspect of the nuclear program untouched.

Of late, mainly under pressure from Israel, Washington informed Tehran that there was no escape from opening a discussion on ways of restricting the weapons dimensions of its nuclear program and its ballistic missile projects.

Hence Khamenei’s furious comeback – intended to force the Obama administration to give ground on these demands or prepare for nuclear diplomacy to be blown out of the sky.

In the last DEBKA Weekly, published Friday, May 9, exclusive Iranian sources revealed another reason for the supreme leader’s pugnacity. The radical Revolutionary Guards chiefs have made it clear that they will never give up on a nuclear weapon.

The closer the negotiations come to a deal, the nearer Tehran approaches a military coup that would oust President Rouhani and reduce the supreme leader to a figurehead.

Khamenei read the writing on the wall and, finding himself between a rock and a hard place, decided that he had better stand firm on any further concessions – even this meant sacrificing nuclear diplomacy and its rewards.

Khamenei: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards should mass produce missiles | JPost | Israel News.

By REUTERS

05/11/2014 18:14

Supreme leader says Western expectations for Iran to limit its missile program were “stupid and idiotic”.

DUBAI- Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that Western expectations for the Islamic Republic to limit its missile program were “stupid and idiotic”.

The Supreme Leader also called on the country’s Revolutionary Guards to mass-produce missiles.

The United States and its allies have said they are worried about Iran’s missile program as they fear the weapons could carry nuclear warheads. Iran has long denied having any plans to develop atomic weapons.

“They expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action. So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation,” Khamenei was quoted as telling the IRNA news agency while on a visit to an aeronautics fair by the Revolutionary Guards.

“The revolutionary guards should definitely carry out their program and not be satisfied with the present level. They should mass produce. This is a main duty of all military officials,” Khamenei said.

Earlier on Sunday it was revealed that the UN nuclear watchdog plans talks with Iran on Monday ahead of a May 15 deadline for the country to implement a series of measures that could allay concern about its nuclear program.

News of the meeting came after diplomatic sources told Reuters on Friday that the International Atomic Energy Agency was seeking further clarification from Iran about one of those steps, concerning information about detonators that can help set off a nuclear device and Tehran is believed to have developed.

Iran says it has already implemented the seven steps agreed by the two sides – including access to two uranium sites – but the sources suggested the IAEA still wanted more information about the so-called Explosive Bridge Wire (EBW) detonators.

How Iran responds to questions about its development and need of this type of equipment is seen as an important test of its willingness to cooperate fully with an IAEA investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by the country.

Iran says allegations of such work are baseless, but has offered to help clear up the suspicions with the UN agency.

The struggle of memory against forgetting, Israel Hayom, Sharon N. Stern, May 11, 2014

(Islam and Israel are as they do, not as the Obama Administration says. — DM)

[I]t seems the Obama administration has omitted some very prominent facts from memory.

It was only last week that the Palestinian Authority joined together with Hamas to hold a military funeral for the terrorist Izzedine al-Masri, who murdered 15 people at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001 including two Americans: a 15-year-old girl and a 31-year-old pregnant woman. The Palestinian Authority television network described the funeral as a “wedding” to the 72 virgins in Paradise, the great reward Islam promises to those who die as martyrs for Allah.

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
Milan Kundera, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”

A week ago, Israel marked its annual Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism. Traffic stood still across the country when the sirens sounded in memory of the 23,169 soldiers and victims of terror the country has lost since its establishment. The Jewish state rose out of the crematoria of Auschwitz, and like most precious metals, it continues to survive the hottest fires known to man, simply because it must continue to exist.

I look at the photos of the more than 1,500 victims of Palestinian terror murdered since the Oslo Accords were signed, among them at least 53 Americans. Why were the victims of terror murdered? For the same reason that our relatives were murdered in Europe: Simply because they were Jews.

In this context, it saddens me to say that it seems the Obama administration has omitted some very prominent facts from memory.

Last Friday, Yedioth Ahronoth reporter Nahum Barnea interviewed a U.S. State Department official who faulted Israel alone for the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. According to the official, it was the tenders for the construction of 700 housing units on the outskirts of Jerusalem that caused the talks to collapse. Apparently he forgot the express commitment made by former U.S. President George W. Bush to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as it was formulated in a letter written in April 2004, stating that “as part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.”

The areas where the aforementioned 700 housing units were slated to be built are most certainly within these “already existing major Israeli population centers.” This express commitment has apparently been forgotten.

Furthermore, every agreement made with the Palestinian Authority to date has bound the Palestinians to one commitment: to settle every disagreement at the negotiating table rather than by way of incitement to violence or terrorism. That too has apparently been forgotten. Not a day goes by without some Palestinian Authority declaration hailing this or that martyr or honoring various terrorists and suicide bombers, encouraging others to join them in their glorious quest.

It was only last week that the Palestinian Authority joined together with Hamas to hold a military funeral for the terrorist Izzedine al-Masri, who murdered 15 people at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001 including two Americans: a 15-year-old girl and a 31-year-old pregnant woman. The Palestinian Authority television network described the funeral as a “wedding” to the 72 virgins in Paradise, the great reward Islam promises to those who die as martyrs for Allah.

Words can kill. These words and the emotions they represent symbolize something far more destructive to the chances of sustainable peace than a few housing units. However, the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to stop the incitement to terrorism has also been forgotten from the international collective memory. This incitement inevitably ends in death.

We, the Jews, have a very long memory. It was this collective memory that bound us together during those dark days in exile. EMET, the organization I head, and I personally, will not rest until the murderers are finally tried. We are now calling for hearings to examine why no Palestinian who murdered an American citizen in disputed territories has ever been tried, charged or sued.

Boko Haram and the failure of obama’s counter-terrorism strategy, Breitbart, Katie Gorka, May 10, 2014

(The same “blame exogenous contingencies,” not Islam, doctrine seems also to apply to other Islamist movements, including Palestinian terrorists in the “peace process” and Iran in her substantially unimpeded march for nukes. — DM)

During Hillary Clinton’s tenure, the State Department failed to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organization, in spite of the fact that Boko Haram had become second only to the Taliban as the deadliest terrorist organization. Clinton will rightly have to bear blame for that, but the lack of a designation also reflects the much deeper problem of the Obama administration’s overall approach to Islamic extremism. It is an approach that has led to bad policies, not only with regard to Boko Haram, but also to Iran, the Syrian rebels, Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Benghazi.

[T]errorism becomes “a mode of contention,” and terrorists are not to blame for their violence; “exogenous contingencies” are at fault. Sources in the Koran, Islamic jurisprudence, or even contemporary calls to jihad are not to blame. . . .

For the Obama administration, Islamist extremism (except for Al Qaeda) is not a categorical evil which stands opposed to America’s good; it is, rather, an extreme expression—among a range of expressions—of protest against legitimate grievances. Islamic radicals such as Boko Haram are not responsible for their actions; they are forced to radicalism by their circumstances. And it definitely has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, not even a distorted version of Islam.

The heart of the problem is that President Barack Obama and many of his top counter-terrorism advisers see Islamic extremism from the leftist perspective of social movement theory. Originating in the socialist labor movements of the 1800s and revived with the protest movements of the 1960s, social movement theory seeks to understand collective action. Academics concerned with what they saw as the relationship between “cultural imperialism” and “Islamic movements” began looking at Islamist extremism through the lens of social movement theory around 1984. It might have remained an obscure academic pursuit but for the fact that Obama elevated one of its principle proponents, Quintan Wiktorowicz, to the position of Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Staff, where he became an architect of Obama’s counter-extremism strategy.

The singular impact of Wiktorowicz was to shift the focus away from the ideology driving Islamic extremism and to recast it as “Islamic activism.” He argued that Islamist violence is not a function of the call to jihad found in the Qu‘ran or in various contemporary fatwas, but is rather a calculated and rational response to state oppression:

In contrast to popular views of Islamic radicals as fanatics engaged in irrational, deviant, unpredictable violence, we argue that violent contention is the result of tactical considerations informed by the realities of repressive contexts. Islamists engage in a rational calculus about tactical efficacy and choose modes of contention they believe will facilitate objectives or protect their organizational and political gains. Violence is only one of myriad possibilities in repertoires of contention and becomes more likely where regimes attempt to crush Islamic activism through broad repressive measures that leave few alternatives. …From this perspective, violent Islamist contention is produced not by ideational factors or unstable psychological mentalities but rather by exogenous contingencies created through state policy concerning Islamists.

Thus, terrorism becomes “a mode of contention,” and terrorists are not to blame for their violence; “exogenous contingencies” are at fault. Sources in the Koran, Islamic jurisprudence, or even contemporary calls to jihad are not to blame; state policy is. Dr. Mohammed M. Hafez, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who also influenced U.S. policy, echoes this perspective in his book Why Muslims Rebel:

Muslims rebel because of an ill-fated combination of institutional exclusion, on the one hand, and on the other, reactive and indiscriminate repression that threatens the organizational resources and personal lives of Islamists. Exclusionary and repressive political environments force Islamists to undergo a near universal process of radicalization.

Radical Islamists, therefore, bear no personal responsibility for their acts of terrorism or disruption. Rather, they are forced by a political environment that excludes or represses them to undergo an inevitable process of radicalization.

For the Obama administration, Islamist extremism (except for Al Qaeda) is not a categorical evil which stands opposed to America’s good; it is, rather, an extreme expression—among a range of expressions—of protest against legitimate grievances. Islamic radicals such as Boko Haram are not responsible for their actions; they are forced to radicalism by their circumstances. And it definitely has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, not even a distorted version of Islam.

On the very day that the U.S. announced the designation of Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that “Boko Haram’s activities call our attention not just to violence, but also to poverty and inequality in Nigeria.” The State Department’s 2012 report on human rights in Nigeria spends far more time on abuses by Nigeria’s security forces than it does on Boko Haram’s violence. The report states, “The population’s grievances regarding poverty, government and security force corruption, and police impunity and brutality created a fertile ground for recruiting Boko Haram members.” By all accounts, police brutality and incompetence in Nigeria were on an epic scale, but as Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) famously said at a hearing on Boko Haram, to blame terrorism on poverty is a disservice to the millions of poor people across the globe who never turn to violence.

Because of the Muslim-extremist-as-victim meme, the administration generally, and the State Department particularly, have repeatedly portrayed Muslims as the principle victims of groups such as Boko Haram, with Christians only a minor side note. The State Department has repeatedly said that Boko Haram is not religiously motivated and is more destructive to Muslims than to Christians. On the day Boko Haram was designated an FTO, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said that Boko Haram “had killed numerous Christians and an even greater number of Muslims,” in spite of the fact that attacks on Christians represented 46% and on Muslims only 3%, according to Jubilee Campaign.

The argument currently being put forth by the mainstream media is that the United States has been poised and ready to help Nigeria, but that Nigeria has been slow to ask, and that is a message likely coming directly from the White House. Now that the world has woken up to the evil being perpetrated by Boko Haram, President Obama is trying to portray himself as caring deeply about this issue. He told ABC News that he hoped the event would help “to mobilize the entire international community to finally do something against this horrendous organization that’s perpetrated such a terrible crime.” And Michelle Obama tweeted a photo of herself holding a sign that read: “#BringBackOurGirls.”

But members of the Obama administration—from the President himself to his National Security Staff to his Secretary of State and to his undersecretaries and their staffs—have all, until this episode, downplayed Boko Haram’s truly evil nature and prevented steps from being taken much earlier that could have prevented this tragedy, and those 276 abducted girls, instead of being held hostage, could still be sitting at their desks doing their schoolwork.

While social movement theory might provide insights into the formation and operation of Islamic activists, it cannot provide a foundation for American counter-terrorism policy. To do so is both detrimental to U.S. national security and to the security of numerous nations who are in a life-or-death struggle with the threat. The United States must stop the misguided narrative that terrorism and extremism have nothing to do with Islam. As Dr. Sebastian Gorka said in testimony to members of Congress, “We need to bankrupt transnational jihadist terrorism as its most powerful point: its narrative of global religious war.” Until the U.S. begins to acknowledge and address the ideology, we will not be able to challenge its ability to recruit, motivate, and inspire those who would abduct innocent schoolgirls.