Given the difficult, indeed parlous, relationship between many Western states and both Russia and Iran, any collaboration between Moscow and Tehran is an important factor for Western capitals to consider.
While relations between the Iranian revolutionary regime and the Kremlin have often been poor, and sometimes actively hostile, there has been detectable warming in recent years as the Russians and Iranians find themselves on the same side in the bloody wars in Syria and Iraq.
An indication of how cozy things are getting between Moscow and Tehran came this week with a visit to Iran by Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s National Security Council, who met with Iranian counterparts to discuss mutual threats. As Patrushev explained, “Iran has been one of Russia’s key partners in the region and it will remain so in future … [we] have similar and close views on many key regional issues and we had a serious exchange of views on the situation in Syria, Iraq and Libya.”
But this was not just a diplomatic gab fest. In the first place, Patrushev is a career intelligence officer and one of President Vladimir Putin’s closest confidants. A Brezhnev-era counterintelligence officer with the Leningrad KGB, just like Putin, Patrushev served as head of the powerful Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008, leaving that position to take over the National Security Council.
Patrushev has all the hardline anti-Western views one would expect from a devoted Chekist. In a recent interview, he explained that the West, and especially the United States, are behind a comprehensive plot to destroy Russia, using nefarious diplomatic and economic means. Patrushev, stating explicitly that Russia and America are again in a Cold War, blamed Washington, DC, for the wars in Chechnya and Ukraine, adding that, through international economic institutions, the Americans destroyed Yugoslavia and plan to do the same to Russia, citing alleged US/NATO plans for the “dismemberment of our country.”
I’m sure Patrushev and the Iranians therefore saw eye-to-eye on a great many things when they sat down to chat. Of greatest importance is the new intelligence cooperation agreement between Moscow and Tehran that Patrushev nailed down during his visit. The main agenda item is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the countries’ national security councils, which was signed this week. This is the vehicle for increased intelligence sharing between Russia and Iran and, while it will focus heavily on issues of mutual concern in the Middle East and Central Asia, Russian media reports make clear that this is the beginning of a strategic intelligence partnership.
Although Russian and Iranian intelligence, once bitter enemies, signed a limited MOU back in 2001 focusing on counterterrorism, that led to little actual cooperation. The wars in Syria and Iraq, however, have changed things. Last year, the two interior ministries agree to cooperate on police intelligence matters. Now, however, a full intelligence alliance has been agreed to. As a Russian report on Patrushev’s visit explained:
The events in Syria and Iraq, where contacts between the Russian and Iranian special services have not only been resumed but have also proven their mutually advantageous nature, particularly in assessing the threats and plans of local bandit formations, both “secular” and Islamist, with respect to Russian facilities in Tartus in Syria, have impelled Moscow and Tehran to the idea of the need to formalize these contacts in the shape of a permanently operating mechanism. Russian special services also valued the volume of information, voluntarily conveyed by Iran to our specialists, on the potential activity of the Israeli Air Force against the Russian humanitarian convoys to Syria in the period of the sharp aggravation of the situation in that country in the summer of last year.
Let there be no doubt that this new espionage alliance is aimed directly at the United States and Israel. As the report added, “the Iranians are prepared to provide Russia on a permanent basis with information on American military activity in the Persian Gulf obtained from their own technical intelligence facilities” — in other words, the Russians and Iranians will be sharing SIGINT, the most sensitive of all forms of intelligence gathering.
Relations between Putin’s Russia and revolutionary Iran have been warming up in recent years on all fronts — diplomatic, economic, and military — and now there’s an important intelligence dimension too. Given the power and long reach of the intelligence services of both Iran and Russia, this is a development that should cause serious concern in Western capitals as well as many in the Middle East.
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns.
Although the definition references “abnormal mental or behavioral patterns” [emphasis added], the behaviors here involved have become increasingly “normal.” Multicultural linguistics are part, but only part, of the problem.
Insane responses to Iran nukes, terrorism support and human rights
As the P5+1 negotiations continue under Obama’s guidance, Iran appears increasingly likely to get or keep nukes. Iran knows Obama.
The Iranian president’s senior advisor has called President Barack Obama “the weakest of U.S. presidents” and described the U.S. leader’s tenure in office as “humiliating,” according to a translation of the highly candid comments provided to the Free Beacon. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
And with the deadline quickly approaching on talks between the U.S. and Iran over its contested nuclear program, Younesi’s denigrating views of Obama could be a sign that the regime in Tehran has no intent of conceding to America’s demands.
. . . .
“Americans witnessed their greatest defeats in Obama’s era: Terrorism expanded, [the] U.S. had huge defeats under Obama [and] that is why they want to compromise with Iran,” Younesi said.
. . . .
“We [the Islamic Republic] have to use this opportunity [of Democrats being in power in the U.S.], because if this opportunity is lost, in future we may not have such an opportunity again,” Younesi said. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
The criticism of Obama echoes comments made recently by other world leaders and even former members of the president’s own staff, such as Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Do enough of us, and of perhaps greater importance enough of our “leaders,” know Him as well as Iran does?
The P5+1 negotiations were a scam from the beginning and the scam continues, enhanced by perceived needs to work with the (Shiite) Islamic Republic of Iran to degrade the Sunni (but “non-Islamic”) Islamic State and otherwise to “degrade” terrorism.
The Iranian government is well known for its funding of terrorism. The U. S. Government has long been well aware of it.
The United States State Department describes Iran as an “active state sponsor of terrorism.”[2]US Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice elaborated stating, “Iran has been the country that has been in many ways a kind of central banker for terrorism in important regions like Lebanon through Hezbollah in the Middle East, in the Palestinian Territories, and we have deep concerns about what Iran is doing in the south of Iraq.”[1]
So is the Obama Administration.
In July 2012, the United States State Department released a report on terrorism around the world in 2011. The report states that “Iran remained an active state sponsor of terrorism in 2011 and increased its terrorist-related activity” and that “Iran also continued to provide financial, material, and logistical support for terrorist and militant groups throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.” The report states that Iran has continued to provide “lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to Iraqi Shia militant groups targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as civilians,” despite pledging to support the stabilization of Iraq, and that the Qods Force provided training to the Taliban in Afghanistan on “small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons, such as mortars, artillery, and rockets.” The report further states that Iran has provided weapons and training to the Assad regime in Syria which has launched a brutal crackdown on Syrian rebels, as well as providing weapons, training, and funding to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, among others, and has assisted in rearming Hizballah. [Emphasis added.]
Iran is also remarkable for its failure to provide even minimal human rights. For example, it has been reported that Iran executed more than four hundred people during the first half of 2014. That’s more than two per day.
Despite Iran’s state anti-Semitism, the recent arrest of U.S. journalists, and the continued oppression of women, the Obama administration has been attempting a rapprochement with the Iranian regime. Fending off Iran hawks in Congress and the D.C. punditocracy, the administration has argued for a policy of constructive engagement, pursuing diplomacy over military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The execution of two gay men, while it may not be surprising, certainly doesn’t make that “engagement” any easier.
Iran’s cooperation also is seen as essential to managing the chaos in Iraq and the Islamic State. With U.S. airstrikes against the Sunni militants, on-off (now definitely off) support of Iraq’s Shiite (ex-) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the possible disintegration of Iraq, this cooperation—or at least not overt opposition—is surely of more strategic importance than the latest human rights abuse. [Emphasis added.]
Iran’s support for terrorism, abysmal violation of even the most basic human rights — and what these Iranian characteristics suggest that Iran is likely to do with its nukes — appear to be deemed of no importance by the P5+1 negotiators.
Domestic terrorism
Terrorism is often labeled “workplace violence,” a “traffic accident“ or just about anything but Islamic. This is from Jihad Watch:
A traffic incident in Jerusalem. Another traffic incident in Canada just a few days ago. Odd coincidence: both drivers were devout Muslims who killed Infidels “in the name of Allah” (as the Canadian bad driver put it). Meanwhile, also in Canada, a mentally ill man shoots up the Parliament building and murders a soldier. And in New York City, a man wielding a hatchet injures several police officers. Another odd coincidence: both the Canadian mentally ill man and the New York hatchet-wielder were also devout Muslims. The father of the former waged jihad in Libya, and the latter called for armed revolt in the U.S. But you must put all of these odd coincidences out of your mind right now. We know that none of this can have anything to do with Islam, and that greasy Islamophobes are the only ones who think otherwise.
“Memo from US Consulate refers to Jerusalem terror attack as ‘traffic incident,’” by Itamar Eichner, Ynet News, October 24, 2014 (thanks to Hamish):
Hours after a Palestinian terrorist drove his car into a crowd waiting at a light rail station in Jerusalem, the US consulate in the city issued a memo referring to the attack as a “traffic incident”.
A three-month-old baby was killed and seven other people were wounded when Abdel Rahman a-Shaludi drove his car across incoming traffic to strike the people waiting at the station. The baby girl, Chaya Zissel Braun, had American citizenship.
The memo was sent to employees of the American consulate, which is based in East Jerusalem. It asks staff to report “any emergency.”
AnneinPT (Israel) provides an actual Associated Press news headline about the “traffic accident.” “Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem.”
Here’s how the AP, consistently with its customary reporting on things Israeli, might treat Palestinian rockets thwarted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system: “Palestinian rockets damaged beyond repair by Israeli counter-measures.”
“Lone wolf” Islamic terrorists are exceedingly rare.
[N]umerous examples show that terrorist actors are almost always part of a network who were involved in recruiting and tasking terrorist activity. As Max Abrahms at Northeastern University has observed:
Since the advent of international terrorism in 1970, none of the 40 most lethal terrorist attacks has been committed by a person unaffiliated with some terrorist group, according to publicly available data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which is funded by the Department of Homeland Security and stored at the University of Maryland. In fact, lone wolves have carried out just two of the 1,900 most deadly terrorist incidents over the last four decades.
So why “lone wolf”? Simply, it was a mechanism promulgated by the CVE [countering violent extremism] industry, with willing cooperation from law enforcement and intelligence officials, to exonerate themselves when a terrorist attack happened. At its core is terror agnosticism: “There is possibly no way to predict who will turn to terrorism, so therefore we can’t be held responsible when it happens. Oh, and give us more money so we can better improve how we won’t be able to predict terror attacks.” [Insert added.]
It’s Islamic terrorism all the way down:
Yet there has been great reluctance to associate terrorist attacks with the “religion of peace.” Here are examples of media and official reactions to the recent terrorist attacks in Canada: “CBC’s Derek Stoffel tweeted: ‘Amid the speculation in the #OttawaShooting in #Canada, it’s important to remember #ISIS hasn’t shown interest in attacks abroad.’” However,
Stoffel should have known that in late September, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, urged Muslims to murder non-Muslims in the West. “Rely upon Allah,” he thundered, “and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict.
“The hard-Left Vox reacted to the revelation that Zehaf-Bibeau was a Muslim by dismissing the fact as irrelevant.”
Not to be outdone in multicultural empathy,
In the wake of the shootings in Ottawa, the police chiefs of Toronto and Ottawa wrote to local Muslim leaders, assuring them of their good will and urging Muslims to contact them in case of a “backlash.” These politically correct cops appear to have learned their lesson well: after every jihad attack, Muslims are the victims, and need special reassurances.
Eventually, the Canadian terrorist attacks were labeled “terrorism.” Even the White House called them “despicable terrorist attacks,” without mentioning the words “Islam” or “Islamist.”
In 2008 we the people elected Obama as “our” President. We did it again in 2012. He was viewed by many as the one for whom they had been waiting.
He was seen as the “God of all things.”
Fortunately, some seem to be recovering from their dementia.
However, all too many are still infected with insanity and continue to be contagious. Here’s a video of James O’Keefe talking with college students about vote fraud:
Vote fraud is apparently good when done for a “good” purpose.
When Obama spoke about Democrats running for reelection appearing to desert but really supporting him, he said
“So this isn’t about my feelings being hurt. These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me. And I tell them, I said, ‘You know what, you do what you need to win. I will be responsible for making sure that our voters turn out.'” [Emphasis added.]
He may not have intended to encourage voter fraud, but “you do what you need to win” may well have been taken seriously by Obamabots. It has, as a minimum, an unpleasant odor.
How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin. It is also possible that non-citizen votes were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina. Obama won the state by 14,177 votes, so a turnout by 5.1 percent of North Carolina’s adult non-citizens would have provided this victory margin.
. . . .
We also find that one of the favorite policies advocated by conservatives to prevent voter fraud appears strikingly ineffective. Nearly three quarters of the non-citizens who indicated they were asked to provide photo identification at the polls claimed to have subsequently voted. [Emphasis added.]
With early voting starting Thursday, North Carolina’s election board found 154 ineligible voters on its poll lists — and officials are examining thousands more questionable registrations.
The State Board of Elections said late Tuesday that more than 9,000 additional voters’ names are being checked for legal status. They do not expect to finish checking before early voting starts Thursday.
It’s necessary for Republicans to win outside the “margin of fraud,” and there have already been signs of voter fraud. In Arizona,
A Republican party official in the largest county in Arizona says surveillance tape shows a progressive Hispanic activist blatantly and openly engaging in vote fraud.
. . . .
Between 12:54 and 1:04, LaFaro said, he observed a man wearing a “Citizens for a Better Arizona” T-shirt loudly drop a box containing hundreds of early-voting ballots on a table.
Citizens for a Better Arizona is a progressive group.
The man then began “stuffing the ballot box,” LaFaro said. “I watched in amazement.”
In Chicago, Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan’s votes for Republican candidates, including for himself, were registered as having been cast for Democrats. He noticed the problem before pulling the ultimate lever and it was determined that the machine had been “improperly calibrated.” There is no indication in the linked article whether other machines were also “improperly calibrated” or whether any of them were examined to find out. Obviously, voters need to check for whom the machines say they have voted before pulling the lever. How many will bother to do so?
Since voter fraud may be insufficient, President Obama has diligently prevented voters from understanding what He intends to do about immigration soon after the election. Jonathan Turley, Esq., a “liberal” in the old fashioned sense rather than a leftist, wrote this about Obama’s refusal to disclose or even discuss His post-election plans for immigration “reform.”
[Y]esterday [October 23d] White House CBS reporter Major Garrett broke from the mainstream pack and pressed White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on a report that the Administration has order material for a “surge” of immigration IDs of up to 9 million in one year. Ernest called the questions “crazy” and encouraged everyone not to speculate . . . before the election obviously. [Emphasis added.]
[T]his Administration is openly withholding any information in its plans for unilateral presidential action despite the President’s pledge to take action after the election and before the New Year — only a matter of weeks. It is a cynical decision to prevent voters from being fully informed of the plans in a major policy area. Regardless of how one feels about immigration policies, it should be condemned by people across the political spectrum. [Emphasis added.]
More importantly, the media has to show some independence from the White House in this and other stories. Garrett is one of the few such reporters to press the point. His extraordinary exchange however was not covered by the mainstream press and, once again, the stonewalling on the issue was again dropped. I expect given the record of the White House corp, such questioning from Garrett does seem “crazy.” After all, disclosure of such plans might harm the White House in the upcoming election and only a “crazy” reporter would pursue such a story. [Emphasis added.]
Get your excuses for not voting prepared if you like the status quo:
If you don’t like the status quo, vote and remind your friends to do so as well.
Conclusions
From the P5+1 negotiations with Iran and the failure of our “leaders” even to pause on their path to Iranian nukes due to Iran’s abysmal human rights record, its support for terrorism and the dangers Iran already poses for what’s left of the free and democratic world — and will pose in even greater measure with nukes — to rampant antisemitism to Islamic attacks on and persecution of Christians qua Christians, to domestic Islamic terrorism to voting fraud, far too many are either insane or extraordinarily devious. Those who appear to be insane either do not recognize the nature of our enemies or do not care. Some are perhaps complicit.
As this insidious form of insanity spreads we seem to have no antidote more powerful than reason and common sense, both increasingly rare. Will our enemies have to provide a more effective antidote in the form of an attack on the United States so severe, clear and obvious that insanity can no longer be ignored even by our lunatics?
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon (right) met with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon Tuesday. (Shawn Thew/EPA)
October 24
Lally Weymouth is a senior associate editor at The Washington Post.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, known as a hawk, heightened U.S.-Israeli tensions earlier this year by criticizing John Kerry, saying the U.S. secretary of state had a “misplaced obsession and messianic fervor” about the peace process. On a trip to the United States this past week during which he met with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Yaalon spoke with The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth about the threat he sees from Iran, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Excerpts:
Q. You caused quite a stir with your remarks about Secretary Kerry.
A. We overcame that.
Secretary Kerry recently said the lack of resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is leading to street anger and recruitment for the Islamic State. What is your response?
Unfortunately, we find the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dominated by too many misconceptions. We don’t find any linkage between the uprising in Tunisia, the revolution in Egypt, the sectarian conflict in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mainly, these come from the Sunni-Shia conflict, without any connection to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The core of the conflict is their reluctance to recognize our right to exist as a nation state of the Jewish people — whether it is [Palestinian Authority President] Abu Mazen or his predecessor [Yasser] Arafat. There are many who believe that just having some territorial concessions will conclude it. But I don’t think this is right.
Will territorial concessions bring peace?
No, they would be another stage of the Palestinian conflict, as we experienced in the Gaza Strip. We disengaged from the Gaza Strip to address their territorial grievances. They went on attacking us. The conflict is about the existence of the Jewish state and not about the creation of the Palestinian one. Any territory that was delivered to them after Oslo became a safe haven for terrorists.
Bearing that in mind, to conclude that after the [recent] military operation in Gaza this is a time for another withdrawal from Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is irrational. If we withdraw now from Judea and Samaria, we might face another Hamastan.
So you think Hamas would take over the West Bank?
Sure. We just recently intercepted a terror network in the area of Ramallah. We arrested 96 Hamas terrorists.
They were supposed to be staging a coup to overthrow Abu Mazen?
Yes. They were operated and recruited by Saleh al-Arouri from Istanbul. We saved Abu Mazen from them overthrowing him. It might have become a Hamas-governed entity with Iranian arms.
Last summer, you and Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu decided to limit the operation in Gaza — not to reoccupy Gaza.
Yes.
Was that the right decision?
Absolutely. It was the right decision. From the very beginning, we understood it might be a tremendous mistake to send our troops to take over and occupy the Gaza Strip. That’s why we decided to avoid it and to direct our military operation toward the endgame, which was the Egyptian initiative [a cease-fire with no preconditions].
Why did the operation take 51 days?
Hamas is not marginal. It is a well-equipped militia and has 10,000 rockets, and the know-how and indigenous capabilities to produce rockets [which they got] from Iran. This is not just a terror organization.
How do you see the threat from ISIS?
ISIS is a new phenomenon, originating from al-Qaeda. This is not a threat for us. This is a threat to the free world as they actually claim to [want to] defeat all those who are not ready to follow their religious, Islamic way — whether they are Muslims, Christians, Kurds, Alawites, Shias or Jews. The idea to confront them by creating a coalition is an awakening. . . . Hopefully the coalition led by the United States will contain them.
Kobane [a Syrian town near the Turkish border] is about to fall. The ground forces seem to be weak.
I hope it is not too late to deal with it. Air superiority is very important.
It is important, but is it enough?
It is not enough. Don’t misunderstand me — I don’t recommend Western troops to be deployed. But the troops on the ground, whether they are Kurds, Iraqi armed forces or Syrian militias that are not extremists, should be supported by the West in order to be able to defeat ISIS.
Is it too late in Syria?
It is never too late. Syria is a microcosm of the region. What we see now is fragmentation, the collapse of the nation-state.
So you see a breakup in Syria?
Yes. We have Alawistan — an Alawite enclave led by President Bashar al-Assad, who controls 25 percent of the Syrian territory. We have Syrian Kurdistan in the northeastern part [of the country]. We have many Sunni enclaves. But the Sunnis are divided — we have Muslim Brotherhood Sunnis, we have ISIS, we have Jabhat al-Nusra. We have the Free Syrian Army, which we believe should be supported.
What is Israel’s strategy in Syria?
We don’t want to be involved. We enjoy a relatively calm situation on the border of the Golan Heights. They understand that if they violate our sovereignty, we immediately respond.
How are you going to ensure that in rebuilding Gaza, Hamas does not build more tunnels?
We believe there is the potential to keep a calm situation along the border with Gaza [since] Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad paid a heavy price [in] our military operation last summer. We understand there is a problem in Gaza — an economic problem, the need for reconstruction.
Part of our interest is to pave the way for the Palestinian Authority to get into the Gaza Strip. I’m not sure Abu Mazen is ready to take responsibility.
Right now doesn’t the Palestinian Authority have responsibility only for the crossings?
Not yet. But the opening of the Rafah crossing point is conditioned on the deployment of the Palestinian Authority troops. We proposed for them to be deployed on the Palestinian side of our crossing points as well.
Do you believe in a two-state solution?
You can call it the new Palestinian empire. We don’t want to govern them, but it is not going to be a regular state for many reasons.
What does that mean — the Palestinian empire?
Autonomy. It is going to be demilitarized.
In Gaza and the West Bank?
It is up to them. According to the agreement, they should be demilitarized. It is up to Abu Mazen if he is able or if he wants to demilitarize Gaza. Otherwise, we are not going to talk about any final settlement.
Is Abu Mazen the best Palestinian leader you’re going to get?
I don’t know, but he is not a partner for the two-state solution. He doesn’t recognize the existence of the Jewish state.
He says he is against violence.
Fine. But this is a tactical consideration. He believes he might get more by what he calls “political resistance” — going to the United Nations or to international bodies to delegitimize us. He prefers it to violence because in his experience, terror doesn’t pay off.
Is that why you said Secretary Kerry should just get a Nobel Prize and go home? Do you think the West just doesn’t get it?
I spoke about misconceptions. It is a misunderstanding, without naming anyone. It might be naivete or wishful thinking — ‘We the Westerners know what is good for the Arabs.’ To believe that you can have democratization with elections . . . it is collapsing in front of us. And part of it is ignorance, yes.
Israeli-U.S. relations are in terrible shape. Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama had a bad meeting this month. During the Gaza operation, for the first time, missile shipments didn’t go through automatically.
The issue of Hellfire missiles has been solved. It was a bureaucratic issue.
It doesn’t look like an unbreakable bond if, in the middle of a war, the administration decides to review what has always been military-to-military arms transfers.
I can tell you that between the Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces there is an unbreakable bond.
What about the politicians?
We have disputes.
It seems to be a deep dispute.
With all the disputes, the United States is Israel’s strategic ally.
The Nov. 24 deadline for an Iranian nuclear agreement is approaching. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that no deal is better than a bad deal. What do you hope comes out of these talks?
We are concerned about the potential deal. Because the framework of this deal is about how many centrifuges should this regime have. Why should they have the indigenous capability to enrich uranium? If they need it for civilian purposes, they can get enriched uranium from the United States or from Russia. Why do they insist on having the indigenous capability? Because they still have the aspiration to have a nuclear bomb.
With a bad deal — saying, ‘We will keep this regime from having a bomb for a year or year and a half’ — what does that mean? What about the missile delivery systems, which are not discussed? Why should they have missiles ready to adopt nuclear warheads?
And they do?
Yes, hundreds of them. And what about their being a rogue regime instigating terror all over the Middle East and beyond? They are not involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Yemen to serve American interests. This is not discussed. By rehabilitating the economy, they might feel confident to go on with these rogue activities, and at a certain point decide to break out from the deal and to have a bomb. That’s why our prime minister said that no deal is better than a bad deal.
And you agree with him?
Of course. In a deal they are going to get rid of any pressure. In the end, we should be able to defend ourselves by ourselves.
Does that mean Israel alone would consider using a military option?
It’s enough to say we should be ready to defend ourselves by ourselves.
As long as Benjamin Netanyahu wants to run for office, will you not run for prime minister?
As long as he is going the right way, why should I challenge him?
Do you intend to run for prime minister one day?
I don’t know. If the people of Israel want me, I will have to consider it.
US President Barack Obama, right, speaks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a bilateral meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, October 1, 2014 (photo credit: AFP/ Jim WATSON)
WASHINGTON — Ask anyone on the record in Washington, and they’ll tell you there is no crisis. During his visit here this week, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said as much – even while he was snubbed by Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden.
Lobbyists say it when they’re asked about the slow resupply of Israel with arms during and following the war in Gaza over the summer.
Earlier this month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama were at pains to show their friendliness – literally hours before the administration issued an unusually harsh condemnation of Israeli building plans in a contested Jerusalem neighborhood.
You’d think the special friendship was as ironclad as ever, and it’s business as usual. Only it isn’t.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid called a crisis a crisis this week, and although he may have done so largely as a jibe at his own coalition partners, the simple fact remains: ties between Jerusalem and Washington are at a nadir. Hardly a week – and certainly not a month – goes by without insults and recriminations. Diplomatic snubs, critical press secretaries, censorious ministers, and tension-spurring tweets have all conspired to create an atmosphere that is unmistakable – at least in Washington.
If Netanyahu truly thinks that he and Obama are like “an old couple,” as he stated when he was last here a month ago, perhaps the most apt comparison would be to one of those couples that, after weathering 50 rocky years of quarrels, is now fantasizing about divorce. Israel and the US can no longer be mistaken for one big, happy family.
On Iran, for instance, the president and the prime minister are the couple who talk to each other but don’t necessarily listen. An Iran deal is simmering on the stove, and so far, the US has been impervious to Israel’s demands that any comprehensive agreement ensure an enrichment-free Iranian nuclear program. The US’s top nuclear negotiator, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, took the time this week to pillory in a speech those who do not want a nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic. Yes, the administration has been consulting with Israel; no, it does not seem to be interested in Israel’s big message.
The past few weeks have been characteristic of the recent period in the relationship, with an endless back-and-forth of snipes and barbs. Ten days ago, Kerry spoke at a festive dinner and said that leaders in the Middle East had expressed concern that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “was a cause of recruitment” — for groups like the Islamic State — “and of street anger and agitation.”
Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett promptly played the anti-Semitism card in response to the perceived affront, complaining that “even when a British Muslim decapitates a British Christian, there will always be someone to blame the Jew. There is no justifying terror, only fighting it. To say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is strengthening the Islamic State is encouraging global terror.”
Gilad Erdan, the communications minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet, also jumped into the fray, saying that “Kerry is breaking records for a lack of understanding of what is going on in our region.”
Former peace negotiator Martin Indyk fired back a tweet: “There they go again: Israeli rightist ministers attack Kerry for wanting Israeli-Palestinian peace to help fight IS.”
You know things are going badly when it is the often-acerbic Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman who sounds the voice of calm, talking up the many virtues of the relationship with the US.
For a few days, things seemed to be back on track. Ya’alon came to Washington sounding uncharacteristically conciliatory, but was denied requests to meet with a number of officials. And on Friday, the Washington Post published an interview with the minister, who implied that the United States was way out of its depth in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, with sensitivities running high, the State Department dragged its legs before acknowledging that a baby killed in a Jerusalem terror attack on Wednesday was a US citizen; then, much to the consternation of pro-Israel commentators, it wasted little time in announcing that Israeli security forces had shot and killed a Palestinian-American youth who was throwing Molotov cocktails.
The State Department soft-pedaled questions as to why Washington did not call on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn Wednesday’s terror attack, but did quickly express its “condolences to the family” of the teenager killed by security forces and called for Israel to conduct “a speedy and transparent investigation” into the incident.
And that wasn’t even close to being the most strident US criticism of Israeli actions in recent months. During the war in Gaza, the State Department deplored the reported Israeli shelling of an UNRWA school as “appalling” and “disgraceful.”
And yet almost everyone but Lapid is reiterating that everything is more or less fine, as if repeating it, like a soothing mantra, will make it so.
Still, it’s important to bear in mind that this isn’t the first time relations have hit the skids in a big way. Under president George H. W. Bush, $10 billion in loan guarantees were held up by Washington in protest of prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s settlement policy. Then, as now, leaders on both sides stressed the strength of the historical friendship between the two states.
During George W. Bush’s second term, relations also took a turn for the worse – in spite of some very friendly rhetoric – following the Second Lebanon War, when the administration delayed transferring weapons requested by Israel to replenish stockpiles, including the Joint Direct Attack Munition, which turns unguided munitions into “smart bombs.” During that dust-up, the US went so far as to block military contractor Northrop Grummond from revealing details on US-made missile defense technology that Israel hoped to purchase, effectively suspending the deal altogether. An Israeli military delegation’s trip to the US was canceled as media reported that relations had hit an all-time low for the Bush administration.
Then, as now, both sides appeared to share a vested interest in publicly downplaying the rift. Indeed, the amiable rhetoric averted a larger crisis. But can this latest crisis have a similar outcome?
During the current rough patch, a number of factors have come into play. Kerry has taken the failure to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, and all of the rhetoric surrounding it, personally, and the Obama administration has certainly signaled repeatedly that it is unhappy with the vocal right flank of Netanyahu’s coalition. On the other hand, Democrats are particularly concerned about the possibility of losing the Senate in the upcoming November elections, and are not particularly eager to see the administration do anything that could alienate even a single voter in a number of key states. Meanwhile, support for Israel on Capitol Hill is as emphatic as ever, and a number of representatives have signaled their willingness to go head-to-head with the administration over its policies in the Middle East.
In the meantime, Israel also has to play nice. There is simply too much riding on the friendship in the near future – the Iranian nuclear deal, Washington’s support of Israel in UN forums where Abbas is trying to score easy goals – to risk calling a crisis a crisis.
Will Lapid’s very public acknowledgment of the truth make the situation any different? That is unlikely, given his own very clear, and very internal, political motivations. With no resolution in sight, the “old couple” seems set to continue to bicker behind closed doors, and while the president and the prime minister may try to keep their voices down, it will remain patently clear to anyone standing outside that there’s deep trouble in paradise.
“No other army praises Hashem in the middle of a battle like this! May Hashem always protect our men and women risking their lives fighting to protect our land and people! Am Yisrael Chai!!!”
The song they are singing is titled, “THE ONE WHO BELIEVES.”
(Translated lyrics)
Every place, all the time
The old and young has
Beautiful and less beautiful days
Among them answers to all the questions
There is one mighty God
He gives us everything in this world
Between darkness to a sun beam
We only need to choose the path
It is known life is a gift
All is expected and is allowed
The one who believes is not afraid
To lose faith
We all have the King of the universe
Who guards us from it all
This nation is a family
One and one more is the secret of success
The nation of Israel will never give up
We will always stay on the map
It is known life is a gift
All is expected and is allowed
The one who believes is not afraid
To lose faith
We all have the King of the universe
Who guards us from it all
בכל מקום, כל הזמן
יש לכולנו מגדול ועד קטן
ימים יפים, וגם פחות
ובניהם תשובה לכל השאלות
יש אלוהים אחד גדול
הוא בעולם הזה נותן לנו הכל
בין אפלה לקרן אור
את הנתיב אנחנו רק צריכים לבחור
וזה ידוע החיים הם מתנה
הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה
מי שמאמין לא מפחד
את האמונה לאבד
ולנו יש את מלך העולם
והוא שומר אותנו מכולם
העם הזה הוא משפחה
אחד ועוד אחד זה סוד ההצלחה
עם ישראל לא יוותר
תמיד על המפה אנחנו נשאר
(The Islamic problem cannot easily be resolved and to disparage the “religion of peace” would be wickedly un-multicultural. Yet there is a need to attack someone and/or something. Israel and the demon “climate change” are the easiest available targets. — DM)
Are we not passing through a very momentous period of history: with signs of the political decline and social decadence of Europe and the West, the clash between Israel and Islam, between Islam and Christianity, and with attendant results that could change the political — and religious — map of the world? The cutting edge of history is the crossroads we now face.
******************
There is a striking contrast today in world politics between the West’s submission to Islam and its assault upon Israel; this, ironically enough, occurs while we witness an Islamic assault upon Europe.
Unable to contend with Islam’s massive penetration of the continent, or to deal effectively and morally with its barbaric warfare against peoples in the Middle East, Europe has chosen to stalk Israel, embattled and attacked on many fronts.
The abandonment of the Jews in 1939-1945 in Europe and the murder of six million of them by the Germans represent a historical theme and modern chapter of the old hatred. Europe is not cleansed of this madness and fury; and it is incapable of seeing the justice and reasonableness in Israel’s existence and policies, bashing her over Jerusalem, settlements, human rights, and military operations. Nietzsche said that Europe would be a boring place without the intellectual ferment and cultural contributions of the Jews, but it would apparently be a happy place for some Europeans.
Now, with the blatant eruption of a reinvigorated anti-Semitism in Europe, the political campaign against Israel acquires its explicit racial underpinnings. The more vitriolic the attacks on Israel, running the spectrum from censure, defamation, to delegitimization, the more transparent the European culprit aflame with concentrated racist hatred of the Jews and their Jewish state.
The political backlash against Israel from the summer war in Gaza testifies to the moral bankruptcy of Europe and the loss of any equitable sense of justice. Now the Palestinian aggressor, undefeated and unrepentant, is to be rewarded with Gaza’s reconstruction. Mahmoud Abbas, unwilling to recognize the Jewish state of Israel, is to be rewarded with his own Palestinian state, according to sentiments in Sweden, Britain, and no doubt elsewhere.
The discourse of peace surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum remains as divorced from morality and reality as could ever be imagined in this lopsided political universe. The laws of sociology and the lessons of history make the two-state solution a non-starter. After 47 years, the settlement map of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, their size and spread, preempt an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 armistice lines. The idea of a Palestinian state over all of the territory is not in the demographic and geographic cards. Moreover, the embedded friction between the Jews and the Arabs, after so much bloodshed, enmity, and mistrust, is a visible obstacle to a mutually satisfactory agreement between them on all outstanding issues – borders and refugees, water and security, and Jerusalem. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intractable and unsolvable according to the current modalities of proposed peace-making.
A frenzied Muslim fanaticism has galvanized the dormant emotional energies of an Islam bedeviled by old memories (like the Caliphate) and sectarian (Sunni-Shiite) divisions, always with a profound disdain for non-Muslims unworthy of life and dignity. The swirl of Islamic warfare began in Afghanistan and Pakistan, passed through Khomeini’s Iranian Islamic theocracy, penetrated northern Iraq and threatens Baghdad, took hold in eastern Syria, already with appeal and a foothold in Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.
Meanwhile Europe lives in denial, paralyzed by multiculturalism and national self-immolation, hypnotized by the dogma of human rights, guilt-ridden by its colonial past, and hoping to mollify Muslims on their streets and neighborhoods by offering up the sacrifice of Christians and Jews in the Middle East to the Islamic god of wrath. But Islam seeks world conquest that includes the West as well.
What the Europeans ignore about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the long war is the precedent of 1948. When the Arabs attacked, and the West militarily embargoed Israel, the Zionists yet won a compelling victory in their ancient homeland; and a half a million Arabs became refugees, never to return. In 1967, the Arabs again declared their goal to be the annihilation of Israel; but Israel won, and another quarter of a million Arabs fled the country.
In 2014 the same scenario is unfolding. Pushed to the wall by Europeans who overlook and justify escalating domestic Arab violence and provocations, Israel will sooner or later need to unleash a severe response against the Muslims in the country who deny the right of Israel to exist, at all, and certainly as a Jewish and Zionist state. Newton’s political physics teach us that an action produces a reaction, and Hegel’s dialectics charted how a thesis leads to an antithesis, culminating in a new, rarely anticipated, synthesis. All this fondling of the Palestinians and coddling of Islam is putting in place a horrific threat to Israel, which may however evoke a welcome opportunity for deliverance and triumph.
Are we not passing through a very momentous period of history: with signs of the political decline and social decadence of Europe and the West, the clash between Israel and Islam, between Islam and Christianity, and with attendant results that could change the political — and religious — map of the world? The cutting edge of history is the crossroads we now face.
(These are the barbarians likely to be allowed to get or to keep nukes. Please see also “Goodbye, Dear Mum”: Iran Executes Rayhaneh Jabbari — UPDATED. Will Obama declare that the Islamic Republic of Iran in not Islamic or will he simply vote “absent? ” — DM)
Her case highlighted not just the archaic and abusive elements of Sharia “courts” but the absurd lack of basic procedural and substantive rights of defendants in Iran.
****************
We previously discussed the pending execution of Rayhaneh Jabbari, 26, for killing a former Iranian intelligence official who she said had raped her. Early reports that the execution had been carried out were premature and international efforts intensified to save Rayhaneh. I regret to report that the Associated Press is now reporting that today the Iranians hanged Rayhaneh in the latest outrage to come from that medieval legal system.
Jabbari claimed that a former Iranian Intelligence Ministry employee tried to rape her and that she stabbed in him the shoulder to escape. Despite the fact that a drink given to her was found to contain a date rape drug, the Iranian officials still wanted her hanged and they have now carried out their intent. Earlier this month, a guard showed mercy and gave her his phone to type a final message to her mother. Her reported message below is poignant and tragic as a final goodbye to her mother.
Jabbari wrote:
“I am currently handcuffed and there is a car waiting outside to take me for the execution of the sentence. Goodbye, dear Mum. All of my pains will finish early tomorrow morning. I’m sorry I cannot lessen your pain. Be patient. We believe in life after death. I’ll see you in the next world and I will never leave you again because being separated from you is the most difficult thing to do in the world.”
When her mother called the prison to ask what she could do, they told her to pick up the body of her daughter.
Jabbari was a decorator who said that she was contacted Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who arranged a meeting. She said that Sarbandi drugged her and tried to rape her after the two met at a café and she agreed to go to his office to discuss a business deal. She said that Sarbandi took her to a remote building and offered her a fruit drink which was later found to contain the date-rape drug. Her family noted that the wounds from a small pocket knife to the shoulder would not have caused death.
After her arrest, her family said that she was tortured to confess.
The official IRNA news agency says Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn Saturday for premeditated murder.
The execution was carried out after Sarbandi’s family refused to pardon Jabbari or accept blood money. Blood money is still used in countries enforcing the Sharia “legal” system based on Islamic principles.
Her case highlighted not just the archaic and abusive elements of Sharia “courts” but the absurd lack of basic procedural and substantive rights of defendants in Iran.
Following deadly attack that killed 30 Egyptian troops, national defense council vows revenge, decides to close Rafah crossing, enforce a 3-hour curfew.
AL-ARISH – Egypt’s National Defense Council declared a three-month state of emergency in areas near borders with Israel and the Gaza Strip in the northern part of Sinai Peninsula and ordered a three-hour curfew starting Saturday following a deadly attack Friday that killed 30 Egyptian troops, with the number expected to rise.
State TV also announced closure of the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only non-Israeli passage to outside world.
Egyptian President al-Sisi meeting with National Defense Council (Photo: AFP)
A coordinated assault on an army checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula killed 30 Egyptian troops on Friday, making it the deadliest single attack in decades on the military, which has been struggling to stem a wave of violence by Islamic extremists since the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
Officials described it as “well-planned” attack that began with a car bomb which may have been set off by a suicide attacker. Other militants then fired rocket-propelled grenades, striking a tank carrying ammunition and igniting a secondary explosion. Roadside bombs intended to target rescuers struck two army vehicles, seriously wounding a senior officer.
State-run TV said clashes between troops and militants followed the bombing, without providing further details. The car bomb exploded at the check point at around 3:30pm Cairo time, and took place some 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the northern Sinai city of al-Arish, in an area called Karm al-Qawadees.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but officials said the assault bore the hallmarks of the country’s most active militant group – named Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or Champions of Jerusalem – which has claimed a string of past attacks on security forces.
The officials said the death toll is expected to rise because 28 people were wounded and several were in critical condition.
Egyptian troops in al-Arish (Photo: Reuters)
Headed by Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the National Defense Council vowed that the army would take “revenge for the shedding of dear blood.” It instructed authorities to take measures which it described necessary to protect lives of civilians.
Al-Sisi, the former defense minister and army chief who overthrew Morsi last year, announced a three-day mourning period. He has said in the past that the militants hide in populated areas, making it difficult for the military to combat them.
The United Nations Security Council released a statement condemning the attack and reiterated its determination to combat all forms of terrorism.
“The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this terrorist attack to justice,” the statement said.
( but if they kill Jews it is different, than they reward the terrorist ) )
An official said the government is considering the eviction of residents living in small northern Sinai villages that are considered the “most dangerous” militant bastions, and declaring certain areas to be closed military zones. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.
The TV presenters dressed in black and displayed a black ribbon at the top of the screen while patriotic songs played.
Egypt’s official news agency MENA said military helicopters ferried the dead and wounded to Cairo hospitals. Egypt’s top Islamic authority, Grand Mufti Shawki Allam, condemned the attacks and said those who carry out acts of terrorism “deserve God’s wrath on Earth and at the end of days.”
Islamic militants have been battling security forces in Sinai for a decade, but the violence spiked after the military overthrew Morsi in July 2013 amid massive protests demanding his resignation. Suicide bombings and assassinations have also spread to other parts of Egypt, with militants targeting police in Cairo and the Nile Delta.
The government has blamed the violence on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group and launched a sweeping crackdown against his supporters, killing hundreds in street clashes and jailing some 20,000 people. Authorities have tried to link the group to Ansar Beit al-Maqdis by airing confessions of people alleged to belong to both.
The Brotherhood officially renounced violence decades ago and has denied involvement in the recent attacks, saying it is committed to peaceful protests demanding Morsi’s reinstatement.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on a security headquarters in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura that killed 16 people, almost all policemen, in December 2013. It also claimed the attempted assassination of Egypt’s interior minister in September of that year.
Authorities say it was responsible for the killing of 25 policemen who were bound and blindfolded before being shot dead on a Sinai roadside in August 2013. The government also blamed the group for an attack on Egyptian troops patrolling the remote western border with Libya in July, which left 22 soldiers dead. No one claimed either attack.
In January Ansar Beit al-Maqdis released a video of its fighters downing a military helicopter over Sinai with a shoulder-fired missile, an attack that killed all five crewmembers and raised concern over the group’s growing military prowess.
The group was initially inspired by al-Qaeda, but in recent months it has expressed affinity with the al-Qaeda breakaway group that refers to itself as the Islamic State, and which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq. In January, the leader of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Abu Osama al-Masri, praised the Islamic State in a recording posted on jihadi forums. The group has also released videos of the beheading of men it accused of being informants.
Sinai-based militants have exploited long-held grievances in the impoverished north of the peninsula, where the mainly Bedouin population has complained of neglect by Cairo authorities and where few have benefited from the famed tourist resorts in the more peaceful southern part of Sinai. The police in northern Sinai largely fled during the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, as militants attacked stations and killed scores of security forces.
Egypt has a long history of Islamic militancy. Former President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamic militants in 1981, and extremists carried out a wave of attacks targeting security forces, Christians and Western tourists during the 1990s.
Smoke rises over Syrian town of Kobani after an airstrike, as seen from the Mursitpinar crossing on the Turkish border, Oct. 21, 2014. Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach
The U.S.-led air campaign in Syria has killed 521 Islamic State fighters in the past month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the civil war. But the heavy death toll does not mean the United States is winning its fight to “degrade and destroy” the Sunni extremist group. Experts say that won’t happen until the group also known as ISIS loses support and its fighters begin defecting.
“Until that happens, we will not see a quantum shift in the war in Iraq and Syria,” said Wayne White, a former deputy director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia.
Since June, ISIS has gained control of large swaths of land that stretch from Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border to the outskirts of Baghdad. The group is currently waging campaigns in several different areas of both countries, but has focused its forces in recent weeks on capturing the Kurdish city of Kobani. As a result, the U.S.-led air campaign has targeted several ISIS convoys and strongholds in Kobani and is air-dropping weapons and other resources to the Syrian Kurds fighting there.
“Like many aerial campaigns you can cite from history, it is a gradual process,” White said. “ISIS has a finite number of heavy weapons, and they are being picked off. And ISIS is losing a lot of combatants that are not easily replaced. ISIS is driven to expand its domain, and every time it tries to expand it is putting its fighters out in the open where they can be taken out. The question is: How long will the degrading take until you get to the destruction … a long time.”
Witnesses on the ground in Kobani told International Business Times that ISIS had been pushed back from the center of the city, but that the fighting was still raging on the outskirts. Meanwhile, ISIS is making gains in other parts of Syria and in Baghdad. According to the Syrian Observatory, ISIS fighters seized Tal Shaer, a town just west of Kobani, this week. And in Baghdad, the Sunni militant group has claimed responsibility for several car and suicide bomb attacks that have killed dozens of people in the last two weeks.
The uptick in ISIS attacks since June in Iraq has not only caused hundreds of civilian deaths, but has also infiltrated the psyche of the Iraqi people, especially those living in the capital, Noof Assi, a woman from Baghdad, told the International Business Times.
At the beginning of the ISIS campaign, “Baghdad looked like a ghost city,” Assi said. “People were staying at home or fleeing, saving food and fuel.”
Now, she said, people in Baghdad are used to the ISIS insurgency. Discussions in shops, cafes and restaurants have shifted. No longer are Iraqis talking about the destruction that ISIS is inflicting on the country. Now, people are talking about how many people are beginning to support the militant group.
“There are people talking about people of Mosul,” she said of the big northern city. “Some people are saying that they betrayed Iraq and welcomed ISIS.”
The State Department and White House have both confirmed that part of the U.S. strategy to fight ISIS is to undercut its propaganda and recruitment, especially on social media. So far, though, the U.S. has not launched a successful countercampaign.
The mock video showed graphic images of the militant group committing war crimes that have been widely reported over the past two months and that are now being investigated by the United Nations. The video looks similar to those ISIS promotes on social media like Twitter and YouTube. Despite the counterpropaganda drive, ISIS continues to expand on social media, and more and more Western fighters, as well as Iraqi and Syrian civilians, are joining up.
While some experts say the only way the U.S. will defeat ISIS is by sending in ground troops, others say more credit should be given to the Syrian Kurdish fighters — who now seems to be only force on the ground in Iraq and Syria that is regaining territory ISIS took over in prior months.
“They are the only boots on the ground in the entire Iraqi-Syrian theater capable of standing up to ISIS,” White said. “They are absolutely fierce fighters. The Iraqi Kurds are not.”
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