ISIL had launched an unsuccessful assault involving suicide bombers on the nearby al-Asad air base.
Fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have captured the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, putting them within striking distance of an airbase where US troops are training Iraqi forces, the US military said.
The fall of the town, which the Pentagon played down as a minor setback, came as ISIL launched an unsuccessful assault involving suicide bombers on the nearby al-Asad airbase.
“We do assess that right now they have control of Al-Baghdadi,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news conference, adding ISIL took hold of the town “in the past several days”.
The town is located in Anbar province, about 8km from the al-Asad air base, where about 320 US Marines are stationed to assist Iraqi government troops.
The chairman of Anbar’s provincial council, Sabah Karhout, said “more than 1,000 ISIL fighters” had overrun the town of al-Baghdadi”.
Karhout said that “there is a regional plot that wants the base to fall under ISIL because of its strategic significance”, adding that the US-led coalition air strikes that targeted the vicinity of the base did not hit their targets.
Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi described what happened in the city of al-Baghdadi as “a failure”.
The minister made the comments after a meeting with the parliamentary security committee.
He said his ministry was planning to deploy more forces to address the situation.
Kirby said that “at no time were US troops anywhere near the fighting,” which was about two miles away from where the Americans were working at the sprawling complex.
‘Defensive posture’
“This is arguably the first in at least a couple of months, if not more, where they (ISIL) have had any success at all at taking any new ground,” Kirby said.
“So this is an enemy that we still assess to be in a defensive posture,” he said, adding: “It’s one town. It’s not all of Anbar. It’s not all of Iraq. We need to keep it in perspective.”
Al-Baghdadi had been under growing pressure for months and was one of the few towns that had remained under the Iraqi government’s control in the predominantly Sunni province.
Meanwhile, 12 people – including a Sunni tribal leader and two sons of an Iraqi MP -were killed in Baghdad on Friday hours after they were kidnapped by a Shia armed group.
Parliamentary sources told Al Jazeera the tribal leader, Qassim Sueidan Al-Janabai, belonged to the al-Janabat clan.
The victims were seized when a convoy of Zaid Swidan al-Janabi, a Sunni MP, was stopped by militiamen in al-Dorah, a neighbourhood in al-Rashid administrative district in southern Baghdad.
The MP was later released in the neighbourhood of Talbiya, east Baghdad but after he was badly beaten up.
Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan, who addressed reporters, described the incident as “tragic,” adding that the ministry had launched an investigation.
Iran’s supreme leader has sent a letter to US President Barack Obama in response to American overtures, amid talks to strike a nuclear accord, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The newspaper cited an Iranian diplomat as saying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had written to Obama in response to the president’s letter sent in October.
Obama’s correspondence had suggested potential US-Iranian cooperation in fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group if a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme was struck, the diplomat told the Journal.
The supreme leader’s response was “respectful” but noncommittal, the diplomat was quoted as saying. Khamenei has the final word on all matters of state in Iran.
Current and former US officials who viewed the correspondence said Khamenei’s letter outlined a string of abuses he claimed the US had committed against the Iranian people during the past 60 years.
Neither the White House nor the Iranian government has officially confirmed any correspondence between the two leaders.
Talks with Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany – the so-called P5+1 group – seek to allay concerns that Iran is covertly seeking to develop a nuclear bomb, in exchange for lifting punishing sanctions.
Two deadlines for a permanent nuclear agreement have already been missed, since an interim accord was struck in November 2013.
The P5+1 has set a March 31 deadline for a political agreement.
It would be followed by a final deal setting out all the technical points of what would be a complex accord by June 30.
Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb and says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes.
Op-ed: Obama and Israel’s center-left political camp in are panicking at the prospect of again having to witness the respect and adoration America has for one of the best prime ministers Israel ever had.
Polls in the United States show that not only does the American public overwhelmingly support Israel, but that their opinions are more aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stand on Iran and radical Islam than with those of US President Barack Obama.
However, the center-left political camp and the leftist media in Israel and abroad seem demonically possessed with fear mongering Israeli voters into thinking that Netanyahu’s upcomingcongressional speech and policy disagreement with Obama, will endanger and undermine the important Israel-US alliance.
Daily, they write another opinion piece or quote another so called US- Israel expert that describes another probable hypothetical doomsday scenario of what will happen to Israel and its relationship with the US if Netanyahu speaks out against a bad nuclear deal with the Ayatollahs’ Iran and in favor of additional sanctions.
They warn Israelis of an Obama administration backlash such as cutting the $3 billion in military aid to Israel and refraining from using the American veto power against anti-Israel UN Security council resolutions.
Now they tell us that if Netanyahu is re-elected this disagreement will develop to an irreversible crisis and to a fall- off in American support which will affect Israel’s economy and security.
Listening to these “experts” would be funny if it was not so sad that some Israeli voters will actually mistake these baseless worse case scenarios for the truth.
First, Obama is not the American public. Obama is the head of only one of the branches of the American government and has less than two years to govern, Obama cannot do anything to Israel and to the alliance while the American public overwhelmingly supports Israel and agrees with Netanyahu’s opinions.
Obama is aware of Netanyahu‘s star power and his effect on Congress (Photo: MCT)
Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are big supporters of Israel in large part because of their constituents’ support of the Jewish state. President Obama, for the last six years has been trying to undermine that public support by trying to create “daylight” between the US and Israel by manufacturing many public spats and artificial crisis with Netanyahu. However, polls reveal that he has failed miserably in achieving his aim.
In 2014, as it does every year, Gallup, in its World Affairs Survey, asked Americans whether they view various countries favorably or unfavorably. Fully 72% of Americans have a “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” view of Israel. Now compare that to the number who told Gallup that they have a favorable view of the other countries or entities in Israel’s neighborhood: Egypt: 45%; Saudi Arabia: 35%; Libya: 19%; Palestinian Authority: 19%; Iraq: 16%; Syria: 13%; Iran: 12%.
Moreover, Gallup polls show that when asked about American sympathy to Israel and to the Arab Nations, the average support for Israel for the last six years while Netanyahu has been Prime Minister has been 62% which is higher than any previous time.
Moreover, a Fox News poll of American registered voters from January 25-27, 2015 which was conducted under the joint direction of Democratic and Republican Research companies revealed that 70% of voters say Obama has not been tough enough on Iran. That number has remained roughly the same since 2009. That tally includes 57% of Democrats, 66% of Independents and 87% of Republicans.
In addition, a 62% majority thinks military force will be necessary to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, while 28% say that goal can be reached through diplomacy and existing sanctions alone. Here again, there’s agreement across political party lines.
Second, anybody who is familiar with the US Constitution knows about the concept of separation of powers. Obama is the president but the Republican Congress is the only body who determines the aid package to Israel and Obama cannot touch it.
Moreover, the Congress could decide to cut US aid to the UN for adopting anti- Israel resolutions and to the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for joining War Crimes court or ICC or seeking another UN Security Council bid for statehood. In addition, the Republican majority could use its leverage against any anti- Israel actions the President would wish to take by threatening to withhold the purse strings to finance his political agenda.
Third, the real reason Obama does not want Netanyahu to speak is that he fears that Netanyahu will reveal to the public the truth of how Obama has been begging the Iranians to make a nuclear deal and has already given in to 80% of Iranian demands and has received nothing in return.
To override Obama‘s veto, the Senate needs the votes of 67 members. Ten Senate Democrats on January 27 sent a letter to Obama warning that after March 24, they will be joining 54 Republican Senators on the Senate floor in support of imposing additional sanctions if Iran fails to reach a comprehensive agreement for a political framework.
Obama is aware of Netanyahu‘s star power and his effect on Congress. In fact, when Netanyahu previously addressed a joint session of Congress on May 24, 2011, the New York Timesreported that “Mr. Netanyahu received so many standing ovations that at times it appeared that the lawmakers were listening to his speech standing up.” Even worse, from Obama’s perspective, The Times reported that Netanyahu’s speech “had many of the trappings of a presidential State of the Union address.”
Now we know why the center-left political camp in Israel, the leftist media and Obama are panicked at the prospect of again having to witness the respect and adoration that America has for one of the best prime ministers that Israel ever had, who is considered by many Americans to be the Churchill of our time.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
“Extremist” Muslims believe that the Koran and the Hadithmust be taken literally and that Sharia law, rather than “man made” law, must control everyone. Secular Muslims seem to disagree or not to be very interested. “Extremist” Roman Catholics believe that birth control, abortion and pre-marital sex are sinful and oppose governmental support for them. Secular Roman Catholics seem to disagree or not to be very interested.
“Extremist” Muslims are “literalist,” because they believe that the Koran is the word of Allah as faithfully transcribed by Mohamed, his messenger, and that there is no room for interpretation. The many conflicting verses in the Koran present a problem.
Rather than explain away inconsistencies in passages regulating the Muslim community, many jurists acknowledge the differences but accept that latter verses trump earlier verses. Most scholars divide the Qur’an into verses revealed by Muhammad in Mecca when his community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed in Medina, where Muhammad’s strength grew. [Emphasis added, footnotes omitted.]
Classical scholars argued that anyone who studied the Qur’an without having mastered the doctrine of abrogation would be “deficient.” Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside the mainstream and, perhaps, even the religion itself. [Emphasis added.]
Islamist literalism coupled with abrogation now has temporal, and often fatal, consequences for non-Muslims as well as for “apostate” Muslims because, as Mohammad grew stronger, his words became stronger and more violent toward apostates and other non-believers.
According to an article titled “What is Islam?” Revisited by Father James V. Schall, S.J., posted at Catholic World Report on January 8th,
Islam considers itself the only true religion. It has a “narrative” of itself that all branches of Islam hold, although they differ somewhat on how it is to be achieved. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
In the Quran, there is no mention of the Trinity or Incarnation, except explicitly to deny them. It is blasphemy to believe in them, as well as to question anything connected with the Quran. Allah intends the whole world to observe the Sharia, the Muslim legal code, observing its letter. As soon as it can, this law is imposed in every Muslim land or smaller community, even in democratic states. No distinction between Islam and the state exists. Everyone is born a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, it is because his parents or teachers corrupted him. It is impossible to convert from Islam to another religion, without grave, often lethal, consequences. [Emphasis added.]
It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Dialogue is looked upon as a sign of weakness unless it can be used to further Muslim goals. In the case of the killings that Coren lists, if they are looked upon as legitimate means, there is no need either to talk about them or to cease their presumed effectiveness in spreading Islam. One cannot really appeal to the Quran to cease these killings, as there is ample reason within it to justify them as worthy means. Had it not been possible to justify these means in the Quran, the whole history of Islam would be different. Indeed, it probably never would have expanded at all. [Emphasis added.]
Similarly, “extremist” Christians can be characterized as “literalist” because they believe, for example, that Jesus was literally conceived immaculately and literally ascended bodily into Heaven. These views now have no deadly temporal consequences for Christians or anyone else.
As for the crusades and the inquisition, which Obama used to try to divert our attention from Islam,
Islam is the only religion the textual core of which actively and unequivocally defames other religions.
Soon after Muslim gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo offices, which published satirical caricatures of Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)—the “collective voice of the Muslim world” and second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations—is again renewing calls for the United Nations to criminalize “blasphemy” against Islam, or what it more ecumenically calls, the “defamation of religions.”
To ban “defamation” of Islam — in reality to ban accurate factual analyses of its core tenets — is to engage in jihad via lawfare with the help of non-Islamic nations, including Obama’s America, while violent Islamic jihad against all religions except “true” versions of Islam continues apace.
Yet the OIC seems to miss one grand irony: if international laws would ban cartoons, books, and films on the basis that they defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the entire religion of Islam itself—the only religion whose core texts actively and unequivocally defame other religions, including by name. [Emphasis added.]
For example,
Consider Christianity alone: Koran 5:73 declares that “Infidels are they who say God is one of three,” a reference to the Christian Trinity; Koran 5:72 says “Infidels are they who say God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary”; and Koran 9:30 complains that “the Christians say the Christ is the son of God … may God’s curse be upon them!”
. . . .
[T]he Christian Cross, venerated among millions, is depicted—is defamed—in Islam: according to canonical hadiths, when he returns, Jesus (“Prophet Isa”) will destroy all crosses; and Muhammad, who never allowed the cross in his presence, once ordered someone wearing a cross to “throw away this piece of idol from yourself.” Unsurprisingly, the cross is banned and often destroyed whenever visible in many Muslim countries.
Reforming Islam
Egyptian President al-Sisi — who appears to be a fairly secular Muslim — told Muslim clerics in Cairo on New Years Day (on or about the date when Mohamed’s birthday is celebrated) that Islam needs to be reformed, substantially. He “accused Islamic thinking of being the scourge of humanity—in words that no Western leader would dare utter.” Following his address,
Sisi went to the St. Mark Coptic Cathedral during Christmas Eve Mass to offer Egypt’s Christian minority his congratulations and well wishing. Here again he made history as the first Egyptian president to enter a church during Christmas mass—a thing vehemently criticized by the nation’s Islamists, including the Salafi party (Islamic law bans well wishing to non-Muslims on their religious celebrations, which is why earlier presidents—Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and of course Morsi—never attended Christmas mass). [Emphasis added.]
met with a delegation aligned with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . . . . It is understood that the group, which included a leading Brotherhood-aligned judge and a Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian, discussed their ongoing efforts against the current Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. [Emphasis added.]
El-Sisi came to power after he deposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist government in a popularly backed coup. After only one year of Muslim Brotherhood rule, 15 million people came out onto the streets demanding an end to their rule.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated goal is the recreation of an Islamic caliphate, although they follow a policy of the gradual implementation of sharia law. [Emphasis added.]
The Muslim Brotherhood, and “extremist” Islam in general, are Obama’s friends and advisers. They are also now the largest and most destructive enemies of western civilization; Obama assists them at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, Hamas, is busily training thousands of youth to attack Israel, the only free and democratic nation, as well as the only outpost of western civilization, in the Middle East.
On February 10th, a Jordanian columnist wrote, consistently with President al-Sisi’s remarks, that
“The escapism that mainstream Islam has nothing to do with those atrocities does not hold water anymore because Wahabism and Islam have become indistinguishable. To understand the crisis of Muslims today, one has to remember that Wahabism exists in several textbooks containing the alleged sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, or books of ‘Hadith,’ revered by so many. What we must confront is the undeniable fact that it is from many stories found in these books that the unprecedented cruelty of groups such as the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra emanates. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“There is obviously a propensity towards eliminating ‘the other’ imbedded deep within Wahabist ideology. It is not only foolish to deny this fact, it is also dangerous, for we would be covering the cancerous tumour with a bandage. What we cannot deny is that many of the Wahabist textbooks are the same operating manuals that Islamist butchers use to justify their savagery. For example, very few people know that while [the Jordanian pilot] Muath was being set on fire in that macabre video, the voiceover was a recitation of an Ibn Taymiyah fatwa deeming the incineration of unbelievers a legitimate act of jihad. Ibn Taymiyah is not some obscure scholar on the fringe of Sunni Islam. In the Sunni world, he is universally venerated with the title ‘Sheikh of Islam,’ elevating him to an almost infallible clerical status. [Emphasis added.]
“If we really want to defend Islam as a religion of mercy, if we really want to be believed when we proclaim the innocence of this religion, we need to do more than just repeat this meaningless mantra about us having nothing to do with [ISIS]. We have to muster the courage to identify the specific texts that actually defame Islam, denounce them and permanently cleanse Islamic tradition of them.” [Emphasis added.]
Until “extremist” Islam reforms itself, as al-Sisi (and a few other Muslims) contend that it must, Islam in all of its manifestations will remain an existential threat to what’s left of western civilization. If Islam manages to reform itself Obama — who considers Islam to be just peachy now — will, once again, be shown to have been on the wrong side of history.
Nuclear Iran
Unfortunately, Obama’s place on the wrong side of history may become apparent long before Islam is reformed, when Iran gets (or is permitted to keep) and uses “the bomb.” Iran, and perhaps Obama, have availed themselves of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya, which
allows Muslims to have a declared agenda, and a secret agenda (Jihad, slaughter, and mayhem) during time of weakness, this is called Taqiyya.” To put it in simpler words, it is the “art” of deception, or more correctly, of deceiving non-Muslim infidels. [Emphasis added.]
[H]e is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination. [Emphasis added.]
It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite. [Emphasis added.]
Iran seems likely to get and use, or to keep and use, nuclear weapons by virtue of the essentially bilateral Iran – US nuclear negotiations. Please see also The Iran scam continues, which I wrote in January of last year. The situation has worsened since then, with substantial concessions to, and few if any of significance by, Iran.
The U.S. concessions have, in part, been in exchange for Iran’s “help” in defeating the Islamic State and hence becoming the major power in the Middle East.
Iran would be the hegemon of the Middle East. Some states would accept Tehran’s authority, striking deals and kowtowing in order to survive. Europeans would accommodate Iran, based on its control of the flow of Gulf oil. Israel and Saudi Arabia, nations that Iran’s rulers have threatened to wipe from the map, would be left to fend for themselves. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Doran cites evidence that in the first year of Obama’s first term, there were more White House meetings on Iran than any other national security concern. Detente with Iran was seen as “an urgent priority,” but the president “consistently wrapped his approach to that priority in exceptional layers of secrecy” because he was convinced that neither Congress nor the American public would support him. [Emphasis added.]
A year ago, Doran further reports, Benjamin Rhodes, a member of the president’s inner circle, told a group of Democratic activists (unaware that he was being recorded) that a deal with Iran would prove to be “probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy.” He made clear that there would be no treaty requiring the Senate’s advice and consent. [Emphasis added.]
The president believes that “the less we know about his Iran plans, the better,” Doran concludes. “Yet those plans, as Rhodes stressed, are not a minor or incidental component of his foreign policy. To the contrary, they are central to his administration’s strategic thinking about the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.” [Emphasis added.]
Obama’s plans may well blow up in His face and, of greater importance, ours. Iran, particularly with the help of Russia and North Korea, will be able to do it. Here is a
short animated film being aired across Iran, [which] shows the nuclear destruction of Israel and opens with the word ‘Holocaust’ appearing on the screen, underneath which a Star of David is shown, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Tuesday.
Don’t worry; be happy
Here’s the Revolting Truth from Andrew Klavan, which debunks everything bad ever said about Obama. Sort of.
(CNN)ISIS militants took full control of a western Iraqi town early Friday, security officials told CNN, bringing them within a few miles of an air base housing U.S. military personnel.
The extremist group took al-Baghdadi, west of Ramadi, and now they’re closing in on the strategic Ayn al-Assad Air Base, only about 15 kilometers (9 miles) away, the security officials said.
Iraqi forces there are calling for reinforcements. A U.S. defense official told CNN that no evacuations have been planned from the base.
That western front is just one of many where ISIS forces are on the move.
CNN’s Phil Black, in northern Iraq, said Friday that Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were starting to move from the north toward the city of Sinjar, held by ISIS since the summer.
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The militants’ seizure of the city provoked a major humanitarian crisis as its ethnic minority Yazidi population fled onto the rocky slopes of Mount Sinjar, where many became trapped without food and water.
The Kurdish fighters are on the offensive but face a long, difficult battle to win back the city from ISIS, whose fighters are firmly in control there.
ISIS attacked Peshmerga fighters in Sinjar on Thursday, as well as Kurdish forces positioned north of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and the town of Ba’shiqa, east of Mosul.
But it’s in Iraq’s west where ISIS militants have the momentum over the Iraqi army and Sunni tribesmen opposing them.
‘No direct threat’ to U.S. personnel
The ISIS fighters seized Al-Baghdadi, northwest of the capital of Baghdad, on Friday after attacking from three directions against Iraqi government forces, the security officials told CNN.
Ayn al-Assad, the largest military base in western Anbar province still under government control, is also where U.S. instructors train Iraqi pilots.
Already, the air base is taking sporadic indirect fire from militants using rocket launchers and mortars, the officials said.
Two security officials in the Anbar provincial office told CNN that security forces inside Ayn al-Assad killed eight suicide bombers Friday who were trying to breach the air base’s perimeter from the direction of Al-Baghdadi.
A statement issued by U.S. Central Command said the attack had been directed against an Iraqi army facility on the base and that the Iraqi forces had killed all eight militants.
“Coalition forces were several kilometers from the attack and at no stage were they under direct threat from this action,” it said.
Top Republican leaders took to public and private channels Thursday to expose a coordinated campaign by the Obama administration to attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his acceptance of an invitation to speak before Congress, according to conversations with multiple lawmakers and leading pro-Israel insiders.
The statements, many of which were obtained by the Washington Free Beacon in conversations with leaders in Congress, come in the aftermath of a widely cited New York Times report in which Obama administration officials accused Netanyahu of breaking diplomatic protocol by agreeing to speak before receiving approval from the White House.
However, the paper of record was quickly forced to issue a correction reversing its previously published timeline that claimed Netanyahu went behind the White House’s back. As the correction notes, Netanyahu did not accept the invitation until after the White House was informed.
Several leading congressional offices that spoke to the Free Beacon in recent days indicated they support Netanyahu’s address, a sentiment that was echoed on Thursday afternoon by the Senate’s second most powerful member, Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas).
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a vocal administration opponent, told the Free Beacon that Obama “is more interested in undermining a close ally than in addressing the common threat we face, which is a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The controversy over Netanyahu’s appearance—which has prompted some Democrats to boycott the speech—was manufactured by the White House and its media allies, Cruz said.
“There is growing evidence that, as the New York Times correction demonstrates, this was never an issue of protocol—Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office followed protocol by accepting the invitation only after the White House was notified,” Cruz said. “The real issue is the president’s reluctance to hear a dissenting voice challenging his assumption that the Iranians are negotiating in good faith over their nuclear program.”
Cornyn took to the Senate floor Thursday afternoon to reveal that a majority of his colleagues have signed onto a letter welcoming Netanyahu and reiterating support for him in light of efforts by some lawmakers to boycott the speech.
“I hope the rest of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in welcoming the prime minister to Washington so we can continue to work together as he details in graphic detail like no one else can do the threat of a nuclear Iran,” Cornyn said. “During this time of such great instability and danger in the Middle East, the United States cannot afford to waver in our commitment to one of our closest and most important allies.”
Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), one of the leading backers of a bill to impose new sanctions on Iran, said that now is not the time for Congress to waver in its support of Israel.
“At a time when the civilized world faces Islamic extremist threats not just from the [Islamic State], but also from a nuclear Iran and its terror proxies, the United States should speak with one voice and stand with our allies,” Kirk said.
The statements of support among Republicans also come despite thinly sourced reports in left-wing anti-Netanyahu media outlets claiming Republican displeasure with the prime minister.
An official timeline of how the speech came to be contradicts the New York Times story and comments by Obama administration officials.
Discussions about inviting Netanyahu to speak about Iran began nearly a year ago and were initiated by House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), according to Boehner’s office.
Boehner called Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer in early January to extend the invitation and gauge Netanyahu’s interest. On Jan. 20, Boehner and McConnell formally extended the invitation to Netanyahu and informed the White House the following day.
Netanyahu only agreed to speak after Congress and the White House were informed about the invite.
Still, several Democratic allies of the White House have promised to boycott the speech.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.) told CNN he is offended that Netanyahu wants to speak about the dangers of a nuclear Iran at the same time the White House is conducting diplomacy with it.
“It’s inappropriate to have a deliberate effort by the speaker and Prime Minister Netanyahu to sabotage the negotiating that we have with Iran,” Blumenauer said.
Lawmakers such as Cruz and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), Congress’ sole Jewish Republican, said it is offensive and inappropriate for their colleagues to boycott a speech by the leader of America’s closest ally.
“It is an unnecessary reckless act of foolishness to skip out on this joint session of Congress,” Zeldin told the Free Beacon. “It’s a critical hour and there really should be no questions where they belong. It’s very telling as to who has their priorities misplaced when looking around that room and seeing who decides to skip out for all the wrong reasons.”
Cruz went on to call Democratic opposition to Netanyahu “profoundly irresponsible,” telling the Free Beacon that “no friend of Israel would work to undermine, much less actually boycott, the elected leader of Israel in this time of peril.”
Zeldin also blamed the White House for fueling the controversy, which has dominated the narrative in Washington, D.C., for weeks.
“The president is all politics all the time,” Zeldin said. “He’ll stick his chest out to a friend while going out of his way to reduce his negotiating ability with an enemy to a position of equality or weakness. It’s time for the White House to have a refresher course on who our friends are and who our enemies are.”
Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.), a member of the Israel Allies Caucus, said it is completely appropriate for Netanyahu to brief Congress on the Iranian threat as negotiations with Tehran reach their deadline.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a real and consequential understanding of the dangers in allowing Iran to procure a nuclear missile,” Walberg said. “With both Israel and the United States’ safety and security at stake, the speaker did the right thing by inviting the prime minister to address Congress.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) came out late Thursday with a direct appeal to his Democratic colleagues.
“You have your right to voice your concerns, but don’t do this to an ally; don’t do this to a nation that is as threatened today as it has ever been at any time in its existence,” Rubio said in a statement. “Don’t do this to a people that are in the crosshairs of multiple terrorist groups with the capability of attacking them.
Christians United for Israel (CUFI) launched on Thursday a campaign urging its members to demand that their member of Congress attend Netanyahu’s speech. More than 10,000 CUFI members acted on the alert in less than five hours, according to the group.
“The spectacle of Democrats boycotting Netanyahu’s speech is a new low for Washington. Our elected officials have a sacred duty to listen to all views on this critical issue—including those with which they may disagree—before making up their minds. Whether they like the fact that Netanyahu was invited or not, they should stop acting like peevish children and listen for a change,” CUFI executive director David Brog said.
Iraqi security forces on Friday repelled an attack by Islamic State insurgents against an air base in Anbar province where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops, Iraqi and U.S. military officials said.
Militants from the jihadist group had attacked the Ain al-Asad base and the nearby town of al-Baghdadi a day earlier, leading to sporadic clashes in the town overnight.
Al-Baghdadi has been besieged for months by Islamic State, which captured swathes of northern and western Iraq last year, prompting a campaign of U.S.-led airstrikes and the deployment of hundreds of U.S. military advisers to the country.
A U.S. defense official said the Iraqi forces had stopped the attack and re-secured the facility.
“Coalition forces were several kilometers from the attack and at no stage were they under direct threat from this action,” the official said.
About 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division at the base, which has been struck by mortar fire on at least one previous occasion since December.
Iraq’s Defense Ministry said on its website the Iraqi army killed eight assailants near the base, which is about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi.
An Iraqi military official in Baghdad told Reuters the insurgents had taken advantage of a lull in the airstrikes, caused by poor weather, to launch the offensive.
He said Islamic State had been cleared from most of al-Baghdadi, with the remaining fighting centered around a police station.
That conflicted with reports from a tribal leader who said the jihadists were still in control of much of the town.
Ongoing clashes and poor communications in the area made it difficult to confirm such reports.
U.S. defense officials told CNN there are no plans to evacuate U.S. personnel from the air base, which is just a few miles from al-Baghdadi, but security officials said the militants are closing in on it and Iraqi forces are calling for reinforcements.
According to officials, the base has not been attacked but is taking sporadic indirect fire from militants in the form of rocket launchers and mortars.
Two security officials told CNN that security forces from the base killed eight suicide bombers on Friday who were trying to penetrate the air base.
At the same time, a U.S. defense official said that U.S. troops do not consider themselves trapped, are not contemplating a ground engagement with the Islamic State, and there have been no injuries to U.S. forces at the base, CNN said.
“It bears watching,” retired Col. Thomas Lynch, a National Defense University fellow, told Fox News, regarding the reports.
He stressed, however, that for the militants to be a real threat to the base they would need get through the perimeter.
“It’s not impossible,” Lynch said, but to do it they would have to amass a large number of fighters — which would make them “vulnerable” to airstrikes.
US President Barack Obama speaks before signing the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, H.R. 203, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, February 12, 2015. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
His secretary of defense says, “The world is exploding all over.” His attorney general says that the threat of terror “keeps me up at night.” The world bears them out. On Tuesday, American hostage Kayla Mueller is confirmed dead. On Wednesday, the U.S. evacuates its embassy in Yemen, a country cited by President Obama last September as an American success in fighting terrorism.
Yet Obama’s reaction to, shall we say, turmoil abroad has been one of alarming lassitude and passivity.
Not to worry, says his national security adviser: This is not World War II. As if one should be reassured because the current chaos has yet to achieve the level of the most devastating conflict in human history. Indeed, insists the president, the real source of our metastasizing anxiety is . . . the news media.
Russia pushes deep into eastern Ukraine. The Islamic State burns to death a Jordanian pilot. Iran extends its hegemony over four Arab capitals — Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and now Sanaa.
And America watches. Obama calls the policy “strategic patience.” That’s a synonym for “inaction,” made to sound profoundly “strategic.”
Take Russia. The only news out of Obama’s one-hour news conference with Angela Merkel this week was that he still can’t make up his mind whether to supply Ukraine with defensive weapons. The Russians have sent in T-80 tanks and Grad rocket launchers. We’ve sent in humanitarian aid that includes blankets, MREs and psychological counselors.
How complementary: The counselors do grief therapy for those on the receiving end of the T-80 tank fire. “I think the Ukrainian people can feel confident that we have stood by them,” said Obama at the news conference.
Indeed. And don’t forget the blankets. America was once the arsenal of democracy, notes Elliott Abrams. We are now its linen closet.
Why no antitank and other defensive weapons? Because we are afraid that arming the victim of aggression will anger the aggressor.
Such on-the-ground appeasement goes well with the linguistic appeasement whereby Obama dares not call radical Islam by name. And whereby both the White House and State Department spend much of a day insisting that the attack on the kosher grocery in Paris had nothing to do with Jews. It was just, as the president said, someone “randomly shoot[ing] a bunch of folks in a deli.” (By the end of the day, the administration backed off this idiocy. By tweet.)
This passivity — strategic, syntactical, ideological — is more than just a reaction to the perceived overreach of the Bush years. Or a fear of failure. Or bowing to the domestic left. It is, above all, rooted in Obama’s deep belief that we — America, Christians, the West — lack the moral authority to engage, to project, i.e., to lead.
Before we condemn the atrocities of others, intoned Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, we shouldn’t “get on our high horse.” We should acknowledge having authored the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery, etc. “in the name of Christ.”
In a rare rhetorical feat, Obama managed to combine the banal and the repulsive. After all, is it really a revelation that all religions have transgressed, that man is fallen? To the adolescent Columbia undergrad, that’s a profundity. To a roomful of faith leaders, that’s an insult to one’s intelligence.
And in deeply bad taste. A coalition POW is burned alive and the reaction of the alliance leader barely 48 hours later is essentially: “Hey, but what about Joan of Arc?”
The conclusion to this patronizing little riff — a gratuitous and bizarre attack on India as an example of religious intolerance — received less attention than it merited. India? Our largest and most strategically promising democratic ally — and the most successful multiethnic, multilingual, multiconfessional country on the planet? (Compare India to, oh, its colonial twin, Pakistan.)
There is, however, nothing really new in Obama’s selective condemnation of America and its democratic allies. It is just a reprise of the theme of his post-inauguration 2009 confessional world tour. From Strasbourg to Cairo and the U.N. General Assembly, he indicted his own country, as I chronicled at the time, “for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness (toward Europe), for maltreatment of natives, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantánamo, for unilateralism, and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world.”
The purpose and the effect of such an indictment is to undermine any moral claim to American world leadership. The line between the Washington prayer breakfast and the Ukrainian grief counselors is direct and causal. Once you’ve discounted your own moral authority, once you’ve undermined your own country’s moral self-confidence, you cannot lead.
If, during the very week Islamic supremacists achieve “peak barbarism” with the immolation of a helpless prisoner, you cannot take them on without apologizing for sins committed a thousand years ago, you have prepared the ground for strategic paralysis.
(Yet another article sounding the alarm on Iran. It’s interesting to note the author states that Mr. Netanyahu and Geert Wilders are only two world leaders telling the truth about Iran. However, the author also comments that many of ‘us’ do not like them or the people they represent. How ironic. – LS)
Iran, with its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, has surrounded all the oil fields in the region and is currently busy encircling Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
Iran not only reaches now from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, but Iranian Shi’ites have been spreading out through Africa and South America.
By the time U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office, Iran will not only have nuclear breakout capability, but also the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads to Europe and North America.
If Iran can finally drive the U.S. out of the Gulf by threatening U.S. assets, it will be free to pursue still further expansion.
If the deal signed with Iran is full of loopholes, it is Obama who will be blamed. Does Obama really want his legacy to be, “The President who was even a bigger fool than Neville Chamberlain”? He will not be seen as “Nixon in China.” He will be seen as the Eid al-Adha lamb.
Recently, foreign ministers from the European Union (EU) have been holding meetings with representatives of the Arab and Muslim world, including Turkey and Qatar, with the intention of forming a “joint task force to fight Islamist terrorism.”
Turkey and Qatar, for example, directly encourage Islamist terrorism, thus there is no way they can be part of a task force to act against it.
In some Islamic thinking, such nonsense, because of its certain lack of ever seeing the light, is merely a prologue to the ultimate war between Gog and Magog (“yagug wamagu”), and heralds the End of Days.
The Arab-Muslim world engages in perpetual internal strife. Iran, for instance, with its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, has surrounded all the oil fields in the region, and is currently busy encircling Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians. Iran not only reaches now from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, but Iranian Shi’ites have been spreading out through Africa and South America. Another sign of the End of Days is the United States’ collaboration with Iran against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It means the world will eventually pay for America’s looking the other way while the Iranians are building nuclear bombs in their cellars.
These cellars may currently be distant from the shores of the United States, but they are close to all the oil fields in the Middle East. By the time U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office, Iran will not only have nuclear breakout capability, but also intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads. Its next target will be U.S. assets in the Gulf. If Iran can finally drive the U.S. “Great Satan” out of the Gulf by threatening U.S. assets, it will be free to pursue still further expansion.
These are or will be the victims of America’s determination to drag out the problem of an exploding Middle East. That way, U.S. President Barack Obama can hand the region over to the next president, while forever pretending that the vacuum created by pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East — now being filled by Iran, the Islamic State and other terror groups — had nothing to do with him.
This situation leaves, ironically, the lone voice of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crying in the wilderness. As much as many of us may not like him or the people he represents, he is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination.
It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite.
Western leaders just seem not to be programmed to understand the capabilities of other leaders, and how they, too, negotiate, manipulate and hide behind lies. Obama’s Russian “Reset Button” did not work; his “Al Qaeda is on the run,” did not work; “We shall never let Russia take the Ukraine” did not work; and the unwinnable Israel-Palestinian “Peace Process” did not work.
Obama, in order to wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, seems eager to fall victim to bogus promises, worthless treaties and other leaders’ outright lies — only to look an even bigger fool than Britain’s former Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. After meeting with Germany’s with Adolf Hitler in 1938, Chamberlain returned to Britain boasting of “peace in our time.” But Chamberlain did not have the luxury of seeing a Chamberlain duped before him. If the deal signed with Iran is full of loopholes, it is Obama who will be blamed. Does Obama really want his legacy to be, “The president who was an even bigger fool than Neville Chamberlain”? He will not be seen as “Nixon in China.” He will be seen as the Eid al-Adha lamb.
Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.
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