Dr Andrew Bostom on Lisa Benson show 12.5.2015, You Tube, April 13, 2015
(Dr. Bostom relates Islamic doctrine to Iran’s negotiating tactics. Please see also, Lt. Col Ralph Peters: “The Iranians Negotiate, We BEG!” — DM)
Dr Andrew Bostom on Lisa Benson show 12.5.2015, You Tube, April 13, 2015
(Dr. Bostom relates Islamic doctrine to Iran’s negotiating tactics. Please see also, Lt. Col Ralph Peters: “The Iranians Negotiate, We BEG!” — DM)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/sRDctfQDPD0“>Lt. Col Ralph Peters: “The Iranians Negotiate, We BEG!” You Tube, April 11, 2015
Russia Lifts Ban on Missile Deliveries to Iran, Start Oil-For-Goods Swap
BY:
April 13, 2015 9:19 am
via Russia Lifts Ban on Missile Deliveries to Iran, Start Oil-For-Goods Swap | Washington Free Beacon.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday paved the way for long-overdue missile system deliveries to Iran and Moscow started an oil-for-goods swap with Tehran, showing the Kremlin’s determination to boost economic ties with the Islamic Republic.
The moves come after world powers, including Russia, reached an interim deal with Iran on curbing its nuclear programme and signal that Moscow may have a head-start in the race to benefit from an eventual lifting of sanctions on Tehran.
The Kremlin said Putin signed a decree lifting Russia’s own ban on the delivery of S-300 anti-missile rocket system to Iran, removing a major irritant between the two after Moscow cancelled a corresponding contract in 2010 under pressure from the West.
A senior government official said separately that Russia has started supplying grain, equipment and construction materials to Iran in exchange for crude oil under a barter deal.
Sources told Reuters more than a year ago that a deal worth up to $20 billion was being discussed with Tehran and would involve Russia buying up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day in exchange for Russian equipment and goods.
Officials from the two countries have issued contradictory statements since then on whether a barter deal has been signed, but Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov indicated one was already being implemented.
“I wanted to draw your attention to the rolling out of the oil-for-goods deal, which is on a very significant scale,” Ryabkov told a briefing with members of the upper house of parliament on the talks with Iran.
“In exchange for Iranian crude oil supplies, we are delivering certain products. This is not banned or limited under the current sanctions regime.”
He declined to give any further details. Russia’s Agriculture Ministry declined comment and the Energy Ministry did not immediately respond to request for comment. There was no comment from Iran.
Russia hopes to reap economic and trade benefits if a final deal is concluded to build on the framework agreement reached in the Swiss city of Lausanne between Iran and six world powers – Russia, the United States, France, Britain, Germany and China.
The sides have until the end of June to work out a detailed technical agreement under which Iran would curb its nuclear programme and allow international control in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions. Tehran has denied that its nuclear activities are designed at developing atomic weapons.
TWO TO TANGO
Iran is the third largest buyer of Russian wheat, and Moscow and Tehran have been discussing the barter deal for more than a year.
Russia’s state-controlled grain trader in September lowered the value of its potential grain supplies to Iran under the barter to $500 million annually. In December, Iran’s oil minister denied Tehran and Moscow were close to a deal.
Ryabkov also suggested Russia had high hopes that its steady support for Iran would pay off in energy cooperation once international sanctions against the Islamic republic are lifted.
“It takes two to tango. We are ready to provide our services and I am sure they will be pretty advantageous compared to other countries,” he said. “We never gave up on Iran in a difficult situation… Both for oil and gas, I think the prospects for our cooperation should not be underestimated.”
He also reiterated Moscow’s line that an arms embargo on Iran should be lifted once a final nuclear deal is sealed.
One upper house lawmaker asked Ryabkov whether lifting sanctions on Tehran could undermine Russia’s position on global energy markets, including as the main gas supplier to Europe.
“I am not confident as yet that the Iranian side would be ready to carry out supplies of natural gas from its fields quickly and in large quantities to Europe. This requires infrastructure that is difficult to build,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Polina Devitt and Olesya Astakhova, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Angus MacSwan)
Report: US working to stop Iran arms reaching Yemen
US expanding intervention in Yemen, has forces board Panamanian freighter suspected of delivering Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, Wall Street Journal reports.
Yitzhak Benhorin
Published: 04.13.15, 15:41
via Report: US working to stop Iran arms reaching Yemen – Israel News, Ynetnews.
The US has expanded its intervention in the current Yemen crisis in order to prevent Iran from aiding the fighting in the country.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Sunday, US forces aboard the USS Sterett boarded a Panamanian freighter suspected of delivering Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The search, conducted on April 1, came up empty and marked the first US Navy’s boarding operation in a growing effort to ensure Iran does not supply the Houthi fighters with surface-to-air missiles that could be a game-changer in the fighting and threaten the Saudi-led airstrikes against the Houthis.
The US has been helping Saudi Arabia with intelligence information and recently announced it would expand its assistance to help optimize airstrikes in Yemen and reduce adverse impacts on civilians.

According to the WSJ report, the Saudi airstrikes have already struck hospitals, schools, refugee camps and residential neighborhoods.
The airstrikes began two weeks ago after Houthi rebels forced US-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country. The rebels have taken over the capitol of Yemen and flooded much of the country.
US and Saudi officials have said that Iran has been providing arms, weapons, funding and training for the Houthi rebels for years, according to the WSJ report. Iran has denied the claims.
The Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, presented more than 100 high-value targets at the CIA headquarters in order for them to be examined by US intelligence.
The examination by the Pentagon found that several of the targets were of little military value, while others were labeled high value targets but were located in population centers. The US provided the Saudis with satellite imagery but did not choose targets for the Saudis to strike.
The US government fears a growing indignation among the Sunnis in Yemen and other Arab countries, and questions the ability of the Saudis to change the situation in Yemen through aerial attacks.
The American government also fears Saudi Arabia will expand its airstrikes in northern Yemen – a move that could lead to a war of attrition that could last years. Thus, the US warned the Saudis to limit their airstrikes to solely progress Houthi progress.
Meanwhile, the Saudis say that the airstrikes must continue because the tribes in Yemen “appreciate the strong.” The Saudis biggest accomplishment thus far has been taking the port city of Aden.
As the fighting continues, the US hopes that a stalemate on the battlefield will force the parties to reach the negotiating table before the Yemeni military is harmed to the point the country will no longer be able to be stabilized and have its politicians return.
Germany Approves Fifth ‘Special’ Submarine for Israel
Answer to Iran deal? Germany gives green light to new advanced sub that can hold nuclear weapons.
By Hillel Fendel
First Publish: 4/13/2015, 7:14 AM
via Germany: Fifth ‘Special’ Submarine for Israel – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva.
Germany has approved the delivery of the fifth of six promised submarines to Israel – amid claims that the sub will be outfitted with nuclear weapons. Is this part of Israel’s answer to the US nuclear agreement with Iran?
The German Federal Security Council, which monitors Germany’s export of military goods, has given the green light for the delivery of another submarine to Israel. The news has renewed claims that Israel will fit the sub with one or more nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
The six submarines ordered by Israel several years ago have been and are being built by the German shipyard HDW in Kiel. Four submarines have already been delivered to Israel; the last one, the INS Tanin, was handed over to Israel last September. Vice Admiral Ram Rotberg said at the time that it “can dive deeper, go farther for a longer time and can operate at a level we have not seen until today.”
The fifth submarine, and the latest to be approved, will be the INS Rahav. A sixth one is to be delivered by 2017, and Israel has even been reported to be interested in ordering three more.
Germany’s Spiegel news outlet has often reported that by supplying Israel with the submarines, Germany is actually “helping Israel develop its military nuclear capabilities.” Spiegel has quoted former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as saying that Germans should be “proud” that they have secured the existence of the state of Israel “for many years.”
The submarine missiles can be launched using a previously secret hydraulic ejection system.
Coincidentally or not, controversial Egyptian TV presenter Tawfik Okasha called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over the weekend to bomb Iran – and promised Egyptian support for “our dear friend Netanyahu,”
Okasha said. “Please, Iran faces you and the Bushehr reactor faces you. Put your trust in Allah and bomb it. We are with you. And if you need fuel for the jets, we will give it to you.”
Hillary Clinton’s Anti-Israel History
Via The Lid blogsite

(Ladies and Gentlemen, please allow me to introduce the next president of the United States and leader of the not-so-free world…Hillary Rodham Clinton! Let the inauguration begin! So sit back kiddies, grab a bag of popcorn and stay tuned for the upcoming clown show. – LS)
An article appearing in the Jewish Daily Forward announced the formation of “Jewish Americans Ready For Hillary!” A truth those progressive Jews for Hillary ignore, with the possible exception of the time from her first campaign New York’s Senate seat in 2000 to her resignation from the Senate to become Secretary of State in January 2009, except for the time she needed New York’s Jewish voting bloc, Hillary Clinton has never been pro-Israel.
On their website, “Jewish Americans Ready For Hillary!” claim, “Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has fought for the issues that matter most to Jewish Americans.”
Of one issue that “matters most to Jewish Americans,” Hillary Clinton is most certainly not a supporter that is the health and security of the Jewish State of Israel.
Even before her marriage to Bill, Hillary Clinton was opposing Israel and promoting the forces of terrorism. In his book American Evita on page 49, Christopher Anderson writes.
At a time when elements of the American Left embraced the Palestinian cause and condemned Israel, Hillary was telling friends that she was “sympathetic” to the terrorist organization and admired its flamboyant leader, Yasser Arafat. When Arafat made his famous appearance before the UN General Assembly in November 1974 wearing his revolutionary uniform and his holster on his hip, Bill “was outraged like everybody else,” said a Yale Law School classmate. But not Hillary, who tried to convince Bill that Arafat was a “freedom fighter” trying to free his people from their Israeli “oppressors.”
On page 50 the author relates an experience that Hillary and and her future husband had during a trip to Arkansas in 1973.
It was during this trip to his home state that Bill took Hillary to meet a politically well-connected friend. When they drove up to the house, Bill and Hillary noticed that a menorah-the seven branched Hebrew candelabrum (not to be confused with the more common and subtler mezuzah)-has been affixed to the front door.
“My daddy was half Jewish,” explained Bill’s friend. “One day when he came to visit , my daddy placed the menorah on my door because he wanted me to be proud that we were part Jewish. And I wasn’t about to say no to my daddy.”
To his astonishment, as soon as Hillary saw the menorah, she refused to get out of the car. “Bill walked up to me and said that she was hot and tired, but later he explained the real reason.” According to the friend and another eyewitness, Bill said, “I’m sorry, but Hillary’s really tight with the people in the PLO in New York. They’re friends of hers, and she just doesn’t feel right about the menorah.”
Hillary’s attitude did not change when she became first lady. In May 1998 Ms Clinton became the first member of any presidential administration ever to call for a Palestinian State. She told a youth conference on Middle East peace in Switzerland, that she supports the eventual creation of an independent Palestinian state. Her spokesperson, Marsha Berry told reporters: “These remarks are her own personal view.”
In November 1999, while on a purported State visit to the Middle East, she publicly appeared with Yasser Arafat’s wife Suha. Mrs. Arafat made a slanderous fa allegation:
“Our [Palestinian] people have been submitted to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.” Suha also accused Israel of contaminating much of the water sources used by Palestinians with “chemical materials” and poisoning Palestinian women and children with toxic gases.”
Mrs. Clinton sat by silently listening to a real-time translation, and the terrorist’s wife hug and a kiss when she finished speaking.
Later, many hours after the event, and only after a media furor put her on the spot for what many view as a bit more than a mere political “boo boo Mrs. Clinton called on all sides to refrain from “inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations,” including Israel, whose leaders made no such accusations.
Glossing over this repugnant affair, Hillary Clinton has yet to specifically contradict and denounce the monstrous lies uttered by Yasser Arafat’s wife in her presence. Only years later did she make feeble attempt at an excuse, the translator screwed up.
Before her tenure in the State Departing, Bill and Hillary Clinton made mega dollars from their extensive involvement with Dubai. Besides being a leader in the movement to boycott Israel, Dubai is the “Hong Kong” of the Arab world. And a major commerce and shipping point for the “business-side” of terrorism. Bill and Hilary are major friends of Dubai, to the point where the Clinton Foundation have established Dubai Study departments in universities in the US and London. They worked hard at granting legitimacy to this Jew-hating, terrorist supporting nation.
While she was running for President in 2007, San Francisco Examiner columnist P.J. Corkery, wrote that Clinton made $10 million a year from Yucaipa a Dubai firm. Ron Berkle, the owner of Yucaipa companies was a major fund-raiser for Bill and Hillary.
The Clintons also had a connection to the worlds biggest exporter of terrorism, Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Royal Family donated $10,000,000 to the Clinton Library.
According to a 1993 New York Times article, Prince Turki bin Feisal was a college classmate of Bill’s at Georgetown University and (at the time of the article’s writing) was the head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence service. While he was still governor of Arkansas, it looks like Bill Clinton cashed in on that relationship, “work[ing] hard to secure a multimillion-dollar Saudi donation to a Middle Eastern studies program at the University of Arkansas.” Due to the intervention of the Gulf War, the first installment of $3.5 million didn’t arrive until 1992, with another $20 million arriving after Bill Clinton’s first inauguration.
During her Senate years Ms. Clinton became a vocal supporter of Israel because she needed the Jewish vote.
One of her first actions after leaving the Senate to become Secretary of State was to ignore a previous deal with Israel and call for the end of the construction of new homes in existing settlement neighborhoods. Five years later her call for the end of building is till is haunting Israeli/Palestinian peace talks.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton first demanded the “settlement” freeze in 2009 and was quickly backed up by Obama. What she perceived as a minor concession (a “settlement” freeze including no new housing units in existing communities) was for Israel a grave sacrifice. For all intents and purposes Clinton was telling Israeli parents their married children could no longer live in their neighborhoods
This was a major error by the Clinton State Department and it was compounded by their inclusion of Jerusalem in the mix and the constant public berating of the Jewish State by Clinton and Obama.
Clinton’s demand for a building freeze in existing settlement communities broke a US/Israel agreement made during the Bush administration. Ms Clinton said there was never an agreement between Israel and the US about natural expansion of existing settlements. But Elliot Abrams who negotiated the agreement for the United States said Clinton’s contention is simply not true.
Immediately the Palestinians seized upon the Hillary-created settlement issue. Seeing an opportunity to avoid talking, they used the administration’s demands, to make a “settlement” freeze a precondition to further talks even though there were negotiations and construction going on simultaneously before Hilary Clinton became Secretary of State.
In August 2009 Prime Minister Netanyahu announced a ten-month “settlement” freeze. It was approved by the cabinet and implemented on November 25, 2009 and was to run till September 25, 2010. Despite pressure from the United States, the Palestinians refused to join any talks the first 9+ months of the freeze; they did not come to the negotiation table till September 2010, three weeks before the freeze ended.
As the end of the construction halt approached, the US began to negotiate with the Israel to extend the freeze. Based on their experience with Clinton denying the deal negotiated by Elliot Abrams during the Bush Administration, Israel demanded that any proposal be presented in writing, as any oral deal with Clinton and the Obama administration was worth the paper on which is was printed on.
The written offer never came; the Secretary of State wasn’t negotiating in good faith. Instead Ms Clinton was playing “Bait and Switch.” As Israel waited for a letter clarifying America’s guarantees in exchange for a proposed building ban for Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, a diplomatic source finally came forward saying that no such letter is on its way. The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The source, a senior diplomat with inside knowledge of Netanyahu’s recent meetings in Washington, said Clinton made commitments when talking to Netanyahu, but later slipped out of them by claiming that she had not been speaking on behalf of U.S. President Obama – who, she said in the end, did not give his approval.
In 2011 speaking at the at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the liberal Brookings Institute, Clinton expressed concern for Israel’s social climate in the wake of limitations the regarding female singing in the IDF and gender segregation on public transportation. Both were accommodations made to the Orthodox communities in Israel
She referred to the decision of some IDF soldiers to leave an event where female soldiers were singing; she said it reminded her of the situation in Iran. It did? Wow! In Iran the women would have been lashed or executed. In Israel they sang, but the people who felt it was against their religious beliefs walked out. Most senior officers in the IDF supported the women’s right to sing.
Clinton also poke of her shock that some Jerusalem buses had assigned separate seating areas for women. “It’s reminiscent of Rosa Parks,” she said, taking the typical progressive position that faith should not matter outside a place of worship. Clinton’s statement was part of the continued attempt by the Obama administration/Clinton State Department to de-legitimize the Israeli democracy and destroy one of the reasons for American support of Israel, the fact it is the only democracy in the Middle East.
Now Hillary Clinton is running for President. She will campaign on the basis that she is a friend of Israel, just as Barack Obama did in 2008. The truth is as Secretary of State; she was the architect of the policy of the most anti-Israel president since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. It was a policy which reflected views she has held her entire life, with the exception of the nine year period where she ran for and held the office of U.S. Senator from New York State.
Military strike against Iran with minimal fallout for Israel possible, US senator says
The Republican US senator behind a letter to the Iranian leadership warning that future presidents may not honor any deal that President Barack Obama signs with Tehran said Monday that he believes pinpoint strikes against Iran could be carried out without leading to a long war for the US or regional fallout against Israel.
Speaking in an interview with Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) warned however, that if a nuclear deal was signed with Iran, and the Islamic Republic was allowed to become a nuclear-armed state, then the likely outcome would be nuclear war with Iran.
He referenced previous statements made by former prime minister Ehud Barak that “it would just take one night” to launch an effective strike to set back Iran’s nuclear program.
Cotton gained international recognition when he initiated a letter in March signed by 47 Republican senators warning the Islamic Republic that any nuclear deal not approved by Congress “is a mere executive agreement” that may not be honored after Obama leaves the White House in January 2017.
Discussing the potential for Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel as a response to a US strike against Iran, Cotton told Goldberg: “I’ve consulted with various senior members of the Israeli government over the years, and they’re aware of the possibility that Iran might use Hezbollah, in particular, to retaliate in an asymmetric way for any military strikes, either American or Israeli, and the assessment I’ve heard from them is that while that is a risk, it is a risk they can manage.”
Cotton added that the risk to Israel is not what it once was. “This is different from what you might have seen nine years ago during the Hezbollah war in 2006, or even five years ago, when the talk of an Israeli strike was at its peak, in large part because of Iron Dome, and also because of the strain that sanctions have put on Iran—its ability to fund these kinds of operations and continue to replenish Hezbollah and their weapon stocks.”
Cotton said that Obama himself had said over the weekend that Iran could not challenge the US militarily, quoting the US president’s assertion that while the US spends $600 billion a year on its military, Tehran spends $30 billion a year. “Not only do we have the ability to substantially degrade their nuclear facilities, but we have the capability, along with our Gulf allies, who have increased their military spending by over 50 percent, to largely protect them from any kind of retaliatory air or naval strikes.”
The Republican senator said that the framework reached between world powers and Iran earlier this month does not represent any real agreement between the two sides. “There’s a long list of concessions that Iran’s leaders continue to dispute they actually made.”
Cotton defended his decision to send the letter to the Iranian leadership, rejecting claims that he had undermined Obama’s foreign policy. “The letter simply stated indisputable facts of constitutional law, and Iran’s leaders needed to hear that message, and they needed to hear it from us.”
Cotton said that he sees a potential military confrontation with Iran down the road if the US signs the deal with Iran. “If we agreed to the kind of proposal the Obama administration has made, then military confrontation may be further off, but it might also be nuclear.”
He added: “The proposal puts Iran on the path to being a nuclear-arms state, and I think once Iran becomes a nuclear-arms state, this will lead inevitably to some kind of military confrontation. It may not be initially with the United States, but I think that’s virtually inevitable…I think if we choose to go down the path of this deal, it is likely that we could be facing nuclear war.”
Is Iran on its way to attaining advanced missiles?
Reuters reported that Russian President Putin has lifted the ban on selling the advanced S-300 missile system to Iran. Israel had put pressure on the Russians in the past in order to prevent them from supplying Iran with the Russian-made missiles.
Apr 13, 2015, 04:13PM | Tom Dolev
via Israel News – Is Iran on its way to attaining advanced missiles? – JerusalemOnline.

The S-300 missile system. Photo Credit: Reuters / Channel 2 News
Is Iran already profiting from the framework agreement reached with the world powers? On the backdrop of development regarding the nuclear agreement with Iran, the Reuters News Agency reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin has lifted the ban on selling S-300 missile systems to the Islamic Republic.
According to the Kremlin, Moscow had cancelled a contract to supply the missile system to Iran in 2010, following international pressure led by the West. Later came the UN sanctions on Iran.
The S-300 is an advanced missile system made in Russia. It was reported in the past that the Russians planned to sell the system to both Iran and Syria. Israel put heavy pressure on Russia in order to prevent it from supplying the missiles to Iran.
After terrorists claim 13 lives in Sinai, El-Sisi reshuffles top army, navy, intelligence and Suez Canal chiefs, DEBKAfile, April 13,2015
Devastated Egyptian police station in El Arish
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that northern Sinai, due to the increasing frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, is beginning to resemble Baghdad, which on that same Sunday was struck by four ISIS car bombs and other devices, which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.
*********************
President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi was spurred Sunday, April 12, to make a clean sweep of his top military intelligence, navy and Second Field Army command (responsible for Sinai and the Suez Canal) by another two deadly attacks in northern Sinai by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the lslamic State’s local branch. They claimed 13 deaths, seven of them Egyptian troops, including two officers, and injured more than 50.
The Sinai terrorists have played havoc with Sinai security since pledging loyalty to and gained support from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Egyptian military, even after being substantially reinforced and imposing a state of emergency, has been unable to stem the deadly spiral and paid for it with a heavy toll of casualties.
In the first attack Sunday, six soldiers, including two officers, were killed when a roadside bomb struck their armored vehicle traveling south of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai. Twelve hours later, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance of a large police station in el-Arish, killing seven people, including five policemen, and injuring at least 40, many of them civilians.
In a third smaller attack, militants clashed with soldiers at a mobile checkpoint in Rafah, south of el-Arish, wounding one police officer and two soldiers.
Saturday, April 11, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdas, using the methods of its new parent, released a video clip depicting an Egyptian soldier being shot dead and the decapitation of an Egyptian civilian. Both victims were snatched during an attack on April 2, which left 15 soldiers dead, on an Egyptian army position in the El Arish vicinity.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that northern Sinai, due to the increasing frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, is beginning to resemble Baghdad, which on that same Sunday was struck by four ISIS car bombs and other devices, which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.
Before the thunder of the blasts died down in Sinai, the Egyptian president announced a major reshuffle of his military, security and intelligence ranks.
The most senior officer to be sacked was military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Salah El-Badry. He was replaced by Gen. Mohamed al-Shahat, a former commander of the Second Field Army, which is the current backbone of the army force fighting the Islamists terrorists in northern Sinai.
Gen. Nasser al-Assi is the new commander of the Second Army. Our military sources report that al-Assi spent some months in northern Sinai on a personal assignment on behalf of the president and returned to Cairo with new recommendations for combating the terrorists.
In another key change, Rear Admiral Osama El-Gendy was replaced as commander of the Egyptian Navy by Rear Admiral Osama Mounir.
The navy’s role is increasingly prominent since Egyptian warships were deployed in the last two weeks off the coast of Yemen to secure the strategically vital Bab el-Mandab Strait — the gateway to the Suez Canal – against Iranian-backed Houthi rebel control. Their guns have been trained on the Yemeni port of Aden in a running barrage to prevent the rebels and their allies, the mutinous Yemeni army’s 212nd Brigade, from overrunning the town.
The Navy’s role in the Yemen war makes a change of commanders in mid-combat highly unusual. However, it had become just as urgent at this stage to shift Rear Adm El-Gendy from the Navy to the top post in the Suez Canal Authority, to take charge of one of the most important seaways in the world, which had became a highway from the rampant smuggling of the arms and fighters nourishing ISIS terrorist outposts in Sinai.
DEBKAfile reports that ships from Libya and Jordan carry the contraband by sea and unload it at secret dropping-off points on the Sinai Peninsula’s western Mediterranean and the eastern Gulf of Aqaba coasts. Some of the goods are conveyed from Libya via the Suez Canal via the towns of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, whence smuggling rings based on the banks of the waterway collect them by boat.
Tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Sinai are also an important smuggling route for supplying terrorist groups. The Egyptian military reshuffle was accompanied by an amendment to the penal code by presidential decree which raised the penalty for building or using cross-border tunnels to life in jail. The penalty also applies to people with knowledge of tunnels who fail to report them to the authorities. The Egyptian government was authorized to seize buildings at the top of tunnels and equipment for digging them.
The hallucinatory deal with Iran resembles Alice Through the Looking Glass more than any kind of diplomatic or political achievement.– anneinpt)

The magic Iranian Easter Bunny (via Twitter)
Shortly before Purim I wrote a post about “Venahafoch hu” – how “everything was turned about” in matters to do with Israel and the Palestinians. Well, Pesach is now over and yet it seems that the Purim spirit is still with us in everything to do with the nuclear deal between Iran and Barack Obama. (Note: I use Obama’s name deliberately rather than “Iran and the P5+1” because this deal has Obama’s name (literally) written all over it with seemingly very little input from the other 5 partners.)
How else other than utter surrealism, if not willful blindness, could explain the following headlines? (All the links in the Twitter embeds are clickable and will take you to the original articles).
Yes, the Saudis and Israel are the world’s new “best friends”, or at least politically-convenient allies. Who would have thought we would live to see the day? And keep in mind that it was the Americans, or rather Barack Obama himself, who drove the two into each others’ arms. Maybe that was his devious plan all along?
Note to politicians: When Haaretz contradicts you, you know you are on the wrong side:
https://twitter.com/HenryRops1/status/584871507714768896
They should take advice from Prof. Alon Ben Meir, a world expert in the Middle East.
It’s surely past time to take the Iranians at their word (click on the picture below to enlarge and see the quotes in their entirety):
And this is confirmed by former Presidential candidate, Senator John McCain:
The Israeli government is not relenting on its persistent questioning of the “deal” with Iran:
This is summarized in these convenient tabs:
Possibly the most surreal moment of this whole surreal farce (apologies for the overuse of this word. I just cannot think of a better description) was Obama actually confirming Binyamin Netanyahu’s assertion that the Iranian’s will have zero time to nuclear breakout, and then the State Department frantically trying to walk back Obama’s words:
From the linked article:
As reported yesterday, President Obama admitted that Netanyahu was correct when he said that the sunset clause in the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran “paves the way” for Iran to get nuclear weapons.
Obama admitted that in years 13 and 14 under his deal, the breakout time, which has since dropped to its current 2-3 months, and which the deal hopes to expand to 1 year, then drops to zero.
“What is a more relevant fear would be that in Year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”
The State Department faced a crisis when Obama accidentally told the truth, and to correct it, Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the President’s words got “a little mixed up”, and he was referring to a “hypothetical” case of what would happen without a deal.
Kemberly Kaye at Legal Insurrection blasted the “dippy” Marie Harf (although she was probably acting under orders) and quoted two former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz in the Wall Street Journal:
Brutally critical of the administration’s much touted Iran deal, the op-ed focused on the White House’s dismissive attitude towards the danger Iran poses. Kissinger and Shultz were less than impressed by the administration’s insistence on the necessity of a deal with a country whose priorities aren’t remotely in the same galaxy as those of the United States, noting:
Cooperation is not an exercise in good feeling; it presupposes congruent definitions of stability. There exists no current evidence that Iran and the U.S. are remotely near such an understanding. Even while combating common enemies, such as ISIS, Iran has declined to embrace common objectives. Iran’s representatives (including its Supreme Leader) continue to profess a revolutionary anti-Western concept of international order; domestically, some senior Iranians describe nuclear negotiations as a form of jihad by other means.
In sum, the op-ed eloquently observes the Iran deal is a complete and total cluster.
As pointed out above several times, the White House is suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance on Iran. Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection lists the ways:
Yesterday, Senator John McCain talked with radio host Hugh Hewitt about the non-deal—and the White House is not happy about it.
During the interview, McCain laid it all bare when he said that, with regards to the framework, “John Kerry is delusional.”
…
The White House comms shop, of course, can always be counted upon to barrel headfirst through a brick wall when faced with criticism. No exception here:
https://twitter.com/rorycooper/status/586608713433292801
https://twitter.com/BrettLoGiurato/status/586608095507296257
This Alice in Wonderland view is cleverly illustrated thus:
https://twitter.com/coinabs/status/585641373510041603
We can add to this whole mish-mash the rather important but somehow unnoticed little fact that the Iran deal is not in fact a deal at all, as the Diplomad explains:
In all these mushrooming detonations of praise and self-congratulation one simple, little, itsy-bitsy fact has been overlooked. I hate to be the party pooper, but, well, there is no deal.
…
So comparing the Geneva “deal” with Iran to the Munich Agreement is unfair to the Munich Agreement. Chamberlain wasn’t lying when he announced he had a deal; Obama and Kerry are lying when they announce that they have a deal.
I repeat, there is no deal.
I have been in lots of negotiations, and can spot fake talking points real fast. The giveaway, of course, is that the detailed “parameters” were announced by the US; where are the signatures on the deal? I want to see where the Iranians signed.
The Iranian take on the “parameters” is quite different from the line peddled by Obama and Kerry. While Obama seeks to give the impression that these “parameters” have been agreed, the Iranian position is that, basically, these “parameters” establish the topics that will be discussed over the following weeks and months, except, of course, for one. The Iranians claim that sanctions must be lifted immediately or there is no further “progress.” In addition, of course, the Iranians get to keep their nuclear program. A minor detail.
David Gerstman also concurs with the Diplomad that the deal, such as it is, is going to kill the Non-Proliferation Treaty:
The idea that the protocols (remember there’s no deal yet) agreed to last week somehow would strengthen the NPT is utterly false.
The point of the ongoing nuclear negotiations from Iran’s standpoint is to remove its violations from the books and end the sanctions it incurred for those violations. Iran’s goal in the negotiations is to enshrine its “right to enrich” uranium. (No such right exists. Nuclear research for peaceful purposes is a right, an important qualification that cannot be attached to Iran’s nuclear research, according to the NPT.)
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Now let’s assume the most optimistic outcome: that Iran addresses all key concerns. (Iran was supposed to explain possible military dimensions – PMD – of its nuclear work according to the Joint Plant of Action (JPOA) of November 2013, and still has not done so.) Iran would still have over 5000 centrifuges enriching uranium at Natanz. Iran would have centrifuges operating (though not enriching uranium) in an underground reinforced facility at Fordow and would have a heavy water reactor operating at Arak. (In December 2013, Obama himself acknowledged that Iran did not need the latter two facilities “to have a peaceful nuclear program.”)
So by defying the IAEA and the Security Council Iran will be awarded 5000 centrifuges enriching uranium that it didn’t have before. The sanctions triggered by those violations will be wiped away. (By the way, 5000 centrifuges is enough for a bomb, but not for civilian nuclear program.)
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Ironically, the president overseeing the destruction of the NPT was once a proponent of nuclear disarmament.
One more hallucinatory piece of cognitive dissonance for today (though I could go on for ages. This Iran deal is a giver):
https://twitter.com/soccerdhg/status/587139164296126466
Seriously, if this weren’t so deadly serious we would be laughing hysterically.
And just to complete today’s upside-down news, we are now officially into “Jewish summer time” since we wish each other “a good summer” at the end of Pesach. But someone forgot to inform the weather. We have been suffering from a wintry storm with huge amounts of rain, hail, thunder and lightning. My little side road has been flooded and my car can barely get out without the water going above the wheels. My daughter in Gush Etzion has reported a temperature of 1°C!! Any lower and it will snow. This is Spring. In Israel. Where its’ supposed to be in the mid-20s at the very least. To cap it all, last Wednesday it was almost 40°C.
Welcome to the crazy Middle East.
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