WarSclerotic

Obama’s fatal attraction to Iran – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: US president seems to naively believe that if he befriends and develops a relationship with the ‘bad boy’ Iranian regime, he can ‘save’ the Iranians and the world in the process; in practice, he is destroying the future of the free world.

Shoula Romano Horing

It seems that Barack Obama truly believes he is the chosen one who can change the “bad boy” Iranian regime, bring it back into the community of nations, moderate its revolutionary jihadist zeal, and make it the West’s new friend and partner in the Middle East.

The American president believes that by paving the way for Iran to be a threshold nuclear state and a successful regional power, he will be appropriately apologizing and compensating the Iranians for alleged past actions by the West and the US that abused and disrespected them. He believes that Iran is not bad or evil by nature but has behaved badly because it was misunderstood, humiliated, dishonored, isolated, confronted, and threatened militarily and economically by the West.

Like so many other ultra-liberal academics, he believes that Iran is lashing out with terrorism, a nuclear program, and threats of death to America and Israel, because it cries for help, attention, and its rightful place in the world, as befits the heirs of the old Persian Empire.

In pursuit of these goals, President Obama has been unilaterally rewarding and repeatedly conceding to Iranian demands in the nuclear negotiations in exchange for nothing in return. He has backed off from the initial demands that Iran shut down its centrifuges, dismantle its nuclear facilities and heavy water reactors, and from the phased lifting of sanctions depending on compliance.

Just recently, he encouraged John Kerry to be involved in “creative negotiations” to address Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent demand that the sanctions be lifted immediately upon the signing of a final deal. Obama has been covering up for and lying about Iran’s negotiating positions by stating that they agreed to the “framework agreement” which they have never done.

Obama is repeatedly conceding to Iranian demands in the nuclear negotiations in exchange for nothing in return (Photo: AFP / Pete Souza / The White House)

He has been keeping secrets about Iran’s dangerous behavior by concealing the fact that he has known for years that Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear bomb is less than three months and not a year as he has just recently insisted. He seems to have turned a blind eye to Iran’s belligerent military activities and its growing influence in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. Finally, he has been willing to publicly undermine the relationship with longtime friends such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in order to appease Iran.

However, reality shows that the Iranian regime has been evil and will stay evil, despite Obama’s many concessions and appeasement policy.

According to the US State Department, Iran has been and still is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and has been responsible for taking the lives of thousands of civilians in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

Inside Iran, the regime is still responsible for a horrific human rights record against its own people including thousands of cases of arbitrary incarcerations, torture, rape, burnings, and flogging of political prisoners, journalists, and bloggers based on bogus charges as well as thousands of executions without due process.

The ayatollahs’ Iran has never for the last 36 years stopped being an outspoken enemy of the US and its leader’s speeches still indicate that Iran sees itself as being in a holy war with the US and the West. Since 2003, the Iranians have been responsible for killing thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ayatollah Khamenei continues to denounce the US as the Great Satan and continues to chant “Death to America,” as well as making it clear in speeches, tweets and through his advisors that Iran does not intend to normalize relations with the US despite any nuclear deal.

To think otherwise only reinforces the concerns of many rational experts that Obama is detached from reality, obsessive, compulsive, delusional and irrational about present day Iran and its true intentions.

Obama’s irrational fascination with and attraction to jihadist Iran reminds one of that shown by some young women from Western countries who hop on a plane to go to Iraq or Syria to marry Islamic State terrorists. At their core, both are obsessively naïve about the existence of evil. Islamic Evil is real and its presence in the world is undeniable but it seems to be a shockingly enticing thing to Western teenagers and to the ultra-liberal Western academics which includes President Obama.

It is hard to understand what Western women could possibly see in these Islamic terrorists or to understand why they are drawn to them. It is equally as difficult to grasp what inspires Obama to be the one who seeks to pave the way for Iran to have a nuclear bomb, whether it be in 13 years as Obama told NPR in discussing the supposed Framework Agreement or three months after an agreement is signed and sanctions are lifted.

Similar to these women who seem to mistakenly believe that they can reform the “bad boys,” President Obama seems to naively believe that if he befriends and develops a relationship with “bad boy” Iran, he can “save” them and the world in the process.

Iran’s jihadist and brutal regime will never change unless the regime is taken out by its own oppressed people or by the US military as it removed Saddam Hussein. It is an oppressive regime that will use its power to continue to spread death and terror as they have done for years.

Allowing the Iranians to possess a nuclear bomb is the same as giving one to any of Iran’s proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria’s Assad. As Assad has used chemicals and biological weapons against his own people and against his enemies, Iran will do the same with the bomb.

Congress must stop Obama from destroying the future of the free world.

Shoula Romano Horing is an attorney. Her blog can be found here: www.shoularomanohoring.com .

White House Looks to Ease Arab Fears Over Iran Nuclear Pact – NYTimes.com.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is scrambling for reassurances it can present this month at a Camp David summit meeting to persuade Arab allies that the United States has their backs, despite a pending nuclear deal with Iran.

Officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have been meeting to discuss everything from joint training missions for American and Arab militaries (more likely) to additional weapons sales to a loose defense pact that could signal that the United States would back those allies if they come under attack from Iran.

Over mahi-mahi at a dinner at the Pentagon two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter polled a select group of Middle East experts for advice on how the administration could placate Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, all of which fear the nuclear deal, according to several attendees at the dinner.

Mr. Carter wanted to know “how do you make clear to the G.C.C. that America isn’t going to hand the house keys of the Persian Gulf over to Iran and then pivot to Asia?” said one Middle East expert at the dinner, using the acronym for the Gulf Cooperation Council. The council includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

On April 20, during lunch with President Obama at the White House, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, pressed for a defense pact with the United States, according to a senior administration official. The president in turn sought support from the Emirates for the Iran nuclear deal, which Secretary of State John Kerry is negotiating.

Administration officials said Mr. Obama had not settled on what to offer but that there were several possible options, most of them difficult to pull off. A security treaty with Saudi Arabia and the other countries is unlikely because that would have to be ratified by Congress and would probably run into opposition from Israel and its supporters on Capitol Hill.

But instead of a full-fledged security treaty — like the one the United States has with Japan ensuring that America will come to Japan’s defense — the administration is discussing offering a looser, less-binding defense pact. In the deal envisioned, American officials would put in writing, but not send to Congress, language agreeing to the defense of Arab allies if they come under attack from outside forces. Such a pact would not apply if the governments came under attack from political opponents within their own countries, since the last thing the administration wants is to get involved in future uprisings like the Arab Spring.

There is not much time left to come up with something. Mr. Kerry is to meet next week with the foreign ministers of the Arab countries to prepare for the Camp David summit meeting on May 14, and he will be expected to foreshadow what kind of package the administration is willing to offer. If he does not have anything that satisfies the gulf allies, they may downgrade their attendance at the Camp David meeting. Saudi Arabia, for example, could send its crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, instead of King Salman, in what would widely be interpreted as a rebuff of Mr. Obama.

Another option the administration is considering is whether to make Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “major non-NATO allies,” a designation that would loosen up restrictions on weapons sales. The designation falls short of a defense pact but does grant a number of military advantages that are available only to NATO allies.

Bahrain and Kuwait are already designated as such allies. Former President George W. Bush gave Kuwait the status in 2004 after it supported the American-led invasion of Iraq and served as a staging ground for United States troops. Bahrain, the home of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, got the designation in 2002.

But neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates has the designation that could help soothe Arab fears, said Kenneth M. Pollack, an expert on Middle East political and military affairs at the Brookings Institution.

“The gulf states are very concerned about this nuclear deal with Iran,’’ Mr. Pollack said. “Some of them believe this is the start of an Obama administration bid to trade them away.” Administration officials, he said, were “trying to think creatively about how they can assuage those fears.”

Increased weapons sales could help, but there is a major roadblock: maintaining Israel’s military edge. The United States has long put restrictions on the types of weapons that American defense firms can sell to Arab nations, which are meant to ensure that Israel keeps a military advantage against its traditional adversaries in the region. That is why the administration has so far not allowed Lockheed Martin to sell the F-35 fighter jet, considered to be the jewel of America’s future arsenal of weapons, to Arab countries. The plane, the world’s most expensive weapons project, has stealth abilities and has been approved for sale to Israel.

Defense analysts say that with the balance of power in the Middle East in flux, that could change. One possibility would be to wait three years after delivering the F-35 to Israel and then approve it for sale to the United Arab Emirates — the Arab ally most likely to get the first chance to buy the stealth fighter — which would give Israel a three-year head start.

If the Arab allies “could push a button and have anything, they want a security pact, a Japan-style treaty,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “ But they’re cognizant of the fact that that’s too big of an ask. So at the very minimum, it’s weapons sales.”

Vali R. Nasr, a former special adviser to Mr. Obama who is now dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said that the administration had already made moves to reassure the Arab allies — most notably by supporting Saudi-led airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and by moving an aircraft carrier group to the Yemeni coast. The warships were meant as a show of force to turn back an Iranian convoy, which American officials said they suspected was trying to deliver weapons to the Houthis.

“Remember, our dog in the fight in Yemen is Al Qaeda, not the Houthis,” Mr. Nasr said. Moving the carrier group to back the Saudis “wasn’t about Yemen. It was about alliance management. “

Biden: War with Iran Will Happen If Required – News from America – News – Arutz Sheva.

Joe Biden

Thinkstock

US Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday the United States is willing to go to war to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, as he defended the deal being hammered out with Iran over its nuclear weapons program.

“As we pursue this deal, we’re also deepening our cooperation with Israel and our other regional partners,” he said as he addressed the 30th anniversary dinner of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“There’s nothing simple, minimal or predictable about a war with Iran,” he added, but “if required, it will happen. It is a risk that we may yet have to take should Iran rush to a bomb.”

Biden’s warning may be the most direct public threat made by any US administration of war against Iran in case it pursues a nuclear weapon.

“The finest military in history remains at the ready,” Biden said. “Don’t underestimate my friend Barack Obama. He has a spine of steel and he is willing to do what it takes to keep our allies safe.”

“We’re prepared to use the force, just listen to the news tonight about what we’re doing in the straits,” Biden said, referring to the deployment of US Navy warships to accompany US vessels in the Persian Gulf following Iran’s seizure of a cargo ship this week..

JTA reported that Biden also said that President Barack Obama had authorized military preparations in the event of a decision to strike Iran.

“No such policy existed before president Obama uttered it, that all instruments of American power to prevent — not contain — a nuclear armed Iran would be used ,” Biden said. “He made sure that our military had the capacity and the ability to execute the mission if required.”

“Those who say the deal ‘paves Iran’s path to a bomb’, respectfully, they don’t get it,” Biden said, in a veiled reference to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Biden promised that the Obama administration would not sign a deal that ended sanctions against Iran up front, and that did not allow for intrusive measures that would extend Iran’s breakout period to a year. He also pledged that a deal would require Iran to reveal its past nuclear weapons research. Iran’s leaders have rejected such a formula.

Obama to veto any bill that would undermine Iran talks | The Times of Israel.

After lawmakers vote against making nuclear accord a treaty, US president warns against interfering legislation

US President Barack Obama plans to veto any legislation that would depart from a deal between the White House and US lawmakers over Congress’ role in the Iranian nuclear negotiations, an administration official said Wednesday.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest also said Obama also would not support any bill that would interfere with the negotiations between Iran, the US and other world powers over its nuclear program, Reuters reported.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate turned back an attempt to elevate any nuclear deal with Iran into a treaty, a vote that gave momentum to lawmakers trying to pass a bill giving Congress a chance to review and possibly reject any agreement with Tehran.

The amendment, filed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, failed 39 to 57.

Supporters want the bill passed free of controversial add-ons they claim could scuttle negotiations with Tehran, draw a presidential veto or leave lawmakers with no say on a national security threat.

As written, the legislation would block Obama from waiving congressional sanctions for at least 30 days while lawmakers weigh in on any final deal the US and five other nations can reach with Iran. And it would stipulate that if senators disapprove the deal, Obama would lose authority to waive certain economic penalties — an event that would certainly prompt a presidential veto.

The bill has gained tacit approval from Obama. He says he will sign it as written, but the White House warns that he will reconsider if the measure is substantially changed. Sen. Bob Corker, a lead sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the measure in its current form, has 67 backers, enough to override a presidential veto.

Corker and his supporters are trying to bat down more than 50 amendments have been introduced so far — all by Republicans.

Earlier in the day, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid warned Republican presidential hopefuls in the Senate not to use it as a “platform for their political ambitions.” He said the full Senate should pass the bill with the same bipartisanship that occurred in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which unanimously approved the measure 19-0.

The alternative to the bill is not a better bill, he said, “it is a deal without any meaningful congressional input.”

Johnson’s failed amendment would have turned any final nuclear agreement with Tehran into a treaty, requiring ratification by two-thirds of the Senate.

The amendment failed just hours after former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser under President George W. Bush, said any Iran nuclear deal is an executive agreement that doesn’t need to be a treaty. “The proposed Iranian nuclear agreement is classically an executive agreement and doesn’t need to be a treaty with advice and consent of the Senate,” she said. “But Congress should be able to opine, given that congressionally mandated sanctions would have to be lifted.”