Archive for September 2015

Russia eludes US ban on NATO airspace by roundabout route to Syria via Iraq and Iran

September 9, 2015

Source: Russia eludes US ban on NATO airspace by roundabout route to Syria via Iraq and Iran

Moscow has opened a new roundabout route for its ongoing military airlift from Sevastopol in Crimea and other bases in southern Russia to the Syrian Mezze Airbase in Damascus, debkafile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources disclose.

This route runs over the Caspian Sea and northern Iran and Iraq and terminates with deliveries at Damascus and the new Russian air and ground base at Jablah, near the Syrian port of Latakia.

The Russians have in this way circumvented the strong US applications to Turkey, Greek, Bulgaria and Cyprus, to close their airspace to Russian shipments for its military buildup in Syria.

Washington’s actions had two results – one less and the other more desirable.

1. Tehran and Baghdad have both been pulled into directly supporting the Russian military interventkion in Syria, after Iraq was bullied by Iran to turn down the US request to close its northern skies to Russian shipments.

Washington refrained from addressing this request to Iran, in keeping with its policy of avoiding strains on relations until the nuclear deal was endorsed in Washington and Tehran.

As a result, heavy Russian transports are flying over parts of Iraq where US forces, including ground intelligence teams for guiding US air strikes against ISIS, are deployed. This makes accidental collisions in the sky a real danger. The Americans have therefore slowed down their aerial war on ISIS.

2.  The need for a roundabout air route to Syria has substantially raised the cost of the Russian military expedition. A direct flight over the Mediterranean spans 1,025 km, which the Russian AN-124 (Condor) can cover in two hours. The long way round is three times as long – more than 2,900 km – and takes six hours.
Washington’s challenge to Moscow over air routes to Syria is their first military confrontation over Syria and the new Russian military buildup.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest warned Tuesday night, Sept. 8: “The Russian military buildup would risk confrontation with the counter-ISIL coalition that included the United States.”

He was repeating a similar warning issued a few days ago by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Explicit American threats of a military showdown with Russia over the Middle East is the sort of language not heard for four decades since the 1973 Yom Kippur War which Israel fought against Egypt and Syria.

Support for Iran Nuclear Agreement Falls | Pew Research Center

September 9, 2015

 

Source: Support for Iran Nuclear Agreement Falls | Pew Research Center

Public Awareness of Issue Has Declined Since July

As Congress prepares to vote on the Iran nuclear agreement, public support for the deal has declined. Currently, just 21% approve of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program reached between the United States, Iran and other nations. Nearly half (49%) disapprove of the agreement, while three-in-ten (30%) offer no opinion.

09-08-15 Iran 1In mid-July, a week after President Obama announced the deal, 33% of the public approved of the agreement, while 45% disapproved and 22% had no opinion. Over the past six weeks, the share approving of the agreement has fallen 12 percentage points (from 33% to 21%), while disapproval has held fairly steady (45% then, 49% now). Somewhat more express no opinion than did so in July (22% then, 30% now).

09-08-15 Iran 2The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Sept. 3-7 among 1,004 adults, finds that the contentious debate over the Iran agreement has not resonated widely with the public. In fact, the share saying they have heard either a lot or a little about the agreement has declined from 79% in July to 69% in the new survey. The share saying they have heard “nothing at all” about it has increased nine percentage points, from 21% to 30%.

09-08-15 Iran 3Republicans are far more likely than Democrats or independents to say they have heard about the agreement, and these differences have widened since July. Today, 86% of Republicans, 69% of Democrats and 63% of independents have heard at least a little about the nuclear agreement. Since July, the percentage of Republicans who say they are aware of the agreement is unchanged (84% then) while declining nine percentage points among Democrats (78% to 69%) and 14 points among independents (77% to 63%).

While the partisan divide over the nuclear agreement remains substantial, support for the deal has slipped across the board since July. Currently, 42% of Democrats approve of the agreement, while 29% disapprove and an identical percentage has no opinion. In July, 50% of Democrats approved, 27% disapproved and 22% had no opinion.

Republican support for the agreement, already low, has dropped even further (from 13% to 6%). Independents’ support for the agreement also has fallen (from 31% to 20%), although – as with Democrats – the share disapproving has held steady since July, at 47%.

09-08-15 Iran 4When opinion about the Iran nuclear agreement is based only on those who have heard a lot or a little about the agreement, opposition to the agreement exceeds support by more than a two-to-one margin (57% to 27%).

Among those aware of the Iran deal, the share approving of the agreement has declined 11 percentage points since July, while the percentage disapproving has risen nine points.

 

 

Confidence in Iran’s Leaders, International Monitors

09-08-15 Iran 5The public continues to express little confidence that Iran’s leaders will live up to their side of the nuclear agreement. Just 2% have a great deal of confidence that Iran’s leaders will abide by the agreement, while another 18% say they have a fair amount of confidence. About seven-in-ten (70%) say they are not too confident (28%) or not confident at all (42%) in Iran’s leaders.

These views are largely unchanged since July, though the share expressing no confidence at all in Iran’s leaders to abide by the agreement has risen slightly (from 37% to 42%).

The public remains somewhat more confident in the ability in of the U.S. and international agencies to monitor Iran’s compliance with the agreement. Currently, 42% say they have a great deal (12%) or a fair amount (30%) of confidence in the U.S. and international agencies to track Iran’s compliance, which is little changed from July (46% at least a fair amount of confidence).

09-08-15 Iran 6Since July, the share of Democrats expressing at least a fair amount of confidence in Iran’s leaders to live up to the deal has slipped eight percentage points, from 41% to 33%. Just 8% of Republicans have that level of confidence in Iran’s leaders, which is little changed from July (9%). But since then, the proportion of Republicans who have no confidence at all in Iran’s leaders to abide by the agreement has increased 11 percentage points (from 56% to 67%).

A majority of Democrats (64%) say they have a great deal (16%) or fair amount (48%) of confidence in the ability of the United States and international agencies to monitor Iran’s compliance to the nuclear agreement. Fewer than half as many Republicans (23%) say they are confident in the ability of the U.S. and other nations to ensure that Iran is living up to the agreement. These opinions are little changed from July.

Changing Views of the Iran Agreement

09-08-15 Iran 7Since July, support for the Iran nuclear agreement has fallen across most demographic groups, though in many cases, the share who disapproves has not changed substantially.

Among adults with no more than a high school education, for instance, just 14% approve of the nuclear agreement, while 51% disapprove; roughly a third (35%) do not express an opinion. Since July, approval of the agreement has fallen 13 percentage points among this group (27% then), but disapproval is largely unchanged (50% then). The share not voicing an opinion has risen 12 points (23% then).

College graduates, by contrast, have mixed opinions of the nuclear deal (35% approve, 40% disapprove). In July, somewhat more college graduates approved of the agreement than disapproved (44% vs. 37%).

As was the case in July, people who have heard a lot about the Iran nuclear agreement are more supportive of it than those who have heard less about it. Still, among those who have heard a lot about the agreement, just 34% approve, down nine points from July (43%). Support for the agreement has fallen even more among those who have heard a little about the Iran nuclear agreement (34% to 20%).

Notably, while overall Democratic support for the Iran nuclear agreement has slipped since July, there has been no change among the 33% of Democrats who have heard a lot about the deal. Fully 76% of Democrats who have heard a lot about the agreement approve of it, while just 16% disapprove; that is virtually the same as in July (74% approve vs. 17% disapprove). Among Republicans who have heard a lot about the agreement, 90% disapprove of it, which also is little changed from July (84%).

Less Public Awareness of Nuclear Agreement

09-08-15 Iran 8While the share of Americans with at least some awareness of the nuclear agreement has declined 10 percentage points since July, there has been almost no change in the share who say they have heard a lot about it (35% then, 36% now).

Republicans (49%) are far more likely than Democrats (33%) or independents (36%) to say they have heard a lot about the agreement and that gap appears to have widened somewhat since July.

In terms of overall awareness of the agreement, the decline is particularly pronounced among those with no more than a high school education. In July, 71% of those with a high school degree or less education said they heard at least a little about the Iran nuclear agreement; today 55% report hearing about it. There has been less change in awareness among adults with more education.

 

Donald Trump: Amateur hour with the Iran nuclear deal

September 9, 2015

Politics as usual has failed, that’s why I need to step in.

Source: Donald Trump: Amateur hour with the Iran nuclear deal

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It is hard to believe a president of the United States would actually put his name on an agreement with the terrorist state Iran that is so bad, so poorly constructed and so terribly negotiated that it increases uncertainty and reduces security for America and our allies, including Israel.

It was amateur hour for those charged with striking this deal with Iran, demonstrating to the world, yet again, the total incompetence of our president and politicians. It appears we wanted a deal at any cost rather than following the advice of Ronald Reagan and walking away because “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

After the agreement goes into effect: All nuclear-related sanctions will be lifted. Iran receives a windfall of $150 billion, which will no doubt fund terrorism around the world. Iran will receive notice before any inspections take place. Iran can block inspection of certain facilities. Iran will soon be able to continue expanding its conventional arms and guided missile programs without facing snapback sanctions. Iran can keep American prisoners, including one former U.S. Marine and, very sadly, a Christian minister. Iran can continue to operate about 6,000 centrifuges. Other countries will be free to invest in Iran.

Iran can continue to solidify bonds with Russia, China and North Korea. All these other countries will benefit, and the United States loses on all fronts.

In the end, Iran will be a nuclear state. This will lead to an all-out arms race in the region. All the Middle East, southern Europe and American interests will be within the footprint of Iran’s missiles.

Interestingly, Saudi Arabia and others, who were vehemently opposed to the deal on all fronts, are now in favor — Washington has naively provided new weapons deals and security assurances.

The problem is that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, our Middle Eastern allies and the United States. If we have to wait until the next president is sworn in to revisit this nuclear weapons agreement, then the next president better be someone who knows how to negotiate and who will do what is best for the United States.

When I am elected president, I will renegotiate with Iran — right after I enable the immediate release of our American prisoners and ask Congress to impose new sanctions that stop Iran from having the ability to sponsor terrorism around the world.

In fact, if I am elected, I am sure the prisoners will be released before my taking office.

We will approach other nations and make it clear that we will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

We will use all the tools of power available, hopefully avoiding direct action. But make no mistake, a Trump presidency will demonstrate the will to do whatever is necessary to protect the interests of the United States, Israel and its allies.

My opposition to the war in Iraq is well documented. I was against the war from the very beginning, all the way back in 2004. I had the vision and foresight to understand that Iraq and Iran were equal powers, and that our takeover of Iraq, when there was no real evidence of weapons of mass destruction, would be catastrophic for the entire region, enabling Iran and other forces to become a more dangerous threat than Saddam Hussein ever thought of being.

We now have the Islamic State and the threat of nuclear weapons from Iran, both a direct result of the shortsighted incompetence of those in Washington during the war in Iraq and long before.

Negotiating from a position of strength is important. Having the will to follow through is fundamental. A Trump presidency will force the Iranians back to the bargaining table to make a much better deal. A Trump presidency will make America great again.

Businessman Donald J. Trump is seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Our World: The Republican fall guys

September 9, 2015

Our World: The Republican fall guys, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, September 8, 2015

Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.

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The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.

ShowImage (11)Kim Jong-un, North Korea leader. (photo credit:KNS / KCNA / AFP)

The Iran nuclear deal is presented as an international agreement between the major powers and Iran. But the fact is that there are really only two parties to the agreement – President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party on the one hand, and the Iranian regime on the other.

Over the past week or so, more and more Democrats have fallen into line behind Obama. At the same time, word is getting out about what Iran is doing now that it has its deal. Together, the actions of both sides have revealed the role the nuclear pact plays in each side’s overall strategies for success.

On the Iranian side, last Wednesday the National Committee of Resistance of Iran revealed that North Korean nuclear experts are in Iran working with the Revolutionary Guards to help the Iranians prevent the UN’s nuclear inspectors from discovering the scope of their nuclear activities.

The NCRI is the same opposition group that in 2003 exposed Iran’s until then secret uranium enrichment installation in Natanz and its heavy water plutonium facility in Arak.

According to the report, the North Koreans “have expertise in ballistic missile and nuclear work areas, particularly in the field of warheads and missile guidance.”

“Over the past two years the North Korean teams have been sharing their experiences and tactics necessary for preventing access to military nuclear sites,” NCRI added.

Although, as The Washington Times reports, NCRI’s finding have yet to be verified, it is unwise to doubt them.

North Korea has been assisting Iran’s nuclear program for nearly 20 years. The US began applying sanctions on North Korea for its ballistic missile proliferation activities in Iran 15 years ago. Iran’s Shahab and Ghadr ballistic missiles are modeled on North Korea’s Nodong missiles.

The Syrian nuclear installation that Israel reportedly destroyed in 2007 was a duplicate of the Yangbyon heavy water reactor in North Korea. The Deir al-Zour reactor was reportedly built by North Korean nuclear personnel and paid for by Tehran.

North Korea’s heavy involvement in Iran’s nuclear weapons program tells us everything we need to know about how Iran views the nuclear deal it signed with the Obama administration and its international partners.

For the past 22 years, the North Koreans have been playing the US and the international community for fools. Ever since February 1993, when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first discovered that North Korea was conducting illicit nuclear activities, Pyongyang has been using its nuclear program to blackmail the US.

The pattern repeats itself with maddening regularity.

First, the US discovers that North Korea is engaging in illicit nuclear activities. Over the years, these activities have gone from illicit development of plutonium-based nuclear bombs to expelling UN inspectors, to testing long-range ballistic missiles, to threatening nuclear war, to testing nuclear bombs and threatening to supply the bomb to terrorist groups.

Second, the US announces it is applying sanctions to North Korean entities.

Third, North Korea responds with more threats.

The sides then agree to sit down and negotiate the scaling back of North Korea’s nuclear activities. In exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to talk, the US provides the hermit slave state with whatever it demands. US concessions run the gamut from sanctions relief, to cash payments, provision of fuel, assistance in developing “peaceful” nuclear sites at which the North Koreans expand their nuclear expertise, removal of North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, the provision of formal US commitments not to use force to block North Korea’s nuclear progress, to more cash payments and sanctions relief.

The North then formally agrees to scale back its nuclear program and everyone is happy.

Until the next time it is caught cheating and proliferating.

And then the cycle starts again.

In each go around, the US expresses surprise at the scope of North Korea’s illicit nuclear and missile activities. In every cycle, US intelligence failed to discover what North Korea was doing until after the missiles and bombs were tested and UN inspectors were thrown out of the country.

Despite North Korean brinksmanship and ballistic missile warhead development, the US prohibits its ally South Korea from developing its own nuclear deterrent or even taking steps in that direction.

For their part, while negotiating with the Americans, the North Koreans have proliferated their nuclear technologies and ballistic missiles to Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Libya.

Given North Korea’s clear strategy of using nuclear blackmail to develop its nuclear arsenal and maintain the regime’s grip on power, you don’t need to be a master spy to understand what the presence of North Korean experts in Teheran tells us about Iran’s strategy for nuclear empowerment.

The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.

Given how well the strategy has worked for the psychotic North Koreans who have no economy, no allies and no proxies, it is clear that Iran, with its gas and oil deposits, imperial aspirations, terrorist proxies and educated population believes that this is the strategy that will launch it to world-power status.

This then brings us to the Democrats.

Depending on their pro-Israel protestations, the Democratic position in support of the deal ranges from optimism to pessimistic minimalism. On the side of the optimists, we have the Obama administration.

Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and their advisors insist that the deal is fantastic. It blocks Iran’s path to the bomb. It opens the possibility of Iran becoming a positive actor on the world stage.

On the other end of the Democratic spectrum are the pessimists like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

As they see it, the deal is horrible. It empowers and enriches Iran and legitimizes its nuclear program.

But still, they claim, the deal keeps Iran’s nuclear ambitions at bay for a few years by forcing Iran to submit to the much touted UN inspections regime.

So it is a good deal and they will vote in favor of it and then vote to sustain a presidential veto of a congressional decision to oppose it.

Obviously, the presence of North Korean nuclear experts in Tehran makes a mockery of the notion that Iran has any intention of exercising good faith with UN inspectors. But that isn’t the point.

The point is that the Democrats have no intention of doing anything to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. They just don’t want to be blamed for Iran becoming a nuclear power. They want the Republicans to shoulder the blame. The purpose of the deal from their perspective to set the Republicans up to be blamed.

Obama and his Democratic followers insist that if Iran doesn’t act in good faith, the US will reimpose sanctions. Worse comes to worst, they insist, the US can just walk away from the deal.

This of course is utter nonsense.

Obama won’t walk away from his signature foreign policy. He will devote his energies in his remaining time in office to covering up for Iran. That is why he is breaking the law he signed and refusing to hand over the side deals regarding the farcical nature of UN inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites to Congress.

Moreover, after insisting that the deal is the best way to prevent a holocaust or that it is the only way a Jewish mother can protect the homeland of her people, Democratic lawmakers are not going to rush to acknowledge that they are lying. Now that they’ve signed onto the deal, they own it.

Of course, the Iranians are another story. While the Democrats will not abandon the deal no matter what, the Iranians signed the deal in order to abandon it the minute it outlives its usefulness. And that works just fine for the Democrats.

The Democrats know that the Iranians will use any step the Republicans take to try to enforce the deal’s verification regime or condition sanctions relief on Iranian abidance by the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear activities as an excuse to walk away from the deal. They also know the Iranians will remain in the deal as long as it is useful to them.

Since the Iranians intend to hide their nuclear activities, the Democrats assume Tehran will stay in until it is financially and militarily ready to escalate its nuclear activities.

The Democrats believe that timetable will extend well beyond the lifespan of the Obama administration.

Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.

You have to give credit to the administration and its Iranian chums. At least they are consistent. They have constructed an agreement that gives them both what they care about most. Iran, as always, wants to dominate the region and develop the means to destroy Israel and its Arab adversaries at will. The administration, as always, wants to blame the Republicans.

Israel and the Arabs understand the game that is being played. It is time for the Republicans to get wise to it.

Video: Greek island turns into war zone as Syrian and Afghan migrants clash

September 8, 2015

Video: Greek island turns into war zone as Syrian and Afghan migrants clash, BreitbartDonna Rachel Edmunds, September 8, 2015

The Greek island of Lesbos has been turned into a war zone by rioting migrants, leaving the island’s 85,000 residents in despair. Around 25,000 migrants are currently camped out on the island with hundreds more arriving daily, leading to frequent violent clashes and rioting despite their claim to be fleeing violence.

Located just 6 miles from the Turkish shore, the migrants come over in inflatable boats which they cut up on arrival to prevent being turned back, expecting to be able to quickly travel on by ferry to mainland Europe, German station RTL has reported.

Instead, they are being held on the Island while the police issue emigration documents, a delay which can take days. The wait is causing tension between groups as Afghans accuse Syrians of getting preferential treatment by the authorities, leading to vicious violent clashes.

As rocks, bottles and municipal bins fly, one tearful local woman told RTL “We are in danger, every day, every minute. We need someone to protect us. They come into our houses. I want to go to work, but I can’t. Our children want to go to school, but they can’t. They have stolen our lives!”

Another yells at the migrants flinging rocks as they pass his house: “Go away from here! This is private land! Respect Greece!”

WATCH:

 

The full video is here.

 

The main town of Lesbos, Mytilene, now resembles a war zone as the migrants rip apart the infrastructure and use the town as a urinal. Mayor Galinos helpless in the face of such an onslaught is out of ideas, and is calling on the European Union to do something.

“This is a ticking time bomb that will go off soon,” he said. “We have managed to avert some catastrophes, but we need help, more ferries. This island is so small, we can’t solve a worldwide humanitarian crisis by ourselves. The European Union needs to act.”

Monday night saw fresh clashes as 2,500 surged towards a government chartered ferry bound for Athens. Just a dozen police and coastguards, armed with batons, struggled to control the crowd by shouting “keep back”.

Junior interior minister Yiannis Mouzalas told local radio “the situation is on the verge of explosion.” It is a scene being replicated on islands all along Greece’s coastline.

Evangelos Meimarakis, leader of Greece’s right wing New Democracy party which could retake power this month, said the country should strengthen its borders to as to dispel “the message that ‘it’s good over here, come over’”.

What to make of the Islamic migration into Europe?

September 8, 2015

What to make of the Islamic migration into Europe? Power Line, John Hinderaker, September 8, 2015

It is often said that a country can have a welfare state or it can have open borders, but it cannot have both. In a world in which billions of people live in poverty and oppression, this strikes me as blindingly obvious.

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Many thousands of migrants–some refugees, some not–are making their way from Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia to Turkey, thence to Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and finally, for most of them, Germany. The largest number come from Syria, but other Islamic countries are represented from as far away as Afghanistan. It is still not clear to me why this torrent has suddenly broken free.

Germany has promised to take 800,000 migrants, representing 1% of the country’s population. That is an enormous number; for the United States to do the same would require admitting more than 3 million people. On the other hand, the U.S. admits a million immigrants every year, while Germany is only proposing to do this once, so in reality the burden on us (or the benefit, if you will) is far greater. Presumably most Germans recognize, however, that 800,000 is only the beginning.

There is a wide spectrum of reactions to the current migration. A reader writes:

These migrants have a certain arrogance in insisting on, not rescue merely, but comfortable resettlement in the wealthiest societies in the world with access to an exceedingly generous welfare state to boot. Not for them a decent interval being cared for in Italy or Greece; only Germany or Sweden will do, if not the UK, Canada or (shudder) the USA. It’s as though I pity a street bum and offer to buy him vouchers for Burger King or Domino’s Pizza and he is aghast, insisting on steak and lobster at The Palm – along with the proper attire for admission!

How about that? Why is it that countries that don’t have lavish welfare systems are not target destinations? And also–why is it that the migrants are overwhelmingly young men? There are a few women, children and families; but numerically, young men predominate. This is not what one would normally expect from a group of refugees fleeing a war zone.

Our reader continues:

The language and rhetoric of “problem solving” is misplaced. When an event of this scale and enormity occurs and it seems apparent that the forces behind it are huge, a different perspective is required. The current wave is just the beginning and the response just encourages more. Oh, sure, it will stop just as soon as the 14 century old Sunni-Shia conflict and the various middle eastern tribal hatreds and rivalries abate and the entire African continent, soon to have 2 billion people, ceases to be fundamentally dysfunctional.

That means that the situation is utterly intractable. An intractable situation is not a “problem” that can be “solved”: it is a fact which must be reckoned with.

Our reader points to a web site by a guy named Kunstler (related? I don’t know) whom our reader describes as “a leftwing crank, an obsessive apocalyptic Luddite…but often correct on PC matters.” The immigration issue can make odd bedfellows! I think Kunstler is correct here:

I reject the idea that it’s “racist” to want to preserve one’s national culture and character (especially in language), or to favor bona fide citizens for gainful employment…. National boundaries will be defended. Sentimentalists will have to step aside. History is not a bedtime story about bunnies and kittens.

But a lot of damage will be done before the sentimentalists throw in the towel.

Pamela Geller writes:

If these were real refugees, where are the women? Where are the elderly people? Where are the weak and the sick? It is increasingly clear that what I have said is true: this is not a refugee crisis. This is a hijrah, a migration to Islamize a new land.

I hope that is too pessimistic, but this kind of thing doesn’t give one confidence:

Four police officers and 11 asylum seekers were injured in a brawl in the town of Suhl in Thüringen Wednesday evening sparked by a dispute over the Koran.

An Afghan tore out pages from the Koran at a refugee shelter, prompting anger from 20 other residents, said a police spokesman Thursday.

The confrontation escalated into a riot involving some 100 refugees, with 125 police officers sent to the scene to break up the brawl, it was reported.

Police then came under attack from the refugees and were pelted with sticks and stones, with two officers so badly injured that they are currently unable to return to their duties, while seven police vehicles were damaged.

It took four hours to bring the situation under control. The Afghan was taken into police custody for his own safety.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States absorbed a huge number of immigrants relative to our population, although nothing like the number we are taking in today. But in those days, a serious effort was made to assimilate newcomers. Public high schools taught courses in Americanism. I, personally, would be much more willing to contemplate mass immigration if we had the cultural will to resurrect the teaching of Americanism. But that isn’t happening. Still less can we expect the Germans to teach Germanism.

It is often said that a country can have a welfare state or it can have open borders, but it cannot have both. In a world in which billions of people live in poverty and oppression, this strikes me as blindingly obvious. I am not optimistic that the current migration from the Middle East, Asia and North Africa into Europe will end well.

Why the Iran nuclear deal will mean war

September 8, 2015

Why the Iran nuclear deal will mean war, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, September 8, 2015

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Iran . . . is not looking for a deterrent weapon against its neighbors. With the fall of Saddam, it faces no serious threat of invasion by Sunni forces. Today its nuclear program can have no other purpose except to expand its power and territory while forcing the United States out of the region. Nuking Israel would help seal its right to rule over the Muslim world while intimidating its enemies.

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Like a snake oil salesman trying to move a gallon of lies by promising that it’s either buy the bottle or die, Obama sold the Iran deal as the only alternative to war. In fact the deal is a certain road to war.

Or as Churchill said, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” Before long, the British and French were facing Czech tanks redesignated as Panzers that had been seized as part of the Nazi spoils of appeasement.

When Obama claimed that the Iran nuclear deal was the only alternative to war, he was lying in more ways than one. The United States has already been dragged into Iran’s war for control of Iraq. That war was one of the levers that Iran exploited to get its way on its nuclear program. Iran also came close to dragging us into its war in Syria and we are hovering on the edge of being dragged into Yemen.

Iran and ISIS have done a thorough job of carving up entire countries into Shiite and Sunni blocs. And there’s no sign that this Islamic realignment of the Sykes Picot borders is going to stop. If the process continues, the scale and scope of the war will expand and transform the region away from nation states.

Everyone will have a choice between backing a Sunni ISIS or a Shiite ISIS. Obama chose the Shiite ISIS.

This would be happening even without the deal, but Iran’s victory and Obama’s appeasement will speed up the process. Russia is blatantly joining the Shiite military coalition as part of Tehran’s victory celebration. And the Russians aren’t there just to protect Assad, but to push America out of the region. As areas of operations overlap, there will be incidents. And Obama will back off once again.

But it’s not just about Syria. Iran promised its Russian and Chinese backers that they will benefit from a major regional realignment. Nations allied with the US will be overthrown or suppressed. And once that process really gets underway and will begin to threaten oil supplies, even a Democrat won’t be able to stay out. But by then America will have little credibility, few allies and major strategic disadvantages.

The real test won’t be in Syria. It has already come and gone in Yemen. It will probably come in Bahrain. Bahrain has a majority Shiite population and is the home of the Fifth Fleet. During the Arab Spring the Saudis put down Iran’s “civilian” uprising in Bahrain using tanks. The next time, it won’t be that easy for the House of Khalifa or the House of Saud. If there’s one thing that Iran knows it’s how to arm and train insurgencies and this time around its bid for a takeover of Bahrain will have Russian backing.

Iran’s Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain played a significant role in the Arab Spring protests under the umbrella of political Islam and human rights organizations. Iran’s ideal game plan would be for its front groups to win Western political backing for a takeover the way that the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt. Turning over Bahrain to admirers of the Iranian Revolution would seem insane, but so was turning over Iran to Khomeini or Egypt to Al Qaeda’s parent Muslim Brotherhood organization.

The Saudis have had to consider the possibility that Obama, Hillary or Biden would back Iran over the Saudis in Bahrain as they did in Iraq and Yemen. And they have been making their own plans.

Some months after Iran’s Ahmadinejad visited Cairo and met with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi, the Saudis reversed the Qatari-Obama coup that had put the Muslim Brotherhood in power. As the deadline for last year’s negotiations with Iran approached, the Saudis began dumping oil to hurt Russia and Iran. A similar Saudi move against Iran had helped bring on the Islamic Revolution. The Saudis probably don’t expect to undo that disaster, but they were hoping to offset any Obama-backed Iranian recovery.

Instead of fighting to keep sanctions in place, the Saudis were instead poisoning the well.

Whether he understood it or not, by signing off on Iran’s Shiite bomb, Obama was also signing off on an Egyptian-Saudi Sunni bomb. Israel’s nuclear capability was tacitly understood as a defensive weapon of last resort that would not trigger a regional arms race. Genocidal military invasions of Israel came to an end and any weapons remained under wraps.

Iran however is not looking for a deterrent weapon against its neighbors. With the fall of Saddam, it faces no serious threat of invasion by Sunni forces. Today its nuclear program can have no other purpose except to expand its power and territory while forcing the United States out of the region. Nuking Israel would help seal its right to rule over the Muslim world while intimidating its enemies.

A Middle Eastern MAD with Iranians and Saudis in a nuclear standoff would be bad enough, but both powers have a long history of using terrorists to do their dirty work. And the transfer of nuclear materials to terrorists is a lot harder to track than ICBM launches.

Iran and Saudi Arabia getting the bomb won’t be the end. It will only be the beginning. A decade ago, Iran had already funneled a billion dollars into helping Syria get its own nuclear reactor. A nuclear Iran will expand its points of proliferation to the Shiite regime in Baghdad, to Hezbollah in Lebanon and any other Shiite allied states it can set up. The Saudis will expand their own nuclear capabilities to their GCC allies and Egypt so that instead of two nuclear powers, there may be as many as ten nuclear nations.

Imagine the Cold War in miniature with a lot more proliferation and Jihadists with nukes on both sides.

That is what the Iran nuclear deal really means. Every Sunni kingdom will be glaring out from under its own nuclear shield as petty tyrants keep one finger on the populace and the other on the button. A single popular uprising could see nuclear weapons in the hands of Al Qaeda or ISIS.

On the other side, Iran will be aggressively expanding its influence while engaging in escalating naval confrontations with America and its allies. It’s possible that Obama, Biden or Hillary will be able to run away fast enough to avoid a war, but they won’t be able to avoid the resulting economic chaos. And the war will follow them home as Muslim countries have a history of settling their scores by aiming at more “legitimate” non-Muslim targets. That is how 9/11 happened as part of a Saudi power struggle.

And if the United States stays, our people will be trying to keep the peace in a region gone nuclear where American bases will be prime targets for Iran and its terrorist allies. The United States will retaliate against a nuclear strike directly from Iran, but what if it comes from one of the Hezbollahs?

The question isn’t whether there will be a war. It’s how bad the war will be.

That is what Churchill understood and Chamberlain didn’t. While Churchill had fought in Afghanistan against the forerunners of the Taliban, Chamberlain had run family businesses. He saw the military as an unnecessary expense and war as something that could be negotiated away. Churchill knew better.

We are up against something similar today.

The Middle East has exploded before. It will explode again. All we’ve been doing is keeping the lid on. Obama’s surrender means that we won’t control how that explosion happens, but it won’t stop us from getting dragged in anyway once the bombs start going off.

Obama’s advisers have told him to outsource American foreign policy to Tehran. And that’s what he did. Turning over your power to your enemy won’t make him your friend. It won’t stop a war.

It will make the war much worse.

What is to be done? (2)

September 8, 2015

What is to be done? (2), Power LineScott Johnson, September 8, 2015

The first resolution the House should consider when it returns [today] should be one stating that Congress has not been provided the material it needs, that the Iran deal has not been properly submitted to Congress, and therefore that the president has no authority to waive or suspend sanctions on Iran.

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Yesterday I noted that the Obama administration has failed to comply with the condition precedent to Congress’s review of the deal with Iran (and the president’s authority to waive sanctions). I asked what is to be done.

I asked, Bill Kristol answered. Bill wears many hats, one of which is Chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel. In this capacity he released the following statement addressing the question yesterday:

The Obama Administration has not complied with the legal requirement that it provide Congress “any additional materials” related to the Iran deal, including “side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.” The Administration has not given Congress a key side agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, one which describes how key questions about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program will be resolved, as well as how the verification regime will work.

Congress should not accept this evasion of the law by the Obama Administration. Congress should insist on the text of this and any other side agreements. Lacking this, Congress can and should take the position that the Iran deal has not been properly submitted to Congress to review, and therefore that the president has no authority to waive or suspend sanctions.

We understand the temptation of leadership to get to a vote on a resolution of disapproval and then to move on to other votes. But the Iran deal isn’t just another legislative issue where some corner-cutting by the Administration is to be accepted with a brief expression of discontent followed by a weary sigh of resignation.

The Iran deal is the most important foreign policy issue this Congress will have before it. Congress should rise to the occasion and insist on its prerogative — and the American people’s prerogative — to see the whole deal. The first resolution the House should consider when it returns [today] should be one stating that Congress has not been provided the material it needs, that the Iran deal has not been properly submitted to Congress, and therefore that the president has no authority to waive or suspend sanctions on Iran.

I think this is the correct direction and congressional leadership should follow it.

Op-Ed: Europe’s Fate will be that of the Roman Empire

September 8, 2015

Op-Ed: Europe’s Fate will be that of the Roman Empire, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, September 7, 2015

In his new book “The Last Refuge”, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize for Literature Imre Kertész criticized the attempt to replace European culture with mass immigration: “Europe will soon go under because of its previous liberalism which has proven childish and suicidal. Europe produced Hitler, and after Hitler there stands a continent with no arguments: the doors are wide open for Islam; no longer does anyone dare talk about race and religion, while at the same time Islam only knows the language of hatred against all foreign races and religions”.

Kertész continues as follows: “I would talk about how Muslims are flooding, occupying, in no uncertain terms, destroying Europe; about how Europe relates to this, about the suicidal liberalism and the stupid democracy… It always ends the same way: civilization reaches a stage of maturation where it is not only unable to defend itself, but where it in a seemingly incomprehensible manner worships its own enemy”.

Of course, the mainstream media is ignoring Kertész’s book while Europe is dealing with its biggest demographic revolution since the Second World War. Europe is finished and being replaced by Islam. The European Union, the entire media spectrum, the Pope, the NGOs, the United Nations and the Western collective emotions are all united these days in proclaiming that Europe must welcome 20 millions of “refugees”.

Der Spiegel’s weekly cover story tells that “the idea of using migrants to help solve the demographic problems of Germany is plausible”. Demographics expert Herwig Birg says that Germany needs 2 million immigrants per year to avoid collapse. The German population will decline by 19 percent by 2060.

In 1910, during the Belle Epoque, two million children were born every year in Germany. A century later, with fifty percent more population, fewer than 700,000 children are born each year, one third of them foreigners. In the book “The Methuselah Conspiracy”, Frank Schirrmacher, former head of the cultural pages at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, writes that “the dynamics of the population will be marked by the death and not by birth, society andculture will be shaken by a silent war”.

A report by the Gatestone Institute, entitled “Germany’s Muslim Demographic Revolution”, speaks about “a demographic shift of epic proportions, one that critics of the country’s open-door immigration policy warn will change the face of Germany forever”. Soon the total number of Muslims in the country will exceed 6 million. In an interview with Tagesspiegel, Aiman Mazyek, head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, said that the number of Muslims attending mosques has doubled in the last month alone. “Islam is the fastest growing religion in post-Christian Germany” writes Soeren Kern of Gatestone.

It is the same scenario everywhere: France, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden ….And the media are all using one tragic photo to sell the immigration’s ideology to the public opinion. The photo of Aylan, the little Syrian boy drowned in the Turkish sea.

The Italian newspaper La Stampa compared that photo to the Jewish child with raising arms in the Warsaw Ghetto. A photograph that illuminates another tragedy: the double standard of humanitarianism. Chiseled, well-written and formatted, the image must always justify the sense of guilt in the West.

Then there are the images that many say they do not want to see.

The images that you go to look at on Internet because the newspapers refuse to publish them. No one shows the bodies launched from the Twin Towers. Nobody reminds us of the images of James Foley’s execution. Nobody saw the photo of Khaled al Asaad, the archaeologist beheaded and hung upside down in Palmyra by IS.

During the Iraqi War, the eyes of the West were all trained on four Americans grinning at Abu Ghraib. Nobody saw the severed head of Daniel Pearl and the remains of the Israeli soldiers displayed by Hamas.

What Europe is witnessing is a deja vu of ancient Rome. The rationalists Voltaire and Gibbon attributed the fall of the Roman Empire to the defeatism inspired by Christianity. Others resorted to administrative sclerosis, detachment of spirit, the connivance with the invaders. A French historian, Michel De Jaeghere, recently wrote six hundred pages for the book “Les Derniers Jours”, The Last Days, to explain that the cause of the fall of the Empire was the demographic implosion, echoing the argument of another Frenchman, Sorbonne professor Pierre Chaunu who in his book “A Futur sans Avenir”, published by Calmann-Levy, analyzed the demographic collapse of the Empire, the transition from 60 million inhabitants at the time of Augustus to 25-30 million.

The bureaucracy that has expanded uncontrollably, the selfish and lazy style of the senators and the growing religious clashes are a constant warning aimed at our apathy, our failure from within. It is once again the time that Cyril Connolly called “the lockup of the gardens of the West”.

Here are some adorable Syrian refugee thugs for you to adopt

September 7, 2015

Here are some adorable Syrian refugee thugs for you to adopt, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, September 7, 2015

syrian_refugees

Adorable, cuddly Syrian refugees to a good home. Attention liberal millionaires. Do you want your very own gang of Syrian Refugees (TM) to loiter around your home, throw things at you and beat you up?

Here are a whole bunch for you to take home. Yes, I’m looking at you, J.K. Rowling. Or Isaac Herzog. There’s so many that every passionately outraged leftist bigwig can have his own bunch. You just better be ready to cook for them and bring them everything while they throw it in your face.

You’ll notice the shortage of actual women and kids. The media makes a point of focusing on those, but the majority are young men. Just like Obama’s “unaccompanied children” border rush. But those are facts and we don’t need facts. Just outrage and lots of love.

So take them in. Step up for the cause. The Hungarian police will happily ship a dozen angry Syrian refugees to your home. What you do with them or what they do with you, is up to you.