Can New Gun Laws Guard Muslims from Temptation, Win the True Jihad? Scott Ott at PJ Media via You Tube, December 15, 2015
Archive for December 16, 2015
Saudi Author Turki Al-Hamad: ISIS Reaps What We Have Sown
December 16, 2015US bows to Russian demand to keep Assad in office. Israel follows suit
December 16, 2015US bows to Russian demand to keep Assad in office. Israel follows suit, DEBKAfile, December 16, 2015
After two tries, US Secretary of State John Kerry finally turned President Barack Obama away from his four-year insistence that Bashar Assad must go, as a precondition for a settlement of the Syrian conflict. Tuesday, night, Dec. 15, the Secretary announced in Moscow: “The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change.”
After Kerry’s first try, Obama still stuck to his guns. He said in Manilla on Nov.19 that he didn’t believe the civil war in Syria “will end while the dictator remains in power.”
Almost a month went by and then, Tuesday night, after a day of dickering with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov culminating in a joint conference with Putin at the Kremlin, Kerry confirmed this evolution in US policy. The focus now, he said, is “not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad.” Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which “Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria.”
Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which “Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria.”
This statement brought Washington in line with Moscow’s demand for the Syrian president’s future to be determined by his own people.
This statement brought Washington in line with Moscow’s demand for the Syrian president’s future to be determined by his own people.
On this demand, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is even more obdurate than Putin.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources wonder about the measure of freedom the Syrian people can expect while it is clamped firmly in a military vice by Russia, Iran and Hizballah. However, this was of no immediate concern to the big power players. Washington’s surrender to the Russian and Iranian line on Assad’s future was offered in the short-term hope of progress at the major international conference on the Syrian question taking place in New York Friday.
Another major US concession – this one to Tehran – was scarcely noticed.
Earlier Tuesday, the UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation board in Vienna closed its investigation into whether Iran sought atomic weapons, opting to back the international deal with Tehran rather than dwell on Iran’s past activities.
This motif of going forward toward the future rather than dwelling on the past was a repeat of the argument for keeping Assad in power. It provided an alibi for letting Tehran get away with the suspicion of testing a nuclear detonation at its Parchin military complex, without forfeiting sanctions relief, by the simple device of denying access to UN nuclear agency monitors to confirm those suspicions.
In a single day, the Obama administration handed out certificates of legitimacy to the Syrian dictator, who is responsible for more than a quarter of a million deaths, and to Iran’s advances toward a nuclear weapon.
These epic US policy reversals carried three major messages:
1. The Obama administration has lined up behind Putin’s Middle East objectives which hinge on keeping Bashar Assad in power.
2. Washington endorses Russia’s massive military intervention in Syria, although as recently as last month Obama condemned it as doomed to failure.
3. The US now stands behind Iran – not just on the Syrian question – but also on the existence of an Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah alliance, based on a solid land bridge from Iran and the Gulf up to the Mediterranean coast under Russian military and political protection and influence.
Even more surprising were the sentiments heard this week in Jerusalem.
Our military and intelligence sources cite officials urging the government to accept the American policy turnaround. In some military circles, senior voices were heard commenting favorably on Assad’s new prospects of survival in power, or advising Israel to jump aboard the evolving setup rather than obstructing it.
Those same “experts” long claimed that Assad’s days were numbered. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
Israel was forced to yield on the Iranian nuclear program, but its acceptance of the permanence of Assad and the indefinite presence in Syria of his sponsors, Iran and Hizballah, will come at a high price for Israel in the next conflict.
The inspection joke
December 16, 2015The inspection joke, Israel Hayom, Dan Margalit, December 16, 2015
Amano knew very well what was expected of him as early as 2014, and he acted accordingly. Obama and other Western leaders wanted an agreement at any cost, and as a result they gave without taking. Rather than letting Amano visit the site on his terms, Iran handed over soil samples collected by Iran itself, with no supervision, making a mockery of the inspection process.
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U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the American nation from the Oval Office following the San Bernardino terrorist attack earlier this month. In his address, he beat around the bush, doing all he could to avoid describing the attack as the work of Islamic terrorists. He opted instead for euphemism and bland language. This turned him into the butt of a viral joke online about how he would have responded to the Pearl Harbor attack almost exactly 74 years ago. “A few bad men arrived on planes and shot people on ships,” Obama would have told the nation, making no mention of “Japanese” “war” or “attack on America.” This approach neatly dovetails with what happened on Tuesday, when the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution ending its probe into Iran’s efforts to manufacture nuclear bombs.
The Iran nuclear deal stipulates that the IAEA director general “will provide by 15 December 2015 the final assessment on the resolution of all past and present outstanding issues” regarding “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. Although current IAEA chief Yukiya Amano is highly regarded, it was clear early in the negotiations that the Iran deal was skewed in favor of Tehran.
Almost two years ago, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon attended a panel in Munich. On stage were Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Amano, among others. When Zarif was asked why his government would not let Amano visit Parchin [where some of the clandestine research was carried out], Zarif lied, telling the audience that such a visit was prohibited. When Ya’alon asked Amano why he didn’t interject and expose Zarif’s lie, Amano said the timing, and the venue, weren’t right. From that moment onward, it was clear that Amano would probably shirk his duty as chief inspector when it came to the Iranian nuclear deal, culminating with the Tuesday’s decision at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting (Iran, for its part, was not convinced that the IAEA would be on its side, and staged a conflict in the upper echelons of the regime, but it calmed down once it became clear that the IAEA would pass a very nonthreatening resolution.)
Amano knew very well what was expected of him as early as 2014, and he acted accordingly. Obama and other Western leaders wanted an agreement at any cost, and as a result they gave without taking. Rather than letting Amano visit the site on his terms, Iran handed over soil samples collected by Iran itself, with no supervision, making a mockery of the inspection process.
Why has Amano let Iran off the hook? Why has he forgone, at the very least, an effort to get to the bottom of Iran’s deception over the years? Why does Amano think that it is not worth exposing the truth, even if the West wants to look the other way and ignore Iran’s bomb making efforts? Only he knows.
Even the proponents of the deal should view Amano’s approach as a mistake. During the 2014 conference in Germany, Ya’alon warned that the West was fooling itself if it thinks the deal would work. Tuesday’s decision has two ramifications: First, Iran will consider it a concession and assume that this will define the West’s conduct down the road, and second, it will embolden the ayatollahs in Iran. From now on their approach to the West will be “anything goes, because we are always successful.” One day, a leader may rise in the West and try to end Iran’s lucky streak, but it may be too late.
History has proven that mistakes are bound to be repeated.
White House Opens Door to CAIR Rep, Ignores Muslim Reformers
December 16, 2015White House Opens Door to CAIR Rep, Ignores Muslim Reformers, Investigative Project on Terrorism, December 15, 2015
He accused the FBI of killing two men in cold blood in separate incidents. But Obama administration officials saw Hassan Shibly as a suitable representative of the American Muslim community to include at Monday’s White House meeting on combating religious discrimination, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has learned.
Shibly is the chief executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Florida. Since 2008, FBI policy has barred outreach communication with CAIR officials due to documents seized by law enforcement which place CAIR and its founders at the heart of a Hamas-support network at the time of CAIR’s creation. Eyewitness interviews recently obtained by the IPT further detail CAIR’s ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Until it determines “whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” a senior official wrote in 2009.
Why would the White House include CAIR when FBI policy is to avoid the group? A White House spokesperson wouldn’t say, telling the IPT in an email Tuesday afternoon that “CAIR state chapter representatives have been included in broad meetings” with the White House and other cabinet-level agencies.
The meeting’s focus is understandable, but the inclusion of a prominent CAIR official serves only to enhance the status of a group with documented ties to a terrorist-financing network. And the exclusion of voices representing non-Islamist Muslim reformers just makes their challenge of getting a fair hearing for their ideas more difficult.
Shibly’s record should have been especially troublesome for staffers compiling a list of White House guests to meet with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett. He is helping a family sue the FBI, alleging an agent shot and killed a friend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev after hours of questioning in his Orlando home in 2013.
Independent investigations, requested by CAIR, by the Justice Department and a Florida state attorney found that Ibragim Todashev, a “skilled mixed-martial arts fighter,” attacked the agent shortly after acknowledging involvement in a separate triple-murder case in Massachusetts. Todashev continued charging after being shot, prompting the agent to fire more.
Shibly rejected the findings, saying only Todashev could “contradict the government’s narrative” but he was dead. Similarly, Shibly joined other CAIR officials in blaming the FBI for the 2010 death of a Detroit imam who refused to surrender to arresting FBI agents and shot an FBI canine trying to subdue him. Again, independent investigations CAIR requested supported the agents’ actions, and even included video showing the imam trying to conceal his Glock 9mm handgun.
During a 2012 radio interview, Shibly claimed “the imam was tied and bound and was shot. And that is very troubling. Why was a man in chains shot?”
Shibly made this statement two years after video of the shooting was released. There is no evidence supporting Shibly’s description.
While there was room for Shibly at the White House, the guest list included no representatives from a new coalition of non-Islamist Muslims which issued a declaration and statement of principles for the Muslim Reform Movement. The values described include “peace, human rights and secular governance,” a call to defeat “Islamism, or politicized Islam,” and a simple declaration: “We reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam.”
These are the values that merit the endorsement of a meeting with top White House staffers.
But for the past seven years, the Obama White House has opened its doors to the entire spectrum of radical Islamist groups, just like CAIR. These groups have rationalized the actions of Islamic terrorist groups that have killed Americans, warned American Muslims against cooperating with law enforcement, smeared genuine Muslim moderates like Zuhdi Jasser and Asra Nomani as traitors and accused anyone who dared to utter the term “radical Islam” as “Islamophobic.” These are the groups that the White House should have marginalized. The fact that Obama legitimized radical Islamist groups will be his real legacy.
Kerry Welcomes End of Investigation into Iran’s Past Nuclear Efforts (Including Lies)
December 16, 2015Kerry Welcomes End of Investigation into Iran’s Past Nuclear Efforts (Including Lies), The Jewish Press, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, December 15, 2015
IAEA’S Dir. Gen. Yukiya Amano in Vienna. Sept. 14, 2015. Photo Credit: YouTube screen capture
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is thrilled that the world’s nuclear watchdog agency has decided, despite the continued lying by Iran about its nuclear weapons program and its violations of UN ballistic missile bans, to close its investigation into whether there had been any possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Kerry’s statement, released on Tuesday, Dec. 15, noted that a Dec. 2 assessment by Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA, revealed Iran had engaged in activities consistent with a nuclear weapons program as recently as a mere six years ago.
For some reason, Kerry seemed to find that reassuring.
The Secretary of State said that with the consensus adoption by the IAEA Board of Governors, it will now be able to “turn its focus now to the full implementation and verification of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).”
In other words, everyone can now move towards lifting sanctions against Iran which not only continued to lie about its past nuclear activity, but which has already twice violated United Nations missile bans on it since the time the JCPOA was agreed to in July.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power acknowledged Iran’s October violation of the missile ban.
Iran’s latest violation of the missile ban was made public by a United Nations Panel in a report dated Dec. 11, Reuters reported on Tuesday. That report was forwarded to the UNSC’s sanctions committee.
Iran has consistently said it will defy any limitations on its ballistic missile program, whether enshrined in UN resolutions or otherwise.
Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) was outraged by the IAEA’s decision, and the green light it gives to the administration’s willingness to move towards implementation of its nearly toothless Nuclear Iran Deal.
“The vote today is a total capitulation to the Iranian regime’s aggressively dishonest behavior with respect to its commitment under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Sadly, though not surprisingly, the IAEA Board of Governors closed the investigation into Iran’s nuclear program, despite proof of Iran’s dishonesty and in the absence of thorough, truthful answers to many outstanding issues. The president will now use this decision to lift sanctions on Iran without having the complete truth regarding its nuclear weapons related activity. This is a grave and historic error that sends the wrong message,” wrote Pompeo.
The Kansas member of Congress pointed out that the Iran deal, which lasts for more than a decade, means many more years of the U.S. and its partner nations look the other way while the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism continues “cheating, lying, and breaking the rules.”
“This is wholly unacceptable and will most assuredly lead to more of the same from Ayatollah Khamenei. Other rogue nations now know too that America will accept deceit and fraud in dealings with respect to nuclear proliferation.”
Kerry said on Tuesday that the watchdog agency can still investigate Iran if “there is reason to believe” that country is “pursuing any covert nuclear activities in the future, as it had in the past. In fact, the JCPOA – by providing for implementation of the Additional Protocol as well as other enhanced transparency measures – puts the IAEA in a far better position to pursue any future concerns that may arise.”
The IAEA may be able to continue to investigate, but given that past violations have been met with no consequences, it’s a cold assurance that such investigations can continue.
Incredibly, Kerry’s statement concludes:
Today’s resolution makes clear that the IAEA’s Board of Governors will be watching closely to verify that Iran fully implements its commitments under the JCPOA. We will remain intensely focused going forward on the full implementation of the JCPOA in order to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
Isn’t that comforting?
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