Archive for the ‘Biden’ category

Obama Setting up yet Another Fight with Israel

March 1, 2016

Obama Setting up yet Another Fight with Israel, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 1, 2016

obama_netanyahu_1

Flashback to ’10. Biden visited Israel.

Obama, Biden and Hillary decided to use the visit to stage an incident with Netanyahu. They claimed that a housing project (which was never built) in Jerusalem passing one stage of a multi-stage review was a calculated and deliberate “insult” to the United States.

Biden refused to come down. Then he did and the results were ugly. Hillary Clinton spent hours screaming at Netanyahu over the phone.

The whole point of this was to stage a fight with Israel as part of a plan to discredit Netanyahu.

Six years later, Obama is pulling the same stunt all over again.

Ahead of US Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to the Holy Land next week, the American administration is “hysterical” about the possibility of Israeli authorities embarrassing him by announcing the construction of new housing during his visit, the Hebrew news site nrg reported on Monday.

According to the exclusive report, the level of anxiety in Washington is so high on this score that senior administration officials are sidestepping proper diplomatic channels and directly appealing to Israeli public figures to prevent an incident similar to that which occurred during Biden’s visit six years ago.

The “level of anxiety” is similar to that experienced by Brer Rabbit asking not to be thrown into the briar patch. This is set dressing for the fight Obama wants to pick.

Israel is not a dictatorship. Prime Ministers actually have less power than presidents. Which means it’s quite possible that somewhere, some part of Israel’s bureaucracy will review and approve something in one of the many parts of Israel that Obama doesn’t want to see any Jews living in.

And, I highly suspect, that Obama Inc. already knows where and when, and has scheduled the visit for just that when.

At the time, Netanyahu apologized to Biden, claiming he had not been aware that the municipal committee tasked with deciding on such matters would be meeting during the visit. Since the “Ramat Shlomo incident,” Netanyahu has demanded that all announcements of construction in Jerusalem be run by him first – something that nrg claimed has dramatically slowed the building process.

However, according to nrg, Biden has indicated a lack of confidence that a similar incident will not occur during his upcoming visit, and therefore a number of phone calls have purportedly been made from Washington to Israel’s housing and interior ministries, as well as to Jerusalem’s City Hall, to “beg” that no such announcements be made next week. However, the same Israeli representatives were told, according to nrg, that “construction in the Arab section of the city would be welcome.”

So aside from crippling construction for Jerusalem, itself an objective, Obama Inc. is adding stress to the situation even though it’s entirely up to the White House to regard some committee somewhere signing a piece of paper as an “insult”.

So this is a game. It’s the kind of game that people play in abusive relationships. Which is what Obama’s relationship with Israel is.

Iran Captures and Releases US Sailors: the Back Story

January 14, 2016

Iran Captures and Releases US Sailors: the Back Story, Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, January 14, 2016

Iran-Captures-US-Sailors-HPIranian footage of the capture of the 10 American sailors.

Although the government and news media seem to be adopting Shakespeare’s famous maxim, “All’s well that end’s well,” the back story behind the seizure and eventual release of 10 American sailors by Iran is not so simple.

Vice-President Joe Biden insisted “the Iranians picked up both boats — as we have picked up Iranian boats that needed to be rescued .. [they] realized they were there in distress and said they would release them, and released them — like ordinary nations would do.”

Yet Iran can hardly be called an “ordinary nation.” The Islamic Republic leveraged the incident to humiliate the U.S., forcing the sailors to apologize and acknowledge their “fantastic” treatment by Iran. Not just a typical “rescue.”

Iranian brinkmanship, an art unto itself, was played to perfection. Footage aired on Iranian Press TV in English (see below) showed uncomfortable U.S. sailors sitting on Persian carpets laden with food, the lone female sitting in a corner sequestered behind her male compatriots with a hijab covering her hair.

Films of their “surrender” — on their knees with their hands behind their heads –featured prominently in the Iranian press coverage as did all the weapons contained on the ship.

Still Biden insisted it was all in a normal day’s work. “When you have a problem with the boat, (do) you apologize the boat had a problem? No,” Biden said. “And there was no looking for any apology. This was just standard nautical practice.”

Others were more blunt. “This incident in the Persian Gulf, which probably will not be the American forces’ last mistake in the region, should be a lesson to troublemakers in the U.S. Congress,” said Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, head of Iran’s armed forces.

One wonders what the lesson might have been if Iran had already been granted the billions of dollars in sanctions relief instead of being just days away receiving it.

Watch Iranian TV coverage of the capture and apology (voices begin after three minutes):

Biden: “no excuse” for Israelis talking about Obama and Kerry in “derogatory terms”

November 9, 2015

Biden: “no excuse” for Israelis talking about Obama and Kerry in “derogatory terms,” Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 9, 2015

bald_biden

There’s no excuse for Tehran Joe Biden ever talking about international policy. There’s also no excuse for Israelis or anyone else not referring to Obama in derogatory terms.

But Biden chose to get on his high horse anyway…

“There is no excuse, there should be no tolerance for any member or employee of the Israeli administration referring to the president of United States in derogatory terms. Period, period, period, period!”

“There is no justification for an official Israeli voice degrading the secretary of state, who has worked so hard, for so long for the security of Israel,” Biden continued.

Three periods. That’s a lot of periods.

Biden seems to have forgotten the time his regime’s staffers decided to refer to Netanyahu as “chickenshit” or Obama’s live mic moment while slamming Netanyahu.

John Kerry has worked for the “security of Israel” by pressuring Israel to release large numbers of terrorists. Can Israeli victims of terror degrade Kerry… or just suffer because of him?

Meanwhile here are the comments, made by Baratz before his appointment, that Biden described as “terrible”.

After President Barack Obama reacted to the speech delivered by Netanyahu in Congress in March, Baratz wrote: “This is what modern anti-Semitism looks like in western liberal countries. And of course, it comes with a lot of tolerance and understanding toward Islamic anti-Semitism. So much tolerance and understanding, until they are even willing to give them nukes.”

In October of 2014, he wrote about a speech in which Secretary of State John Kerry “made a connection between Israel and ISIS.” He wrote commented sarcastically:  “After his term as secretary of state he is certain to have a flourishing career in one of the stand-up comedy clubs in Kansas City, Mosul, or the Holot detention facility.” Elsewhere, he reportedly said Kerry had “the mental age of a 12-year-old.”

So Baratz called Obama a bigot who panders to Muslim terrorists and suggested that Kerry was an idiot and a joke.

Is stating obvious facts really such a terrible thing?

But like all social justice warriors, Obama Inc. excels at pretending to be deeply hurt and offended by its victims. Biden’s fake outrage is as real as his hair. Maybe Biden should take himself to a safe room.

“We simply will not,” Biden said, “permit Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Period. Period.”

Is it just me or do Biden’s periods seem insincere?

Traitor senators took money from Iran lobby, back Iran nukes

August 25, 2015

Traitor senators took money from Iran lobby, back Iran nukes, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, August 25, 2015

em

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb.

There was no surprise there.

Markey had topped the list of candidates supported by the Iran Lobby. And the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) had maxed out its contributions to his campaign.

After more fake suspense, Al Franken, another IAPAC backed politician who also benefited from Iran Lobby money, came out for the nuke sellout.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the Iran Lobby’s third Dem senator, didn’t bother playing coy like her colleagues. She came out for the deal a while back even though she only got half the IAPAC cash that Franken and Markey received.

As did Senator Gillibrand, who had benefited from IAPAC money back when she first ran for senator and whose position on the deal should have come as no surprise.

The Iran Lobby had even tried, and failed, to turn Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. Iran Lobby cash had made the White House count on him as the Republican who would flip, but Flake came out against the deal. The Iran Lobby invested a good deal of time and money into Schumer, but that effort also failed.

Still these donations were only the tip of the Iran Lobby iceberg.

Gillibrand had also picked up money from the Iran Lobby’s Hassan Nemazee. Namazee was Hillary’s national campaign finance director who had raised a fortune for both her and Kerry before pleading guilty to a fraud scheme encompassing hundreds of millions of dollars. Nemazee had been an IAPAC trustee and had helped set up the organization.

Bill Clinton had nominated Hassan Nemazee as the US ambassador to Argentina when he had only been a citizen for two years.  A spoilsport Senate didn’t allow Clinton to make a member of the Iran Lobby into a US ambassador, but Nemazee remained a steady presence on the Dem fundraising circuit.

Nemazee had donated to Gillibrand and had also kicked in money to help the Franken Recount Fund scour all the cemeteries for freshly dead votes, as well as to Barbara Boxer, who also came out for the Iran nuke deal. Boxer had also received money more directly from IAPAC.

In the House, the Democratic recipients of IAPAC money came out for the deal. Mike Honda, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Iran Lobby backed the nuke sellout. As did Andre Carson, Gerry Connolly, Donna Edwards and Jackie Speier. The Iran Lobby was certainly getting its money’s worth.

But the Iran Lobby’s biggest wins weren’t Markey or Shaheen. The real victory had come long before when two of their biggest politicians, Joe Biden and John Kerry, had moved into prime positions in the administration. Not only IAPAC, but key Iran Lobby figures had been major donors to both men.

That list includes Housang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council, who had spoken of a campaign to “conquer Obama’s heart and mind” and had described himself as “the Iranian lobby in the United States.” It includes the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN) board members who had fundraised for Biden. And it includes the aforementioned Hassan Nemazee.

A member of Iran’s opposition had accused Biden’s campaigns of being “financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California and by the Silicon Iran network.” Biden’s affinity for the terrorist regime in Tehran was so extreme that after 9/11 he had suggested, “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran”.

Appeasement inflation has since raised that $200 million to at least $50 billion. But there are still no strings worth mentioning attached to the big check.

Questions about donations from the Iran Lobby had haunted Kerry’s campaign. Back then Kerry had been accused of supporting an agreement favorable to Iran. The parameters of that controversial proposal however were less generous than the one that Obama and Kerry are trying to sell now.

The hypothetical debates over the influence of the Iran Lobby have come to a very real conclusion.

Both of Obama’s secretaries of state were involved in Iran Lobby cash controversies, as was his vice president and his former secretary of defense. Obama was also the beneficiary of sizable donations from the Iran Lobby. Akbar Ghahary, the former co-founder of IAPAC, had donated and raised some $50,000 for Obama.

It’s an unprecedented track record that has received very little notice. While the so-called “Israel Lobby” is constantly scrutinized, the fact that key foreign policy positions under Obama are controlled by political figures with troubling ties to an enemy of this country has gone mostly unreported by the mainstream media.

This culture of silence allowed the Iran Lobby to get away with taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times before the Netanyahu speech asking, “Will Congress side with our President or a Foreign Leader?”

Iran’s stooges had taken a break from lobbying for ballistic missiles to play American patriots.

Obama and his allies, Iranian and domestic, have accused opponents of his dirty Iran deal of making “common cause” with that same terror regime and of treason. The ugly truth is that he and his political accomplices were the traitors all along.

Democrats in favor of a deal that will let a terrorist regime go nuclear have taken money from lobbies for that regime. They have broken their oath by taking bribes from a regime whose leaders chant, “Death to America”. Their pretense of examining the deal is nothing more than a hollow charade.

This deal has come down from Iran Lobby influenced politicians like Kerry and is being waved through by members of Congress who have taken money from the Iran Lobby. That is treason plain and simple.

Despite what we are told about its “moderate” leaders, Iran considers itself to be in a state of war with us. Iran and its agents have repeatedly carried out attacks against American soldiers, abducted and tortured to death American officials and have even engaged in attacks on American naval vessels.

Aiding an enemy state in developing nuclear weapons is the worst form of treason imaginable. Helping put weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists is the gravest of crimes.

The Democrats who have approved this deal are turning their party into a party of atom bomb spies.

Those politicians who have taken money from the Iran Lobby and are signing off on a deal that will let Iran go nuclear have engaged in the worst form of treason and committed the gravest of crimes. They must know that they will be held accountable. That when Iran detonates its first bomb, their names will be on it.

Liberating Our Jerusalem

May 18, 2015

Liberating Our Jerusalem, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 17, 2015

[T]here are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

**********************

When Jordan’s Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city– the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

MigdalDavid0002

Since then, the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is, however, standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as “settlers” living in “settlements,” and describe them as an “obstruction to peace.” Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as “settlements” is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to tip his hat to. How does one have “settlements” in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that, you would have to ask London and Washington D.C., where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough, this religion’s name isn’t even Islam– it’s diplomacy.

Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that, when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while, when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.

Vice President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, “It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice President who didn’t deserve that.” David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an “affront” and an “insult.” Two for the price of one.

Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration.”Israel’s Provocation”, the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a “diplomatic bomb” that went off in Biden’s face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.

Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It’s in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It’s insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.

That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it’s completely and undeniably true.

bauernfeind-mur-lamentation-jerusalem

When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn’t come crying that he’s been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were, then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It’s only the Jews who are the problem.

The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it’s as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.

But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that’s just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.

How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting; real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset Vice Presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stop or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.

That’s the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you’re a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It’s the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It’s the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that’s worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.

In 1966, Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.

When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine Providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.

As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six-Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War fought with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.

Jerusalem-Scopus

Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.

As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that they are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.

Obama turns a smiling face to Israel. Biden: Iran has enough material for 8 nuclear bombs

May 3, 2015

Obama turns a smiling face to Israel. Biden: Iran has enough material for 8 nuclear bombs, DEBKAfile, May 2, 2015

(Obama and Biden speak with forked tongues. Please see also, PM Netanyahu’s Remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.– DM)

Biden-netanyahu_30.4.15We drive each other nuts…

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have gone out of their way in the last fortnight to shower friendly gestures on Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and even Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer. Refuting the dire predictions by Netanyahu’s critics of a disastrous breach, Obama and Biden, by word and gesture, are putting behind them the rancor long marring relations between Washington in Jerusalem.

The White House launched its new charm campaign for Israel on April 13 by meetings with three groups of American Jewish leaders. Obama addressed the first with an emotional affirmation of his support for Israel and its security. Vice President Biden, National Security adviser Susan Rice and Biden’s national security adviser Colin Kahl then talked to another group of Jewish leaders, while Obama spoke to Jewish “community leaders”, a group of individuals who though unaffiliated are influential and generous donors to the Democratic Party.

Ten days later, on April 23, Biden was the keynote speaker at the Israeli embassy’s Independence Day reception. He stood alongside the former object of administration ire – Ambassador Dermer – and declared: “We have Israel’s back, you can count on that.” He announced that Israel would be the first country in the world to receive the new US F-35 stealth aircraft already next year.

Thursday, the Vice President delivered a lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the key DC research think tank on the subject of US-Israel relations.

In this important lecture, Biden defended in great detail US strategy and objectives in the negotiations for a nuclear accord with Iran, as they enter their final lap.

All in all, the US president and vice president are devoting more time to gestures for repairing relations with Israel than on the burning crises afflicting the world in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.

DEBKAfile found four reasons for this striking White House pivot:

1. After the fireworks sparked by Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to the US Congress against the nuclear accord, which placed him at the forefront of the international front opposing the deal, the White House decided that instead of sparring with him, it would be more productive to convert the Israeli prime minister into a supporter by meeting him halfway on certain points.

2. The rift with Israel proved disadvantageous to the Obama administration, while boosting Netanyahu and his Likud in Israel’s recent general election. The US president has paid a high political and personal price for colliding with Congress on the Iranian nuclear issue. His strategic advisers have recommended a bid to convince Netanyahu that Israel’s most pressing concerns about the nuclear deal are being addressed in the final stage of the talks. Assuming that the prime minister too is not looking for a major rift with Washington, he may be amenable to partly changing course and withdrawing some of his objections to the deal. Congress might then respond more positively to the administration’s nuclear policy.

3. As American gears up for its 2016 elections, the Democratic Party needs to woo the Jewish vote and most importantly its financial support for campaigners.

The Biden lecture to the Washington Institute is therefore worthy of close scrutiny. This masterly and eloquent work is an attempt to lay the political and security groundwork for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s consent to a change of heart from opposition to the nuclear deal to its support.

DEBKAfile has therefore singled out is 17 high points:

  • Israel is absolutely right to be worried about the world’s most dangerous weapons falling in the hands of a nation, whose leaders dream openly of a world without Israel.
  • So the criticism that Israel is too concerned I find preposterous.  They have reason to be concerned. (DF. Netanyahu’s concerns about Iran are fully justified.)
  • …that’s why the President, President Obama, decided for the first time — people forget this — to make it an explicit, declared policy of the United States of America – no such policy existed before President Obama uttered it — that all instruments of American power to prevent — not contain, not contain -— to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran would be used to prevent that from happening.
  • …our military had the capacity and the capability to execute the mission, if it was required. (DF. This was an explicit US presidential pledge to use military force to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.)

Vice President Biden then laid down 12 conditions as the sine qua non for a deal. “If what’s on the table doesn’t meet the President’s requirements, there will be no deal,” he said.

  • A final deal must effectively cut off Iran’s uranium, plutonium and covert pathways to the bomb.
  • The final deal must ensure a breakout timeline of at least one year for at least a decade or more.
  • A final deal must include phased sanction relief, calibrated against Iran taking meaningful steps to constrain their program. (DF. Iran insists on immediate sanctions relief.)
  • A final deal must provide verifiable assurances to ensure Iran’s program is exclusively peaceful.
  • If they did try to cheat… they would be far more likely to be caught because… we’ll also put in place the toughest transparency and verification requirements.
  • Iran will be required to implement the Additional Protocols, allowing IAEA inspectors to visit not only declared nuclear facilities, but undeclared sites where suspicious, clandestine work is suspected and address IAEA concerns about the military dimensions of past nuclear research.
    Not only would Iran be required to allow 24/7 eyes on the nuclear sites you’ve heard of — Fordow and Natantz and Arak — and the ability to challenge suspect locations, every link in their nuclear supply chain will be under surveillance.
  • And if Iran resumes its pursuit of nuclear weapons, no option available today will be off the table. In fact, the options will be greatly increased because we will know so much more.

Biden went on to warn: “Let’s not kid each other. They already have paved a path to a bomb’s worth of material. Iran could get there now if they walked away in two to three months without a deal.” He went on to say:  “Without this deal, they already have enough material if further enriched for as many as eight nuclear bombs. Already, right now, as I speak to you.

  • Under the proposed final deal, the Arak reactor will be redesigned to produce zero weapons-grade plutonium. The spent fuel will be required to be shipped out of Iran for the life of the reactor. And Iran will be barred from building the reprocessing plant for extracting bomb-grade material from plutonium.

“Finally there is the myth that a nuclear deal between the United States and Iran enables Iran to gain dominance inside the Middle East.” The US vice president protested: “But it is a nuclear bargain between Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany, the EU, America and Iran – one that reduces the risk of nuclear war and makes the region and the world a safer place,” he stressed.

“We are working continually to develop the means and capacity to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities…“ he said citing the Strait of Hormuz. We are prepared to use (inaudible) the force.”

Biden wound up his peroration by directing these words to Israel. “It’s true we disagree sometimes. But as I said last week at Israel’s Independence Day celebration, we’re family. I think it was Ambassador Dermer who essentially said the same thing. We drive each other nuts. But we love each other. And most of all we protect each other.”

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources note: The Obama administration appears willing to keep on smiling towards Israel. US Secretary of State John Kerry will soon schedule a visit to Israel, after staying away for a long time, The visit will be billed as promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but his real errand will be to test the ground with Prime Minister Netanyahu and assess how successful the White House’s gestures of affection have been in toning down his opposition to the nuclear deal.

For now, the host of critics who accused Netanyahu of causing an irreparable breach with Washington over the nuclear issue have retired to a corner.

Arab states snub Obama’s D.C. summit as Iran Mocks Obama

April 21, 2015

Arab states snub Obama’s D.C. summit as Iran Mocks Obama, BreitbartJoel B. Pollak, April 21, 2015

ap_saud-bin-faisal-bin-abdulaziz-al-saud_ap-photo-640x422The Associated Press

As the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt heads to Yemen to confront a convoy of Iranian ships, including destroyers, it is worth asking why President Barack Obama is still talking to the Iranian regime about its nuclear program. The Iranians, who used the Houthi militia to knock over the American-aligned Yemeni government, clearly has no fear that Obama will suspend negotiations. If anything, Iranian tactics are winning more concessions.

When you strike a deal with an enemy who continues to attack you, that is not called “peace,” but “surrender.”

It is a wonder Obama is even bothering to send an aircraft carrier to the region at all. His hand has been forced by two factors: first, that Saudi Arabia has gone to war in Yemen without bothering to ask for American approval; second, Yemen is key to Obama’s drone policy against Al Qaeda, his only modest military success.

America has lost more than an ally in Yemen or a foothold in Iraq. It has lost the opportunity to defend hundreds of thousands of innocent lives from being murdered by Iran’s Syrian ally, which is using chemical weapons against civilians. It has lost the opportunity to demilitarize Lebanon—an achievement then-Sen. Joe Biden foolishly claimed in his debate with Sarah Palin in 2008. It may even have lost the chance to stop a nuclear Iran.

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif made clear in his New York Times op-ed this week that the regime sees a nuclear deal as the key to regional domination. He offered—no, demanded—American cooperation on ISIS and other issues, not as a possible outcome of a deal but as a condition for a deal.

Yet the White House refuses to make its own regional demands—such as recognition of Israel, or an end to Iran’s global terrorism.

Israel has made clear that the Iran deal is an existential threat, and even that has not moved Obama to reconsider. The Arab nations are not waiting to be double-crossed, and are making their own plans, which likely include Saudi Arabia obtaining nuclear warheads from Pakistan.

In an attempt to save face, Obama has invited the Arab nations to a May 13 summit at the White House—long after final negotiations with Iran have begun

Already, some Arab states have indicated that they will not be attending (Oman), or will only send junior delegations (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates). Amir Taheri of theNew York Post quotes  one Arab official: “He is going to give a Churchillian speech. But we know that you can’t be Chamberlain one day and Churchill the next.”

Meanwhile, Israel quietly signals that it is not going to wait for a Churchill to arrive in the Oval Office.

Presidential Commitments Then and Now

March 11, 2015

Presidential Commitments Then and Now, Commentary Magazine, March 11, 2015

(Please see also State Dept Describes Iran Deal as ‘Nonbinding’ — DM)

The White House “outrage” at the “open letter” to Iran signed by 47 senators, led by Sen. Tom Cotton, was reinforced by Vice President Biden’s formal statement, which intoned that “America’s influence depends on its ability to honor its commitments,” including those made by a president without a vote of Congress. Perhaps we should welcome Biden’s belated insight. As Jonathan Tobin notes, President Obama on taking office in 2009 refused to be bound by the 2004 Gaza disengagement deal in the letters exchanged between President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. His secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, announced that such commitments were “unenforceable”–that they were non-binding on the new administration. In 2009, Obama disregarded previous commitments not only to Israel but also to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Georgia; he “fundamentally transformed” America’s previous commitments, as he likes to describe the essential element of his entire presidency.

The Gaza disengagement deal was (1) approved by Congress; (2) included in the Gaza disengagement plan presented to the Israeli Knesset, and (3) relied on by Israel in withdrawing from Gaza later in 2005. The history of the deal (which the current secretary of state endorsed at the time as a U.S. “commitment”) is set forth here, and the reason Obama sought to undo it is discussed here. In 2009, the Obama administration refused at least 22 times to answer whether it considered itself bound by the deal; in 2011 it openly reneged on key aspects of it.

President Obama is currently negotiating an arms control agreement in secret, refusing to disclose the details of the offers his administration has made to Iran, a terrorist state according to his own State Department, and a self-described enemy of the United States since 1979. He has opposed not only a congressional debate before he concludes the deal but also a congressional vote afterwards. If he closes a deal with Iran on that basis, it will not be binding on any future president–at least not if that president chooses to follow the precedent Obama himself set in 2009.

If the administration is now seeking to restore the credibility of presidential commitments, the president might consider taking two steps: (1) acknowledge that the U.S. is bound by the disengagement deal negotiated by President Bush with Israel, endorsed by a vote of Congress; and (2) promise to put his prospective deal with Iran to a similar congressional vote once the deal is done. If not, perhaps a reporter at his next press conference will ask how he reconciles his position that (a) he could ignore President Bush’s congressionally approved deal with his view that (b) future presidents must honor the non-congressionally approved one he is negotiating now.

Humor(?): Brian Williams for President

February 9, 2015

Brian Williams for President, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 9, 2015

(Not so fast. As explained here, Williams should become the Secretary of State first. That is necessary in order to gain foreign policy experience gravitas. — DM)

brian-williams-450x277

If Brian Williams is fired, then even NBC News will have higher standards than the Democratic Party. And then Brian Williams can become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016.

***********************

Two years ago NBC and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell tried to invent a Romney gaffe by playing an edited tape of Romney. Mitchell wasn’t just another angry MSNBCite, but NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent and a colleague of Brian Williams who often appeared on his newscast.

NBC was criticized, but Mitchell wasn’t fired. Neither was anyone else. She didn’t even apologize.

The network had even more outrageously edited George Zimmerman’s tape to make him sound racist. A local producer and correspondent were fired. The correspondent, Lilia Luciano, had reported for, among other NBC outlets, The Nightly News with Brian Williams.

Brian Williams is in trouble for lying, but he was part of a media culture of deceit where lies were acceptable for a good progressive cause. Williams isn’t really in trouble because he lied, but because he got caught. Worse still, the lies were self-serving. They served Brian Williams; they didn’t serve the left.

Williams had failed to draw the line between the “good lie” (ObamaCare is making life better) and the “bad lie” (I swam the flooded French Quarter with puppies on my back during Katrina while Al Qaeda shot RPGs at me). But the borders between the “good lie” and the “bad lie” have been vague when it comes to the titans of the left.

The media did its best to cover up for Hillary Clinton’s rather similar claims about “landing under sniper fire” in Bosnia. There was no sniper fire. There was a little girl with flowers. Today Hillary is in the lead to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for the White House in 2016.

Are there really higher ethical qualifications for reading the news from a teleprompter for NBC than there are for the President of the United States? If so, maybe we should just replace the Democratic Party with NBC.  They’re hard to tell apart anyway.

Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s own official Brian Williams, claimed during the Democratic presidential debate that he had been shot at in Iraq. He boasted to a National Guard conference, “If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”

“Where is that safe haven? It is not Baghdad. It is in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan where my helicopter was recently forced down.”

At a fundraiser, he spoke of “The superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down. John McCain wants to know where bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That’s where Al Qaida is. That’s where bin Laden is.”

In reality, the pilot had landed due to a snowstorm. Biden had been there with Kerry and Hagel.

Al Qaeda’s safe haven was in Iraq. It wasn’t in the “superhighway of terror” in the mountains where Biden waited out a storm in an area under American control. And Bin Laden wasn’t there either.

Joe Biden and Brian Williams are both compulsive liars. Over the years, Joe Biden lied about everything from his academic degrees to the car accident that killed his wife.  Biden lied and claimed to have three degrees. He lied and claimed to have played college football. He lied and claimed to have heard the gunshots from a school shooting.

In his defense, Biden claimed in the eighties, “I exaggerate when I’m angry.”

Apparently Biden gets angry a lot. Still none of these scandals and lies, going back generations, ever got Biden fired. His harshest punishment came in law school when he was called before a disciplinary committee for plagiarizing a paper. Biden’s aide claimed that he was exonerated. In fact he was found guilty, but Biden “threw himself on the mercy of the board“and promised not to do it again.

He did it do it again as a politician, lifting a speech from UK Labor Leader Neil Kinnock, but there was no longer a disciplinary committee to hold him accountable.

As a senator and vice president, Biden had become too big to fail. He can no longer be held accountable. And if the Vice President of the United States can get away with telling crazy lies about his own accomplishments, why not the anchor for NBC News? They’re both just bad actors with fake hair.

Biden, like Hillary Clinton, is running for the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2016.

Fake heroics and stolen valor are common problems for Democratic senators. Senator Blumenthal lied about serving in Vietnam. He responded with an angry press conference surrounded by veterans in which he barked that he would not allow anyone to “impugn my record of service to our country.”

It was a shameless performance even by his standards.  And he won. His party certainly did not ask him to step down.

Kerry’s pal, Senator Tom Harkin lied and claimed to have flown combat missions over North Vietnam.  He stayed on and grew old in the Senate.

If lying about your Vietnam military service is fine for Senator Blumenthal, Senator Harkin not to mention former Senator and current Secretary of State John Kerry, how can anyone object to Brian Williams making up stories about saving puppies from fires at gunpoint in the French Quarter in Iraq?

Democratic politicians are allowed to lie about their heroism because they are the cause. At some point along the way, Brian Williams decided that he was important enough to be the cause. He wasn’t just the guy lying for Obama and Hillary. He was important enough for NBC News to lie for him.

And that’s exactly what NBC News did.

The days when the average politician and journalist had served in the military are long over. All that’s left is stolen valor and borrowed heroics.

Obama lied and claimed that his uncle had liberated Auschwitz during his Memorial Day remarks. (In real life he skipped the 70th anniversary commemoration of the day for the Saudis.) NBC News at the time defended it as an “innocent mistake”. But then again Obama had also claimed that his parents got together because of Selma, which took place three years after he was born.

Is NBC News really supposed to have higher standards for its talking heads than the Democratic Party does for the President of the United States?

And when a news organization like NBC News tells constant lies in support of the political agendas of Obama, Clinton and Biden, should one of its big talking heads really be expected to draw the line at lying about their records to lying about his own?

Brian Williams did the same thing that Hillary Clinton had been doing throughout her career.

Hillary Clinton not only lied about coming under fire in Bosnia, but she claimed to have been instrumental in the Northern Ireland peace processand had “negotiated open borders” for refugees in Kosovo. She claimed that her daughter (and future NBC correspondent) was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 when the hijacked plane hit.

None of that was true.

If Brian Williams is fired, then even NBC News will have higher standards than the Democratic Party. And then Brian Williams can become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016.

Erdogan slams US on Syria again, days after Biden visit

December 1, 2014

Erdogan slams US on Syria again, days after Biden visit, Al-Monitor, Week in Review, November 30, 2014

U.S. VP Biden meets with Turkey's President Erdogan in IstanbulUS Vice President Joe Biden (L) meets with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Beylerbeyi Palace in Istanbul, Nov. 22, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls US “impertinent” on Syria, says West likes seeing Muslim children die; Israel considers extension of Iran nuclear talks as better than a bad deal.

*********************

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Nov. 26 that he is “against impertinence, recklessness and endless demands” coming from “12,000 kilometers away” (7,456 miles), his latest not-so-veiled rebuke of US policy toward Syria.

Erdogan’s outburst came four days after US Vice President Joe Biden departed Turkey. Biden, the latest in a seemingly endless stream of senior US official visitors to Ankara, spoke of the “depth” of the US-Turkish relationship and how the United States “needs” Turkey. The US vice president praised Turkey’s turnaround, for now, in its ties with Iraq, as reported this week by Semih Idiz, and Turkey’s handling of close to 1.6 million Syrian refugees (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees puts the number at approximately 1.1 million).

Despite the predictable deadening public platitudes, Biden’s visit, like those of other senior US officials, was a flop for the anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition. Erdogan prefers to hold his support against IS as ransom for a US-backed buffer or no-fly zone inside Syria. Not that the Turkish president, or others hawking such a plan, present any “day after” strategies for Syria; explain how a buffer zone or “doubling down” on the Syrian opposition would do anything more than prolong the war and wreck what remains of the Syrian state; lay out how the United States can avoid another Libya or another Iraq (that is, a failed state or a prolonged occupation) if it pursues regime change in Syria; identify where a post-transition stabilization force may come from given the limitations of Syrian rebel forces; or explain why the jihadists would not gain the upper hand in a divided post-Assad Syria with such a weak and fragmented opposition.

Turkey’s unwillingness to combat IS and other terrorist groups stands in contrast with US allies Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain, as well as Iran, all of whom have concerns about US policy but are nonetheless engaged in combat operations against terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

Bruce Riedel explains how Saudi Arabia, which uncovered an IS-linked cell operating in the kingdom this week, is struggling with managing the threat from IS and its regional rivalry with Iran, but is nonetheless playing a leading role in the anti-IS coalition. Hossein Mousavian points out that among the “ground forces” combating IS, besides US-supported Syrian rebel forces, are the Iraqi and Syrian armies and Hezbollah, which are all backed by Iran. According to Mousavian, Tehran could be ready to do more if a nuclear deal is reached. Ali Hashem reports this week on Hezbollah’s role in Iraq, and Ali Mamouri chronicles the higher profile role that Iran Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani is playing with Iraqi forces battling IS. Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani, whose forces are also on the frontlines of the battle against IS, praised Iran’s role, saying in August that “Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition” to confront the IS advance toward Erbil. Syrian government warplanes bombed Raqqa, an IS stronghold, on Nov. 25, although the United States accused Syria of killing many civilians in the process. US-led coalition forces also conducted airstrikes against IS forces in Raqqa this week.

Erdogan appears to be the odd man out in the coalition, compared with the actions of the other regional powers, and his policies and statements should raise broader questions about the direction of Turkish foreign policy, including what it means for Turkey’s membership bid in the EU and its role in NATO. Idiz writes that Erdogan appears to be turning his back on Turkey’s EU membership bid. On Nov. 28, the eve of Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey, Erdogan offered the following about Western countries: “Believe me, they don’t like us,” AFP reported him as saying. “They look like friends, but they want us dead — they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?”

The United States might soon tire of the all-pain, no-gain appeals to Turkey and simply ask Erdogan to pick a side in the US war against terrorists, making clear, as US President Barack Obama recently said, that the United States is not planning to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at this time. Turkey is a critical US ally that must play a constructive role in Syria and the region, but the trends are becoming alarming. The United States, for its part, does not “need” Turkish bases to train anti-IS or anti-Assad rebels, does not “need” Turkish troops in Syria, and certainly does not “need” a buffer or no-fly zone, unless Washington is longing for a quagmire. What the coalition “needs” is for Turkey to crack down, hard, on the terrorist transit, trade and financial networks operating through Turkey into Syria, which have contributed to the rise of these groups over the past three years. Turkey’s intensified efforts at border security and counterterrorism cooperation would be a major contribution to the coalition. It does not seem to be an unreasonable ask, even if Ankara disagrees with the US approach to Assad.

As this column wrote on Nov. 16, it is the prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran, and the potential for regional cooperation with Iran, that is the key to a settlement of many of the region’s problems, including a political settlement in Syria and whether Assad stays or goes: “US interests in both defeating IS and securing a political settlement to end the Syria war depend on Iran’s good offices in Damascus. The United States cannot deal with Assad, but Iran can. Iran, like Washington’s regional allies, has a high tolerance for the spilling of Syrian blood. If the United States wants to deal Iran out in Syria, especially in the context of a bid to oust Assad, then Iran’s card will be to make the awful situation in Syria go from bad to worse. Iran is not necessarily immovable on Assad’s survival. Iran’s four-point plan for Syria includes a decentralization of power away from the Syrian presidency. Iranian officials privately signal that Assad may not be untouchable, under the right conditions, but such conversations — if they are to bear fruit — can only occur with Iran in a spirit of collaboration, not confrontation. Otherwise, Iran will simply hunker down, and the war will go on.”

Israel OK with extension of Iran nuclear talks

The seven-month extension of the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran has sparked reactions across the region. Laura Rozen reports from Vienna that progress was made as the Nov. 24 deadline approached but observers are still divided on whether this can be turned into a finished deal in the upcoming months.

Ben Caspit writes of the furious diplomatic effort by Israel to fend off what it would consider a bad deal: “Israel has invested enormous amounts of energy in this. Over the past few months, and especially in the last few weeks, Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz, who has coordinated these efforts, has become a ‘frequent flyer,’ plowing through the relevant capitals right and left. And Steinitz wasn’t alone in this. Senior Israeli intelligence officials also made frequent trips abroad to present their colleagues in different relevant capitals with intelligence documents, intelligence per se, and plenty of new information obtained by the Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies about the dangers inherent in that ‘bad agreement.’

“As the deadline approached this week, Steinitz intensified his activities, making two more quick visits, to London and to Paris, and meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Steinitz’s message, backed as always with intelligence reports, expert assessments and various analyses: ‘The agreement under discussion is a terrible agreement. It leaves room for huge potential breaches, which means that it is propped up on weak foundations. If those gaps are not sealed, it would be preferable to avoid reaching any agreement whatsoever than to sign the current one.’”

Retired Israel Defense Forces Gen. Michael Herzog writes that Israel views the extension of the talks as the least of all possible evils, “The truth is that Israel’s ability to influence the relationship between Iran and the West has reduced considerably. The credibility of its military option (which still exists) has decreased in the eyes of the United States and Iran, and its tense relationship with US President Barack Obama’s administration makes it difficult to engage in open dialogue between the two country’s top leaders. At this stage, as long as Iran is not hurtling toward the critical nuclear threshold, all that is left for Israel to do is to maintain the hope that Iran will continue to be intransigent, and that the US Congress will continue to play tough.”