Archive for the ‘Diplomacy’ category

Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout

July 2, 2015

Rouhani Threatens Nuclear Breakout, Commentary Magazine, July 2, 2015

Obama, Kerry, and negotiator Wendy Sherman have effectively become Iran’s lawyers. In doing so, they have applied the logic of “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” to U.S. national security. All one has to do, however, is look at the thinly veiled threats and logical somersaults of Iran’s top leaders . . . to understand just what a capability Tehran is after.

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Where brinkmanship is in the blood of Iranian negotiators, careerism and obsession about legacy appears to be in the blood of their American counterparts. By playing good cop, bad cop with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by quibbling over every understanding previously reached, and by increasingly threatening to walk away, the Iranians appear to be wringing the Americans dry. Obama and Kerry have voided their own red lines, and prepare to normalize an Iranian path to a bomb whenever the Iranian government makes a decision to pursue that option.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is part and parcel of Iran’s brinkmanship. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency in Persian, he declared: “…If they do not fulfill their commitments, the government will be ready to immediately reverse the path in a more severe way than they can ever dream of.”

If Iran’s program has always been peaceful—as repeated Iranian officials have maintained—then reverting to Iran’s previous behavior would mean what exactly?  Threats from Rouhani, the supposed moderate, should get the attention of Congress.

Increasingly, Iran is tripping upon its own internal inconsistencies. First, there was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s (as yet unseen) sacrosanct nuclear fatwa that forbids nuclear weaponry and yet the Iranian leadership refuses to come clean on past nuclear work for fear it would show nuclear weaponry work. There has also been Iran’s insistence that it seeks a completely indigenous program, yet it doesn’t possess enough natural uranium to fuel an expanded civilian energy program. Now, Rouhani has more or less threatened to build a nuclear bomb, the same threat made previously by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a number of clerical associates of Khamenei himself. On May 29, 2005, for example, Hojjat ol-Islam Gholam Reza Hasani, the Supreme Leader’s representative in the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan, declared possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran’s top goals. “An atom bomb …must be produced as well,” he said.

Obama, Kerry, and negotiator Wendy Sherman have effectively become Iran’s lawyers. In doing so, they have applied the logic of “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” to U.S. national security. All one has to do, however, is look at the thinly veiled threats and logical somersaults of Iran’s top leaders, however, to understand just what a capability Tehran is after.

Giant new Obama lie: I’m prepared to abandon these Iran nuke negotiations if we can’t get a good deal

July 1, 2015

Giant new Obama lie: I’m prepared to abandon these Iran nuke negotiations if we can’t get a good deal, Hot Air, Allahpundit, June 30, 2015

This may be the single most brazen lie he’s told since the glory days of “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” In fact, I might go one better than that. For sheer lack of believability, this may be the most transparent garbage he’s pushed at the public since he assured voters in 2008 that he had no choice as a deeply religious man but to oppose gay marriage because “God’s in the mix.” No one took him seriously then. No one’s taking him seriously on this either.

And by “no one,” I include former Obama administration staffers in that. Even Team Hopenchange is now worried about a gigantic Obama/Kerry sellout to Iran.

Over his 30-year political career, Kerry has long been knocked for delivering more talk than results. Achieving a nuclear deal he first began pursuing even before he became secretary of state could redefine his place in history.

And that, Republican critics, foreign officials, and even some ex-administration officials say, is a big problem. Kerry’s eagerness for a deal, they argue, risks that the Iranians will seduce him into a bad one.

“I don’t know how anyone who has observed Kerry over the past two years would think differently,” says a former administration official who worked on Iran issues.

He can’t stop Putin, he can’t get Israelis and Palestinians to the table, but he’s going to make rapprochement with Iran work one painstaking sellout at a time. Go read Stephen Hayes’s compendium at the Weekly Standard of how far the goalposts have moved, inch by inch, since the Obama White House first began laying down terms for a nuclear settlement with Iran several years ago. If they make a deal on nukes, it’s a fait accompli that Kerry will start prodding his new friend Javad Zarif to see what the terms of a “grand bargain” with Iran that formally restores diplomatic relations between the two countries might look like. (“Do it now or you’ll never have a chance under a Republican president,” Kerry might tell him.) Frankly, a nuclear sellout in which sanctions are lifted immediately and Iran gets to keep its military sites away from UN inspectors makes more sense with a grand bargain than without. If you’re going to bless the idea of Shiite fanatics having nuclear weapons, you’d better make nice with them.

Anyway, I hope O enjoys the little job approval bounce he’s getting this week while it lasts.

Exit question: If Obama’s prepared to walk away, why did he and Kerry extend the deadline for talks from today to July 7? Iran’s had month upon month to come around to our terms knowing full well that the deadline for a final deal was (supposedly) June 30. They refused to concede. So we’re giving them another chance. Why? You know why. A bad deal is better than no deal.

 

Oren blasts Iran nuclear deal: It’s not linked to changed Iranian behavior

June 30, 2015

Oren blasts Iran nuclear deal: It’s not linked to changed Iranian behavior, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, June 29, 2015

 

The Strategic Consequences of “Grexit”

June 29, 2015

The Strategic Consequences of “Grexit” The Gatestone InstitutePeter Martino, June 29, 2015

  • Last January, ISIS revealed that it is smuggling terrorists into Europe by hiding them among the immigrants leaving Turkey.
  • “If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with immigrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave… there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State, too.” — Panos Kammenos, Defense Minister of Greece
  • Greece is a member of NATO. The whole world witnessed how the Defense Minister of one NATO country was threatening other NATO members with unleashing Islamic terrorists on them.
  • A Greek exit will lead to a power vacuum in the southeastern corner of Europe, which Russia (and China) will be only too eager to fill. The Chinese are currently negotiating with the Greek government to acquire an even larger part of the port of Piraeus.

Last weekend, Greece failed to reach an agreement with its three creditors, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. A bankruptcy of the Hellenic Republic is now imminent. If it materializes, a so-called Grexit will follow: Greece will be forced to leave the Eurozone — the group of 19 European Union (EU) member states that use the euro as their common currency. Leaving the Eurozone automatically means that, under the EU treaties, Greece will also have to leave the EU.

1134Across Greece, people have been lining up to withdraw money from cash machines, most of which have run out of money, after the government ordered banks to close for six days starting Monday. (Image source: Reuters video screenshot)

Grexit is likely to lead to economic and political turmoil in Greece, a hugely important strategic country, which borders on an increasingly unstable part of the world. Greece lies on the Mediterranean, fewer than 350 kilometers to the north of the Libyan coastal town of Derna, a stronghold of the Islamic terrorists of ISIS. It was here that, last February, ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Egyptian prisoners, and vowed to conquer Europe. The threat to Greece’s eastern borders is even greater. Greece is currently being inundated by illegal immigrants, arriving from Turkey by sea. Each day in June, human traffickers were transporting between 650 and 1,000 migrants by boat from Turkish ports to Greece. Last January, ISIS revealed that it is smuggling terrorists into Europe by hiding them among the migrants leaving Turkey.

If Greece leaves the EU, it is highly unlikely that it will try to prevent the illegal immigrants from travelling on to the rest of Europe. On the contrary, in March, Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos vowed to flood the rest of Europe with immigrants if the EU should allow Greece to go bankrupt. “If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with immigrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave of millions of economic immigrants there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State, too,” the Greek minister said. All the newcomers to Greece, Kammenos said, would be given papers, so they “could go straight to Berlin.” Greece is a member of NATO. The whole world could witness how the defense minister of one NATO country was threatening other NATO members with unleashing Islamic terrorists on them.

A Greek exit from the EU will not only mean a rupture with its Western European neighbors, who are all members of NATO as well, but is also likely to affect the entire Atlantic partnership. It will lead to a power vacuum in the southeastern corner of Europe, which Russia will be only too eager to fill.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was recently in Moscow to sign a gas deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The deal allows the Russians to build a natural gas pipeline across Greece that will carry Russian gas to Europe. The construction of the pipeline will not only create 20,000 new jobs in Greece, but Russia will also pay Greece hundreds of millions of dollars annually in transit payments. Speaking about the pipeline deal, Putin offhandedly remarked to the international media that he saw no support for the Greeks from the EU.

There are also rumors that Athens might allow Russia the use of Greek military bases. Russia is expanding militarily in the Black Sea and the eastern part of the Mediterranean. Greece could also serve as a base for the Russians to strengthen their position in the Balkans. If Greece were to turn its back on NATO, it could become a geographical link between Russia and its Balkan vassal, Serbia — a process that would link the three Christian-Orthodox nations of Russia, Serbia and Greece.

But the Russians are not the only ones closely following the events in Greece and hoping for geopolitical benefits. For some time, China’s influence in Greece has also been expanding. The Chinese state-owed Cosco Group recently bought the container terminal in Greece’s largest port, Piraeus. The port was privatized after demands from the EU. The Chinese are currently negotiating with the Greek government to acquire an even larger part of Piraeus.

Both Russia and China are eager to strengthen their position in Greece if it were to turn its back on Europe and NATO. The consequences of Grexit will not merely be economic. The strategic implications are at least as important, and far-reaching.

The Iranian negotiations that never end

June 29, 2015

The Iranian negotiations that never end, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 28, 2015

(Please see also, On eve of Iran deal, US retreats on inspections of nuclear past, speeds up sanctions relief — DM)

yh

The negotiations will drag on endlessly until a nuclear bomb test is televised complete with chants of “Death to America”. And the appeasers who got us into this will assure us that they don’t really mean it.

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It is quite possible that no matter how many concessions Obama makes, there will never be a final agreement with Iran. The deadlines have already been extended so many times that the only reliable thing about the negotiations is that somewhere near the edge, the negotiators will declare that they are close and extend the formerly final deadline some more. And then some more again.

There is currently disagreement over the last agreement that was agreed to in order to extend the deadline. If you find that confusing, so does everyone else.

According to the British Foreign Minister, “There are a number of different areas where we still have major differences of interpretation in detailing what was agreed in Lausanne.”

We are no longer negotiating the issue; instead we’re negotiating the negotiations. The last attempt at getting the PLO to negotiate with Israel collapsed at the negotiating the negotiations stage when the Israeli pre-negotiation appeasement was deemed insufficiently appeasing by the PLO and John Kerry.

Obama will have to offer the Iranians even more concessions, on and under the table, to get them to negotiate the negotiations. Iran’s past nuclear work won’t be looked at and now even nuclear inspections may be off the table. At this rate, we’ll soon be negotiating how many bombs Iran gets, how many bombs it gets to use and then how many countries it gets to nuke.

We’ve already gone from an agreement to shut down Iran’s nuclear program to an agreement to temporarily slow it down to a probable short term agreement with sanctions relief and no inspections. Obama has officially disavowed a military solution so the only thing for Iran to negotiate is how to extract the most sanctions relief without actually conceding anything that matters.

And each time it looks like there’s progress, the Supreme Leader winks and pulls the rug out from under Kerry. Everyone from the Viet Cong to the Sandinistas to Assad has learned how easy that is, so that the more we concede, the more Iran demands. The negotiations approach a finish line and then stall.

Or as an anonymous official put it, “It feels like we haven’t advanced on the technical issues and even gone back on some.”

But that’s typical for the Middle East where no agreement is final and negotiations are just a means of taking the temperature of the other side while keeping them off guard. Agreements are not solemn arrangements, they are a theatrical display. What we take absolutely seriously, they view as a farce.

The Iranian negotiations with an agreeable lackey who pulls back at the last minute and a dictator behind the scenes who denounces the whole thing are a repetition of the disastrous Israel-PLO peace process which have been going on and off for decades with no actual peace or even much of a process.

The only purpose of such negotiations is to extract concessions without actually giving anything in return. Countless preliminary agreements can be negotiated, but no final agreement comes into being. The entire process runs on misleading claims of success by Western negotiators. The terrorist leaders tell their own people that they are committed to destroying the infidels, but this is dismissed as “appeasing the hardliners” by our own negotiators who are desperately invested in their credibility.

The more Iran acts out, the more the negotiators are forced to misrepresent the scale of the disaster to keep the negotiations going. The Iranians lie to the negotiators. The negotiators lie to us. Then the Iranians recant the possible concessions that they dangled as bait in front of the negotiators and the negotiators tear out their hair and promise us that the whole thing will be settled with an extension.

Of course the only way that anything will actually be settled is with Iran getting nuclear weapons.

The negotiations are just tools for getting cash and wearing out the nerves and sanity of the West. After enough years of aimless negotiations, an actual Iranian nuke will seem like a relief. The warnings of Netanyahu and the Republicans will be ignored as the appeasers who promised that sanctions and then sanctions relief would stop Iran’s nuclear program, who assured us that Iran did not want weapons, will cross their hearts and swear that Iran won’t actually use the nukes they swore it would never get.

Obama’s rhetoric is already tipping in that direction. Iran is a rational actor, he insists. And of course it is. But what’s rational by the standards of a theocracy that believes it’s ushering in an age of supreme Shiite rule on earth may differ from the standards of reason for a progressive who believes he’s ushering in an age of supreme liberal rule on earth. And neither Obama nor the Supreme Leader are any good at tests of reason such as eschewing magical thinking and understanding that words mean something.

Iran’s apocalyptic theology and power games require nukes. Obama has chosen to ignore its missile program while pretending to believe that a country swimming in oil needs a civilian nuclear program.

And once he ignored those, it was easy not to sweat the small stuff.

Like the PLO, Iran has responded to the negotiations by escalating its violence, seizing parts of Yemen, attacking ships in international waters and becoming more blatant in its defiance of America. But that’s how dictators even outside the Middle East respond to appeasement. No regime that is built on force can possibly view a show of weakness as anything except an admission of enemy impotence.

Peace negotiations with terrorists are terrorism by another means. The negotiations are a confession of weakness that destabilizes the region. And even when they do succeed in their goal of splitting supposed moderates from hardliners, the hardliners tend to win out making everything even worse than it was before. But the moderates are usually just hardliners in suits with a college degree.

When Obama announced that there was no military solution to Iran’s nuclear program, he had stated out loud that he would not stop the program and that the negotiations were a face-saving measure. The admission came after Obama refused to stop Iranian attacks on Persian Gulf shipping.

Obama expects that Iran will oblige him with a meaningless agreement that he can show off to the cameras, but Iran’s leaders understand the theater of diplomacy better than he does. Their goal is to humiliate the United States so as to show their own dissidents and the region that America can’t protect them. And that is the real purpose of the prolonged and pointless negotiations.

It is quite possible that there will never be an agreement. That Iran will force Obama to make countless concessions, not only on the sanctions or on its nuclear program, but on its presence in Yemen and Iraq, as he already appears to have done, using the promise of a final agreement that will never come.

Obama’s desire for a deal has allowed Iran to roll him not only on sanctions and nukes, but on regional dominance. After all the prestige he has invested in the negotiations, he can’t allow them to collapse.

The negotiations will drag on endlessly until a nuclear bomb test is televised complete with chants of “Death to America”. And the appeasers who got us into this will assure us that they don’t really mean it.

On eve of Iran deal, US retreats on inspections of nuclear past, speeds up sanctions relief

June 29, 2015

On eve of Iran deal, US retreats on inspections of nuclear past, speeds up sanctions relief, DEBKAfile, June 29, 2015

Obama KerryObama and Kerry upbeat over concessions to Iran

Nothing is therefore left of the original US pledges to link sanctions relief to Iran’s compliance with its commitments or President Obama’s solemn vow to “snap back” sanctions any time for any Iranian violations. The IAEA is virtually left without teeth.

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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday, June 28: “We are seeing a clear retreat from the red lines that the world powers set recently and publicly.” Addressing the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem and later the Knesset, he added: “There is no reason to rush to sign this bad agreement which is getting worse every day.” 

Netanyahu was referring to three major concessions approved by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry in the final stage of negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear accord with Iran.

They are outlined here by DEBKAfile:

1. After barring International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of suspect sites for years, Tehran will now be allowed to submit a paper with answers to queries about its past clandestine activities at those military sites, such as suspected tests of nuclear bomb detonators and explosives. That document would effectively draw a line on Iran’s suspect past

DEBKAfile: Iran has submitted countless documents to the IAEA, none of which gave specific replies to specific questions. The UN Security Council accordingly passed a number of resolutions requiring Tehran to come clean on the military aspects of its nuclear program. Tehran ignored them. Now Obama and Kerry are letting Tehran off the hook on its past secrets.

2.  Obama and Kerry have withdrawn the “any time, anywhere” stipulation for snap inspections of suspect nuclear facilities, as mandated by the Additional Protocol signed by Iran. They now agree that international monitors must first submit a request to an “Iranian Committee” (not even a joint US-Iranian committee) for advance permission to inspect nuclear facilities.

This would leave Tehran free to approve, deny, or delay permission for inspections.

3.  Washington has backed down on its insistence on predicating sanctions relief on Iran’s compliance with its obligations under the final accord. After Tehran countered with a demand for the sanctions to be lifted immediately upon the signing of the accord, the Obama administration agreed to remove them in three stages:

a)  Straight after the deal is signed.

b)  After ratification of the accord by the US Congress and Iranian Majlis.

This process is expected to take place by the end of 2015, and so Iran will win two multibillion windfalls this year without being required to meet any obligations beyond its signature

Obama counts on the support of 34 US senators. In any case, Congress is not empowered to reject or delay the deal

c)  All remaining sanctions will be lifted when implementation of the accord begins.

Nothing is therefore left of the original US pledges to link sanctions relief to Iran’s compliance with its commitments or President Obama’s solemn vow to “snap back” sanctions any time for any Iranian violations. The IAEA is virtually left without teeth.

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program and the Failure of Obama’s “Hope and Change Foreign Policy”

June 28, 2015

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program and the Failure of Obama’s “Hope and Change Foreign Policy,” ISIS Study Group, June 27, 2015

US Secretary of State John Kerry will be spending this weekend in Vienna in an attempt to salvage the deal the Obama administration is trying to land with the Iranian regime. The reason for his sense of urgency is that Ayatollah Khameini publicly rejected the deal and came out with some new terms just before the 30 JUN deadline. The Obama administration and the US mainstream media are trying to spin this as if the “reformers” are somehow being derailed. That would be true if there were any actual reformers in the Iranian regime. The truth is that this is all by design and that so-called “reformers” like President Rouhani are in on the joke – and the US is the punchline.

John Kerry mounts last push for Iran nuclear agreement
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11701690/John-Kerry-mounts-last-push-for-Iran-nuclear-agreement.html

golf-obama-239x300

Source: Jon McNaughton

So what did Khameini say? He demanded the following:

1. Iran would only dismantle their program if sanctions were lifted first. In other words, we’d simply have to take them at their word.

2. Inspections and placing a freeze on research and development for 10 yrs is thrown out of the deal.

Huh. So if the key things agreed to back in APR 15 are now “null and void” (which were pretty weak to begin with), then what’s left of this deal? Absolutely nothing. And like we said earlier, this is all by design. The Iranian negotiation team is fully on the same page as Khameini – otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to be on the team to negotiate with the US State Department (DoS).

Iran nuclear talks: Khamenei rejects key US demands
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33253488

Our loyal readers are fully aware of the Iranian regime’s designs for these negotiations and the Middle East in general. If you’re new to our site, then you will want to check out the following articles:

Today’s Middle East: The Burning Fuse of the 21st Century’s “Great Game”
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=6193&

The Persian Hustle: Iran Dupes Clueless US State Dept in Nuke Talks and Moves to Dominate the Middle East
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=5978

Mr. Netanyahu Goes to Washington
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=5316

Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Nuclear Weapons Program
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2640

Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Charm Offensive
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2676

Screen-Shot-2015-06-27-at-1.15.37-PM-300x213

Khameini is large and in-charge despite his failing health – don’t ever forget that
Source: Associated Free Press

The original deal both sides agreed to back in APR didn’t allow for inspectors to have full access to key installations nor would we have had any visibility on projects that can improve Iran’s ability to produce a testable nuke. It also wouldn’t keep Iran from converting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to metal or conducting work that enhances their metallurgy skills. As we previously stated in “Today’s Middle East: The Burning Fuse of the 21st Century’s Great Game,” if asked about it, the regime would simply say that it was for “radiation shielding” or conventional depleted uranium munitions. In fact the Obama administration doesn’t seem to be inclined to do anything about these indicators of increased proliferation. For instance, the regime’s Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has been in the business of supplying Iranian medical research organizations for several years now. In fact, our sources connected to the opposition have informed us that AEOI personnel known to be involved with uranium enrichment manufacturing have set up an entity called the “Persian Health Equipment and Development Company” or “PHEDCO” back in FEB 15. Apparently the company was set up to produce medical-use centrifuges. We assess that the company isn’t capable of enriching uranium itself, but we do think that it can be used to acquire certain components of nuclear suppliers group-controlled aluminum 7075 and quite possibly carbon-fiber.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)
http://www.iranwatch.org/iranian-entities/atomic-energy-organization-iran-aeoi

We’re also very much aware that the regime is interested in developing uranium metal-based reactor fuels that would improve their ability to produce uranian-based nuclear weapons. These fuels are currently being used in “civilian research reactors.” So what is it, exactly? In a nuclear reactor, the uranium fuel is assembled to where a controlled fission chain reaction can be achieved. The heat created by splitting the U-235 atoms is then used to make steam, which in turn spins a turbine to drive a generator that produces electricity. The chain reaction that take place in the core of a nuclear reactor is controlled by rods which absorb neutrons, enabling the chain reaction to continue. Water, graphite and heavy water are used as moderators in different types of reactors. Due to the kind of fuel being used, if there’s a major malfunction in a reactor, the fuel may overheat and melt – but won’t explode like a bomb. The type of uranium used for bombs is different from what you’d find in a regular nuclear power plant. Military-grade uranium is highly enriched (>90% U-235, instead of up to 5%). Since the 1990s, a lot of otherwise military-grade uranium has become available for producing electricity as the result of the global disarmament effort.

What is Uranium? How Does it Work?
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Introduction/What-is-Uranium–How-Does-it-Work-/

We assess that the regime’s efforts will enable their nuclear technicians to gain enough experience with uranium metal production processes that could shorten the weaponization timeline. That said, we see the timeline accordingly:

1. They may master uranium metal production within the next 6 months.

2. Another 2-3 months will be needed to learn how to fabricate uranium metal components for a weapon.

3. 4-5 months will likely be required to test components and assemble a nuclear device.

This timeline has probably already been shortened due to the collaborative work taking place between Iran and the DPRK (North Korea) that the Obama administration has also failed to address during these negotiations. The two rogue nations have been engaged in a series of joint-projects in both the nuclear weapon and ballistic missile fields. Perhaps the most important part of stopping the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon is to deal with their intercontinental ballistic missile program, since that’s where the delivery system of said weapon will come from. Unfortunately, the Obama administration doesn’t seem to think that’s important. Perhaps one of the American media outlets should pose the question in the next press conference with the President or DoS? We won’t hold our breath.

How the North Korean Regime Affects the Middle East
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=3038

kim_iran-300x193

The two rogue nations have been able to circumvent sanctions at every turn thanks to their collaborative efforts and impotence that’s endemic throughout the UN and US government in particular
Source: The Business Insider

This brings us to another problem: The Obama administration’s failure at the issue surrounding our European allies’ refusal to actually enforce the UN sanctions already on the books. As you would guess, the regime has been in the market for procuring military-grade blast valves. What the UN, US government and several other allied nations are aware of (and hoping that the public remain ignorant to) is that one of the top sellers of those valves to the Iranians is Finnish company Temet Oy. This company is a global leader in blast protection and special ventilation technology applied in protective constructions such as civilian shelters and hardened military facilities. In addition to the nuclear and defense industries, Temet is also involved in the energy sector – which is the reason why they’re so keen to help the Iranian regime with its “peaceful” nuclear program. If you don’t believe us see for yourself:

About Temet
http://www.temetprotection.com.ar/about_temet.html

Temet Blast Valves
http://www.temetprotection.com.ar/blast_valves.html

FYI, Temet’s blast valves are specifically designed to protect facilities from munitions strikes – such as a potential Israeli Air Force Operation, for instance. The civil-grade blast valves that they’re publicly selling to the regime for its oil and gas sectors are designed to mitigate the effects of smaller explosions at industrial facilities. Despite Finland’s strong track record in the counter-proliferation arena, they’re likely fully aware of what this company has been up to for some time. If they’re not, then the government should fire all of their most senior intel officials because they’re clearly incompetent. They should be aware and continue tracking Temet’s activities after the 2012 attempt by the company to circumvent EU sanctions by shipping products to Iran and receiving payment via third parties. The problem is Temet is just one of several European companies that have been cashing in big on the poorly-enforced sanctions. Finland isn’t the only government guilty of trading in their morals to make a quick buck – the Germans are just as guilty. Here’s some other incidents over the years that put some cold water on any hopes that even sanctions can be enforced:

German firms sold sensitive equipment to Iran even during sanctions regime
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.562287

German firms still ship dual-use goods to Iran
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/German-firms-still-ship-dual-use-goods-to-Iran

A mysterious Iranian-run factory in Germany
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-mysterious-iranian-run-factory-in-germany/2013/04/15/92259d7a-a29f-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html

Germans Say 6 Companies Sold Nuclear Parts to Iran Network
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/europe/29germany.html?_r=0

Special Report: How foreign firms tried to sell spy gear to Iran
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/05/us-huawei-iran-idUSBRE8B409820121205

As you can see, the Obama administration’s much-hyped nuclear “deal” with the Iranian regime was a failure from the get-go. Ayatollah Khameini knows the US government is weak because they’ve already caved into earlier demands – so why not raise the stakes and milk an already flaccid Obama administration for even more concessions? Iran’s true intentions for its program isn’t in doubt – its primary function is to produce a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration and the EU are fully aware of this as well – but they still won’t do anything about it. Europe lacks any real convictions and are now a shriveled corpse of what they used to be. People talk about the US in the same breath as “blood money” for oil, but the truth is the European nations are directly responsible along with China and Russia for propping up an increasingly belligerent Iranian regime who interprets “peace” as all opposing voices being silenced – by force. Their refusal to actually enforce sanctions and then turn around and circumvent them – sometimes openly – has led us to where we are. So President Obama isn’t the only one who will have a tarnished legacy.

Regarding our illustrious President, his “Hope and Change Foreign Policy” has been such a miserable failure that he’s now desperate for anything that he can claim as a “victory.” He certainly isn’t going to get that “victory” from his nonexistent strategy to combat the Islamic State (IS), so he’s forced to get a deal – any deal – signed with the Iranians, regardless of how bad it is for America and our allies in the Middle East. The saddest thing about all this is that the deal will empower the regime even more. When that happens – and it will – the biggest losers will be the average Iranian citizen who doesn’t share the regime’s militant ideology. How so? Once the regime is able to produce a nuclear weapon, they know the west won’t do anything to stop them. Period. When that occurs, they will be able to put the final nail in the coffin against the remaining opposition groups in the country. And so it goes…

If you want to know what this regime is all about, then check out the rest of our Inside Iran’s Middle East series:

Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Kurdish Insurgency
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=4068

Inside Iran’s Middle East: The Southeastern Insurgency
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2689

Inside Iran’s Middle East: The “Reformers”
http://isisstudygroup.com/?p=2635

Obama on Iran and Syria: See no evil

June 28, 2015

Obama on Iran and Syria: See no evil, Israel Hayom, Elliott Abrams, June 28, 2015

(Obama sees evil only where he wants to see it, starting with his position that Islam is the religion of peace. — DM)

See no evil — once again. Iran’s role is systematically ignored or underplayed, because (as ‎Hof puts it), “The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran.” Namely, the nuclear ‎deal.

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The slaughter in Syria and the awful human rights violations in Iran cannot be denied by ‎the Obama administration, but they sure can be downplayed and ignored.‎

On the Iran point, consider the release yesterday, four months late, of the State ‎Department’s annual human rights reports. The reports were presented by Secretary of ‎State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Tom Malinowski. The Iran report is ‎tough. Here’s an excerpt:

The most significant human rights problems were severe restrictions on civil liberties, ‎including the freedoms of assembly, speech, religion, and press; limitations on the citizens’ ‎ability to change the government peacefully through free and fair elections; and disregard ‎for the physical integrity of persons, whom authorities arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, ‎tortured, or killed.‎

“Other reported human rights problems included: disappearances; cruel, inhuman, or ‎degrading treatment or punishment, including judicially sanctioned amputation and ‎flogging; politically motivated violence and repression; harsh and life-threatening ‎conditions in detention and prison facilities, with instances of deaths in custody; arbitrary ‎arrest and lengthy pretrial detention, sometimes incommunicado; continued impunity of ‎the security forces; denial of fair public trial, sometimes resulting in executions without due ‎process; the lack of an independent judiciary; political prisoners and detainees; ineffective ‎implementation of civil judicial procedures and remedies; arbitrary interference with ‎privacy, family, home, and correspondence; severe restrictions on freedoms of speech ‎‎(including via the internet) and press; harassment and arrest of journalists; censorship and ‎media content restrictions; severe restrictions on academic freedom; severe restrictions on ‎the freedoms of assembly and association; some restrictions on freedom of movement; ‎official corruption and lack of government transparency; constraints on investigations by ‎international and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) into alleged violations of human ‎rights; legal and societal discrimination and violence against women, ethnic and religious ‎minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons based on perceived ‎sexual orientation and gender identity; incitement to anti-Semitism; trafficking in persons; ‎and severe restrictions on the exercise of labor rights.‎”

Iran is of course an important country, so how much of this did Kerry and Malinowski ‎mention in their own opening remarks? Not a word. Not one. Kerry mentioned about 10 ‎countries and “the LGBTI community,” but not Iran. Malinowski mentioned about 20 ‎countries, but not Iran (until pressed by reporters). Do we think this is accidental, that ‎neither man mentioned Iran? How likely is that?‎

Yesterday also brought another superb analysis of events in Syria, and U.S. policy there, ‎from Fred Hof of the Atlantic Council — once the administration’s lead man and “special adviser” on Syria. It is titled “Syria: Civilians Pay the Price,” Hof quotes from the June ‎‎23 report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab ‎Republic. And here are the excerpts he quotes:

“The government continues to direct attacks towards locations where civilians are likely ‎to congregate, among them, bus stations, marketplaces, and bakeries.”‎

‎”In particular, the continuing use of barrel bombs in aerial campaigns against whole areas, ‎rather than specific targets, is in violation of international humanitarian law and, as ‎previously documented, amounts to the war crime of targeting civilians.”‎

“The larger strategy [of the regime] appears to be one of making life unbearable for civilians ‎who remain inside armed-group controlled areas.”

“The previously documented pattern of attacks indicating that government forces have ‎deliberately targeted hospitals, medical units, and ambulances remains an entrenched ‎feature of the conflict.”‎

“Government sieges are imposed in a coordinated manner. … In particular, government ‎forces have refused to allow aid deliveries of essential medicines and surgical supplies. … Government authorities act in direct breach of binding international humanitarian law ‎obligations to ensure that wounded and sick persons are collected and cared for, and to ‎ensure the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief.”

“Everyday decisions — whether to go visit a neighbor, to send your child to school, to step out ‎to buy bread — have become, potentially, decisions about life and death. Large numbers of ‎children have been killed in bombardments of their homes, schools, and playgrounds.”‎

What’s the link to Iran? Hof explains:‎

“The administration also knows that Iran is the principal foreign facilitator of regime war ‎crimes and crimes against humanity. It is the Iranian factor that accounts, in large ‎measure, for the administration’s decision to leave Syrian civilians entirely at the mercy of ‎Tehran’s Syrian client. The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran. So Syrian ‎civilians get to pay the price.‎

“One searches White House and State Department press conferences in vain for any ‎systematic examination of this issue. Even though Russian leverage is as limited as its good ‎intentions, one wonders how prominently civilian protection is featured in Secretary of State ‎John Kerry’s periodic encounters with his Russian counterpart. Even though nuclear talks ‎are important, one wonders if Tehran’s facilitation of Assad regime criminality arises at all ‎in official U.S.-Iranian exchanges. Has there been a systematic diplomatic campaign aimed ‎at persuading Tehran and Moscow to oblige their client to respect pertinent United Nations ‎Security Council resolutions? Is Iran being asked to force its client to stop barrel bombing ‎and lift starvation sieges?‎”

See no evil — once again. Iran’s role is systematically ignored or underplayed, because (as ‎Hof puts it), “The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran.” Namely, the nuclear ‎deal.

This is disgraceful, as Hof states with restraint but with force:‎<

“The indelible stain that can mark the Obama legacy forever on this issue is nothing ‎compared to the terror and suffering that can be mitigated if the president elects to try. ‎Whether the motivation to act springs from legacy concerns, degrading and destroying ‎ISIL, or profound revulsion over what is happening to children and their parents, is ‎unimportant. The Iranians can negotiate while facilitating mass murder. No doubt, they can ‎do so if the greatest power on earth pushes back a bit. President Obama should act now to ‎protect Syrian civilians.‎”

Or as he puts it more angrily, what do those who complain about this policy want? “They ‎want … to persuade the president of the United States to give a damn about suffering, ‎terrified human beings.”

Let’s stop protecting, ignoring, and downplaying the murderous role Iran is playing in Syria ‎and the terrible human rights violations taking place in Iran itself.‎

Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance: A Romance With Islamism

June 26, 2015

Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance: A Romance With Islamism, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 26, 2015

(But Obama can make everything right by restraining carbon dioxide emissions but not The Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weaponization. Right? DM)

Toward the end of September 2012, Barack Obama finally came to New York City after skipping it during the 9/11 anniversary. He had made it out to the city the previous week for a celebrity fundraiser and an appearance on Letterman[1] and then back again for a taping of The View while turning down a meeting with Netanyahu who did not have a talk show or an envelope filled with money.[2]

The next day, while at least one of the Americans killed in Benghazi had yet to be buried,[3] he declared at the UN General Assembly, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”[4]

That statement also encompassed the agenda of the Benghazi killers, the terrorists who would attack Charlie Hebdo and the “Draw the Prophet” contest in Texas along with all the murderous censors of Mohammed determined that the future should not belong to those who slander their holy warlord.

It was Obama’s only mention of “Islam” in a speech addressing the brutal murder of four Americans by Islamic terrorists in a terror campaign targeting American diplomatic facilities on the anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks in Benghazi. The 9/11 attacks, like so many others, had begun with a cry of “Allahu Akbar.”[5]

When the killing in Benghazi was done, the Jihadists left behind the slogan “Allahu Akbar” or “Allah is Greater” scrawled on the walls of the American compound.[6] These were the same words that Obama had recited “with a first-rate accent” for the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. Obama had called it “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.”[7] On that too, the murderers of four Americans agreed with him.

Those who disagreed and were to be denied a future included Mark Basseley Youssef, a Coptic Christian, whose YouTube trailer for a movie critical of Islam was blamed by the administration for the attacks.

Two days after Obama’s UN speech, Youssef was arrested and held without bail. The order for his arrest came from the top. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had told Charles Woods, the father of murdered SEAL Tyrone Woods, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.”[8]

The ACLU, which had developed deep Islamist connections,[9] sent a letter to Hillary Clinton thanking her for her support of freedom of speech.[10]

The Supreme Court’s “Miracle Decision”[11] had thrown out a blasphemy ban for movies, but Obama’s new unofficial blasphemy ban targeted only those movies that offended Islam. The government had joined the terrorists in seeking to deny such movies and their creators a future.

At the United Nations, Obama had compared the filmmaker to the terrorists. He had used a Gandhi quote to assert that, “Intolerance is itself a form of violence.”[12] Americans who criticized Islam’s violent tendencies could be considered as bad as Muslim terrorists and if intolerance of Islam was a form of violence, then it could be criminalized and suppressed. That became the administration’s priority.

It took the administration years to make its first arrest of a Benghazi perpetrator,[13] but only days to urge Google to take down the Innocence of Muslims video[14] and weeks to arrest the man behind it.

In a little over a week, there was already a State Department apology video airing in Pakistan.[15] It took until the next month for the United States to even get access to the Benghazi compound.[16] Instead of going on the offensive against the attackers, Obama went on the offensive against critics of Islam.

His administration not only blamed a YouTube video to distract from its failures in Benghazi, but to exploit the crisis in order to suppress the truth about Islamic terrorism.

Obama had illegally fought a war to aid Islamic terrorists and was covering up his role in the Islamization of Libya by the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda[17] and eventually even ISIS.[18] He exploited a terrorist attack against Americans caused by his Islamization of Libya to advance the Islamization of America.

The new Islamized Libya, where Christians were beheaded and churches were bombed,[19] was what a nation that denied the future to those who did not accept the prophet of Islam really looked like.

Obama’s Islamist regime change had denied the Christians and non-Muslims of Libya a future. Among those non-Muslims who lost their future in Libya were four murdered Americans.

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama attacked Christianity for the Crusades in the presence of the foreign minister of Sudan, a genocidal government whose Muslim Brotherhood leader had massacred so many Christians and others that he had been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.[20] [21] And he told Christians that they were obligated to condemn insults to Islam.[22]

Some persecuted Christians could flee to America, but where would they flee to when Obama began denying a future to those who did not accept the moral and religious authority of the prophet of Islam?

Benghazi was not the first Islamic terror attack against Americans, but it was the first time that our government responded in the Islamic fashion by locking up a Christian for blaspheming against Islam.

Blaming the video turned a public relations disaster into a policy win. The blame was shifted from Obama’s backing for Islamist regime change in Libya to critics of Islam. Not only was the cause of the attack covered up, but Obama’s ideological agenda was advanced by an attack he had helped cause.

Stand With the Muslims

Our current conflict with Islamic terrorists is not caused by joblessness, poverty, the climate, dictators or any of the other familiar excuses. Instead it’s caused by the unholy alliance between Islam and the left.

Obama embodied that unholy alliance as no other occupant of the Oval Office since Carter had.

When discussing Muslim complaints about FBI counterterrorism operations, Obama believed that they needed assurances that, “I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”[23] Counterterrorism with its emphasis on exposing plots and potential terrorists singled out Muslims. His preferred form of counterterrorism empowered Islamists while shifting the blame to Americans.

Muslims did not need to change who they were to reject terrorism. Americans instead had to Islamize. The source of tension was not Muslim terrorism, but American ignorance and prejudice toward Islam.

Obama insisted that Americans needed to educate themselves on Islam because their country was “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Not only was his claim false,[24] but it implied that America needed to be defined by Islam and that Americans needed to integrate Islam into their own identity.

As he put it in Cairo, “Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”[25]

The Obama model did not require that Americans become Muslims, but that they make Islam a part of their culture so that, like him,   they would be able to quote the Koran or recite the Islamic call to prayer.

Obama rejected the secular common ground championed by European republics. Secularism had been used in America to limit the presence of Christianity and Judaism in public life, but the left did not accept its logic of neutral spaces when it came to Islam. Islam was treated as a culture rather than a religion. Excluding Christianity excluded a belief. Excluding Islam, unacceptably excluded a culture and a race. The new diverse American identity being constructed by the left would not be truly diverse without Islam.

If France insisted on being a secular republic, America would at least partially become a Muslim country.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Obama’s failure to attend the Unity March put Islamist feelings ahead of freedom of speech. Instead his administration tried to shift attention to a Countering Violent Extremism summit stacked with Islamists[26] [27] as its preferred response to Islamic terrorism.

The White House had previously been critical of Hebdo’s Mohammed cartoons.[28] While it still paid lip service to freedom of speech, in Paris, Benghazi and Garland[29] Islam came ahead of universal freedoms.

During the Cairo speech, Obama had explicitly rejected the French secular formula, stating, “It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit — for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.”

“Likewise, we can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism,” he added.[30]

Christians, whose ability to practice their religion has been unprecedentedly attacked under his administration, might have found that statement disingenuous, but it was an exemption exclusively extended to Muslims. His administration might repress Christianity, but never Islam. While it accused Christians of discrimination, it fought for the Islamic right to discriminate against women.

Obama did not acknowledge the Islamic violence and repression against women that was the true basis for France’s Burqa ban. One survey had found that 77 percent of girls in France who wore the Hijab did so because of threats from Islamist groups.[31] He also ignored the growing problem of Muslim honor killings[32] and female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States. The half-million girls and women in this country at risk for FGM[33]mattered less than enforcing Islamist standards for covering up women.

While his administration vigorously targeted any employer or school that interfered with the wearing of the Hijab,[34] [35] it showed no similar dedication in any campaign against FGM or honor killings of women.

Like the Saudi religious police who wanted to let teenage girls burn rather than allow them to escape without proper Islamic covering,[36] Obama placed the Hijab above the lives of Muslim women and girls.

The administration had made the decision to protect Islamic sexism, rather than Muslim women.

While the administration cracked down on nuns, it was suing towns over zoning ordinances that interfered with building mega-mosques.[37] [38] [39]Even though the regulations did not single out mosques or Islam, the administration stepped in specifically when Islamists wanted to bully Americans.

If the French still clung to the idea of a secular republic, Obama had chosen to Islamize America. Those who resisted were faced with huge fines and even prison. America might not be one of the world’s biggest Muslim countries, but under Obama it was beginning to act more like Saudi Arabia or Iran.

In Cairo, Obama had declared that, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”[40]

He had committed to waging a constant campaign against those who spoke out against Islam.

By the time that the Benghazi attacks took place, the pattern of promoting Islam, denying Islamic terrorism and silencing critics had become the administration’s twisted version of counterterrorism.

This brand of counterterrorism insisted that the biggest threat was not the terrorists, but the truth. Identifying Islamic terrorists as such would increase Muslim alienation and terrorist recruitment. There was nothing violent about Islam and yet videos and cartoons offensive to Islam could not be tolerated because they would lead to violence; a violence whose Islamic nature would be fervently denied.

Muslim terrorist groups, from ISIS on down, were deemed un-Islamic. Lone wolf attackers were characterized as ignorant of Islam. To disagree was to aid the terrorists, as Obama’s aides suggested.[41] Counterterrorism came to mean lying about Islam. Anyone who defined the problem could, like the “Draw the Prophet” cartoonists in Texas or Mark Basseley Youssef, be accused of having caused it.

The lie could not be challenged or the bombs would go off. Tell the truth and the terrorists win.

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), the administration’s alternative to European integration, outsourced domestic counterterrorism policy to the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups and transformed pandering to them into the core of our domestic counterterrorism strategy.[42]

Violent extremism was a vague and undefined term. Countering it was an even more vague and undefined policy that had far less to do with phoning tips to the FBI, an act that CAIR, a leading administration Muslim Brotherhood ally, had come out against,[43] than with promoting Islam.

Since Islamic terrorism was un-Islamic, promoting Islam was the best means of fighting Islamic radicalization. The terrorists had “perverted” Islam and had to be countered with authentic Islam.[44] Radicalization was caused by Muslim alienation and the only cure for it was Islamizing America.

CVE could Islamize unlikely agencies of the United States government by redirecting their priorities. When Obama told the NASA Administrator that one of his top priorities had to be making Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering” that was CVE in action.[45]

A CVE conference held the day after Benghazi promoted touring Muslim rappers associated with a Muslim Brotherhood front group who were sponsored by the State Department.[46] [47] [48] [49] Money that should have been used to secure Americans at risk in Benghazi was wasted on Islamist self-promotion.

It was speculated that possibly hundreds of millions of dollars were being thrown at CVE activities.[50] And CVE had not only failed in its mission, but invariably mainstreamed the worst elements in Islam.

By the post-Hebdo CVE conference, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications had been turned over[51] to Rashad Hussain, a Muslim Brotherhood linked official,[52] and before long its “Think Again Turn Away” Twitter account was promoting everything from anti-Semitism to Al Qaeda.[53] [54] [55]

Meanwhile, echoing Obama’s mandate to “educate ourselves more effectively on Islam,”[56] the educational system was being bent to promote the practice of Islam to American children.[57]

Parents across the country discovered that schools were taking their children to mosques where they were being taught to participate in Islamic worship.[58] After American soldiers had fought to liberate Afghan women, American girls in this country were being dressed in burqas.[59]

Obama had told a Cairo audience, which included the Muslim Brotherhood, that he was rejecting the French model of protecting women from Islamic coercion. Instead the United States had adopted the Brotherhood’s model of urging American women to adopt Islamist practices.

His idea of standing with the Muslims was transforming counterterrorism into a tool of Islamization.

The Brotherhood Administration

In August 2013, Al-Wafd, a paper linked to one of Egypt’s more liberal parties which supports equal rights for women and Christians, accused Obama of having close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. [60]

A year earlier, Rose El-Youssef magazine, founded by an early Egyptian feminist, had compiled a list of six Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the administration.[61] [62]

Beyond Huma Abedin, Hillary’s close confidante and aide, the list included; Arif Alikhan, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy Development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, formerly the U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference and currently the Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.

These were the types of accusations that the media tended to dismissively associate with the right, but both Egyptian publications were on the other side of the spectrum.

Egyptian liberals were the ones brandishing placards of a bearded Kerry in Taliban clothes or a photoshopped Obama with a Salafist beard. The protesters Obama had supposedly sought to support by calling for Mubarak to step down were crowding the streets accusing him of backing terrorists.

What made the Egyptian liberals who had seen America as their ally in pursuing reform come to view it as an enemy? The angry Egyptian protesters were accusing Obama of supporting a dictator; the original sin of American foreign policy that his Cairo Speech and the Arab Spring had been built on rejecting.

The progressive critiques of American foreign policy insisted that we were hated for supporting dictators. Now their own man was actually hated for supporting a Muslim Brotherhood dictator.

By 2014, 85% of Egyptians disliked America. Only 10% still rated America favorably.[63] It was a shift from the heady days of the Arab Spring when America had slid into positive numbers for the first time.[64]

Obama had run for office promising to repair our image abroad. As a candidate, he had claimed that other countries believed that “America is part of what has gone wrong in our world.” And yet the true wrongness was present in that same speech when he urged, “a new dawn in the Middle East.”[65]

That dawn came with the light of burning churches at the hands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Under Obama, America really did become part of what had gone wrong by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a crime that Obama will not admit to and that the media will not report on.

The Muslim Brotherhood was born out of Egypt and yet Egyptian views of it are dismissed by the media. Despite the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s final orgy of brutality as President Mohammed Morsi clung to power, despite the burning churches and tortured protesters, it is still described as “moderate.”

Morsi, who had called on Egyptians to nurse their children on hatred of the Jews,[66] was a moderate. Sheikh Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, the Tunisian flavor of the Muslim Brotherhood, who had called for the extermination of the Jews “male, female and children,”[67] was also a “moderate.” Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, went one better with a fatwa approving even the murder of unborn Jews.[68] Qaradawi was another moderate.[69]

The only Muslim Brotherhood leader who hasn’t been described as a moderate is Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the ICC for genocide and crimes against humanity.[70]

But if the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a moderate organization, if it is indeed violent and bigoted, why did Obama alienate Egyptians and others across the region by supporting it? The angry Egyptians in the street had an explanation, but they had failed to understand how deeply the infiltration truly went.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups, such as the MSA and CAIR, had become so entangled with the left that it was impossible for the latter to wash its hands of the former. Not only the administration, but its political allies on the left, such as the Center for American Progress[71] and the ACLU[72], had been infiltrated by Islamists. The administration’s infiltration was a symptom of the problem, not its cause.

Obama sits at the center of a web of intertwined progressive organizations. This web has infiltrated the government and it in turn has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Consider the case of Faiz Shakir, who went from the Harvard Islamic Society where he helped fundraise for a Muslim Brotherhood front group funneling money to Hamas, the local Muslim Brotherhood franchise, to Editor-in-Chief and Vice President at the Center for American Progress, heading up the nerve center of the left’s messaging apparatus, to a Senior Adviser to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.[73] The next step after that is the White House.

Time magazine described the Center for American Progress as Obama’s idea factory, crediting it with forming his talking points and his government.[74] In an administration powered by leftist activists, the integration between the Muslim Brotherhood and the left resulted in a pro-Brotherhood policy.

Egyptian liberals had expected that the administration’s withdrawal of support for Mubarak would benefit them, but the American left had become far closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than to them. Instead of aiding the left, it aided the Brotherhood. The Egyptian liberals were a world away while the Brotherhood’s activists sat in the left’s offices and spoke in the name of all the Muslims in America.

The left had made common cause with the worst elements in the Muslim world. It formed alliances with Muslim Brotherhood groups, accepting them as the only valid representatives of Muslim communities while denouncing their critics, both Muslim and non-Muslim, as Islamophobes.

The Arab Spring disaster, from the Muslim Brotherhood brutality in Egypt and Tunisia, the bloody civil war in Libya to the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, was the fruit of this tainted red-green alliance.

The four Americans murdered in Benghazi, the American hostages beheaded by ISIS along with the countless Christians, Yazidis and others butchered, raped and enslaved had fallen victim to the left’s support for the Brotherhood’s political ambitions, tyrannies and holy wars.

The Brotherhood Spring

“What we are witnessing these days of consecutive revolutions is a great and glorious event, and it is most probable, according to reality and history, that it will encompass the majority of the Islamic world with the will of Allah, and thanks to Allah things are strongly heading towards the exit of Muslims from being under the control of America,” Osama bin Laden wrote of the Arab Spring.[75]

“The fall of the remaining tyrants in the region became a must with the will of Allah, and it was the beginning of a new era for the whole nation,” he added.[76]

What was happening though had less to do with the will of Allah and more to do with the will of Obama.

Allah had not come down to Cairo to cut Arab allies loose, nor did he reserve seats for the Muslim Brotherhood or force regime change.[77] Osama credited Allah, but he really should have thanked Obama.

Both Obama and Osama agreed on the need to remove the current leaders of allied Arab governments and both men saw the Arab Spring as a vindication of their visions for the future. But the wave of new Islamist governments friendly to terrorists that swept across the region vindicated Osama, not Obama.

In Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi , the leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, who had once declared that “Crusader America” was the “enemy of Islam”[78] had come into his own. In the past he had been denied a visa to enter the United States,[79] but in the age of Obama he was feted at an event attended by, among others, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.[80]

Only a few years earlier, he had stated that the Arab Spring would “threaten the extinction of Israel.”[81]

“The Arab region will get rid of the bacillus of Israel. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, said that Israel will disappear by the year 2027. I say that this date may be too far away, and Israel may disappear before this. “[82]

The Sheikh had already called for the mass murder of Jews, stating that, “There are no civilians in Israel. The population—males, females and children—are the army reserve soldiers, and thus can be killed.”[83]

Once in power, Ennahda chose to turn a blind eye to Islamist violence.[84] On September 11, 2012, as the Jihadist attacks on American embassies and diplomatic missions swept around the Muslim world, the embassy in Tunis came under attack. And help didn’t come from the Ennahda government.

Instead Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to place an urgent phone call to the secular president, a ceremonial position in Tunisia, who dispatched his own presidential guard to protect the embassy.[85] An ungrateful Hillary then delivered a speech praising the Islamists and thanking the Islamist government, rather than the president, who had risked his own safety to protect the embassy.[86]

The attack and the response by Tunisia’s Islamist government should have been anticipated.

In the past, Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi had urged, “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.”[87]

That was exactly what the Jihadists had attempted to do on September 11, 2012 in Tunis and across the region with the complicity of the new Arab Spring governments Obama had helped bring to power.

A similar pattern of complicity emerged in Egypt where the attackers were allowed to scale the walls of the American Embassy in Cairo.[88] While the worst attack of that day took place in Benghazi, where Jihadists were in control of the city, in Tunis and Cairo a different breed of Jihadists had become the government and they had little interest in defending American lives or property.

While much of the controversy over the murder of four Americans in Benghazi has centered around the failure by the State Department to secure the diplomatic mission, that attack and many of the others came out of a volatile environment created by the empowerment of Islamists through the Arab Spring.

Nowhere was there more at stake for Obama’s “New Beginning” with the Islamists than in Cairo, but by reaching out to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, he was coming dangerously close to Al Qaeda.

The State Department’s 2008 strategic assessment stated that, “Although Usama bin Ladin remained the group’s ideological figurehead, Zawahiri has emerged as AQ’s strategic and operational planner.”[89] Even Osama bin Laden had been a Muslim Brotherhood member,[90] but after his death the organization’s leadership would become a more purely Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood affair.

Saif al Adel, the interim Emir of Al Qaeda, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current Al Qaeda leader, were products of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its splinter group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The brother of the Al Qaeda chief, Mohammed al-Zawahiri, helped organize the attack on the American embassy in Cairo[91] and allegedly engaged in discussions with Mohammed Morsi over an alliance with Al Qaeda.[92]

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group which merged with Al Qaeda, later reemerged under different leadership as the Islamic Party while the terrorist group Gamaa Islamiya or the Islamic Group formed the Building and Development Party and allied with Morsi.

Morsi pardoned Mostafa Hamza[93] who had ordered Gamaa Islamiya’s Luxor Massacre in which terrorists mutilated and disemboweled European and Japanese visitors. The massacre was reportedly arranged by Ayman al-Zawahiri and funded by Osama bin Laden.[94] Morsi’s alliance with the terror group even led him to attempt to appoint a Gamaa Islamiya member as Governor of Luxor.[95]

Even though Gamaa Islamiya was still listed as a terrorist group, one of its lawmakers, Hani Nour Eldin, received a visa to enter the United States and met with senior Obama administration officials including then Deputy National Security Adviser and current White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough.[96]

The terrorist asked McDonough about releasing Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the infamous Blind Sheikh who was the leader of Gamaa Islamiya, serving a life sentence for plotting attacks across New York City, after his followers bombed the World Trade Center.[97] Shortly thereafter, Morsi told a cheering crowd that he would work to free Rahman. The State Department was reportedly considering the deal.[98]

The thin firewall between the supposed extremists and moderates, between the political Islamists and the terrorists, between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, had worn so thin that it barely existed. Instead members of terrorist groups were running Egypt and openly petitioning the United States to free the figure most closely associated with the World Trade Center bombing in the minds of Americans.

And yet despite the Muslim Brotherhood’s torture and killing of protesters, its alignment with its fellow Hamas terrorists in Gaza and its flirtation with Al Qaeda and Iran, Obama continued to support it.

After videos surfaced of Morsi calling for the destruction of Israel and urging hatred of Jews as a form of worship of Allah, Secretary of State John Kerry defended the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to his regime.

“Not everything lends itself to a simple classification, black or white,” Kerry said. “We have critical interests with Egypt.[99]

Statements like “Resistance is the correct and only way to free the land from the filth of the Jews”[100] should have been easy to classify, but instead the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-Semitism became a matter of ambiguity and nuance for an administration determined to continue aiding the terror group.

“President Morsi has issued two statements,” Kerry said, “to clarify those comments and we had a group of senators who met with him the other day who spent a good part of the conversation in relatively heated discussion with him about it.”[101]

Kerry neglected to mention that during the “heated discussion,” Morsi had suggested that the criticism was only taking place because the American media was under the control of the Jews.[102]

While Kerry had insisted at the time that the weapons transfers were necessary to safeguard American interests in Egypt and even help Israel, when another popular uprising toppled Morsi and replaced him with a new non-Islamist government, delivery of the jets was put on hold.[103] [104] This move made it clear that Obama and Kerry had not sought to supply the jets to Egypt, but to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Arab Spring had been intended as a vehicle for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied Islamists to power, not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but across the region.

Backing for Gaddafi’s overthrow had been bought by the shift of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group from Al Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood under the auspices of the Brotherhood’s Sheikh Qaradawi.[105] [106] When the mission in Benghazi needed protection, the task was handed to the Brotherhood’s February 17 Martyrs Brigade[107] [108] which had been employed by the National Transitional Council.[109]

Closely interrelated with Ansar Al-Sharia,[110] the Jihadists that launched the attack against the mission in Benghazi, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade has been accused of complicity in their attack.[111]

The NTC had been Obama’s choice for regime change[112] and its draft constitution stated that Sharia law would be Libya’s law.[113] The Benghazi attack was an early warning of a larger conflict that would see the Muslim Brotherhood and its Jihadist allies take control of Libya’s capital.[114] It was a battle in a larger war.

Across the Middle East, the Brotherhood reaped the political harvest of the Arab Spring.

In Morocco, the Arab Spring brought the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Justice and Development Party (PJD) to power.[115] Abdelilah Benkirane, its Head of Government, was a former member of Chabiba Islamia; an Islamist group working to create an Islamic State, some of whose members would go on to join the Al Qaeda interlinked Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group.

Like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia’s Ennahda, PJD was depicted as a moderate Islamist group. Little mention was made of its close ties to Hamas.[116] Benkirane had described Israel as a “hostile state”, praised Hamas and stated that Moroccans want to wage Jihad alongside the genocidal terrorists.[117]

The PJD’s 2007 platform had called for imposing Islamic law on Morocco and the destruction of Israel.[118] Even after coming to power, PJD continued to maintain close ties with Hamas. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal attended its first conference[119] and met with Benkirane.[120]

Such relationships between Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood governments were natural and inevitable. Hamas was a fellow Muslim Brotherhood embryonic government. By aiding the rise of Muslim Brotherhood governments, Obama was creating state supporters for the anti-Semitic terror group.

In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted from power. Elections made the Brotherhood’s Al-Islah into the country’s second largest party.[121] A key figure in Al-Islah was Sheikh Zindani, an Osama bin Laden mentor listed by the US as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” who had played a role in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole and Yemen’s local September 11, 2012 attack on the US embassy. [122] [123]

The Arab Spring led to Muslim Brotherhood political victories putting the group’s various arms on a path to controlling much of the Middle East. However, they fared poorly when the political conflicts grew violent, losing to popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, to the Houthis in Yemen and to ISIS in Syria.

These conflicts often flared up when the Muslim Brotherhood showed its true colors. The Brotherhood, despite its violent rhetoric and roots, produced better manipulators than warriors. It was adept at convincing American officials, the leftist opposition, tribal leaders and freelance Jihadists to follow its agenda, but sooner or later its partners realized that it sought absolute power and could not be trusted.

Obama never realized that about the Muslim Brotherhood or perhaps he chose not to realize it.

American Guilt

Beyond the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama sought to cultivate ties with the worst elements in the region.

The common element that attracted him to the Muslim Brotherhood and the mullahs of Iran, despite their being on opposite sides of the Syrian Civil War, was their mutual enmity toward America.

While the foreign policy of the right attempts to secure national interests, the foreign policy of the left seeks to atone for national crimes. It was not strategy that drove his outreach to enemies of our country, but guilt. To the left, both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran were victims of our foreign policy.

The Muslim Brotherhood had suffered because of our backing for Sadat and Mubarak. Iran’s clerical tyrants resented us because of our support for the Shah.

Obama had taken up the Muslim Brotherhood’s cause as far back as the 2002 anti-war speech in which he had demanded that Bush stop Mubarak from “suppressing dissent.”[124] He told his Iran negotiators to understand that the Islamic terrorist state feels “vulnerable” because of the way that America “meddled in first their democracy and then in supporting the Shah and then in supporting Iraq and Saddam during that extremely brutal war.”[125] Iran and the Brotherhood were not our enemies; they were our victims.

Any Islamic enemy of America could count on the left’s sympathy and support for its victimhood.

President Bush’s denunciation of the Axis of Evil had drawn Democrats to rally around Axis members. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi visited Bashar Assad at a time when the Bush administration was seeking to pressure the Syrian dictator to shut down the flow of Al Qaeda suicide bombers murdering American soldiers.[126] And John Kerry became even more notorious for his serial pandering to Assad.[127]

But the left’s best efforts were reserved for the worst Islamic member of the Axis of Evil.

The Tehran Trio of three key administration foreign policy figures, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Sec-retary Chuck Hagel had become notorious for their pro-Iran advocacy before joining the admin-istration.[128] [129] The Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the White House, but so had the Iran Lobby in the form of the American-Iranian Council.

Animated by American guilt, the left’s foreign policy demanded a constant search for enemies to empower. This disastrous policy was less pro-Muslim than it was anti-American. The alliances that it made did not follow the consistent line of Islamic theology, but the inconsistent line of appeasement.

Every enemy of America, no matter how evil, had a part to play in dismantling our national security.

Out of Gitmo

In his first election, Obama had many endorsements, but in his second election only one name counted.

During the second presidential debate, he was asked what he had done about rising prices. Obama replied that, “Osama bin Laden is dead.” When challenged on Benghazi, he again brought up bin Laden. During the first debate, he brought out bin Laden in response to a question about partisan gridlock.[130]

By the third debate, he was so drunk on secondhand heroism that he boasted that, “I said, if I got bin Laden in our sights, I would take that shot.”[131] Obama was all but starring in his own imaginary action movie. Voters were left with the impression that he had ordered the execution of the terrorist leader.

But Obama’s real plans for Osama had actually been very different. He had not intended to use him to dismantle Al Qaeda, but to dismantle Guantanamo Bay and the military commission trials of terrorists.

If Obama’s plan had succeeded, Osama’s capture would have dealt a death blow to the War on Terror.

Despite playing patriot at the debate, Obama had told the liberal readers of Vanity Fair the real story. According to the journalist who interviewed him, “Obama saw an opportunity to resurrect the idea of a criminal trial, which Attorney General Eric Holder had planned for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”[132]

Trying a top terrorist in a civilian court had been too controversial, but capturing Osama bin Laden would have been a public relations coup that would have drowned out the protests and the criticism.

Instead of killing Osama, the goal was to bring him back and “put him on trial in a federal court.”

“I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda,” Obama boasted.[133]

If Osama bin Laden had been tried in a civilian court, it would have become impossible to argue that any lesser terrorist should be kept in the Article III system. And that would have dismantled a fundamental distinction between terrorists and criminals that defined the War on Terror and infuriated Obama.

The real target of Operation Neptune Spear wasn’t bin Laden; it was Guantanamo Bay.

When the SEALs killed the Al Qaeda leader, they sabotaged Obama’s plan to try him in a civilian court and shut down military commissions trials. But Obama recovered from that setback by exploiting bin Laden’s death to secure a second term and provide political cover for his disastrous foreign policy.

Most importantly, it diverted attention from the real target, the terrorists of Guantanamo Bay.

Gitmo had been Obama’s priority from the start. During his first days in office, three out of his first five executive orders involved the Islamic terrorists locked up at Gitmo.[134] His third executive order outlawed enhanced interrogations of terrorists “to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in United States custody.”[135] His fourth and fifth sought to close the prison and free its terrorists.[136] [137]

It took Obama a month to set up the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. It took him two days to set up a Special Interagency Task Force on Detainee Disposition to free Gitmo terrorists. His priority was not the economy, or even gay rights, amnesty and abortion; it was aiding Islamic terrorists.

The departure of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made it clear just how much of a priority freeing Gitmo terrorists was for Obama. The former senator, an anti-war politician, shared Obama’s views on Iraq and Iran. But he was unwilling to free dangerous terrorists at the rapid rate that Obama wanted.

White House officials complained that “his concerns about the security risks posed by the release of detainees” had “thwarted” Obama’s plans for closing Guantanamo Bay. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was reportedly angry because Hagel had not wanted to rush through releases.[138] Hagel admitted to CNN that the White House had indeed pressured him to speed up terrorist releases.[139]

The White House had fought hard for Hagel, but when he tried to slow down the release of dangerous terrorists, he was shown the door. Obama’s highest priority for his Secretary of Defense did not involve freeing Afghans and Iraqis from the Taliban and ISIS, but freeing their Islamic terrorist allies from Gitmo.

The five Taliban commanders freed by Obama in exchange for a deserter made headlines because of the splashy White House photo op, but the administration had been quietly releasing even more dangerous men. These included Mohammed Zahir, the Secretary General of the Taliban’s Intelligence Directorate, who had been caught with nuclear materials while reportedly preparing to build an atom bomb.[140]

Even while America was trying to stop ISIS from taking over Syria and Iraq, terrorists from the Syrian Group, which had been run by the uncle of the former leader of ISIS back when it was known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, were being released. The freed terrorists had received training in everything from suicide bombing to forging documents. Some had links to terrorist attacks against Americans and America.[141]

Among those freed was Mohammed Abis Ourgy, a bomb maker who may have known ahead of time about September 11.[142]

At least two of the terrorists released by Obama had threatened to assassinate President Bush.

Adel Al-Hakeemy, a military advisor to Osama bin Laden, had threatened revenge against America and stated that he would kill President Bush if given the chance. Muhammed Ali Husayn had dispatched letters to Congress and the White House warning that they would “be destroyed, suffer and lose.”[143]

Obama was forcing the release of terrorists rated as high risk who had made specific threats against the United States. He even insisted on freeing terrorists from conflict zones such as Yemen and Syria.

His administration had freed five Yemeni terrorists, releasing four of them to neighboring Oman, which had been used as a gateway by the Charlie Hebdo attackers operating under orders from Al Qaeda in Yemen.[144] The four included an Al Qaeda veteran of the Yemeni military who was suspected of serving as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden[145] and an Al Qaeda terrorist who had received IED training.[146]

No responsible government would have released such terrorists in the vicinity of an active war zone.

But Obama had made freeing the Jihadists of Gitmo into his highest priority. He executed his plans at the expense of our national security, our allies and the members of his own administration.

Even his greatest unintended triumph against Al Qaeda, the death of Osama bin Laden, had never been anything other than a warped attempt at freeing more Islamic terrorists from Guantanamo Bay.

A Stolen Future

Every president is the custodian of a nation and its future.

When Obama declared to the UN that the future must not belong to those who criticize Islam’s brutality, bigotry and abuse of women, he was also defining whom it must belong to. If the future must not belong to those who slander Mohammed, it will instead belong to his followers and those who respect his moral authority enough to view him as being above criticism in image, video or word.

With these words, Obama betrayed America’s heritage of freedom and announced the theft of its future. The treason of his unholy alliance with Islam not only betrays the Americans of the present, but deprives their descendants of the freedom to speak, write and believe according to their conscience.

Obama has placed the full weight of the government’s resources behind Islam. He has suppressed domestic dissent against Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood while aiding their international goals.

And by doing so, he has aided the foreign and domestic enemies of this country.

The president is more than the sum of his office. He is the man who believes most strongly in the promise of an American future. His speeches reflect the faith that we have in ourselves.

Obama is the first occupant of the White House to openly deny American Exceptionalism. Every president before him has chosen an American future. Obama chose an Islamic future instead.

It remains up to Americans to reclaim their future by exposing and breaking Obama’s unholy alliance.

Notes:

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-W38

[2] http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/24/obama-comes-to-new-york-for-barbara-walters-and-sorta-the-united-nations/

[3] http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sierra/Slain-U-S-Ambassador-Chris-Stevens-buried-in-Grass-Valley/17556470

[4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly

[5] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/saudi-official-western-politicians-and-media-linked-islam-to-911-thereby-driving-muslims-to-become-terrorists

[6] http://tinyurl.com/ka9jj7q

[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/opinion/06kristof.html

[8] http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/oct/25/picket-audio-father-killed-navy-seal-hillary-told-/

[9] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/aclu%E2%80%99s-islamist-friends

[10]https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/state_department_letter_on_innocence_of_muslims.pdf

[11] http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/why-the-us-should-oppose-defamation-of-religions-resolutions-at-the-united-nations

[12] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly

[13] http://fox40.com/2014/06/17/captured-key-benghazi-suspect-will-face-u-s-criminal-courts/

[14] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/14/white-house-asks-youtube-to-review-anti-islam-film/

[15] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/20/state-department-spending-70g-on-pakistan-ads-denouncing-anti-islam-film/

[16] http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/FBI-Benghazi-investigation/2012/10/04/id/458761/

[17] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/23/jihadists-now-control-secretive-u-s-base-in-libya.html

[18] http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/isis-libya/

[19] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/libyas-unleashed-hatred-for-christianity/

[20] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-attends-prayer-breakfast-with-sudanese-official-accused-of-genocide/

[21] http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2012/10/27/how-will-the-muslim-brotherhood-govern-egypt-look-to-sudan

[22] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast

[23] The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006

[24] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_is_one_of_the_largest_musli.html

[25] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[26] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/islamists-featured-countering-violent-extremism-summit

[27] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414064/find-countering-violent-extremism-summit-intersection-islamists-and-leftists-andrew-c

[28] http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/01/07/white-house-questioned-french-magazines-judgment-in-2012-for-publishing-naked-muhammad-cartoon/

[29] http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Pamela-Geller-Draw-the-Prophet-ISIS-threat-FBI/2015/05/07/id/643160/

[30] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[31] http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/03/02/opinion-why-france-is-right-about-the-burqa/

[32] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-29-honor-killings-in-the-US_N.htm

[33] http://www.newsweek.com/fgm-rates-have-doubled-us-2004-304773

[34] http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2004/May/04_crt_343.htm

[35] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/abercrombie-fitch-supreme-court-hijab-wearing-job-applicant-115498.html

[36]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/1387874/15-girls-die-as-zealots-drive-them-into-blaze.html

[37] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/justice-department-sues-on-behalf-of-murfreesboro-mega-mosque-federal-judge-orders-it-to-open

[38] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/cry-islamophobia-and-win

[39] http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/obama-doj-forces-city-to-pay-muslims-7-75-million/

[40] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[41] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/politics/faulted-for-avoiding-islamic-labels-white-house-cites-a-strategic-logic.html

[42] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414064/find-countering-violent-extremism-summit-intersection-islamists-and-leftists-andrew-c

[43] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2515/cair-deceptive-spin-on-fbi-support

[44] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/remarks-president-closing-summit-countering-violent-extremism

[45] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html

[46] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/cve/

[47] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/obamas-national-security-priority-moderate-muslim-rappers/

[48] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Deen#cite_note-rap-1

[49] http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6705

[50] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/cve/

[51] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obama-appoints-terrorist-supporter-to-head-up-counterterrorism-messaging/

[52] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/rashad-hussains-troubling-ties/

[53] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/is-the-state-depts-new-muslim-run-office-promoting-anti-semitism/

[54] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obamas-counterterrorism-messaging-promotes-islamic-takeover-of-uk/

[55] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/state-department-counters-violent-extremism-by-supporting-al-qaeda/

[56] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_is_one_of_the_largest_musli.html

[57]http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/allah_in_our_schools.html#.VKAAL7AwpNk.twitter

[58] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/17/school-apologizes-students-pray-allah-field-trip-mosque/

[59] http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/students-made-to-wear-burqas-in-u-s-state/

[60] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/03/egyptian-newspapers-explosive-allegation-president-obama-is-a-secret-muslim-brotherhood-member

[61] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3869/egyptian-magazine-muslim-brotherhood-infiltrates

[62] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3868/a-man-and-6-of-the-brotherhood-in-the-white-house

[63] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/

[64] http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/poll-egyptian-publics-views-toward-united-states-are-much-improved/

[65] http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/24/obama.words/

[66]http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164282#.VSXffl1g8rk

[67] http://www.clarionproject.org/news/what-isna-doesnt-publicize-about-its-convention-speakers

[68] http://www.meforum.org/700/arab-liberals-prosecute-clerics-who-promote-murder

[69] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2315/moderate-qaradawi-defends-hitler-and-nuclear

[70] http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/situations%20and%20cases/situations/situation%20icc%200205/related%20cases/icc02050109/Pages/icc02050109.aspx

[71] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-center-for-american-progress-and-islamist-influences-over-the-white-house/

[72] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/aclu%E2%80%99s-islamist-friends

[73] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/nancy-pelosi-hires-former-terrorist-fundraiser/

[74] http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1861305,00.html

[75] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75873_Page3.html

[76] https://archive.org/stream/354027-how-bin-laden-planned-to-capitalize-on-the-arab/354027-how-bin-laden-planned-to-capitalize-on-the-arab_djvu.txt

[77] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/06/-brotherhood-invited-to-obama-speech-by-us/18693/

[78] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/yale-to-host-radical-terror-sheikh-who-advocated-killing-of-u-s-soldiers/

[79] http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/

[80] http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2014/03/21/officials-dine-tunisian-muslim-brotherhood-leader-event-honor/

[81] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3262/media-whitewash-ghannouchi-radical-islamist-views#

[82] Ibid.

[83] http://www.meforum.org/700/arab-liberals-prosecute-clerics-who-promote-murder

[84] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-tunisia-rights-islamistsbre89e138-20121015,0,5425588.story

[85] http://world.time.com/2012/09/16/political-battles-in-tunisia-shade-attacks-on-u-s-embassy/

[86]http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/10/199102.htm

[87] http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/

[88] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-hosts-responsibilities/2012/09/12/4eb1edf2-fd1b-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_blog.html

[89] http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2007/103704.htm

[90] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/09/27/Bin-Laden-was-once-in-Muslim-Brotherhood/UPI-15591348771820/

[91] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/al_qaeda-linked_jiha.php

[92] http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2014/02/04/exposed-muslim-brotherhood-al-qaeda-connection.aspx

[93] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/muslim-brotherhood-pres-frees-monster-in-brutal-luxor-massacre/

[94] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/343207.stm

[95] http://www.clarionproject.org/news/morsi-appoints-luxor-terror-group-member-gov-luxor

[96] http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/us/egypt-lawmaker-visa/

[97] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/21/member-of-egyptian-terror-group-goes-to-washington.html

[98] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/09/28/egypts-morsi-i-will-do-everything-in-my-power-to-secure-freedom-for-the-blind-sheikh/

[99] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/kerry-defends-tank-and-jet-giveaway-to-muslim-brotherhood-terror-regime-video/

[100] http://haam.org/2013/01/29/morsi-obama-and-bibi-which-of-these-is-not-like-the-others/

[101] Ibid.

[102] http://www.timesofisrael.com/morsi-jewish-controlled-media-distorted-apes-and-pigs-remark/

[103] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-f-16s-to-muslim-brotherhood-yes-f-16s-to-egyptian-military-no/

[104] http://tinyurl.com/lwqvn27

[105] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/04/libyan-islamist-fighters-reject-violence

[106]http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/5/02%20libya%20ashour/omar%20ashour%20policy%20briefing%20english.pd

[107] http://cnsnews.com/news/article/testimony-elements-militia-state-dept-hired-station-members-inside-benghazi-compound

[108] http://jcpa.org/article/the-libyan-quagmire/

[109] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/30/ozatp-libya-idAFJOE76T02P20110730

[110] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/benghazi-power-libya-militia-eyed-attack

[111] http://cnsnews.com/news/article/testimony-elements-militia-state-dept-hired-station-members-inside-benghazi-compound

[112] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/19/libya-rebels-will-receive-25-million-from-us/?page=all

[113] http://tinyurl.com/nuuzwrw

[114] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/alarabiya-studies/2014/08/25/Libyan-Dawn-Map-of-allies-and-enemies.html

[115] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/morocco-pm-claims-he-isnt-muslim-brotherhood-muslim-brotherhood-says-he-is/

[116] http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id=71622

[117] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Moroccan-wolf-in-sheeps-clothing

[118] http://www.memri.org/report/en/print2368.htm

[119] http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/14/226341.html

[120] http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-48638884/moroccos-pm-benkirane-and-hamas-leader-meshaal

[121]https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/04/07/muslim-brotherhood-involvement-complicates-yemen-conflict/

[122] http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4057#.VVVwIPyrRhF

[123] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/world/middleeast/mideast-turmoil-spreads-to-us-embassy-in-yemen.html?ref=middleeast

[124] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469

[125] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obama-blames-america-for-iran-feeling-defensive-and-vulnerable/

[126] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415443/why-pelosis-syria-visit-remains-indefensible-tom-rogan

[127] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-frequent-visitor-syrian-dictator-bashar-al-assad_690885.html

[128] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obamas-treason-is-the-new-patriotism/

[129] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082502337.html

[130] http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/17/barack-obamas-awkward-debate-references-to-osama-bin-laden/

[131] http://www.npr.org/2012/10/22/163436694/transcript-3rd-obama-romney-presidential-debate

[132] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/obama-put-osama-bin-laden-on-trial

[133] Ibid.

[134] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/does-obama-love-america-or-islam/

[135] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/01/27/E9-1885/ensuring-lawful-interrogations

[136] http://tinyurl.com/kkh7wug

[137] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/01/27/E9-1895/review-of-detention-policy-options

[138] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?referrer=

[139] http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/politics/hagel-guantanamo-bay-transfers-white-house-friction/

[140] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-frees-a-nuclear-terrorist/

[141] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-christmas-gift-to-isis-and-al-qaeda/

[142] Ibid.

[143] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/is-obama-trying-to-kill-president-bush/

[144] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/16/obama-takes-heat-for-terror-approach-as-threat-spreads/

[145] http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/34-al-khadr-abdallah-muhammed-al-yafi

[146] http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/689-mohammed-ahmed-salam

Behind the French “Peace Initiative”

June 26, 2015

Behind the French “Peace Initiative,” The Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, June 26, 2015

  • It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to which it gave birth — all waiting for the order to run riot through the streets of France.
  • If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.

  • It is evidently too frustrating and unrewarding just to sit in the U.N. and not think of some project supposedly to spread beneficence that could make your country look important to the other 190 members — even if this beneficence is lethal to its recipient.

  • When the Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire, the churches, including the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, were turned into mosques; that is the dream of the Islamists today, to turn the Vatican into a mosque.

  • Currently, Qatar is currently investing millions to overthrow the Egyptian regime. It is investing millions to finance incitement among Muslims around the globe by means of its Islamist network and da’wah, the cunning preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood’s variety of Islam.

  • The Arabs always secretly believed that anyone who hated their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from occupied Palestine.

  • Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid of the Jews now.

The latest missile to split the skies over the Middle East is not a rocket; it is the French “peace” initiative.

No one in the Middle East has the slightest doubt that whatever its objective may be, it will not promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to which it gave birth — all waiting for the order to run riot through the streets of France.

We, the Palestinians, have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the creation of the Islamist terrorist organizations within the Palestinian Authority territory; it is they who keep us from reaching a peace agreement with the Jews.

One has to be deaf, dumb and blind — or genuinely desperate, which is more likely — to present a unilateral peace agreement like the French one. If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.

One also has to be simply ignorant not to understand that the Middle East is going up in flames and that the Arab states are disintegrating. There is no logical reason, therefore, to construct a new state, which will be both unstable and prey to local and regional subversion. It will also be subject to a quick takeover, and the first people who will suffer will be the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

The Israelis know how to look out for themselves, but we will be left to the tender mercies of Hamas and ISIS mujahedeen. Just as they have done in Iraq and Syria, they will slaughter us without thinking twice, on the grounds that as we did not all become shaheeds [“martyrs” for Islam] trying to kill the Zionists, and even tried to reach a peace agreement with them, we are not sufficiently Muslim.

The French initiative is not a benevolent gesture meant to help the Palestinians. Without a doubt, the French government and its intelligence services know full well that the secret of the Palestinian Authority’s existence today — and its ability to function as a sovereign entity, demilitarized and de facto recognizing the State of Israel — is its security collaboration with the Israelis. It serves the interests of both sides. When, therefore, a Palestinian state is declared unilaterally, as the French propose, Israel will stop collaborating with it and the state, not even fully formed, will almost instantly fall prey to Islamist extremists. That is obvious to us: even our institutions of higher learning are ruled by Hamas today, as can be seen by Hamas’s landslide victory in the recent student elections in Bir Zeit University.

The recent visit of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham to Israel helped the Palestinians understand even more thoroughly that behind the French initiative is an attempt, as with many members of the U.N., to “be a player.” It is evidently too frustrating and unrewarding just to sit in the U.N. and not think of some project supposedly to spread beneficence that could make your country look important to the other 190 members — even if this beneficence is lethal to its recipient. One way of doing spreading such beneficence is to take over the peace process through the Security Council, force both sides into a unilateral solution, and not even to feign dismay when its first victims are the Palestinians.

Senator Graham referred to the drastic nature of the initiative and stressed that the United States supported the solution of two states for two peoples, according to the vision of Israel’s current Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. It favors a demilitarized Palestinian state that would recognize Israel as a Jewish state and make it possible for everyone, both Jews and Palestinians, to live with self-respect and independence.

Graham threatened the UN, saying that if promotes the French initiative, he would bid to halt American funding for the UN — nearly a quarter of its budget.

Today, the UN’s funds are twisted into sending peacekeepers, who have diplomatic immunity and therefore cannot be sued, out to Africa to demand sex, often from children, in exchange for food or other necessities; and to passing resolutions aimed at harming Israel, while the organization callously ignores floggings in Saudi Arabia, slavery in Mauritania; escalating executions, calls for genocide and violations of nuclear treaties in Iran, just for a start.

The situation is grotesque. They are basically accusing Israel of “terrorism” for defending itself against by rockets fired from Hamas, in a confrontation where Gazan children were hurt because Hamas used them as human shields — while ignoring the real terrorism against the children of Africa committed by the U.N.’s own peacekeepers, Boko Haram, Iran and Sudan. When they so twist logic as to accuse Israel of “terrorism,” while turning their back on the horrendous abuses by other states, they are essentially giving paedophile UN “peacekeepers,” Iran’s torturers, executioners, and nuclear weapons factories a green light.

Graham was very clear about the American point of view. He said that any country that tried to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague would have sanctions imposed on it by the United States.

The parade of the grotesque is the direct result of the Western surrender to Islamic terrorism. Now, sadly, the Vatican has also joined France. The assumption that the Islamists can be pandered to and propitiated by harming the Jews is yet another prevalent misconception. Every gesture to the Islamists, even if it is aimed at “helping” the Palestinians, sends a message of weakness and vulnerability, and increases the Islamists’ aggression against Christians and other non-Muslim minorities.

In the Middle East, anyone who “turns the other cheek,” such as the Pope saying that the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, could be “an angel of peace,” will find his neck under the sword. When Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire, its churches, including the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, were turned into mosques; that is the dream of the Islamists today, to turn the Vatican into a mosque.

The dangerous European surrender to radical Islam is not only an attempt to hold off its threat to the free society of Europe just a little longer. It is also the result of the economic distress of the Western world, which is seeking to keep afloat by selling itself, literally, for petro-dollars. The Vatican is in desperate financial straits — there are fewer practicing Catholics and therefore fewer donating Catholics. It is hard not to feel that the anti-Israel manipulations of the Vatican administration are motivated not by a genuine desire to help the Palestinians or to save Christians in the Middle East, but by a genuine desire to extricate itself from its financial straits.

Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; Boko Haram sells girls for the price of a pack of cigarettes, and Europe is selling itself and the Israelis to Qatar.

Europe is in the same situation as the Vatican; and so are many American universities, which are selling radical Islamist education for petro-dollars from the Persian Gulf. This enables the Islamists to rewrite history and endanger the open way of life in the gullible West.

There is already a Muslim Brotherhood lobby in the United States, a syndicate trying to force the administration to undermine the current Egyptian president, who is an enemy of the murderous Muslim Brotherhood. Their aim is to restore to power the Islamist dictator Mohamed Morsi (who is also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood), and to sabotage the measures Egypt is currently taking to rehabilitate itself.

The ease with which Qatar, the petro-dollar heavyweight, manipulates terrorist organizations in the Middle East is unnerving. The country both hosts and finances senior Muslim Brotherhood figures such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and others responsible for spreading the doctrine of radical Islamism and terrorism around the world.

Qatar finances a wide range of subversive Islamist terrorist organizations, among them ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and various other global jihad organizations operating under the aegis of the Arab-Muslim regimes. Qatar also seeks to carve out enclaves in Africa and the West, and to turn the West’s pluralistic melting pot into a seething cauldron of terrorist operatives who will, when given the signal, bludgeon Europe and America to the ground.

The petro-dollars of the Qatari feudal lords, totalitarians who dictate their whims to a population with no rights, direct a global network of propaganda and incitement, through vehicles such as Al-Jazeera TV in Arabic, light years more toxic than Al Jazeera in English. It crowns kings and topples regimes throughout the Middle East, as it did by endlessly replaying the self-immolation of the young Tunisian fruit vendor who could not get a license, until it whipped up the Tunisians and Egyptians to start the “Arab Spring.” Currently, Qatar is investing millions to overthrow the Egyptian regime. It is investing millions to finance incitement among Muslims around the globe by means of its Islamist network and da’wah, the cunning preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood’s variety of Islam.

The Arabs always felt that the Europeans had a soft spot in their hearts for them. They always secretly believed that anyone who hated their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from occupied Palestine. Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid of the Jews now.

Just look at the extensive corruption of the heads of FIFA, bought and paid-for by Qatar. All it took was $100 million, and Qatar could host the World Cup. It makes one wonder what Qatar would be willing to pay for other projects, doesn’t it?

1130Now where did that envelope of cash go…?
Joseph “Sepp” Blatter (R), then president of FIFA, is pictured patting his jacket pocket a moment after awarding the hosting of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (L), on December 2, 2010. (Image source: PBS Newshour video screenshot)