Daylight: The Story of Obama and Israel, EmergCmteForIsrael via YouTube, March 3, 2012
(A flashback to Obama’s 2009 candidacy — Israel is good and great and I support her completely — through March of 2012. Obama’s animosity toward Israel has increased dramatically since then. Now, Israel has more support from many Arab nations than does Obama. Hat tip to Joop klepzeiker.– DM)
Gulf states, abandoned against Iran, Israel Hayom, Dr. Reuven Berko, March 26, 2015
(At least the Gulf States are awakening. That’s a good start. — DM)
The West’s weakness and apathy toward Iran and the perilous predicament it has created in Yemen again prove the flimsy nature of those security and defense treaties. This lesson justifies Israel’s approach, which is based on the ability to defend itself on its own. In the meantime, following the Houthi takeover, Saudi Arabia has decided to deploy a massive military force along the border with Yemen. The first shot is in the chamber and the finger is already on the trigger.
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Shiite Iran’s increasing involvement in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, while exploiting the Shiite elements of the population in those target countries, is causing a great deal of concern among leaders of Arab Gulf states. The trauma of Iran’s attempt to topple the regime in Bahrain, where most of the population is Shiite, under the claim that Bahrain is Iran’s 14th province, is still fresh in their minds. The Iranian goal of using Bahrain as a bridgehead from which to spread across the Arabian Peninsula is still in play, despite Iran’s first effort being blocked in March 2011, when some 1,000 Saudi troops and 500 policemen from the United Arab Emirates entered Bahrain to save its regime.
Ever since Saddam Hussein’s sudden invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf states — Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE — realized the need for a type of “Al Jazeera defense force” to pose a strategic deterrent against Iranian machinations on the peninsula. Their effort has not been a success. Through its latest intervention, via the mobilization of Shiite Houthi tribesmen to capture key targets in Yemen, including the primary port cities and airports in the south of the country leading to control of the Gulf of Aden, Iran is clearly reiterating its ambition of acquiring the straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, which will allow Iran to paralyze the Red Sea and Persian Gulf waterways.
Arab stagnation combined with the West turning a blind eye to this Iranian aggression, alongside the willingness of Western powers to sign a deal allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb, is causing sleepless nights among those Arab leaders who are again pushing the need to upgrade the capabilities of the “Al Jazeera defense force.”
Considering the lack of trust in the West and Yemen’s expected fall to the Houthis, the leaders of the Arab Gulf states are again working, feverishly, to build the military capability to curb Iran. As early as December 2009, with the goal of protecting the integrity of Arab territories situated in the Arabian Peninsula, the Arab League decided to establish a massive, unified, heavily funded, rapid-reaction military force comprising hundreds of thousands of troops and naval capabilities, capable of posing a deterrent and striking a decisive blow on the battlefield. Morocco and Jordan were also added to this coalition, as strategic depth, but the initiative ultimately failed to gain traction.
The recent gathering of these partner states in Riyadh gave birth to a multitude of agreements, including support and aid to Egypt, which is considered the strongest true military force in the Sunni Arab Middle East. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has lobbied for Pakistani support in the aftermath of Yemen’s inevitable fall, or worse, when Iran completes its nuclearization with American consent.
As the West falls victim to the fraud peddled by Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, the Arabs (and Israel) have no illusions about Iran’s true intentions. Even as the Bahrain crisis was unfolding, the threats issued by many of Iran’s highest-ranking defense establishment officials — whether in the regime, the military or the Shura (parliament) — reflected the hostile nature of Iran’s foreign policy, and removed any doubt in the minds of neighboring Arab leaders.
Many of the Gulf states with signed security and defense pacts with the West, namely the United States, are currently feeling abandoned. Ever since the events in Bahrain, and to a greater degree following the recent developments in Yemen, the realization is growing in the Gulf that Iran’s aggressive goals and ambitions regarding the Arabian Peninsula have not changed and that they must take care of themselves.
The Arabs have recently come to the realization that not only will they not receive aid from the West in their hour of need, but that the West is forging a deal with Iran at their expense — a deal that will pose the greatest threat to their security. The situation that has been created provides an opportunity for Israel, even if clandestinely, to play a part in the geostrategic plans being formulated by states in the region, and which could help lead to an agreeable deal on the Palestinian issue — which is rather secondary in the current pan-Arab context.
The West’s weakness and apathy toward Iran and the perilous predicament it has created in Yemen again prove the flimsy nature of those security and defense treaties. This lesson justifies Israel’s approach, which is based on the ability to defend itself on its own. In the meantime, following the Houthi takeover, Saudi Arabia has decided to deploy a massive military force along the border with Yemen. The first shot is in the chamber and the finger is already on the trigger.
Obama’s Kabuki dance with Iran fueling mullahs’ hegemony in Middle East, Breitbart, James Lyons, March 25, 2015
(The present House of Representatives, despite a Republican majority, is very unlikely to bring a bill of impeachment. If it did the present Senate, despite a modest Republican majority, would not convict; that would require a two-thirds majority of the Senators present. We are stuck with Obama at least until January of 2017– DM)
The Associated Press
The current Kabuki dance ongoing in Geneva between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Jamad Zarif regarding an agreement on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is a sham. Its outcome was pre-ordained many years ago by President Obama in his secret communications with the Iranian mullahs in 2008– at least according to one report.
These secret communications were exposed in a August 29, 2014 article written by Michael Ledeen in PJ Media and drew little attention then, but now must be addressed. According to Ledeen, shortly after Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for president on June 3, 2008, he also opened a secret communication channel to the Iranian mullahs. The message was that they should not sign any nuclear agreement with the Bush administration on preventing Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon capability. He informed them that he would be much easier to deal with once he assumed the presidency. He further assured the mullahs that he was a “friend” of the Iranian theocracy and that they would be very happy with his policies.
Today, Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism that has been “at war” with the United States since the 1979 takeover of our Tehran U.S. Embassy. Since then, Iran has directed many “acts of war” against the United States that have cost the loss of thousands of American lives. Most importantly, Iran provided the key material and training support to the 9/11 hijackers, which cost the lives of 3,000 innocent Americans.
The secret channel was conducted through Ambassador William G. Miller, who previously served in Iran during the Shah’s reign. The Ambassador confirmed to Ledeen the aforementioned communications he personally held with the Iranian mullahs on behalf of candidate Obama during the 2008 campaign. The Iranian mullahs apparently believed the message since on July 20, 2oo8, the New York Times reported “Nuclear Talks with Iran End on a Deadlock.” The main reason was that Iran would not address the “international demands that it stop enriching uranium.” What a surprise!
The shocking fact is that candidate Obama secretly told the Iranian mullahs not to make a deal until he assumed the presidency, according to Ledeen’s report. They would then be able to make a much better agreement with him – and that’s exactly what’s happening. Some would consider what candidate Obama did was treason.
President Obama abandoned the requirement that Iran stop enriching uranium. The result has been that Iran’s nuclear program has been greatly expanded with more secret underground facilities and expanded capability during the course of the long, drawn out negotiations. When the interim agreement, called the “Joint Plan of Action,” was announced in late 2013, the Iranian president openly bragged that the West had finally acknowledged Iran’s right to its uranium enrichment program.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Zarif, furthermore bragged that Iran “did not agree to dismantle anything; not its centrifuges; not its ballistic missile program; not its nuclear programs.” It also did not give up its role as the leading state sponsor of terrorism. By his cooperation with Iran in combatting the Islamic State, he is actually sanctioning de facto Iranian hegemony throughout the Persian Gulf region.
Andy McCarthy, in his book Faithless Execution, lays out a very detailed and logical case for President Obama’s impeachment. Even Liberal law professors are now talking about Obama’s many abuses of power, too many to list here. A summary of President Obama’s extensive violations of law and dereliction of duty are covered on pages 11-26 of Faithless Execution. President Obama’s use and abuse of power is clearly out of control. We are in a Constitutional crisis.
The Constitution vests in the House of Representatives “the sole power of impeachment.” With a Republican controlled House of Representatives, a simple House Majority can vote out articles of impeachment. However, successfully impeaching a president means removing him from office. Removal requires the president’s conviction on articles of impeachment by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Even with a Republican controlled Senate, this will require much work.
Clearly the Speaker of the House of Representatives must start the process. If the current Speaker is unable to find the courage to start the impeachment proceedings, then he should resign. The House members should elect a new Speaker who is prepared to live up to his Oath of Office and protect the Constitution. The survival of America as we know it, as the shining city on the hill, must come first before any party politics.
Egypt seizes Bab el Mandeb ahead of Iran. Saudis bomb Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis. US launches air strikes over Tikrit, DEBKAfile, March 26, 2015
The separate operations in Yemen and Iraq attested to the widening breach between the Sunni Arab camp and the Obama administration and the former’s resolve to thwart US strategy for buying a nuclear deal with Tehran by empowering Iran to attain the rank of leading Middle East power.
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In a surprise step, Egyptian marine naval and marine forces Thursday morning, March 26, seized control of the strategic Bab El-Mandeb Straits to foil Tehran’s plans to grab this important energy shipping gateway between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal, DEBKAfile’s military sources report from the Gulf. Egypt disguised the raid as a counter-piracy operation. It rounded off the Saudi-led air strikes launched the same morning against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. These operations signaled the start of a major Sunni Arab revolt against Iran’s approaching takeover of Yemen, through its Houthi proxy, and advances in other strategic positions in the Middle East, with Washington’s support.
Thursday morning too, the US launched the US launched its first air strikes against Islamic State positions in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, rallying to the aid of the Iranian-commanded Iraqi operation, which had failed to dislodge the jihadis in two weeks of fighting.
The separate operations in Yemen and Iraq attested to the widening breach between the Sunni Arab camp and the Obama administration and the former’s resolve to thwart US strategy for buying a nuclear deal with Tehran by empowering Iran to attain the rank of leading Middle East power.
DEBKAfile reported earlier Thursday morning:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) are now leading war action in four Mid East arenas: Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, while building Shiite “popular” armies deferring to Tehran in three: Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The formal announcements coming from Riyadh and Washington attempted to gloss over the open breach. The Saudis Wednesday indicated that their military buildup on the Yemeni was “purely defensive,” while Washington subsequently declared support for the Saudi-Gulf-Egyptian air strikes after they began.
According to our Washington sources, President Obama decided Wednesday to accede to the Iraqi premier Haider al-Abadi’s request for air support to de-stall the Tikrit operation against ISIS. Iran’s Al Qods Brigades chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who commanded the operation from the start has departed the scene.
Nothing has been said to indicate whether the Iranian forces, including Revolutionary Guards officers, remain in the area. It appears that the Obama administration prefers as little as possible to be mentioned about US-Iranian battlefield coordination in Iraq versus the Islamists, especially since it was not exactly a big success. At the same time, US air strikes launched to support ground forces are bound to be coordinated with their commanders, who in this case happen to be mostly Iranian. In the last two weeks of the Tikrit operation, liaison between the US and Iranian military in Iraq was routed through the office of the Iraqi Prime Minister in Baghdad.
Early Thursday, Riyadh reported that the Saudi Royal Air Force had taken out Houthi air defenses, destroyed numerous Houthi fighter planes and were imposing a wide no-fly zone over Yemen.
Egypt is providing political and military support for Saudi-GCC operation against Houthi fighters in Yemen, the Egyptian state news agency said Thursday. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying this support could involve Egyptian air, naval and ground forces, if necessary.
DEBKAfile’s military sources add: The Saudis declared Yemeni air space a no-fly zone to achieve to goals: (1) To deny the Yemeni forces advancing on the key port city of Aden access to air cover which would undoubtedly have been forthcoming from mutinous elements of the Yemeni air force. Without it, the rebel advance would be severely hobbled, and, (2) to prevent Iranian warplanes from landing at Yemeni air bases with deliveries of military equipment and ammunition their Houthi proxies.
Gulf sources disclose that Saudi Arabia has placed 100 warplanes and 150,000 troops with heavy weapons at the disposal of the operation against Iran’s Yemeni proxy, the Zaydi Houthis, as well as pressing into service Pakistani, Moroccan and Jordanian military units. This force is a sign that Riyadh intends of following up its air action with a ground invasion across the border into Yemen to crush the revolt in its backyard.
Developing…
Saudi Arabia launches airstrikes in Yemen, ambassador says, Fox News, March 26, 2015
(Meanwhile, as Iranian supported Houthis take over much of Yemen, the U.S. is providing airstrikes in Tikrit to assist Iran and helping Iran to establish itself as a nuclear power. Please see also, US air force bombs Tikrit to aid Iran-led operation against ISIS. Saudi, Egyptian bombers strike Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. — DM)
Iran-backed rebels bring Yemen to brink of civil war
Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen early Thursday, one day after the U.S.-backed Yemeni president was driven out of the country.
President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to the military operations, National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said late Wednesday night. She added that while U.S. forces were not taking direct military action in Yemen, Washington was establishing a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate U.S. military and intelligence support.
Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir said the operations began at 7 p.m. Eastern time.
He said the Houthis, widely believed to be backed by Iran, “have always chosen the path of violence.” He declined to say whether the Saudi campaign involved U.S. intelligence assistance.
Al-Jubeir made the announcement at a rare news conference by the Sunni kingdom.
A Yemeni official earlier Wednesday would not say where Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled to, but did tell Fox News: “He is safe. That’s all I can say at this point.”
Hadi’s departure marks a dramatic turn in Yemen’s turmoil and means a decisive collapse of what was left of his rule, which the United States and Gulf allies had hoped could stabilize the chronically chaotic nation and fight Al Qaeda’s branch here after the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Over the past year, the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are believed to be supported by Iran, have battled their way out of their northern strongholds, overwhelmed the capital, Sanaa, seized province after province in the north and worked their way south. Their advance has been boosted by units of the military and security forces that remained loyal to Saleh, who allied with the rebels.
With Hadi gone, there remains resistance to the Houthis scattered around the country, whether from Sunni tribesmen, local militias, pro-Hadi military units or Al Qaeda fighters.
Hadi and his aides left Aden after 3:30 p.m. on two boats, security and port officials told The Associated Press. He is scheduled to attend an Arab summit in Egypt on the weekend, where Arab allies are scheduled to discuss formation of a joint Arab force that could pave the way for military intervention against Houthis.
His flight came after Houthis and Saleh loyalists advanced against Hadi’s allies on multiple fronts. Military officials said militias and military units loyal to Hadi had “fragmented,” speeding the rebel advance. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters
Earlier in the day, the rebels seized a key air base where U.S. troops and Europeans had advised the country in its fight against Al Qaeda militants. The base is only 60 kilometers (35 miles) away from Aden.
In the province of Lahj, adjoining Aden, the rebels captured Hadi’s defense minister, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi, and his top aide on Wednesday and subsequently transferred them to the capital, Sanaa. Yemen’s state TV, controlled by the Houthis, announced a bounty of nearly $100,000 for Hadi’s capture.
Hadi then fled his presidential palace, and soon after warplanes targeted presidential forces guarding it. No casualties were reported. By midday, Aden’s airport fell into hands of Saleh’s forces after intense clashes with pro-Hadi militias.
Aden was tense Wednesday, with schools, government offices, shops and restaurants largely closed. Inside the few remaining opened cafes, men watched the news on television. With the fall of the city appearing imminent, looters went through two abandoned army camps, one in Aden and the other nearby, taking weapons and ammunition.
The takeover of Aden, the country’s economic hub, would mark the collapse of what is left of Hadi’s grip on power. After the Houthis overran Sanaa in September, he had remained in office, but then was put under house arrest. He fled the capital earlier in March with remnants of his government and declared Aden his temporarty capital.
Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riad Yassin told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV satellite news network that he officially made a request to the Arab League on Wednesday to send a military force to intervene against the Houthis. Depicting the Houthis as a proxy of Shiite Iran, a rival to Sunni Gulf countries, he warned of an Iranian “takeover” of Yemen. The Houthis deny they are backed by Iran.
Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis, said their forces were not aiming to “occupy” the south. “They will be in Aden in few hours,” Abdel-Salam told the rebels’ satellite Al-Masirah news channel.
Earlier, Al-Masirah reported that the Houthis and allied fighters had “secured” the al-Annad air base, the country’s largest. It claimed the base had been looted by both Al Qaeda fighters and troops loyal to Hadi.
The U.S. recently evacuated some 100 soldiers, including Special Forces commandos, from the base after Al Qaeda briefly seized a nearby city. Britain also evacuated soldiers.
The base was crucial in the U.S. drone campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which Washington considers to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror group. And American and European military advisers there also assisted Hadi’s government in its fight against Al Qaeda’s branch, which holds territory in eastern Yemen and has claimed the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
U.S. operations against the militants have been scaled back dramatically amid Yemen’s chaos. U.S. officials have said CIA drone strikes will continue in the country, though there will be fewer of them. The agency’s ability to collect intelligence on the ground in Yemen, while not completely gone, is also much diminished.
The Houthis, in the aftermath of massive suicide bombings in Sanaa last week that killed at least 137 people, ordered a general mobilization and their leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, vowed to send his forces to the south to fight Al Qaeda and militant groups.
In Sanaa, dozens of coffins were lined up for a mass funeral of the victims Wednesday. Among the victims was a top Shiite cleric. Yemen’s Islamic State-linked militants have claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in September and have since been advancing south along with Saleh’s loyalists. On Tuesday, they fired bullets and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters in the city of Taiz, known as the gateway to southern Yemen. Six demonstrators were killed and scores more were wounded, officials said.
The Houthis also battled militias loyal to Hadi in the city of al-Dhalea, adjacent to Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city. Taiz is also the birthplace of its 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising that forced Saleh to hand over power to Hadi in a deal brokered by the U.N. and Gulf countries.
Hadi on Tuesday asked the U.N. Security Council to authorize a military intervention “to protect Yemen and to deter the Houthi aggression” in Aden and the rest of the south. In his letter, Hadi said he also has asked members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League for immediate help.
Saudi Arabia warned that “if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.”
US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program, Israel National News, Ari Yashar, Matt Wanderman, March 25, 2015
Dimona nuclear reactor circa 1960sNational Security Archive/Flash 90
In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.
But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.
The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.
Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATOcountries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.
The 386-page report entitled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations” gives a detailed description of how Israel advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s.
Israel is “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,” reveals the report, stating that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.
The revelation marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs.
The report also notes research laboratories in Israel “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,” the key labs in developing America’s nuclear arsenal.
Israel’s nuclear infrastructure is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,” it adds.
“As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960,” the report reveals, noting a time frame just after America tested its first hydrogen bomb.
Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally funded agency operating under the Pentagon, penned the report back in 1987.
Aside from nuclear capabilities, the report revealed Israel at the time had “a totally integrated effort in systems development throughout the nation,” with electronic combat all in one “integrated system, not separated systems for the Army, Navy and Air Force.” It even acknowledged that in some cases, Israeli military technology “is more advanced than in the U.S.”
Declassifying the report comes at a sensitive timing as noted above, and given that the process to have it published was started three years ago, that timing is seen as having been the choice of the American government.
US journalist Grant Smith petitioned to have the report published based on the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the Pentagon took its time answering, leading Smith to sue, and a District Court judge to order the Pentagon to respond to the request.
Smith, who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, reportedly said he thinks this is the first time the US government has officially confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power, a status that Israel has long been widely known to have despite being undeclared.
Hope n’ Change, March 23, 2015
For Obama, Bibi’s words matter while Iran’s don’t, Times of Israel, Shmuley Boteach, March 22, 2015
(Please see also, Iranians Chant “Death to America” While Negotiations Continue. — DM)
President Obama says that Bibi’s words matter when it comes to a Palestinian state. “We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership,” he told The Huffington Post. The President used Netanyahu’s statement as cause for a “reassessment” of American ties with Israel.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest echoed the sentiment in last Thursday’s White House briefing that the Prime Minister’s words could bring punishment. “Words matter,” he said. There could be “consequences” for Netanyahu’s statements. “Everybody who’s in a position to speak on behalf of their government understands that that’s the case, and particularly when we’re talking about a matter as serious as this one.”
So let’s get this straight. When foreign leaders speak, it matters. What they say is consequential. Bibi’s going to have to pay for his remarks.
But I have one question. Why doesn’t any of this apply to Iran? Why, on Saturday Ayatollah Ali Khameini uttered the words “Death to America” even as John Kerry was expressing optimism the very same day that the United States would come to a nuclear accord with Iran!
Suddenly, Iran’s words don’t matter?
Taking this further, the most hair-raising aspect about the growing American rapprochement with Iran is that it has all happened while Iran has continued to repeatedly threaten the annihilation of the Jewish people. Ayatollah Khameini has called Jews dogs and tweeted as recently as this past November that “there is no cure for Israel other than annihilation.”
Now, if words matter, how can the United States continue to speak to his government while they are openly threatening a second holocaust? Why did President Obama and John Kerry not establish a repudiation of these genocidal words and threats as a precondition for any talks?
The hypocrisy is startling. And it leads to a more important point.
By now it’s clear to all that President Obama positively loathes Prime Minister Netanyahu more any other world leader. His hostility to the Prime Minister has become so pronounced that the President can no longer disguise or control it.
Am I the only one that finds it just a touch unseemly for the leader of the free world to hate the leader of the only free country in the Middle East?
The President has a good relationship with Erdogan, the tyrant of Turkey, who has destroyed his nation’s democracy and allows fighters to pass through his nation to join ISIS. President Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia to pay his personal condolences upon the passing of arch-misogynist King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a man who wouldn’t even allow women to drive a car. And he utters not an unkind word about Ayatollah Khameini, the world’s foremost terrorist.
But he hates Netanyahu. Go figure.
For years we Americans have heard that our President is cerebral and unflappable. That he famously remains cool under the most challenging circumstances. It turns out that this is true for every world leader except one, Benjamin Netanyahu, who makes the President’s blood boil.
Don’t we deserve to know why?
If the two leaders merely had bad personal chemistry, I could understand. They’re not the best of friends. Fine. But for Obama the hatred of Netanyahu has become positively visceral, personal, and irrepressible.
My own belief is this. President Obama is desperate for some foreign policy victories. There’s a year-and-a-half left to his Presidency and the world is on fire. From Iran to Boko Haram to ISIS to Putin to Hezbollah to Al Qaida and Hamas, bad guys are running amok under this president. American Foreign policy is a shambles.
The only ally President Obama can truly expert pressure on for a deal that would give him the lasting foreign policy legacy he needs and craves is Israel. And in the past Israeli Prime Ministers have proven so utterly malleable. American Presidents have squeezed them like lemons.
But Bibi refuses to be squeezed. He won’t play ball. He won’t withdraw from Judea and Samaria and allow “Hamastan” on his eastern border the way it is in Gaza. He won’t shut up about America’s capitulation to the Iranian mullahs that would leave them with a military-grade nuclear program. He won’t go quietly into the nuclear night while America appeases one of the most violent and vile regimes on earth.
This darned Bibi guy just won’t bend.
And our President finds the intransigence so utterly frustrating.
He prayed and hoped that someone else might win the Israeli election. And some of the President’s top political operatives went and worked for Herzog. But, huff and puff as he might, the President could not blow Bibi’s house down.
So now he’s stuck with him. A stick-necked Prime Minister, getting in the way of the President’s peace deals with Iran and the Palestinians.
And with no way of getting rid of the Israeli nuisance, all the President can do is continue to give interviews that express his dislike and frustration, not realizing that we’re reaching a point where the President is beginning to look positively un-Presidential and where is enmity is becoming unbecoming.
It’s called democracy, Mr. President. Bibi won. And it’s time for the world’s foremost democracy, the United States of America, to live with it and work with the man who has the mandate of the Israeli people, just as you have the mandate of the American people.
Unstated Factor in Iran Talks: Threat of Nuclear Tampering, New York Times,
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, center, said someone had tried to sabotage an Iranian reactor’s cooling system. Credit Laurent Gillieron/European Pressphoto Agency
[R]eaching an accord is quite different than reaching a state of trust. Inside Iran, there will be pressure to keep making slow progress on a nuclear program that is central to the ambitions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and thousands of scientists who have labored for years. And in the uneasy alliance among Israel, the United States and Europe there will be continued debate about whether to supplement diplomatic pressure with covert action to keep Iran from getting to the threshold of being able to build a weapon.
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WASHINGTON — In late 2012, just as President Obama and his aides began secretly sketching out a diplomatic opening to Iran, American intelligence agencies were busy with a parallel initiative: The latest spy-vs.-spy move in the decade-long effort to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Investigators uncovered an Iranian businessman’s scheme to buy specialty aluminum tubing, a type the United States bans for export to Iran because it can be used in centrifuges that enrich uranium, the exact machines at the center of negotiations entering a crucial phase in Switzerland this week.
Rather than halt the shipment, court documents reveal, American agents switched the aluminum tubes for ones of an inferior grade. If installed in Iran’s giant underground production centers, they would have shredded apart, destroying the centrifuges as they revved up to supersonic speed.
Iranians Chant “Death to America” While Negotiations Continue, The Clarion Project, March 22, 2015
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei (Photo: © Reuters)
Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, presided over chants of “Death to America” in his Nowruz address to the people of Iran.
Nowruz is the Persian New Year and the Supreme Leader traditionally gives on address to mark the festival.
As part of his Nowruz address, Khamenei responded to President Obama’s Nowruz video message, in which he spoke directly to the Iranian people and called on them to support a nuclear deal.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that Obama’s Nowruz message was asking Iranians to submit to American demands in exchange for economic relief, couching the negotiations in terms of struggle rather than mutual benefit.
The crowd then broke out in chants of “Death to America” which was repeated multiple times over the course of the hour long speech.
By contrast, Obama’s Nowruz message to the Iranian people said that a nuclear deal would bring a brighter future for the people of Iran and urged them to support the negotiations.
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