IAEA: No Progress on Iranian Nukes, Daily Beast, November 7, 2014
(Don’t bother P5+1 with irrelevant details. The deal has to be based on mutual trust! — DM)
Archive for the ‘Iran’ category
IAEA: No Progress on Iranian Nukes
November 8, 2014
Iran Nuclear Talks and North Korean Flashbacks
November 7, 2014Iran Nuclear Talks and North Korean Flashbacks, Forbes, Claudia Rosett, November 7, 2014
(During Clinton’s efforts to achieve detente with North Korea, Wendy Sherman found hope for change — for the better — in every hostile utterance from NK leaders. Now she is Obama’s boot on the ground in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran. What can possibly go right wrong? — DM)
Now, in the Obama administration’s increasingly desperate quest for an Iran deal, comes news that President Obama is proposing to Iran’s Khamenei, ruler of the world’s leading terror-sponsoring state, that Iran and the U.S. cooperate to fight the terrorists of ISIS. This has a familiar ring. Back in 2000, the visit of North Korea’s Vice Marshal Jo to the White House was preceded, shortly beforehand, by a “Joint U.S.-D.P.R.K. Statement on International Terrorism,” in which both the U.S. and North Korea agreed that “international terrorism poses an unacceptable threat to global peace and security.” Apparently this was all part of the negotiating process of finding common ground. What could go wrong? Not that anyone should pin all this on Wendy Sherman, who is just one particularly active cog in the Washington negotiating machine. But there’s a familiar script playing out here. It does not end well.
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With the Iran nuclear talks nearing a Nov. 24 deadline for a deal, U.S. chief negotiator Wendy Sherman is under pressure to bring almost a year of bargaining to fruition. While U.S. policy rests ultimately with President Obama, and the most prominent American face in these talks is now that of Secretary of State John Kerry, the hands-on haggling has been the domain of Sherman. On the ground, she has been chief choreographer of the U.S. negotiating team. The President has been pleased enough with her performance to promote her last week from Under Secretary to Acting Deputy Secretary of State.
The talks themselves have been doing far less well, marked by Iranian demands and U.S. concessions. This summer the U.S. and its negotiating partners agreed to extend the original July deadline until November. Tehran’s regime, while enjoying substantial relief from sanctions, is refusing to give up its ballistic missile program and insisting on what Tehran’s officials have called their country’s “inalienable right” to enrich uranium.
The Obama administration badly wants a deal. This week The Wall Street Journal reported that last month Obama wrote a secret letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which “appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal.” Speaking to reporters in Paris this week about the Iran nuclear negotiations, Kerry said “We believe it is imperative for a lot of different reasons to get this done.”
So, now that crunch time has arrived, what might we expect? If precedent is any guide, it’s worth revisiting Sherman’s record from her previous bout as a lead negotiator, toward the end of the second term of the Clinton administration. Back then, Sherman was trying to clinch an anti-proliferation missile deal with another rogue despotism, North Korea.
That attempt failed, but only after then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, together with Sherman, had dignified North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il with a visit to Pyongyang in late October, 2000. These American top diplomats brought Kim the gift of a basketball signed by one of his favorite players, Michael Jordan. Kim entertained them with a stadium display in which tens of thousands of North Koreans used flip cards to depict the launch of a long-range missile.
Less well remembered was the encounter shortly before Albright’s trip to Pyongyang, in which the State Department hosted a visit to Washington, Oct. 9-12 of 2000, by one of the highest ranking military officials in North Korea, Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok. The centerpiece of Jo’s trip was a 45-minute face-to-face meeting at the White House, in the Oval Office, with President Clinton. It was historic, it was the first time an American president had met with an official of North Korea’s totalitarian state.
And it was a deft piece of extortion by North Korea, which had parlayed its missile program — including its missile trafficking to the Middle East, and its 1998 test-launch of a missile over Japan — into this lofty encounter in which the U.S. superpower was pulling out all the stops in hope of cutting a deal before Clinton’s second term expired in Jan., 2001. By 2000 (or, by some accounts, earlier) the Clinton administration was also seeing signs that North Korea was cheating on a 1994 denuclearization arrangement known as the Agreed Framework. Eight months before Jo arrived in Washington, Clinton had been unable to confirm to Congress that North Korea had abandoned its pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. Nonetheless, Jo’s visit rolled ahead, with Sherman enthusing in advance to the press that “Chairman Kim Jong Il has clearly made a decision — personally — to send a special Envoy to the United States to improve relations with us.”
Officially, Jo was hosted in Washington by Albright. But it was Sherman, then the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for North Korea Policy, who orchestrated the events, squired Jo around Washington and briefed the press. It was Sherman who had helped prepare the way while accompanying her predecessor, the previous North Korea policy coordinator and former defense secretary, William Perry, on a trip to North Korea in 1999.
Jo arrived in Washington on Oct. 9, staying at the venerable Mayflower Hotel, where Sherman went to greet him. The next morning Jo and his delegation began their rounds with a courtesy call on Albright at the State Department. Then, before heading to the White House, Jo engaged in a symbolically freighted act. According to an account published some years later in the Washington Post by the senior State Department Korean language interpreter, Tong Kim, who was present for the occasion: “The marshal arrived in Washington in a well-tailored suit, but before going to the White House, he asked for a room at the State Department, where he changed into his mustard-colored military uniform, with lines of heavy medals hanging on the jacket, and donned an impressive military hat with a thick gold band.” Perhaps it did not occur to anyone at the State Department that North Korea was still a hostile power, a brutal rogue state fielding one of the world’s largest standing armies, and that this donning of the uniform on State premises was not just a convenience, but an implied threat. Or perhaps the zealous hospitality of the occasion just over-rode any thought at all. In any event, it was in his uniform that Jo went from the State Department to the White House.
Following those meetings, Sherman briefed the press. She made a point of mentioning that Jo had worn a business suit to the State Department. but changed into full military uniform for his meeting with the President of the United States. Sherman chose to interpret Jo’s wardrobe change as happy evidence of North Korean diversity under Dear Leader Kim: “We think this is very important for American citizens to know that all segments of North Korea society, obviously led by Chairman Kim Chong-Il in sending this Special Envoy, are working to improve the relationship between the United States and North Korea and this is obviously an important message to the citizens of North Korea as well.”
Actually, there were substantial segments of North Korean society whose chief preoccupation was finding enough food to stay alive, toward the end of a 1990s famine in which an estimated one million or so had died — forbidden by Kim’s totalitarian state to enjoy even a hint of the freedom that had by then allowed their brethren in South Korea to join the developed world. This was known at the time, but did not figure in Sherman’s public remarks.
On the second evening of Jo’s Washington visit, Albright hosted a banquet for him and his delegation at the State Department. She welcomed the “distinguished group” to the “historic meeting,” and invited everyone to relax and get better acquainted. There was laughter and applause. Jo made a toast — a disturbing toast — in which he said there could be “friendship and cooperation and goodwill, if and when the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and our leadership is assured, is given the strong and concrete security assurances from the United States for the state sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
If the State Department’s chief North Korea policy coordinator, Wendy Sherman, noticed a problem with that toast, and its mention of territorial integrity, it seems she did nothing to alert the assembled American dignitaries. The crowd clapped and raised a toast to North Korea’s envoy. It was left to outside observers, such as American Enterprise Institute scholar and North Korea expert Nicholas Eberstadt, to point out, as Eberstadt stressed at an AEI forum in 2008, that North Korea lays claim to the entire Korean peninsula, including South Korea. “Take a look at the maps; take a look at the preamble to the Workers’ Party charter,” said Eberstadt; the real message is, “We can be friends with North Korea if we are willing to subsidize North Korean government behavior and throw South Korea into the bargain too, but that is a pretty high opening bid.”
Jo’s visit ended with a U.S.-D.P.R.K Joint Communique, full of talk about peace, security, transparency and access. There was no missile deal. Kim Jong Il wanted Clinton, leader of the free world, to come parley over missiles in totalitarian, nuclear-cheating Pyongyang. Clinton demurred. In late October, Albright and Sherman went instead. As the clock ticked down on the final weeks of the Clinton administration, Sherman reportedly traveled to Africa with a bag of cold-weather clothes, to be ready in the event of a last-minute summons to North Korea.
In 2001, President Bush was inaugurated. Sherman left the State Department, and soon afterward she wrote an Op-ed for The New York Times, headlined “Talking to the North Koreans.” Sherman noted that “Some are understandably concerned that a summit with President Bush would only legitimize the North Korean leader” — nonetheless, she urged Bush to try it. Bush tried confrontation in 2002 over North Korea’s nuclear cheating, followed by years of Sherman-style Six-Party Talks, including two agreements, in 2005 and 2007, which North Korea punctuated in 2006 with its first nuclear test, and has followed during Obama’s presidency with two more nuclear tests, in 2009 and 2013.
Vice-Marshal Jo died in 2010. Kim Jong Il died in 2011, and was succeeded by his son, current North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, whose regime carried out the 2013 nuclear test, and threatened earlier this year to conduct another. Wendy Sherman rejoined the State Department under Obama, and has moved on from wooing North Korea to the bigger and potentially far deadlier project of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Considerable secrecy has surrounded many specifics of these talks, while Americans have been asked to trust that this is all for their own good. In a talk last month at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sherman said: “As Madeleine Albright once observed — a wonderful Secretary of State, a dear friend, and a business partner to boot at one point in my life — negotiations are like mushrooms, and often they do best in the dark.”
Now, in the Obama administration’s increasingly desperate quest for an Iran deal, comes news that President Obama is proposing to Iran’s Khamenei, ruler of the world’s leading terror-sponsoring state, that Iran and the U.S. cooperate to fight the terrorists of ISIS. This has a familiar ring. Back in 2000, the visit of North Korea’s Vice Marshal Jo to the White House was preceded, shortly beforehand, by a “Joint U.S.-D.P.R.K. Statement on International Terrorism,” in which both the U.S. and North Korea agreed that “international terrorism poses an unacceptable threat to global peace and security.” Apparently this was all part of the negotiating process of finding common ground. What could go wrong? Not that anyone should pin all this on Wendy Sherman, who is just one particularly active cog in the Washington negotiating machine. But there’s a familiar script playing out here. It does not end well.
Iran’s Ideological Camp Fears The Possibility Of A Nuclear Agreement Between Iran And The P5+1, Warns Rohani Government
November 7, 2014(What might Obama and Kerry give the “ideologues” to encourage them to board their ship of State, the BHO Titanic? — DM)
Kayhan: “In Negotiations That Could Take Place In 2024, Iran Will Undoubtedly Come To The Negotiating Table With Tens Of Thousands Of Centrifuges That Are More Advanced Than Those It Has Today”; The Nuclear Mushroom Yields Results Once In A Decade
“Under Section 125 of our constitution, international commitments must be approved by the Majlis. But unfortunately, the Majlis members are not being updated at all in the nuclear negotiations issue… Government actions that disregard Majlis opinion will cause future problems, and will cause [the Majlis] to reject agreements that are against the interest of the people – which will have direct repercussions for the negotiating team.”
Democrats in the White House will try to turn their defeat in the elections to their diplomatic advantage. Obama is like a gambler who has lost everything, and he is sending his representatives to the [negotiating] table with empty pockets…
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Introduction
Both the U.S. administration and Iran’s pragmatic camp were last week preparing public opinion in their respective countries for the possibility that a nuclear agreement will be reached between Iran and the P5+1 by the November 24, 2014 deadline.[1] According to the emerging contours of the agreement, Tehran will apparently be allowed to operate 4,000 to 6,000 first-generation centrifuges,[2] and in return, in a move that will not require Congressional approval, the U.S. administration will suspend American sanctions.
The pragmatic camp in Iran, headed by Hashemi Rafsanjani and his proxy President Hassan Rohani, is pressuring the White House to reach an agreement with Iran right now, and identifying President Obama as “the weakest American president.”[3] At the same time, this camp’s leaders are laying the groundwork for obtaining Iranian approval for an agreement.
On October 22, 2014, President Rohani emphasized the need for engaging and negotiating with the enemy, framing doing so as the lesson that should be taken from the Shi’ite legend of Karbala – in contrast to the interpretation of these events commonly accepted in Iran.[4] On October 27, the pragmatic camp’s main organ, the Jomhouri-ye Eslami daily, called on the ideological camp not to sabotage the emerging agreement, stressed that the agreement was within the red lines set out by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and warned the Khamenei camp that it must not cause Iran to miss this golden opportunity.
Furthermore, on November 2, 2014, two days before the nation marked the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy and capture of its staff in Tehran, which this year coincides with Iran’s Ashura rituals, Ali Khorram, senior advisor to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, told the reformist pro-Rohani newspaper Shargh that U.S.-Iran relations are now no longer hostile, and are even “friendly.” He claimed there had been a change for the better in U.S. policy, that the two countries need not wait for Judgment Day to trust each other, and that the time had come for them to end the hostility between them. He also said that they had common interests in Iraq and Syria, and that the Americans considered the U.S. Embassy takeover an “old wound.”[5]
In contrast, the ideological camp is alarmed at the prospect of an imminent nuclear deal, voicing its apprehensions that the national interests of the regime would be damaged and that there would be a U.S.-Iran rapprochement. On October 28, 2014, the day after Jomhouri-ye Eslami called on the ideological camp to refrain from sabotaging the agreement, Majlis member Ali Reza Zakani urged the Iranian security apparatuses to intervene, and warned the negotiating team that it would bear responsibility for a “bad agreement” that both crossed the regime’s red lines and failed to completely lift the sanctions.
At the same time, the daily Kayhan, which is close to Khamenei, attacked the emerging agreement from two angles: First, the agreement crosses Khamenei’s red lines and fails to immediately lift all anti-Iran sanctions, and second, following the defeat for U.S. President Barack Obama in the November 4 midterm elections, Iran could, in another decade, according to the newspaper, come to a possible negotiating table as a nuclear power with tens of thousands of advanced-generation centrifuges. It urged the negotiating team not only to not be deterred by White House threats that once the newly elected Republicans take office the sanctions will be increased and thus Iran should sign an agreement now, but also that Iran must give the U.S. an ultimatum. The newspaper also warned of plots and of an organized scheme led by “the men of fitna” past and present – hinting at collaboration among pragmatic camp leaders Rafsanjani and Rohani and Green Movement leaders and former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom have been under house arrest for several years for what the regime alleges was their role in the unrest of the 2009 presidential election. He was also hinting at coordination between them and the West, in order to anesthetize the public and Iran’s elites into inaction so that a nuclear agreement could be attained “no matter what the cost.” The paper also warned President Rohani to follow the orders issued by Khamenei on the nuclear negotiations, and even to refrain from talking with the U.S.
The website Afsaran, which is close to security circles, also expressed fears that Iranian negotiating team chief and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – and by allusion his entire camp – is seeking to depose Khamenei by securing a nuclear deal with the U.S.
This paper will review the reaction of Iran’s ideological camp to the possibility of an Iran-P5+1 nuclear agreement:
The Pragmatic Camp: Laying The Groundwork For An Agreement, Urging Ideologues To Accept It
Rohani: From Imam Hussein And The Legend Of Karbala, We Learn We Must Engage And Negotiate
In his October 22, 2014 speech in Zanjan, in northwest Iran, Rohani called on the ideological camp to accept his camp’s policy of engaging the U.S., depicting the legend of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala as a paradigm justifying negotiating with the enemy, rather than its customary interpretation of promoting martydom. He said: “The lesson and message of Imam Hussein is brotherhood, unity, forgiveness, [and] accepting the other’s side’s repentance. The lesson of Karbala is one of constructive engagement and negotiation, as part of the logic and the instructions [of the religion or the leader].”[6]
This statement provoked considerable criticism from the ideological camp, especially from Khamenei’s close associate and the editor of Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari. Shariatmadari accused Rohani of distorting the Karbala legend, stressing that that the only way to follow its example was to hold fast and to resist the oppressive enemies, even at the price of martyrdom in following God’s path.[7]
Jomhouri-ye Eslami: The Agreement’s Opponents Must Not Make Iran Miss This Chance To Resolve The Nuclear Issue
On October 27, 2014, Jomhouri-ye Eslami wrote: “For over a week, there have been positive reports from both within and without [Iran] about the progress in the Iran-P5+1 nuclear negotiations – within Iran, from statements [by officials from] President Rohani himself to the foreign minister and members of the negotiating team, and outside Iran from senior Russian, Chinese, German, French and American officials. All have emphasized the imminence of a comprehensive nuclear agreement signed by November 25…
“While it is true that there may be some changes in the decision before all members of the P5+1 sign the agreement, it is clear – and this must be noted – that there is practically zero disagreement [among the parties]. Thus, in contrast to what is depicted in the Iranian media, all the parties are more optimistic than ever that the agreement will be signed by November 25. Under the agreement, Iran is satisfied with regard to [what is agreed about] the sanctions, the centrifuges, the [uranium] enrichment, and the nuclear facilities; according to some conservative leaders, the agreement is a victory for Iran…
“Those within [Iran] who oppose the nuclear agreement must be aware of reality – this opportunity to resolve the issue must not be missed. This is because the agreement was drafted within the framework of [Iran’s] national interests and is within the red lines that were set out; also, as senior members of the negotiating team and President Rohani himself have emphasized several times, Iran will not back down one single inch from its [nuclear] right. Additionally, the entire Iranian nation desires to reach an agreement that [both] includes the nation’s right and conclusively resolves the nuclear issue. Therefore, everyone must work for the success of the negotiating team and must refrain from taking measures and from [disseminating] propaganda that will cause problems on this path.[8]
In Ideological Camp, Great Fear Of The Emerging Agreement
Majlis Member Zakani: The Agreement Crosses The Regime’s Red Lines; I Am Asking The Security Apparatuses To Act; The Negotiating Team Will Be Held Responsible
In an October 28, 2014 Majlis speech, Majlis member Ali Reza Zakani warned: “News is coming in that an agreement has been reached between Iran and America. According to this information, red lines set out by the Islamic regime are crossed in it. I hereby warn the foreign minister on the issue of the nuclear boundaries [i.e. red lines]…
“The silence of the country’s diplomatic apparatus in the face of the babbling of the American negotiation representative [Wendy Sherman] – [babbling that] constitutes a reiteration of their exaggerated declarations – is leading to impudence, greed, and nonsensical statements on the part of ‘the Great Satan,’ America.
“I see the campaign promoted by those connected to the nuclear dossier [i.e. Foreign Minister Zarif] that is called ‘any bad agreement is preferable to none at all’ as a humiliation, and I vigorously condemn it. I am asking the security apparatuses to clarify to the Iranian nation what is behind this.
“The news coming in attests that the red lines set out by the Islamic regime have been crossed in the agreement; this will undoubtedly lead to the loss of the Iranian nation’s rights and to the trampling of its nuclear achievements. Accepting the oppressive demands of the American side regarding cutbacks in our [uranium] enrichment, transforming the very essence of parts of our nuclear industry, in return for the lifting of a small part of the sanctions, is unacceptable to the Iranian nation, and will harm the national interests and the interests of the Islamic Revolution.
“Under Section 125 of our constitution, international commitments must be approved by the Majlis. But unfortunately, the Majlis members are not being updated at all in the nuclear negotiations issue… Government actions that disregard Majlis opinion will cause future problems, and will cause [the Majlis] to reject agreements that are against the interest of the people – which will have direct repercussions for the negotiating team.”[9]
November 2, 2014 on Tasnimnews.com, which is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC): “Kerry’s Greedy Declarations.” U.S. Secretary of State Kerry the eagle, who is sharpening his talons against the backdrop of an Israeli flag, says: “I am optimistic with regard to the nuclear agreement with Iran.”
Kayhan: “In Negotiations That Could Take Place In 2024, Iran Will Undoubtedly Come To The Negotiating Table With Tens Of Thousands Of Centrifuges That Are More Advanced Than Those It Has Today”; The Nuclear Mushroom Yields Results Once In A Decade
On November 6, 2014, two days after the Republicans swept the U.S. midterm elections, Kayhan wrote: “Obama is now at his lowest point of popularity since he was elected… At the last nuclear negotiating venue [in Oman, at the level of Foreign Minister Zarif, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, and EU High Representative on Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton, November 9-10, 2014], the Democrats in the White House will try to turn their defeat in the elections to their diplomatic advantage. Obama is like a gambler who has lost everything, and he is sending his representatives to the [negotiating] table with empty pockets… Apparently, the White House emissaries will recommend to the Iranian team to sign the nuclear agreement as soon as possible, since if they do not, Congress will enter the arena with a stick, threats, and sanctions…
“The [negotiating] venue in Oman must be the place where the [Iranian team] gives the Americans a final ultimatum, instead of listening to their boasts… Recently, American negotiating team leader Wendy Sherman quoted former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright as saying that negotiations are ‘like a mushroom that grows best in the dark.’ Soon the result of the[se] negotiations, which have been conducted in the dark for over a year, will become clear.
“The last time that Western [officials] tried to feed Iran this poison mushroom and to force it to submit to the American greed was a decade ago. Undoubtedly, the 2014 mushroom will contain poison that was concocted in 2003. This is because at that point in the negotiations [i.e. in 2003], Iran was operating very few centrifuges, while today it has some 20,000 centrifuges. The Americans need to know that in the most optimal situation [for them], the nuclear mushroom yields results once in a decade… In negotiations that could take place in 2024, Iran will undoubtedly come to the negotiating table with tens of thousands of centrifuges that are more advanced than those it has today.”[10]
Kayhan: Rafsanjani And Rohani Are Bringing Up Various Issues To Distract The Elites From The Upcoming Agreement
On October 28, 2014, Kayhan wrote: “In the Geneva agreements, we put on the table [i.e. we were forced to give up] the product of three years of [uranium] enrichment to 20%, and [agreed to accept] a freeze on activity at the Fordow [enrichment facility] and a halt to the operations to complete the Arak [heavy water] facility, in return for the release of some $7 billion in Iranian funds…
“During the four-month extension [of the Geneva document] we expanded this give-and-take – and now America covets another part of Iran’s assets, saying ‘close Fordow or turn it into a research center; cut back your reserves of enriched [material] to 3.5%, to a quantity that we will tell [you], and remove [it] from Iran; [and] shut down 5,400 of your9,400 operating centrifuges, etc., etc. In return, we will examine your intentions for a period of seven to 20 years, [so that we can ascertain] whether or not we can trust you, or for example, [in return for] our promise not to impose new sanctions.’ This is truly a win-win game and constructive engagement [a jibe at President Rohani].
“The question is, to what point and from what assets does the government intend to pay for this extension of the negotiations and the incremental freeze [on Iran’s nuclear activity]?… When [Iran’s] nuclear technology peaked, Rafsanjani, Rohani, and even [Mir Hossein] Mousavi, and others, saw themselves as major shareholders in this progress. However when the [P5+1] began to impose its impediments, a green light was given for [Iranian] concessions based on a freeze on a small or large part of the [nuclear] program. Rafsanjani even announced his satisfaction with the Geneva negotiations, [saying], ‘Thanks to the negotiations, the taboo [on engagement] with America has been broken.’
“The negotiations apparently had two objectives: The first was to preserve the nuclear program, from the standpoint of [Iran’s right to] enrich [uranium]; the second was to get the sanctions lifted. If some political figures do not attach the requisite importance to the first, they undoubtedly need to explain the second. Therefore, [they must be asked] why not a single sanction was lifted after [Iran] made all these concessions [in the negotiations] – but the sanctions were only made harsher?…
“The acceptance of the West’s demands is the same mistake in judgment that has repeatedly led to an impasse, to the squandering [of Iran’s] strategic assets, [and] to defaming and labelling the critics [of the government] who support [the regime] in an effort to render them passive. The storm surrounding the law to preserve the hijab and modesty, the support for the modesty police, the accusations that the Majlis removed the science minister due to the scholarships scandal[11]… the exploitation of the crime of the acid attacks [against women in Isfahan by claiming that the ideological camp was behind them] – all these are taken from the script and from the organized attempt by the men of fitna and their supporters outside [Iran], with the aim of stirring up marginal scandals within Iran so that [the main issues] are ignored.
“The West sees that Iran’s irreplaceable role has redrawn the map of western Asia and the Middle East, [adding] the qualities of resistance and Islamic awakening in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen,l and Bahrain, [and says] ‘Iran must be stopped from playing this role.’
“The men of fitna and the bankrupt extremists… believe that the only way to rebuild their organizations is by dealing with marginal issues and [news-grabbing] explosions that make a huge splash. A group of them… is operating based on a plan given to them, and their media and statesmen are moving ahead in coordination with the Western scheme.
“This hypocritical combination stands out clearly in the government [of Rohani] – revolutionary national enthusiasm [combined with] whispers aimed at trapping critics of the government into dealing with marginal issues to render them passive… to the point where neither the elites nor the people will ask why the negotiations are at an impasse, so that in the atmosphere of passivity and obliviousness it will be possible to reach an agreement, no matter what the cost. [Therefore], by the time the elites and the people wake up and ask what happened, what we gave, and what we got, it will be all over [that is, the deal will be signed]. Most statesmen oppose this harmful approach.
“The government and the president have already learned from the experience acquired in their 14 months in office. They are now at a point of evaluation and course correction. It is always beneficial to prevent damage and dangerous conduct. The leader [Khamenei]… said that the American regime, which stands with Israel, is the exception to Iran’s foreign policy of engagement. The accuracy of his declaration [that we cannot talk to either the U.S. or Israel] was revealed to all over time. Obeying this instruction is the path that will benefit the government and bring it honor. Otherwise, [the Rohani government] will owe a debt to the arrogant ones outside [Iran] and to the seekers of fitna within [Iran], who are skilled in this matter; in this way [i.e. if it talks to the U.S., Iran] will gain no victory and no prestige…”[12]
Website Affiliated With Ideological Camp: The Pragmatists Are Trying To Remove Khamenei
On October 29, 2014, Afsaran.ir, which is close to Iranian security circles, published an article titled “What Is The Real Objective Of The Line Of Obliviousness [i.e. the pragmatic camp] – Taking The Majlis Or Replacing The Supreme Leader?” The article hinted that Foreign Minister Zarif is party to a Western plot to depose Khamenei, using the pragmatic camp’s strategy for dealing with the Americans, saying that if no agreement is reached, then the ideological stream that opposes rapprochement with the West will seize key political positions in Iran.[13]
The article stated: “Although America’s hostility towards the leader of the revolution [Khamenei] is nothing new, and they have acknowledged this a number of times… the [Americans’] attacks [against Iran] since the New York negotiations… [including] Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s interview on the Voice of America in Persian and [Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s] entreaties before America’s Council of Foreign Relations have colored it a different hue. Besides the abovementioned incidents, [the Iranian-American academic] Vali Nasr and other American senior officials and influential figures have mentioned Iranian leader Khamenei as the main reason why no agreement has been reached, going so far as to consider replacing him.
“Nasr said: In December 2015, elections will be held in Iran for the Iranian Assembly of Experts, which will appoint Iran’s next leader. He also said: The next [Assembly of Experts] election can change the political direction in Iran.’
“Therefore, it must be asked: Who are the people [in Iran] who directed the policymakers of the enemy [i.e. the U.S.] towards supporting this strategy of deposing the leader Khamenei during direct negotiations with America?
“After consulting with which Iranians does America now consider the nuclear negotiations as an obstacle to its realization of its objectives, and as fertile ground for changing the course of the [Islamic] Revolution [i.e. the regime]?
“In all honesty, is the foreign minister really aiming, in his request to the American Congress to cooperate with the line of obliviousness [i.e. the pragmatic camp], to [obtain American] help so that they [i.e. the pragmatic camp] can win the Majlis elections? Or is he, like Nasr, really referring to a change in the makeup of the Iranian Assembly of Experts [so that it will remove or replace Khamenei]?
“Maybe some within Iran are not yet speaking as frankly as Nasr.”[14]
Basij Posts Signs In Iranian Cities Saying ‘Know The Shimr Of Our Time’
Also, the Basij has recently posted signs in Tehran and Shiraz stating, “Know The Shimr [who in Shi’ite legend murdered Imam Hussein] Of Our Time”; the signs clearly depict President Obama and the dome of the U.S. Capitol.[15]
Endnotes:
[1] See October 23, 2014 statement by U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, State.gov/p/us/rm/2014/233306.htm.
[2] Most reports refer to 4,000; however, two Iranian sources have referred to at least 6,000. Majlis Nuclear Committee head Ebrahim Karkhanehi reported that P5+1 had agreed to approve the operation of 6,000 to 9,000 centrifuges. Tasnim, Iran, November 2, 2014.
[3] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1127, Iran’s Pragmatic Camp Calls For Exploiting Obama’s Weakness To Attain Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement On Tehran’s Terms, October 26, 2014.
[4] The Shi’ite legend of Karbala underpins Iranian culture, particularly political culture, in post-Islamic Revolution Iran; it tells of the first Shi’ite martyr, Imam Hussein Ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet, at Karbala in 680 CE, after he demanded power and refused to accept the authority of Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah.
[5] Shargh (Iran), November 2, 2014. An anonymous party familiar with dealings in the Foreign Ministry told Tabnak in an interview that Khorram is not an advisor to Foreign Minister Zarif, and that his views do not represent the negotiating team or the foreign ministry. Tabnak, Iran, November 4, 2014.
[6] President.ir, October 22, 2014.
[7] Kayhan (Iran), October 23, 2014.
[8] Jomhouri-ye Eslami, (Iran), October 27, 2014.
[9] Tasnim (Iran), October 28, 2014.
[10] Kayhan (Iran), November 6, 2014.
[11] Recently, the ideological camp succeeded in removing Rohani’s science minister for having a record as a reformist.
[12] Kayhan (Iran), October 28, 2014.
[13] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1127, Iran’s Pragmatic Camp Calls For Exploiting Obama’s Weakness To Attain Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement On Tehran’s Terms, October 26, 2014.
[14] Afsaran.ir, October 29, 2014.
[15] IRNA (Iran) November 2, 2014; Tasnim, October 30, 2014.
Is Ahmadinejad making a comeback?
November 7, 2014Is Ahmadinejad making a comeback? Al-Monitor, Arash Azizi, November 5, 2014
(Since it now appears that a nuke deal may well be signed by the November 24th deadline — well before the new U.S. Republican Congress takes over in January — what difference does it make now? In any event, with the Supreme Leader in charge regardless of whether Iran’s President is a “moderate” or an “extremist,” what difference does it make, ever? Even a “good” deal can and will be violated with impunity. — DM)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) meets with Iraqi Vice President Khudair al-Khuzaie (not seen) during a visit in Baghdad when Ahmadinejad was still president of Iran, July 18, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Hadi Mizban)
The media activities and meetings of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signal that he is keeping his name before the public and trying to forge new alliances for his political comeback.
A three-story building in a quiet one-way alley in northern Tehran is the headquarters of an unlikely campaign that opposes both the administration of President Hassan Rouhani and many of the Islamic Republic’s establishment figures.
The Velenjak building is the base of activities for former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has his offices on its third floor.
Ahmadinejad has been relatively quiet since the ascendance of the moderate Rouhani, but the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) is only one of many outlets that have reported on his desire to make a comeback.
According to Amir Mohebbian, a leading political analyst, Ahmadinejad’s attempt to return to power is obvious as he “quietly awaits favorable conditions and occasionally tests the waters.”
The provincial trips that the former hard-line president makes are one indication.
In addition to making many trips to southern and northern Iran, Ahmadinejad celebrated the end of Ramadan by visiting Taleqan with the family members of four celebrated Iran-Iraq war “martyrs” in a trip that, according to ILNA, was coordinated by the Quds Force, the formidable international arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
In April, Ahmadinejad ruled out a return to politics but many of his supporters beg to differ.
They are tirelessly organizing and insist on his return. These are an unlikely bunch. Their young cadre runs many blogs and social media accounts. They draw controversy by their occasionally unconventional mixing of Islamism with an anti-wealthy and anti-establishment discourse, and many have spent time in jail for their activities. Their targets are not only the Reformists but many of the traditional conservatives.
Take Ahmad Shariat, who heads the Internet committee of an Ahmadinejad organization. In his blog, he attacked the policy of backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, called for a boycott of the last Majles elections in 2012 (because many Ahmadinejad forces were barred), attacked establishment religious figures such as Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and, finally, dared to criticize Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself (the latter, in early 2013, led to the closing of Shariat’s blog and his arrest).
These supporters leave no doubt as to their allegiance to the ex-president. One name they go by is “Homa,” a Persian acronym for “Supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” An online newspaper with the same name (Homa Daily) opened last week on the occasion of Ahmadinejad’s 58th birthday. (“Square 72” is another outlet, named after Ahmadinejad’s neighborhood in northeastern Tehran).
Abdolreza Davari — who was a vice-president of IRNA, the national news agency for the administration under Ahmadinejad — is a leading organizer of Homa. A controversial figure who was fired from a teaching post for “political activities,” Davari was reported by ILNA as one of the top three media campaigners attempting an Ahmadinejad comeback.
“As an Iranian, I hope for the return of Mr. Ahmadinejad to politics,” Davari told Al-Monitor, before adding that he thinks the ex-president is currently focused on “scientific” activities.
To my question about the regular meetings of Homa in the Velenjak building, Davari says that such meetings are not organized but that “all kinds of people, commentators, students or ordinary people come to meet and talk to Dr. Ahmadinejad.”
Davari also denies that Homa is attempting to organize for next year’s Majles elections. Ahmadinejad’s return to power needs no less than “changes in the current relation of forces,” Davari says, seeming to imply that many of the establishment figures wouldn’t want the ex-president back. Many such figures are especially opposed to Ahmadinejad’s entourage.
Enter Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, who was openly rebuked by Khamenei for his maverick mixing of Shiite millennialism, Persian nationalism and leftist language. Despite Khamenei’s personal rejection and the sustained attacks of many who accused Mashaei of leading a “deviationist current,” the ex-president has continued backing his close friend (whose daughter married Ahmadinejad’s eldest son) even after the Guardian Council rejected Mashaei’s candidacy in last year’s presidential elections.
Mashaei’s offices are on the second level of the Velenjak building, and he is known to take part in Homa meetings.
Homa Daily ran Mashaei’s picture in the first page of its first issue, while reprinting his most controversial interview, where he had defended the necessity of “friendship with the Israeli people” — an interview personally criticized and attacked by Khamenei.
Davari says Mashaei doesn’t want to return to politics due to his “cultural and spiritual sentiment.” Taking a note from Mashaei’s book, he says Ahmadinejad’s concept of the Islamic Revolution and his belief in the coming of the hidden Imam is not “meant for a specific geography or religion as the hidden Imam’s global message is aimed at all nations and groups.”
“Freedom-loving and justice-seeking fighters” like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Djamila Boupacha, Bobby Sands, Hassan Nasrallah and Hugo Chavez belong to the same global front as Ahmadinejad, Davari insists.
Acolytes of Mashaei seem to have especially targeted Iran’s nuclear negotiations. A group called the “the National Movement for Iran’s Independence” (NAMA, for its Persian acronym) was formed with the declared goal of fighting any compromise with the West. Its unusual name (not mentioning Islam) has the Mashaie imprint.
Mashaei’s presence has always driven away many of Ahmadinejad’s backers. One of them is Mohammadreza Etemadian, a trade adviser to the ex-president. Etemadian told Al-Monitor that he would like to see Ahmadinejad back, but he has always told him to keep Mashaei away since “he is not on good terms with the supreme leader and is a deviant.”
Etemadian is a leading member of the Islamic Coalition Party, the traditional organization of Bazari Islamists and an important part of the establishment. Its leaders seem to detest the populist excesses of Ahmadinejad.
Sensing this, the ever-adventurous Ahmadinejad has been trying to find new allies, even if among the Reformists. He met with Hassan Khomeini, the 40-year-old grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, known for his proximity to the Reformists. The ex-president boldly asked Khomeini to lead a group of young clerics to contest the next year’s election of the Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses the supreme leader.
He has also reportedly tried to meet the Reformist ex-President Mohammad Khatami and Ambassador Sadeq Kharazi, an influential diplomat from a key political family.
Meanwhile, it was reported that Gholam-Hossein Elham, the spokesman of Ahmadinejad’s government, has started campaigning for the ex-president and last week met with the governors-generals of the previous government to organize. Elham, however, spoke with the pro-Ahmadinejad “Square 72” website to deny this news.
Unceremoniously bowing out after the disqualification of the candidate he supported in the 2013 presidential elections, Ahmadinejad seems to be busy plotting a comeback.
Our enemies are on the ballot today as well and remember, they have a vote.
November 4, 2014Our enemies are on the ballot today as well and remember, they have a vote. LTC Allen B. West (U.S. Army, ret.), November 4, 2014
(Not even the force of Obama’s character, honed during his time as a community organizer, is degrading or destroying the Islamic State. Is he is the one for whom IS had been waiting?– DM)
[T[his is what happens when you have a cast of amateurs masquerading as national security experts or advisors — such as Susan Rice, Dan Pfeiffer or Ben Rhoades. This is what happens when you have a truly inept Secretary of Defense in Chuck Hagel, and a lack of trust and belief in the combined experience of the senior U.S. military generals. And all comes back to the desk of Valerie Jarrett.
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Today is the critical 2014 midterm Election Day and I won’t beleaguer you with many posts today, but here’s something about which we need be aware.
As President Obama touted, his policies are on the ballot today – but I haven’t heard any candidates or incumbents discussing his foreign policies at length.
Obama’s solution to the ISIS crisis was to arm the Free Syrian Army — we have written often about how that is a flawed strategy. As former Commandant of the Marine Corps General James T. Conway stated, it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding — and it only took three months, from August 8th, for that prediction to come to fruition.
As reported by the UK Guardian, “The U.S. plan to rally proxy ground forces to complement its air strikes against ISIS militants in Syria is in tatters after jihadis ousted Washington’s main ally from its stronghold in the north over the weekend. The attack on the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) by the al-Qaida-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra came after weeks of clashes between the two groups around the city of Idlib, which has remained one of the last bastions of regime control in northern Syria throughout the civil war. Militants overran the command center of the SRF’s leader, Jamal Maarouf, in Deir Sonbol in a humiliating rout that came as U.S. and Arab air forces continued to attack ISIS in the Kurdish town of Kobani, 300 miles east, in an effort to prevent the town from falling.”
This represents the utter failure of strategy based on rhetoric, rather than the implementation of a sound strategy. Barack Hussein Obama truly believed that talk is the best means to evade a crisis — not realizing that the enemy has a vote.
We have never launched a full-scale air campaign against ISIS aimed to degrade and destroy the Islamic terrorist enemy. We continue to witness ISIS operating on multiple fronts conducting offensive operations — something we discussed here – and their main effort versus supporting efforts.
The Guardian says, “the defeat of Maarouf is a serious blow to the U.S. strategy of building a proxy coalition against Isis. It comes amid a groundswell of anger at the U.S. strikes across the opposition-held north, which have done nothing to slow the intensity of attacks from Bashar al-Assad’s air force, especially in Aleppo. “We thought the Americans were going to help us,” said an SRF spokesman. “But not only have they abandoned us, they have been helping the tyrant Bashar instead. We will move past this betrayal and get back to Jebel al-Zawiya [the group’s heartland], but it is going to take some time.”
So much for that faux alliance and promise from Obama.
According to the Guardian, “a survivor from one of the Syrian bombed refugee camps, Haithem Ahmed, who fled with his family to Turkey, said the Syrian regime had been emboldened by the U.S. attacks on a common enemy and was acting with increasing impunity. “It is obvious that the U.S. is supporting Assad,” he said. “Don’t bother trying to argue with me or anyone else about it. They are aiding the war against us. Their leaders are weak and they are liars.”
In addition, we failed to realize that the forces of Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS have bonded in an alliance — something we also reported on here. The al-Nusra front, which was supposed to be fighting against the Assad regime, decided to turn against the Free Syria Army forces, the SRF, to take away any ground options of Obama.
So Obama’s intent of outsourcing to the FSA is truly a non-viable option – as a matter of fact, it’s the option that has been degraded and destroyed. Obama’s decision not to attack ISIS but rather just support the free Syrian elements to defend their territories has been a disaster.
Confusion abounds in the Obama administration, as the Guardian reports “the U.S. defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, is reported to have warned national security adviser Susan Rice of a blowback among opposition communities in northern Syria because U.S. strategy against Assad has not been clearly defined.”
Ladies and gents, this is what happens when you have a cast of amateurs masquerading as national security experts or advisors — such as Susan Rice, Dan Pfeiffer or Ben Rhoades. This is what happens when you have a truly inept Secretary of Defense in Chuck Hagel, and a lack of trust and belief in the combined experience of the senior U.S. military generals. And all comes back to the desk of Valerie Jarrett.
But if the events in Syria are disturbing, “In Iraq, Isis has reportedly killed over 230 members of a tribe in western Anbar province in the last ten days, including dozens of women and children. The killings were some of the worst bloodshed in the country since the militants swept through northern Iraq in June.”
In this midterm election we need to realize we have no national security strategy whatsoever — not in the Middle East, not towards Iran, not towards Russia, and certainly not towards China. ISIS and Islamo-fascists are just handing the Obama administration its collective arse and embarrassing it at every turn.
The sad result is that more men, women and children are being slaughtered and sold off into slavery — yes, in the 21st century. Perhaps someone out in Colorado could tell Senator Mark Udall there’s a real “War on Women” going on — not that made up political stuff. But hopefully after tonight, it will be a moot point as far as he’s concerned.
There is much at stake in the Middle East and a lack of a determined strategic vision and resolute commitment is evident to both “allies” and foes. ISIS and the Islamists have a vision, a strategy, and developing alliances and growing recruiting numbers. This is a war of ideologies, but we have a president who refuses to acknowledge that premise — perhaps because he supports the Islamist ideology.
The Guardian says, “Kobani has become a defining struggle between ISIS and the U.S., as much as it is between the jihadis and the Kurds who, with U.S. help, beat back an advance on Irbil in August. If ISIS was able to take Kobani it could boast a significant victory. A victory over the secular Kurds would help advance its hardline interpretation of Islam, which has seen it rule areas it controls along strict medieval precepts that are rooted in an uncompromising understanding of Islamic teachings.”
The ideology must be defeated foremost. The enemy must then be destroyed in detail. The failed policy of doing neither is on the ballot today.
It is a time for choosing.
Who is the Real Chickenshit?
November 4, 2014Who is the Real Chickenshit? Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, November 4, 2014
(Are attempts to spawn a new Islamic Caliphate more grounded in fantasy than Obama-Kerry perceptions of the Islamic State, grounded in their ill-formed perceptions of fact and ideology? Or less? — DM)
Judging by their actions, most Arab leaders do not want to create yet another terrorist Islamist state, dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and to toppling their regimes. We do want a Palestinian state, but please, only one that will provide responsible governance.
According to the “Arab street,” it is the Americans and Europeans who are cowards, afraid to take significant steps against Iran, and terrified of the Islamic ghettoes in their cities, which have been exporting terrorists to fight for the Islamic State, and providing housing to the seasoned fighters who return.
To Arabs, the ultimate irony is that America is paying Qatar to have its airbase there, while Qatar is paying terrorists to kill Americans.
When John Kerry claimed it was the unresolved Palestinian issue that caused a ripple effect that crated ISIS, he simply inspired the Palestinians to use Al-Aqsa mosque as a religious trigger for future bloodshed.
There is a civil war currently under way between radical Islam — motivated by imperialist fantasies of restoring the Islamic Caliphate — and the more moderate secular Muslim regimes that are seeking the path to modernization and progress.
At the same time, Sunni Islam is in the midst of an increasingly violent crisis in its dealings with Shi’ite Iran, which looks as if it is about to be granted nuclear weapons capability, and which for decades quietly has been eyeing neighboring Arab oil fields.
Into the middle of this explosive disarray, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his supporters have thrown the accusation that it was actually Israel’s so-called refusal to reach a peace agreement that was responsible for the ripple effect that led to the creation of ISIS. This incorrect diagnosis of the situation merely postpones the West’s efforts to find a real, workable solution for the Palestinian issue.
Does Kerry really blame Israel for ISIS? Above, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 23, 2014. (Image source: U.S. State Department)
It is easy for the leaders of the Arab world to latch onto Kerry’s accusation and use it justify their weakness and unwillingness to enter into a direct battle against terrorism; to let America do the dirty work, and conveniently to relieve the Arab world of having to recognize Israel and establish a Palestinian state.
They would also be able to avoid dealing with Israel’s demand for the Palestinian territories to be disarmed and the Palestinians’ demands for concessions from Israel.
Judging by their actions, most Arab leaders have no desire to see the Palestinian issue resolved. They seem to prefer preserving the status quo. They blame Israel for refusing to make concessions to the Palestinians and hope that this refusal will weaken Israel, even though Israel is their strategic defense against Iran.
Most Arab leaders do not want to create what is bound soon to become yet another terrorist Islamist state, dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and to toppling their regimes. The Arab leaders already have to contend with ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Al-Nusra Front in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, which are enough for them, to say nothing of Africa from Nigeria to Somalia and everything in between.
But if Israel can be blamed for another of world’s ills, with Kerry’s blessing, why waste the opportunity?
When Jordan’s King Abdullah called the current Islamic civil war a cry of distress, he was not speaking randomly. There is a genuine problem.
No examples are better than Turkey, Qatar and Iran. Turkey, led by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hosts Hamas’s overseas command center; is supported by Qatar and would apparently like to take control of more Sunni territory by subverting the Sunni Arab monarchies. Such a move would enable Erdogan to realize his outspoken dream of recreating an Ottoman Empire and Caliphate.
Turkey and Qatar, its partner in plotting the return of the Caliphate, have left their fingerprints on most of the terrorist attacks and catastrophes currently visited upon the Middle East, especially in the fields of subversion, incitement to terrorism, and the arming and training of terrorists.
The Middle Eastern Sunni Islamist terrorist organizations, meanwhile, are being incited and indoctrinated by Al-Jazeera TV, a Muslim Brotherhood megaphone that belongs to Qatar’s ruling al-Thani family. It was Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel that created the “Arab Spring” by taking the story of a fruit-seller who merely wanted a permit, and whipping it up, non-stop, until it grew into a revolution that brought down Tunisia’s government.
The Middle East’s terrorist gangs are now armed and trained with funding from Qatar. Recently, in yet another savored irony, Turkey agreed to help train Syrian rebels and allow the U.S. to use its military bases — but for Turkey, the plan is probably to bring down Syria’s non-Sunni President, Bashar Al-Assad, and not, as the U.S. might imagine, to bring down ISIS.
In the past, Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia joined in training Islamic terrorist cadres, but currently, as the Arab proverb goes, “The magic spell boomeranged,” and Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have to defend themselves from the very groups they helped create.
Terrorist organizations are now generously funded by Qatar and NATO-member Turkey, which inspire them to attack the regimes of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, and various regimes in the Persian Gulf and Africa. Of course, they are all also inspired to attack Israel, as Hamas has done.
Turkey and Qatar are also exploiting the naiveté of the Western world, encouraging ISIS operatives to make preparations to attack Europe and the United States. Preachers of “political Islam” incite susceptible Islamic youths in the West and prepare them for a terrorist campaign. They use the West’s political correctness, free speech and support for “pluralism,” all the while insisting they are not preaching terrorism.
Turkey and Qatar, along with Iran — which does its utmost to export the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution throughout both North and South America, as well as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — are aided by a mechanism known as the da’wah, or “outreach,” Da’wah, technically the preaching of Islam, is used by political Islam for indoctrinating, enlisting and handling Islamist terrorists worldwide. Perfected for terrorist purposes by the Muslim Brotherhood, its mouthpiece is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who, like Hamas’s leader, Khaled Mashaal, is based in Qatar.
While Iran’s rivals, the Sunni states, conduct their civil wars, Iran only becomes stronger. Not only is it turning itself into a nuclear power, it is also strengthening all its outposts in the Middle East and around the world. It supports the Shi’ite regime in Iraq against ISIS; it arms and funds the Houthis in Yemen and the Hezbollah in Lebanon; and it supports the Syrian Alawite regime against its Sunni opponents.
When it comes to terrorism, Iran does not draw partisan lines. It also supports the Sunni groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both of which seek to destroy Israel and attack the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula.
In response to the colossal threat of radical Islam, the whimpering voice of the West can barely be heard. The U.S. administration targeted Israel for condemnation. A “senior official,” most likely the current White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, called Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit,” for being afraid to make peace with the Palestinians.
According to the “Arab street,” including the Palestinian street, it is the Americans and Europeans who are cowards, afraid to take significant steps against Iran, and terrified of the Islamic ghettoes in their cities, which have been exporting terrorists to fight for the Islamic State, and providing housing to the seasoned fighters who return.
The Sunni states under Shi’ite threat cannot even reach an agreement among themselves about what is to be done; and the Palestinians, in their folly, have chosen the worst possible moment to ignite violence in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque. The Palestinians seem not to understand that the Arab regimes that might support them are currently busy fighting for their own survival, and have no desire to fall prey to Palestinian provocations about what they realize all too well are fictional threats to Jerusalem.
Given the current situation, Turkey’s regional political actions are dangerous, underhanded and hypocritical. To achieve their ends, Turkey’s leaders seem to have no qualms about sacrificing their minorities, such as Christians and the Kurds (most of whom are Sunni). Turkey’s leaders were the first to cry “humanitarian crisis” when Israel imposed a closure on the Gaza Strip to prevent Iran from sending Hamas arms. Turkey sent the Mavi Marmara flotilla to protect the Gazans, who were never in any danger in the first place. Turkey’s leaders then weakened Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who, at least at that time, showed himself willing to reach a peace agreement with the Israelis. But when Syria’s Kurds are being killed in Kobani on a daily basis, the Turks are silent, perhaps secretly comfortable seeing a group that wants a state of its own apart from Turkey, being attacked.
Thus, when John Kerry claimed that it was the unresolved Palestinian issue that caused a ripple effect that created ISIS, he simply inspired the Palestinians to use Al-Aqsa mosque as a religious trigger for future bloodshed. The idea is not new; it was used in 1929 by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and led to anti-Jewish riots and the massacre of the Jews in Hebron. It was used again by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in 2000, to incite the Palestinians to the second intifada, which killed untold numbers of Jews and Arabs. Today, Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal are doing the same thing to incite a jihad that this time will truly be religious and not based on real estate.
The more Kerry accuses Israel of having had a hand in creating ISIS, the more the Palestinians will use Al-Aqsa mosque to stir the fire burning under the bubbling cauldron of the Middle East.
The Palestinians’ religious incitement campaign is currently being waged primarily by Mahmoud Abbas, the man who stood in front of the UN and accused Israel of fomenting a religious war. This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who calls on Palestinians to use every means available to fight Israel, while at the same time denying that he is doing so.
Meanwhile, Qatar lurks in the background, instructing Al-Jazeera TV to incite the Palestinians against Israel, Egypt and Jordan, and encouraging terrorist attacks that lead only to justified Israeli reprisals.
Qatar’s royal family hides behind the security of having a major U.S. airbase on its soil, while supporting Hamas, the Islamic Movement in Israel and the terrorist organizations in the Sinai Peninsula. To Arabs, the ultimate irony is that Americans are paying Qatar to have an airbase there, while Qatar is paying terrorists to kill Americans.
Qatar also still finds time nonsensically to accuse the wakf in Jordan, responsible for Al-Aqsa mosque, of collaborating with Israel to eradicate all signs of Muslim presence on the Temple Mount. Qatar’s only plan with that at the moment, however, is to cause riots in Jordan to oust Jordan’s king.
Inspired by Western accusations against Israel and the West’s enthusiastic recognition of a Palestinian state — without requiring the direct negotiations with Israel, as obligated by international treaties — the Palestinian leadership has become more radicalized.
Mahmoud Abbas has gone so far as to abandon his pretense of moderation: if the Israelis can be accused of creating the ISIS with no mention made of the culpability of Hamas, whose ideology is the same as ISIS’s, Mahmoud Abbas has been freed of any commitment to peace and can actively pursue the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.
In addition, witnessing Russia’s abrogation of its 1994 Budapest Memorandum with the Ukraine, with virtually no adverse consequences, must have seemed a precedent too tempting to ignore. Thus, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas do truly speak with one voice, but it is the voice of Hamas.
Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’s political bureau, called on all the Palestinians to take up arms to defend Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The mosque, he said, justifies jihad and the sacrificing of shaheeds [martyrs] to liberate it, and, as in the Hamas charter, that “resistance” is the only solution for the problems of the Palestinian people.
Mashaal was echoed by Mahmoud Abbas at the 14th Fatah conference. Abbas said that under no condition were Jews to be allowed into Al-Aqsa mosque or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, because any Jewish presence would defile them. On whose authority did he take possession of the Christian holy sites? A short time earlier, Abbas had even claimed that he had no intention of inciting a third intifada against Israel.
Somehow, John Kerry has managed to link to Israel the Shi’ite-Sunni civil wars, radical Islam’s Muslim Brotherhood-inspired global plot and the creation of ISIS. Then he linked the failure of the Palestinian issue to have been resolved to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The unpopular and inconvenient truth is: if there is to be peace, Hamas has to be disarmed, the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip have to be demilitarized, Mahmoud Abbas has to recognize the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jews, and Netanyahu has to recognize the Palestinians state. Israel will then compensate the Palestinians with land in return for the land on which the three large blocks of settlements stand, as has already been agreed.
It is not Israel but the Palestinians who are trying to avoid negotiating a final agreement. They see themselves, with the backing of the UN and Secretary Kerry — and in a final breakdown of any trust in future international agreements — as able to achieve their desired result without having to make any concessions.
People who repeat infamies, as Kerry has done, not only encourage radicalism, they are just delaying the establishment of a Palestinian state. We do want a Palestinian state, but please only one that will provide responsible governance.
Is There a Tacit Obama-Iran Alliance?
November 2, 2014Is There a Tacit Obama-Iran Alliance? Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, November 2, 2014
[T]his administration isn’t interested in an accommodation with Israel on key issues. Rather it seeks to crush Israel’s efforts to resist détente with Iran as well as to muscle it on the peace process with the Palestinians even though the latter have frustrated the administration by steadfastly refusing to make peace on even the most favorable of terms on a diplomatic playing field tilted in their direction by the White House.
Having thrown away its previous positions on stopping Iran’s nuclear enrichment or dismantling its nuclear program (as President Obama vowed in his foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney in 2012), it will clear[ly] stop at nothing to get a deal if one is to be had.
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One of the most important sidebars to the furor over the decision of two “senior administration officials” to tell columnist Jeffrey Goldberg that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “chickenshit” coward was their boast that he had missed his chance to prevent them from making a weak deal allowing Iran to become a threshold nuclear state. Aside from the general discussion about an administration that is diffident about criticizing actual enemies of the United States choosing to lob outrageous insults at America’s sole democratic ally is the question whether this was a part of an effort to pre-empt Israeli criticism of a weak Iran nuclear deal or was merely just another instance of the Obama foreign policy team’s lack of discipline and incompetence. TheWashington Post editorial page has weighed in on behalf of the latter point of view. But unfortunately there is good reason to think this latest administration attack on Israel was part of a calculated strategy on Iran.
That President Obama has considered engagement with Iran as one of his foreign-policy priorities since coming to office is no secret. But that assumption was given further credence on Friday when the Washington Free Beacon reported on a tape of a talk given by Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes (one of those suspected of being one of the sources for Goldberg’s infamous column) in which he declared that an Iran deal would be the most important objective of the president’s second term and the moral equivalent of ObamaCare as an administration priority.
But we didn’t need Rhodes to tell us that. In signing an interim nuclear deal last year with Tehran that did nothing to force it to give up its nuclear infrastructure or long-term hopes of a weapon, he threw away the West’s considerable economic and military leverage and began a process of unraveling sanctions. But in order to seal a final deal with Iran—assuming, that is, that the Islamist regime deigns to sign one rather than merely keep running out the clock as Obama vainly pursues them—he must do two things: overcome considerable bipartisan opposition from Congress and make sure that Israel and/or moderate Arab regimes equally scared by the Iranians aren’t able to scuttle an agreement.
The president’s formula for achieving this dubious goal is clear.
On the one hand, he will try to forge an agreement that will not require congressional approval. That will be no easy task as the Constitution requires the Senate to approve any treaty with a foreign power and only Congress can repeal the economic sanctions it passed in recent years. But as we already know this isn’t a president that is troubled much by having to trod on the Constitution or violate the law. He will, as has already been reported, attempt to portray an Iran deal as something other than a new treaty. He will also use his executive power to suspend enforcement of sanctions, perhaps indefinitely, in order to render existing laws null and void.
As for Israel, as Goldberg’s column indicated, the administration thinks they’ve already won since Netanyahu failed to order an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities during the president’s first term.
So where does this leave us?
According to the Washington Post editorial, Goldberg’s column was merely an indication of the loose tongues that operate in the West Wing. Assuming that the assault on Netanyahu’s character and the gloating about Israel’s inability to stop U.S. efforts to appease Iran was, in its view, giving the “White House too much credit for calculation” since the insults would make it harder for the U.S. to “reach an accommodation with Israel on Iran and settlements.”
But as the record of the last six years and Rhodes’s indiscreet talk verifies, this administration isn’t interested in an accommodation with Israel on key issues. Rather it seeks to crush Israel’s efforts to resist détente with Iran as well as to muscle it on the peace process with the Palestinians even though the latter have frustrated the administration by steadfastly refusing to make peace on even the most favorable of terms on a diplomatic playing field tilted in their direction by the White House.
Goals often dictate not only tactics employed but also the character of the conflict. Having set reconciliation with Iran as one of his chief objectives—something that was made clear in the president’s first inaugural address and reaffirmed by his subsequent decisions on the long running diplomatic engagement he has pursued—Obama has determined that achieving it is worth sacrificing the United States’ close relations with Israel as well as enraging Arab states that have, to their surprise, found themselves aligned with Israel on this issue rather than the Americans.
Though the administration has been rightly criticized for its habit of equivocation on foreign-policy crises, its single-minded determination to outmaneuver the Israelis on Iran while never giving up on efforts to appease the Islamist regime has been impressive. Having thrown away its previous positions on stopping Iran’s nuclear enrichment or dismantling its nuclear program (as President Obama vowed in his foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney in 2012), it will clear stop at nothing to get a deal if one is to be had.
Rather than a reset with Israel as the Post advises, Obama has something else in mind. While it may be going too far to say that the administration thinks of itself as entering into an alliance with the Iranians, the bottom line here is that the new Middle East that it envisions after an Iran deal is one in which traditional U.S. allies will be marginalized and endangered while Tehran and its terrorist allies will be immeasurably strengthened. The administration can only achieve that dubious goal by working assiduously against Israel and the bipartisan coalition that backs the alliance with the Jewish state in Congress.
It remains to be seen whether the next Congress will sit back and allow the administration to achieve a détente with the Islamic Republic that will amount to a new tacit U.S.-Iran alliance at the expense of the Jewish state. But whether Congress acts or not (and if the Senate is controlled by the Republicans it is far more likely to be able to thwart the president’s objectives), let no one say that we haven’t been warned about what was about to unfold.
Behind the lines: The Jihadi connection between Sinai, Gaza and Islamic State
November 2, 2014Behind the lines: The Jihadi connection between Sinai, Gaza and Islamic State, Jerusalem Post, Jonathan Spyer, November 1, 2014
A militant Islamist fighter films his fellow fighters taking part in a military parade to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic caliphate. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Islamists in the Sinai Peninsula have formed ties with ISIS and, closer to home, with Hamas and salfist groups in the Gaza Strip.
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What kind of relations do the jihadists of northern Sinai and Gaza have with Islamic State, and with Hamas? Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month national emergency this week, following the killing of over 31 Egyptian soldiers in a suicide car bombing carried out by jihadists in northern Sinai.
No organization has issued an authoritative claim of responsibility for the bombing, but it comes amid a state of open insurgency in northern Sinai, as Egyptian security forces battle a number of jihadist organizations. Most prominent among these groups are Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis and Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen; the attack on the Sinai military base came a few days after an Egyptian court sentenced seven members of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis to death for carrying out previous attacks on the army.
In subsequent days, Egyptian officials pointed an accusing finger at the Hamas rulers of Gaza, asserting there is “no doubt that elements belonging to Palestinian factions were directly involved in the attack.” Cairo is now set to build a new barrier separating the Strip from northern Sinai.
In a number of Arabic media outlets, unnamed Egyptian government sources openly accused Hamas members of aiding the assault, assisting with planning, funding and weapons supply.
Are the Egyptian claims credible? Are there links between Hamas or smaller jihadist movements in the Gaza Strip and the insurgents in northern Sinai? And no less importantly, is the armed campaign in northern Sinai linked to Islamic State? First, it is important to understand that jihadist activity in northern Sinai is not a new development. Long before the military coup of July 3, 2013, and indeed before the downfall of president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, this area had become a lawless zone in which jihadists and Beduin smugglers of people and goods carried out their activities.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis emerged from this already existing jihadist milieu in the period following Mubarak’s ouster.
At this time, Egyptian security measures in the area sharply declined.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has not confined its activities to the Sinai area; rather, it has directly engaged in attacks on Israeli targets. Recently, the group beheaded four Sinai locals who it accused of being “spies for the Mossad,” also carrying out two rocket attacks on Eilat this past January.
The claim of links between Hamas and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has been raised in the past. In September, Egyptian security forces claimed to have found uniforms and weaponry identifiable as belonging to Hamas’s Izzadin Kassam brigades.
It is worth remembering that the current Egyptian government has, since its inception, sought to link salafi jihadist terrorism with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as part of its strategy of marginalizing and criminalizing the Brotherhood.
The current statements seeking to link Hamas directly to Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis may form part of this larger strategy.
For its part, Hamas indignantly denies any link to this week’s bombing.
But what can be said with greater confidence is there is, without doubt, a burgeoning and violent salafi jihadist subculture which encompasses northern Sinai and southern Gaza – with various organizations possessing members and infrastructure on both sides of the border.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis itself and Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen both have members in Sinai and Gaza. Working tunnels smuggling goods and weapons exist between Gaza and northern Sinai, despite Egyptian attempts to destroy them.
It is also a fact that Hamas is aware of these tunnels and makes no attempt to act against them, benefiting economically from their presence.
From this standpoint, Hamas authorities in Gaza are guilty by omission of failing to act against the infrastructure supplying and supporting salafi guerrillas in northern Sinai, whether or not the less verifiable claims of direct Hamas links with them have a basis.
Given this reality, it is also not hard to understand the Egyptian determination to build an effective physical barrier between the Strip and Egyptian territory.
What of the issue of support for Islamic State? Should these jihadist groups be seen as a southern manifestation of the Sunni jihadist wave now sweeping across Iraq, Syria and increasingly, Lebanon? From an ideological point of view, certainly yes.
From an organizational point of view, the situation is more complex.
According to Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an expert on jihadist groups currently based at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and the Middle East Forum, neither Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis nor Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen have formally pledged their allegiance to the caliphate established by Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria.
Nevertheless, Tamimi confirmed, both organizations have expressed “support” for Islamic State and its objectives, while not subordinating themselves to it through a pledge of allegiance.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is known to maintain contacts with Islamic State, which has advised it on the mechanics of carrying out operations. Islamic State, meanwhile, has publicly declared its support for the jihadists in northern Sinai, without singling out any specific group for public support.
Tamimi further notes the existence of two smaller and more obscure groups in Gaza with more direct links to Islamic State.
These are Jamaat Ansar al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Bayt al-Maqdis (The Group of Helpers/ Supporters of the Islamic State in Bayt al-Maqdis), which carries out propaganda activities from Gaza and helps funnel volunteers to Syria and Iraq, and the Sheikh Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisi Battalion, a Gazan contingent fighting with Islamic State in these countries.
So, a number of conclusions can be drawn: Firstly, Hamas, in its tolerance of and engagement with smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Sinai, at least indirectly permits the jihadists networks operating these tunnels to wage their insurgency against Egypt – even if the claims of a direct Hamas link to violent activities in Sinai have not yet been conclusively proven.
Secondly, the most important organizations engaged in this insurgency support Islamic State, and are supported by them, though the former have not yet pledged allegiance and become directly subordinate to the latter.
Islamic State is not yet in northern Sinai, but its close allies are. Their activities are tolerated by the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip – as long as they are directed outward, against Egypt and Israel.
Military Upset with White House ‘Micromanagement’ of ISIS War
October 31, 2014Military Upset with White House ‘Micromanagement’ of ISIS War, Daily Beast, Josh Rogin, Eli Lake, October 31, 2014
(The impatient (non-Islamic) Islamic State seems unwilling to play “dither along with us” with the Obama Administration while awaiting news that the You Tube video which caused the entire mess has been taken down and its creator suitably punished. Please see also U.S. strategy against Islamic State hits major hurdles. — DM)
[M]ilitary officers and civilian Pentagon leaders tell The Daily Beast, is the ISIS war’s decision-making process, run by National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s been manic and obsessed with the tiniest of details. Officials talk of sudden and frequent meetings of the National Security Council and the so-called “Principals Committee” of top defense, intelligence, and foreign policy officials (an NSC and three PCs in one week this month); a barrage of questions from the NSC to the agencies that create mountains of paperwork for overworked staffers; and NSC insistence on deciding minor issues even at the operational level.
“We are getting a lot of micromanagement from the White House. Basic decisions that should take hours are taking days sometimes,” one senior defense official told The Daily Beast.
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The Pentagon brass placed in charge of implementing Obama’s war against ISIS are getting fed up with the short leash the White House put them on.
Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army.
As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters will do when they return to Syria. Most of the rebels to be trained by the U.S. will never be sent to fight against ISIS.
Making matters worse, military officers and civilian Pentagon leaders tell The Daily Beast, is the ISIS war’s decision-making process, run by National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s been manic and obsessed with the tiniest of details. Officials talk of sudden and frequent meetings of the National Security Council and the so-called “Principals Committee” of top defense, intelligence, and foreign policy officials (an NSC and three PCs in one week this month); a barrage of questions from the NSC to the agencies that create mountains of paperwork for overworked staffers; and NSC insistence on deciding minor issues even at the operational level.
“We are getting a lot of micromanagement from the White House. Basic decisions that should take hours are taking days sometimes,” one senior defense official told The Daily Beast.
Other gripes among the top Pentagon and military brass are about the White House’s decision not to work with what’s left of the existing Syrian moderate opposition on the ground, which prevents intelligence sharing on fighting ISIS and prevents the military from using trained fighters to build the new rebel army that the President has said is needed to push Assad into a political negotiation to end the conflict.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel himself is among the critics of Obama’s strategy in Syria. Hagel wrote a memo last week to National Security Advisor Susan Rice warning that Obama’s Syria strategy was unclear about U.S. intentions with respect to Syrian President Bashar al Assad, undermining the plan.
Hagel stood by the memo Thursday. “We owe the president and we owe the National Security Council our best thinking on this. And it has to be honest and it has to be direct,” he told reporters.
But the top uniformed military leaders in charge of the operation are also struggling to work around the White House policy constraints and micromanagement, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Michael Nagata, the SOCOM lead official in charge of the Syrian train and equip program, according to multiple officials and persons briefed by those generals.
Nagata has been tasked to build a new rebel army from scratch but is not permitted to work with existing brigades, meaning he must find and vet new soldiers, mostly sourcing from Syrian refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. What’s more, the size of the program will produce only 5,000 fighters a year after the training begin, most of whom who will serve as “local defense forces” and not actually go after ISIS, according to two officials briefed on the plan. Of those forces, 500 would be given additional training in “counterterrorism.” That’s a small attack force to face an ISIS military that is estimated to have tens of thousands of fighters.
Dempsey told reporters Thursday that the recruiting and vetting of soldiers for the new Syrian rebel army has not yet begun, although sites for the training camps have been chosen.
“At this point we still don’t know how long it’s going to take to send in the trained guys,” a senior Defense official said. “The situation is changing so much on the ground it’s hard to plan it out.”
Dempsey has twice made public statements that seemed to reveal his dissatisfaction with the White House policy. Last month, he said it would take 12,000 to 15,000 ground troops to effectively go after ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Earlier this month, he suggested that U.S. ground troops might be necessary to fight ISIS in the future, a comment he later walked back.
Many military officials, including at CENTCOM’s headquarters in Tampa and their air base in Qatar (where the ISIS air campaign is run) are barred from even communicating with Syrian opposition representatives unless those rebels are on a White House / State Department approved list. Many Syrian opposition leaders complain that Free Syrian Army brigades fighting ISIS now are offering help in making the ISIS strikes effective, but are getting no response from the administration.
The international coalition against ISIS, led on the U.S. side by retired Gen. John Allen and State Department official Brett McGurk, is working with Sunni tribes in Iraq to coordinate against ISIS. But they are not working with the corresponding tribes on the Syrian side of the mostly non-existent Iraq-Syria border. ISIS has slaughtered hundreds of these tribesmen in Eastern Syria who refused to yield to the group’s demands.
Meanwhile, the Free Syrian Army, largely written off by the White House, has been suffering heavy losses to ISIS as well as to the al-Qaeda affiliated al Nusrah Front, which has opened up a third fighting front against the FSA in cities like Idlib. FSA brigades that have been vetted by the U.S. government, including the Syrian Revolutionaries Front and Harakat Hazm, have seen their non-aggression pact with al Nusrah disappear.
“Al Qaeda has captured a number of villages from the FSA in Idlib and the fighting continues to be intense. The FSA needs urgent Coalition support in this fight because if Al Qaeda captures Jabal al-Zawiyeh in Idlib, extremists will be positioned to cut off a critical line of supply from the Turkish border,” said Oubai Shahbandar, advisor to the Syrian National Coalition. “So the question is: Will Coalition airstrikes help the FSA fight al Qaeda or will they allow Al Qaeda to overrun moderate forces?”
NSC Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan declined to comment on the criticisms coming from the Pentagon and military about the White House’s approach to ISIS and training the Syrian rebels. But on Wednesday, Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken, who is rumored to be Obama’s choice to replace Bill Burns as Deputy Secretary of State, defended the White House strategy but said that FSA is just not a viable partner.
“For more than two years working with and supporting the moderate opposition, we’ve made some gains in making it more effective and trying to position it as a counterweight to Assad. Now we’re intensifying that support,” he said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The coalition can do real damage to ISIL through the air. But without forces on the ground to hold territory from which ISIL has been removed, we will not be able to shrink and eventually eliminate the safe haven.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that there is no military solution to the Syria crisis and said the U.S. is reaching out to countries like Russian and Iran to seek a new political negotiation. Syrian National Coalition President Hadi al Bahra told The Daily Beast last month that there is no genuine interest in the West for a new political process, which he described as being “in a coma.”
“There have been so many things said on Syria that were not delivered, nobody thinks the President really wants to do anything on Syria. Even currently serving officials realize that you cannot bomb your way out of this and you need to have a plan for a political solution, but we don’t have it,” said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “There’s needs to be a fully thought out strategy with a political dimension that involves the opposition. If you don’t do that, you can’t solve this problem.”
U.S. strategy against Islamic State hits major hurdles
October 31, 2014U.S. strategy against Islamic State hits major hurdles, LA Times,
(Happy Halloween from the Obama Administration. — DM)
Syrian police and residents inspect the site of a car bombing in Homs on Oct. 29. The U.S. plan to raise a rebel army in Syria to fight Islamic State has run into steep political and military obstacles. (European Pressphoto Agency)
The Obama administration’s plan to raise a 15,000-strong rebel army in Syria has run into steep political and military obstacles, raising doubts about a key element of the White House strategy for defeating Islamic State militants in the midst of a civil war.
Pentagon concerns have grown so sharp that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a two-page memo to the White House last week warning that the overall plan could collapse because U.S. intentions toward Syrian President Bashar Assad are unclear, according to a senior defense official who read the memo but was not authorized to speak publicly.
President Obama has called on Assad to step down, but he has not authorized using military force, including the proposed proxy army, to remove the Syrian leader.
At a news conference Thursday, Hagel declined to discuss his memo to national security advisor Susan Rice, but he acknowledged that Assad has inadvertently benefited from more than five weeks of U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State, one of the most powerful antigovernment forces in Syria’s bitter conflict.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry sought to paper over the problem Thursday, telling a forum in Washington that the proposed proxy army “can have an impact on Assad’s decision-making so we can get back to a table where we could negotiate a political outcome, because we all know there is no military resolution of Syria.”
Rebel leaders in Syria say they would reject joining a U.S.-backed force that is not aimed at defeating Assad, their main enemy.
Senior U.S. military officers also privately warn that the so-called Syrian moderates that U.S. planners hope to recruit — opposition fighters without ties to the Islamic radicals — have been degraded by other factions and forces, including Assad’s army, during the war.
It will take years to train and field a new force capable of launching an offensive against the heavily armed and well-funded Islamic State fighters, who appear well-entrenched in northern Syria, the officers say.
“We’re not going to be able to build that kind of credible force in enough time to make a difference,” said a senior U.S. officer who is involved in military operations against the militants and who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “We’ve watched the moderate opposition dwindle and dwindle and now there’s very little left.”
The Pentagon plan calls for putting 5,000 rebel fighters into Syria in a year, and 15,000 over the next three years.
It is the least developed and most controversial part of the multi-pronged U.S. strategy, which also includes near-daily airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, deployment of U.S. military advisors and other support to assist Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, along with attempts to choke off the militants’ financing from oil sales and foreign donors.
When officers involved in high-level Pentagon deliberations in the summer raised concerns about building a rebel army from scratch, they were overruled by senior commanders, who warned that airstrikes alone would not defeat the militants, one of the officers said.
But Pentagon unease has intensified in recent weeks as Jordan and Turkey, two allies that the Obama administration is counting on to help train the proposed proxy force, made it clear that they are lukewarm to the plan, two U.S. officials said.
Washington and its allies are chiefly split over whether the proposed force should focus on reclaiming Syrian territory now held by the Islamic State militants, which is the U.S. priority, or should also battle troops loyal to Assad, the allies’ main concern.
Turkey said this month that it would train a portion of the Syrian force, joining Saudi Arabia in training on its territory. U.S. officials don’t expect to assemble the first group of “moderate” rebels, drawing them from inside Syria or from crowded refugee camps in nearby countries, until early next year at the earliest.
But Turkish officials have signaled that the rebels it trains would concentrate on battling Assad’s forces, not Islamic State, once they return to Syria.
Jordan has not joined the training effort, although it hosts a separate, smaller, CIA-run operation for Syrian insurgents.
U.S. officials say greater involvement by Turkey and Jordan would allow them to increase the number who can be trained, and provide easier conduits for support and resupply when they return to Syria.
The dispute reflects the complex calibrations now in play as the Islamic State militants shake long-established political and military fault lines in the Middle East.
Most dramatically, perhaps, U.S. forces are now in at least tacit alignment with traditional enemies such as Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant and political group, against a common threat.
Syrian rebel leaders and Arab allies complain that the U.S.-led airstrikes have helped Assad by weakening one of his most powerful foes and enabling his army to step up attacks on other rebel factions.
A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella organization claiming to represent largely autonomous rebels in Syria, said fighters were incensed by the U.S. insistence on focusing entirely on Islamic State.
“They have forgotten that tens of thousands of civilians are suffering because of the regime,” said the spokesman, who did not want his name published because it could endanger his family. “Our main cause is the regime, and that will remain our main cause.”
A rebel commander, a defector from the Syrian army who also asked for anonymity, agreed. The U.S. plan “doesn’t work for us,” he said.
“They are concerned with ISIS … but we are concerned with the regime more than ISIS,” he said, using one of several acronyms for Islamic State.
U.S. Central Command, which is overseeing the effort to build a Syrian force, says questions about its direction will be resolved once the fledgling program is underway.
“We are early on in this and there’s much to be figured out,” said Maj. Curtis J. Kellogg, a spokesman for Central Command.
Frederic C. Hof, a former special advisor to President Obama for Syria, said the U.S. plan “is going to be a tough sell” in Syria.
“You can always get people by providing weapons, ammo and pay, but your appeal to a large number of Syrians will increase dramatically if it is a force whose goal is eventually to govern all of Syria,” not just beat one faction, he added.
The caution reflects, in part, a U.S. desire to reassure Iran, one of Assad’s closest backers, that it is not seeking to oust him by force. If the U.S. backtracked on that promise, Iran might step up military support for Assad.
Tehran also could respond by using local Shiite militias to attack U.S. personnel or facilities in Iraq. The Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq have coordinated their attacks on Islamic State with the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.
“If we really focus on Assad, the Iranian piece of this coalition [against Islamic State] will fracture, and we will have Shia militants trying to target us,” said the senior U.S. military officer.
The U.S. experience with proxy military forces is laced with disappointment.
The Kennedy administration backed a failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961 after training a counterrevolutionary brigade. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration bankrolled the Contras in Nicaragua, who were unsuccessful against the Sandinistas’ socialist revolution.
“We’ve helped arm insurgencies before,” Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who now is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Nearly all of them have been complete failures or marginal to the final outcome. But there was one spectacular success.”
The CIA, working with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, covertly poured $4 billion into arming a rebel force in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, helping them drive out Soviet forces. Riedel, who wrote a book about the undertaking, said the CIA operation hastened the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
The Syrian rebel forces, with their fractured leadership and rival sponsors, bear similarities to the competing Afghan mujahedin factions during that war, Riedel said. If the U.S. can secure tight-knit partnerships with neighboring countries on training the rebels, it could also see success against Islamic State.
“There’s no reason we can’t do it again,” he said. “But it doesn’t happen overnight.”
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