[T]he American white flag acknowledging his continued reign of terror is more than merely an admission that he can’t be pushed out of Damascus. It must now be understood as part of a comprehensive policy that is aimed at appeasing Iran. That presents a danger not only to the oppressed people of Syria but to every other nation in the region, including both moderate Arabs and Israel, who are targets of Iran’s predatory ambition.
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As anyone who has heard President Obama discuss his opposition to more sanctions being placed on Iran knows, the White House is deeply disturbed at the notion of the United States doing anything to disturb those who run the Islamist regime. Thus, the news that the United States is signaling what may be the formal end of its opposition to Bashar Assad’s rule over Syria must be seen in the context of a general American push for détente with that dictator’s allies in Tehran. This is bad news for the people of Syria who are seeking an alternative to Assad’s murderous rule–other, that is, than the ISIS terrorists. But it is very good news for the Iranians who are pleased about the way the rise of ISIS has led to a de facto alliance on the ground between the U.S. and Iran’s allies Assad and Hezbollah in the effort to fight ISIS. This has led not only to a tacit green light for Assad to go on killing Syrians but also for negotiations that seemed fated to grant a Western seal of approval for Iran’s aspiration to become a threshold nuclear power.
It must be acknowledged that at this point the United States has no good options open to it on Syria. If the U.S. had acted swiftly to aid moderate opponents to the Assad regime after the Arab Spring protests began, it might have been possible to topple Assad, something that would have been a telling blow to Iran’s ambitions for regional hegemony. But President Obama was characteristically unable to make a decision about what to do about it for years despite continually running his mouth about how Assad had to go. By the time he was ready to strike—after Assad crossed a “red line” enunciated by the president about his use of chemical weapons against his own people—the moderate option looked less attractive. The president quickly backed down and punted the task of cleaning up the chemical weapons to Assad’s Russian ally.
Even worse, after Obama’s precipitate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and inaction on Syria led to the rise of ISIS terrorists, Washington seemed more interested in using this crisis as an excuse to make common cause with Iran than in actually fighting the Islamist group. Thus, while U.S. air attacks on ISIS have barely made a dent in the terrorists’ grip on control of much of Syria and Iraq, the administration is signaling enthusiasm for Russian and United Nations-sponsored diplomatic events that will effectively doom a framework agreed to by the West last year in Geneva by which Assad would be forced to yield power.
The administration will defend this switch as something that will aid the effort to end a war that has killed hundreds of thousands. They also justify the tacit alliance with Iran, Assad, and Hezbollah on the Syrian battlefield as the only possible option available to those who wish to combat ISIS. At this point with non-Islamist Syrian rebels effectively marginalized and the battlefield dominated by the Iran/Hezbollah/Assad alliance and their ISIS foes, forcing Assad out may no longer be an option.
But the chain of events that led to this American move to allow Assad to survive despite his crimes must now be viewed from a different perspective than merely one of Obama’s Hamlet routine on difficult issues.
The decision to gradually back away from the president’s campaign pledge to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program and to engage in negotiations aimed at granting Tehran absolution for its ambitions will, if it results in an agreement, at best make Iran a threshold nuclear power. A weak nuclear deal will further buttress Iran’s hopes for regional hegemony by which it will further threaten moderate regimes and strengthen its Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist allies.
It’s not clear yet whether the Iranians will ever sign a nuclear agreement with the U.S. or if, instead, it will continue to run out the clock on the talks. That’s something that the president’s zeal for a deal may permit because he refuses to admit failure or pressure the Iranians as Congress would like him to do by toughening sanctions in the event the talks collapse.
But what we do know now is that this administration’s Syria policy must now be viewed through the prism of its infatuation with the idea of, as the president put it last month, letting “Iran get right with the world.”
Options for getting rid of the butcher Assad may be few these days. But the American white flag acknowledging his continued reign of terror is more than merely an admission that he can’t be pushed out of Damascus. It must now be understood as part of a comprehensive policy that is aimed at appeasing Iran. That presents a danger not only to the oppressed people of Syria but to every other nation in the region, including both moderate Arabs and Israel, who are targets of Iran’s predatory ambition.
(The article does not indicate who Obama thinks might start such a war — Iran, Israel or the United States, for example. — DM)
President Obama warned Congress Friday that new economic sanctions against Iran could lead directly to war, and British Prime Minister David Cameron said he’s personally appealing to top lawmakers to hold off and allow diplomatic negotiations with Iran to play out.
At a news conference in the White House, both leaders pleaded with congressional leaders to wait just a few more months before pursuing new sanctions against Iran. Mr. Cameron said such action would splinter the international community, which right now is unified against Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
But Mr. Obama was even more direct, warning the American people that their representatives on Capitol Hill could plunge the U.S. into another war in the Middle East by pushing another round of sanctions.
“I’ve consistently said we leave all options on the table. But Congress should be aware that if this diplomatic solution fails, than the risks and likelihood this ends up at some point a military confrontation is heightened. And Congress will have to own that as well,” the president said. “And we may not be able to rebuild the kind of coalition we need in that context if the world believes we were not serious about negotiations.”
The U.S., Britain and its allies in the so-called P5 plus 1 — Russia, China, France and Germany — in 2013 secured a deal that halted some parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions against the country. The two sides still have not reached a final agreement.
The deadline for a final deal has been extended twice, with the next deadline looming in June.
But some lawmakers believe now is the time to double down on economic sanctions against Iran, even as diplomatic talks continue. There is support in both parties for more sanctions.
While in Washington this week, Mr. Cameron said that he’s personally appealed to members of the Senate to take additional sanctions off the table right now.
“I have contacted a couple of senators this morning and I may speak to one or two more this afternoon — not in any way as the British prime minister to tell the American Senate what it should or shouldn’t do. That wouldn’t be right,” he said. “But simply to make the point that as a country that stands alongside America in these vital negotiations that it is the opinion of the United Kingdom that further sanctions of the further threat of sanctions at this point won’t actually help bring the talks to a successful conclusion and they could fracture the international unity there has been.”
Also, Obama’s need for a legacy consistent with his ideology trumps all else, including Iran’s abysmal human rights record, its theocratic government, its support for terrorism, its hatred for Israel and desire to eliminate her, its duplicity in its P5+1 negotiations and its insistence on getting (or keeping) nukes. True, removal of statutorily based sanctions would require congressional action. However, Obama has little interest in avoiding constitutional irregularities. No congressional approval was granted for the “temporary suspension” of sanctions and laws inconsistent with Obama’s desires can be and are waived. Litigation over the de facto removal of sanctions by executive order would take many years.– DM)
After almost 53 years of Cold War between the U.S. and Cuba, the transformation of ties between these two adversaries has sparked a considerable amount of debate with respect to the normalization of ties with other longstanding rivals. The possibility of resolving other diplomatic imbroglios, specifically the revival of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Iran is a case that comes to mind.
Some Iranians showed their excitement on Twitter with regards to the Cuban deal. Some showed hope that their government will be next and they could soon see an American embassy in Tehran. However, others thought that an Iran-U.S. deal is an idealistic and unreachable dream.
Indeed, any normalization of diplomatic relationships between the Islamic Republic and the U.S. will likely have significant positive impacts on both nations, leading to a critical strategic and geopolitical shift in the Middle Eastern political chessboard. Currently, both countries have some shared strategic and geopolitical objectives in Iraq and Syria particularly when it comes to fighting ISIS.
A possible Iranian deal will remove the economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, assisting Tehran to achieve its highest economic potential in exports, imports and wealth. The tourist industry would be revived in Iran, with many European and Americans fond of visiting thousands of years old historical sites in Esfahan Shiraz, Hamadan, and other provinces. Normalization of diplomatic ties will lead to the flow of (primarily) European companies to do business with the Islamic Republic. In addition, as Iranian youth have shown to be in favor of American brands and products, American manufactures will find a share in Iran’s market as well. Further, U.S. airplane companies will begin cooperation with Iranian airlines.
As many people are pondering on the likelihood of a deal similar to the recent Cuba agreement with Iran, the question is whether the executive order to lift the embargo on the Islamic Republic and conducting back channel diplomacy to fully open ties with Tehran is possible?
Iran’s file is more complicated and multilayered
There are some partial similarities between the Obama administration’s method to initiate a deal with Raul Castro’s government and the way it has recently approached the Islamic Republic. The major commonalities are the back channel diplomacy and talks.
Similar to the Cuban deal, the Obama administration has conducted back channel talks with Iranian politicians with respect to Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, President Obama sent a clandestine letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei highlighting some of the shared strategic, national and geopolitical interests that both nations have in the Middle East.
Nevertheless, these commonalities in diplomatic approaches have led some scholars, politicians, and policy analysts to jump to the conclusion that the same deal should be applicable to the case of Iran because such an approach was possible with Cuba and the embargo on Cuba was lifted.
But, not too fast.
Iran’s file is much more complicated, multifaceted and multilayered than the Cuban case. While Cuba is a small island close to the state of Florida with a population of approximately 11 million, Iran, with a population of over 80 million, is located in the complex geopolitical chessboard of the Middle East, and entangled among mixture of alliances and enmities in the oil rich region.
Second of all, from Washington’s perspective, Cuba has hardly been a serious threat to American strategic, geopolitical, or economic interests. On the other hand, the Islamic Republic has been a major player in scuttling U.S. foreign policy objectives and opposing its allies (including Israel) in the Middle East.
Third, several crucial regional developments are viewed from the prism of a zero-sum game for both Iranian and American officials. Iranian leaders are less likely to accept any compromises on their top foreign policy priorities, such as: keeping President Bashar al-Assad in power, withdrawing its financial, advisory, intelligence, and military support to the Iraqi and Syrian government, and assisting formidable proxies such as Hezbollah.
Fourth, there was no international consensus on the U.S. embargo and economic sanctions against the Cuban government. As a result, President Obama can issue an executive order to lift the embargo. Many European countries were doing business with the Cuban government and the United Nations repeatedly condemned U.S. sanctions. On the other hand, the four rounds of economic sanctions on Tehran came with the approval of the U.N. Security Council. Unlike Cuba, many regional and global powers are dubious about Iran’s nuclear and regional hegemonic ambitions.
Fifth, several developments in Iran, such as revelations of clandestine nuclear sites, the possibility of testing exploding detonators for nuclear weapons in Parchin military site, and the military dimension of Tehran’s nuclear program, have led to regional and international strain.
Finally, and more fundamentally, unlike Castro, Khamenei has shown no interest in fully normalizing diplomatic ties with the United States. For example, the Obama administration received no positive response from Khamenei through its diplomacy. In addition, there is no official public debate among Iranian politicians, across various spectrums of Iran’s political system, of even allowing the opening of an American embassy in Tehran. The U.S. domestic opposition to normalize ties with Iran, particularly from the Republicans, is much higher in comparison to the Cuban case. Although the Obama administration has taken some back channel steps to negotiate with the Islamic Republic, Iran’s supreme leader has not responded with signs of willingness to normalize relationships and he has been clear in not trusting the “Great Satan. “
The signal that Iranian leaders received from the Cuban deal is not what the Western media depicts- that Iran is optimistic about normalizing ties with the U.S.. The message that Tehran received was that the Islamic Republic has to persist in its policies and that economic sanctions will ultimately fail. As foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Akfham articulated: “The defense by the Cuban government and people of their revolutionary ideals over the past 50 years shows that policies of isolation and sanctions imposed by the major powers against the wishes of independent nations are ineffective.”
Obama’s confidential adviser on all matters Islamic, Mohamed Allah-dork, is disgusted with Obama’s recent attack on North Korea’s internet because the methods He used were contrary to true Islamic doctrine. Concerned that his silence might be viewed as agreement with Obama’s methods, Allah-dork decided to divulge what really happened and how.
Mohamed Allah-dork
Great technological sophistication was needed to take down North Korea’s internet. Therefore, experts who had created the ObamaScare website, together with experts from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), managed the project. Together, they provided an elegant solution which, unlike the ObamaScare website, worked perfectly (if only briefly) on the second attempt.
First, all of the glitches thus far identified in the ObamaScare website were recycled and combined in one enormous package. Next, FCC experts working diligently to degrade the U.S. internet devised a set of protocols to accomplish the same for North Korea. ObamaScare website experts then translated the FCC protocols into binary code and placed it in a massive glitch package for transmission by the National Security Agency (NSA) to all computers and internet hubs in North Korea.
Initially, the outages were limited, sporadic and hence disappointing. NSA had been unaware of the substantial time differences between Washington and North Korea and therefore made their transmissions during periods of highest internet usage in the Washington, D.C. area (during the day and early evening hours). When it was discovered that North Korea does not operate on Eastern Standard Time, NSA repeated the transmissions during periods of lowest D.C. area internet usage (late at night). That required overtime pay, but the necessary funds were easily diverted from the Department of Defense. The cyber attack worked beautifully until it failed.
According to Mohamed Allah-dork, the technology that Obama used to take down North Korea’s internet was un-Islamic for at least two reasons. First: no modern technology, including computers and the internet, is mentioned in the Holy Koran and all are therefore prohibited. Second: such technology — unlike tried and true Islamic methods — does not kill apostates and other infidels efficiently. Indeed, the first (but not, of course, the second) was the basis for the unwritten fatwa issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader declaring nuclear weapons un-Islamic. Iran does not even use modern technology to execute its domestic enemies.
Allah-dork had explained to Obama that the Islamic Republic of Iran would never develop nuclear weapons due to the Supreme Leader’s fatwa and its basis in proper Koranic interpretation. Obama agreed, and that continues to be the foundation of His superb leadership of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran which, as all true Islamic scholars know, desires only Islamic peace and tranquility for all.
North Korea’s internet has recovered from Obama’s efforts. Although not previously reported, it is due to Allah’s displeasure with Obama’s deviation from true Islamic doctrine. Despite His universally understood transparency and candor, Obama will never admit the truth of Allah-dork’s revelations because He is embarrassed about the un-Islamic methods He used and their ultimate failure due to Allah’s displeasure. Hence, it is my civic duty to relay here what really happened and why.
The very highest credibility should be assigned to Allah-dork’s revelations because, as is well known, truth telling and the enlightenment it brings are among the greatest and most treasured of all Islamic values. Truth telling is no less important than slaughtering all who are unwilling to submit to the proper version of Islam, the religion of true (Islamic) peace everlasting.
President Obama’s goal is not so much to fulfill his campaign promise about the nuclear threat as it is to launch a new détente with the Iran. This is a crucial point since it not only makes him more reluctant to stick to Western demands about nuclear issues but makes it impossible for him to contemplate abandoning the negotiations.
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For the first time since the Iran nuclear talks were extended for the second time last month, the United States and its allies will meet again with Tehran’s negotiators in Vienna on Wednesday. To listen to public statements from the Obama administration, the allied team will be there to insist on a deal that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But the same factors that have tilted these negotiations in Iran’s direction throughout the process still seem to be pushing the outcome toward an agreement that will be touted as a desperately needed foreign-policy triumph for the administration. With both the French becoming more vocal about their dissatisfaction with America’s leadership in the talks and the Islamist regime making no secret of their unwillingness to make more concessions, the question facing the negotiators is not so much whether a deal is possible, but whether the U.S. is able to resist the temptation to continue giving ground to the Iranians in order to get a deal at virtually any price.
As the next round of talks begins, observers need to think back to the allies’ position prior to the signing of the interim deal to understand just how far the U.S. has retreated from its current perilous position. In 2012 when he was running for reelection, President Obama vowed during his foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney that any deal must end Iran’s nuclear program. The allies were similarly united behind a position that Iran had no right to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel under any circumstances and that its plutonium plant at Arak must be dismantled.
Since then, the U.S. has accepted the notion that Iran has the right to a nuclear program and that its infrastructure will remain largely in place no matter what the terms of an agreement might say. It has also tacitly recognized Iran’s right to enrichment while claiming that the low levels permitted freeze its progress toward a bomb even though everyone knows these restrictions can easily be reversed. The U.S. has also given every indication it will allow Iran to keep its centrifuges as well as showing no sign that it will press Tehran to give up its plutonium option or stop producing ballistic missiles whose only purpose would be to deliver nuclear warheads. Even worse, the administration seems to be giving up any effort to find out just how much progress the Iranians have made toward weaponizing their nuclear project or to force them to admit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to get the answers to this vital question.
Based on the experience of the last year and a half of talking with Obama’s envoys, Iran’s negotiators know they only have to stand their ground and it’s only a matter of time until the Americans give in to their demands one by one until they get terms that will let them become a nuclear threshold power as well as lifting the economic sanctions that continue to cripple Iran’s economy.
That the Iranian people are clamoring for an end to the sanctions is clear. As the New York Timesreported on Friday, anticipation of the collapse of the restrictions is the talk of Tehran. The eagerness of their would-be European trading partners is just as vocal. In theory, this desire to reconnect Iran to the global economy ought to give the U.S. the leverage to make the Iranians give up their nuclear ambitions. On top of that, the collapse of the price of oil should have Iran even more desperate and the position of the allies even stronger.
But the Iranians know whom they are dealing with. As has become increasingly clear in the last year in which the talks went into two overtime periods despite administration promises that the talks would be finite in length, President Obama’s goal is not so much to fulfill his campaign promise about the nuclear threat as it is to launch a new détente with the Iran. This is a crucial point since it not only makes him more reluctant to stick to Western demands about nuclear issues but makes it impossible for him to contemplate abandoning the negotiations. That means that the Iranians know the president isn’t even thinking, as he should be, of ratcheting up the economic pressure with tougher sanctions, or of making the Islamists fear the possibility that the U.S. would ever use force to ensure the threat is eliminated.
Under these conditions the chances of the U.S. negotiating a deal that could actually stop Iran from ever getting a bomb are slim and none. Instead, the only question remains how far the Iranians are willing to press the president to bend to their will in order to let him declare a victory and welcome this terrorist-sponsoring regime moving closer to regional hegemony as well as a nuclear weapon.
Rather than the renewed diplomacy being a signal for congressional critics from both parties of the president’s policy to pipe down, the new talks should encourage them to work harder to pass the sanctions the president claims he doesn’t need. Unless they act, the path to appeasement of Iran seems to be clear.
Former ambassador Michael Oren provided a little reminder that the issue isn’t Netanyahu and that Obama’s radical politics would put him at odds with any Israeli government.
This is an administration which makes the racist claim that Jews living in Jerusalem are “settlers”, which funds terrorists and takes their side against Israel.
Michael Oren was the consummate diplomat. He was dignified, thoughtful, articulate, knowledgeable and tactful.
In a dialogue at The Plaza here last week at the annual Scholar-Statesman dinner of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Oren said that “this administration [in Washington] has a worldview that is not in accord with any Israeli government,” not just the current one.
Describing the Obama administration as “ideological” on the Mideast, with the president’s 2009 outreach-to-the-Arab-world Cairo speech as its source, Oren said the White House views east Jerusalem communities like Gilo, for example, as not necessarily part of the Jewish state, a position he said no Israeli government would accept.
(Gilo is over the Green Line but part of the Jerusalem municipality, with a largely Jewish population.)
After the March 17 elections, Israel’s next government “likely will move to the right,” Oren predicted, “and America may be going a different way.”
Though he said the U.S.-Israel relationship is crucial — “we [Washington and Jerusalem] have no choice but to be allies” — he asserted on several occasions that “Israel has to take responsibility for itself.”
Asked by moderator Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute, about the West’s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, Oren first noted that Israel’s “margin for error is exactly zero” on this issue, given Iran’s longstanding threat to destroy the Jewish state.
Then, his voice rising, he said that if you believe that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is indeed the moderate he claims to be, if you believe that Iran has reversed its policy of being the world’s leading exporter of terror, if you believe that its leaders have changed their long pattern of lying about the nuclear program, and if you believe the West is capable of and willing to respond militarily to prevent the production of a nuclear bomb, then yes, you should support the U.S. effort to reach an agreement with Iran.
“But if your children and grandchildren’s’ lives depended on it, you may reach a different conclusion,” he asserted, adding: “We [the Jewish people] have not come back after 2,000 years to disappear.”
And it goes without saying, that if you believe that you’ve chosen to completely ignore everything happening in the world.
I am not Oren’s biggest fan and what he is saying is simply common sense. Obama isn’t just at odds with Netanyahu or with Israel. He’s at odds with the remaining US allies in the Middle East. If Obama is at odds with Muslim allies of the US because he supports Muslim terrorists like the Muslim Brotherhood, it goes without saying that his relationship with Israel will be toxic.
(Mainstream media reports in the United States, and reports elsewhere reliant upon them, seem to affect perceptions in Israel and elsewhere of Israel, Islam, Iran and the Iran Scam. Here’s a question. To what extent do Israeli media mimic the U.S. mainstream media? — DM)
All the news that fits the desired narrative, and none other, shall be reported by the legitimate “news” media.
On February 11, 2013 Vice President Biden said that he and Obama are “counting on…legitimate news media” to help in their gun control efforts.
He said he knew people would continue to “misrepresent” the positions taken by himself and Obama, but that “legitimate news media” would cover them in a way that’s helpful to the administration.
In this post, I use the term “legitimate ‘news’ media” in the same sense that Biden apparently did.
I have been reading Sharyl Attkisson’s November 2014 book Stonewalled. Its thesis is that favored businesses, Government agencies and politicians set the agenda of the legitimate “news” media, which defer to them in what they report and how they report it.
Since Obama’s 2008 nomination and subsequent election, the legitimate “news” media have embraced Him by reporting (or creating) good news for Him and His administration while ignoring or disparaging any reports that they consider inconsistent with their pro- Obama ideological talking points. In doing so, they have relied excessively on administration spokespersons without verifying, independently, what they have been told.
On December 11th, The Washington Times published an article by Monica Crowley titled How do we protect Barack Obama today? It relates to the ideological perspective of the media as related by a broadcast journalist shortly before the 2012 presidential elections.
When I asked her for an example, she replied, “Every morning, we hold a meeting about how to build that evening’s broadcast. We’ve been doing this for decades. Everybody talks about which stories we’re going to air, what the line-up looks like, and which reporters we’ll have live in the field and which ones will be filing taped pieces. In the past, the left-wing bias was always left unspoken. People just ‘got it,’ because they all thought the same. [Emphasis added.]
“Once Obama pulled ahead of Hillary and certainly once he became president,” she said, “the bias came out of the closet. Now, every morning when we meet to discuss that night’s show, they literally say — out loud — ‘How do we protect Barack Obama today?’” [Emphasis added.]
Shocking? No more shocking than any other common but unpleasant reality. And it is congruent with Ms. Attkisson’s multiple accounts in Stonewalled. Less than half way through her book, I have learned more than I had previously understood about what, how and why the media reported — and did not report — on the green scam, the Benghazi scam, the Fast and Furious scam, the IRS scam and others. It’s disgusting but neither shocking nor surprising.
We have a “free press” in the legitimate “news” media. They are free to lie, to accept officially authorized “news” and to reject as not newsworthy or wrong anything which disputes, or is even merely inconsistent with, the prevailing narrative based on the official line.
Here are two interviews with Ms. Attkisson:
Many viewers and readers of the legitimate “news” media seem to be catching on. Perhaps that explains the decline in their numbers of viewers and readers. Do the legitimate “news” media care? They must, because it impacts their bottom lines. Will they continue their march into oblivion by running ever more bland pap while hoping for change they can believe in? Or will they, eventually, begin to report hard news, regardless of whom it might distress?
Please read Stonewalled. Depending on where you live, it may (or may not) be available at your local public library.
A satellite image of Iran’s Parchin military complex, where IAEA inspectors have been refused access. Photo: Twitter
Amano will have received scant comfort from the comments yesterday of State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki that the public was “just going to have to trust” that Iran wasn’t in violation of the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) agreement, despite a UN report claiming that the regime had violated international sanctions by acquiring materials for its Arak nuclear facility.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has for the first time publicly refused an Iranian offer to inspect a suspected nuclear site at Marivan, an area near the border with Iraq.
In 2012, the IAEA believed that Marivan was the location of high-explosive experiments linked to setting off a nuclear charge. However, those concerns were not borne out and the Agency shifted its attention to Parchin, a military complex south-east of Tehran.
Diplomats have said that Iran first suggested a visit to Marivan instead of Parchin two years ago and the agency has repeatedly refused any tradeoff, AP reported. But Thursday appeared to be the first time it did so publicly, possibly reflecting exasperation with the lack of progress in its probe since its first attempts more than a decade ago.
The probe is separate from newly extended talks between Iran and six world powers meant to reduce Iran’s technical capacity to make nuclear weapons, AP said. However, its failure would throw hopes of a deal at the talks into doubt because the U.S. says an agreement can be reached only if the IAEA is satisfied with the probe and its final results.
The latest dispute with the Iranian regime comes just as IAEA chief Yukiya Amano asked key members of the organization to provide $5.7 million in extra funding. Amano said the extra cash is needed if the IAEA is to continue monitoring a preliminary deal that temporarily restrains Iran’s nuclear programs as negotiators work on a longer-term agreement. Both the UK and the US have agreed to assist, Reuters reported, quoting Laura Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA, saying “We would like to announce our intent to make an additional extra-budgetary contribution.”
In an interview with CNN last month, Amano stated that “Iran is not fully cooperating with the Agency to clarify the information that may have military aspects.”
The IAEA chief added, “Another problem is that Iran is not allowing us to implement a more powerful verification tool which is called an ‘Additional Protocol.’ Agreement was not reached.”
Amano will have received scant comfort from the comments yesterday of State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki that the public was “just going to have to trust” that Iran wasn’t in violation of the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) agreement, despite a UN report claiming that the regime had violated international sanctions by acquiring materials for its Arak nuclear facility.
After the failure of negotiators to reach an agreement on the nuclear program by last November 24, new talks have been scheduled in Geneva next week. Those discussions on December 17 will be preceded by two days of bilateral talks between the US and Iran, the official Iranian Mehr News Agency reported.
Obama does not want Americans to be free — to think for ourselves, to have our First and Second Amendment and other constitutional rights or to reject any aspect of His radical transformation of our country and others into nations of which He, in His twisted way, can be proud. Part II of this multipart series deals with Obama’s foreign policy.
When el Presidente Chávez took office in 1999, he began only slowly to implement his “reforms.” To a casual observer, few changes were apparent in Venezuela between 1997 when my wife and I first arrived and late 2001 when we left, probably never to return. We had a few concerns about the future of the country under Chávez but they were low on our list of reasons not to buy land and build our home in the state of Merida, up in the Andes. Mainly, we wanted to continue sailing and Merida is inconveniently far from an ocean.
Chávez’ initiatives increased dramatically in number and in magnitude only when he was well into his seemingly endless terms in office. Maybe he had heard the story of the frog put into a pleasantly warm but slowly heating pot of water. The frog failed to realize until too late that he was being boiled for dinner. By then the frog had become unable to jump out of the pot.
President Obama, flush with victory and perhaps not having heard the frog story, turned up the heat quickly at first. As a result, starting in January of last year, President Obama’s dinner was delayed by an uncooperative House of Representatives. The frog survived for a while longer. If reelected and given a compliant Congress, he seems likely to turn up the heat. We are the frog.
The situation has worsened since I wrote that article in January of 2012, not the least in Obama’s foreign policies. His then already rapid pace has accelerated and the consequences of His actions have become more “transformational.” In no particular order, He has done His utmost to enhance racial divisions, to conduct His own “war on women,” to engorge the welfare state, to import many illegal aliens, to punish His enemies and reward His friends and to conceal His intentions and actions and otherwise to deceive the public. He has also continued to militarize Federal, State and local law enforcement entities and others well beyond their legitimate needs to the detriment of those who obey the law. His transformational depredations have also infested His foreign policies and actions. In particular, He has tried to punish His, rather than America’s, enemies and to reward His, rather than America’s, friends. Despite all of this He remains — although decreasingly — popular with His admirers.
The United States has slashed its defense budget to historic lows. It sends the message abroad that friendship with America brings few rewards while hostility toward the U.S. has even fewer consequences. The bedrock American relationships with staunch allies such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan and Israel are fading. Instead, we court new belligerents that don’t like the United States, such as Turkey and Iran. ]Emphasis added.]
Radical Islam is spreading in the same sort of way that postwar communism once swamped postcolonial Asia, Africa and Latin America. But this time there are only weak responses from the democratic, free-market West. Westerners despair over which is worse — theocratic Iran, the Islamic State or Bashar Assad’s Syria — and seem paralyzed over where exactly the violence will spread next and when it will reach them. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
In the late 1930s, it was pathetic that countries with strong militaries such as France and Britain appeased fascist leader Benito Mussolini and allowed his far weaker Italian forces to do as they pleased by invading Ethiopia. Similarly, Iranian negotiators are attempting to dictate terms of a weak Iran to a strong United States in talks about Iran’s supposedly inherent right to produce weapons-grade uranium — a process that Iran had earlier bragged would lead to the production of a bomb. [Emphasis added.]
The ancient ingredients of war are all on the horizon. An old postwar order crumbles amid American indifference. Hopes for true democracy in post-Soviet Russia, newly capitalist China or ascendant Turkey long ago were dashed. Tribalism, fundamentalism and terrorism are the norms in the Middle East as the nation-state disappears. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
What is scary in these unstable times is that a powerful United States either thinks that it is weak or believes that its past oversight of the postwar order was either wrong or too costly — or that after Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, America is no longer a force for positive change. [Emphasis added.]
A large war is looming, one that will be far more costly than the preventative vigilance that might have stopped it.
Islam
Islam is on the march for greater power and against other religions, including Christianity and Judaism. In the Islamic view, Allah is the only true God and Mohamed is His messenger. According to Wikipedia,
Islam teaches that everyone is Muslim at birth[30][31] because every child that is born has a natural inclination to goodness and to worship the one true God alone. . . . [Emphasis added.]
Muhammad commanded: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.
In some but not all cases, it may be possible to escape death by paying, in perpetuity, substantial fines which many simply cannot afford.
Here is a video of Ayan Hirsi Ali‘s September 15, 2014 remarks at a Yale Buckley Foundation symposium. They deal with the clash of civilizations. If you want to skip the introductory formalities, go directly to 03:45. Her remarks begin at 10:33.
Obama, like Ayan Hirsi Ali, was raised as a Muslim child. As she matured and began to think for herself, she found the realities of Islam increasingly hateful. Obama continues to find Islam good and to consider it the “religion of peace. Why?
At a dinner in Washington, Biden attempted to correct her perspective on relationship between the Islamic State and Islam, saying, “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she pushed back, Biden said, “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam…” [Emphasis added.]
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”
Consistently, Obama’s “solution” and that of many other multiculturalists: declare the Islamic State, et al, (but not Islam itself, of course) non-Islamic.
Why Uruguay? It’s one of several South American countries run by Marxist terrorists.
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a former Marxist terrorist, already offered to take in Syrian refugees and a number of the freed Gitmo Jihadists are Syrians who trained under the future leader of what would become ISIS. If they stay on in Uruguay, they can try to finish the job of killing the Syrian refugees resettled there. If they don’t, they can just join ISIS and kill Christian and Yazidi refugees back in Syria.
It’s a win-win situation for ISIS and Marxist terrorists; less so for their victims.
Most of the Guantanamo detainees freed by Obama were rated as presenting a high risk to America and our allies. They include a bomb maker, a trained suicide bomber, a document forger and a terrorist who had received training in everything up to RPGs and mortars.
Outgoing Uruguayan President José Mujica has made clear that Uruguay would not hold or restrict the six Guantanamo detainees who were recently resettled in his country.
“The first day that they want to leave, they can leave,” said Mujica in a Spanish-language interview with state television TNU. [Emphasis added.]
Please see also this article at The Long War Journal for additional information on the released terrorists. It also observes that
In its final recommendations, issued in January 2010, President Obama’s Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended that all six be transferred “to a country outside the United States that will implement appropriate security measures.” [Emphasis added.]
Right. Was it an humanitarian gesture from Obama? An early Christmas present for the Islamic state and related peace loving Islamic terrorists?
Iran and Nukes
The Israel versus Iran context provides glaring examples of Obama’s predilection for punishing His, rather than America’s, enemies while rewarding His, rather than America’s, friends. As I observed here, Iran is well known as a major sponsor of Islamic terrorism. It is also remarkable for its failure to provide even the most basic human rights.
It has been reported that Iran executed more than four hundred people during the first half of 2014. That’s more than two per day.
Despite Iran’s state anti-Semitism, the recent arrest of U.S. journalists, and the continued oppression of women, the Obama administration has been attempting a rapprochement with the Iranian regime. Fending off Iran hawks in Congress and the D.C. punditocracy, the administration has argued for a policy of constructive engagement, pursuing diplomacy over military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The execution of two gay men, while it may not be surprising, certainly doesn’t make that “engagement” any easier.
Iran’s abysmal human rights record and support for Islamic terrorism appear to be of little if any relevance to Obama and the P5+1 negotiators as they pursue a deal with Iran. As noted here, Iran is already at least a nascent nuclear power and, due to Obama’s twisted world view and His desire for a legacy consistent with it, the P5+1 nuclear negotiations gave, and will likely continue to give, Iran substantial advantages. Iran continues to use those advantages, as P5+1 continues to give Iran all that it demands while receiving little if anything in return. The recent seven month extension highlights this strategy.
[W]hat is clear is that the Islamic Republic, particularly the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have gained considerable amount of geopolitical, geostrategic and economic advantages from this offer by the Obama administration. The Supreme Leader’s strategies to buy time, regain full recovery in the economy, pursue his regional hegemonic and ideological ambitions, and reinitiate his government’s nuclear program have been fulfilled. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
[T]he extension of nuclear talks offered to the Islamic Republic is not going to alter Iran’s stand on its nuclear program. Iran will continue holding the position that their demands for the following issues to be met: maintaining a specific number (tens of thousands of) fast-spinning centrifuge machines, Tehran should have the capacity to produce nuclear fuel in the future, and maintain specific level of enriching uranium. In the next few months, the Islamic Republic is not going to give up its capacity to produce plutonium which can be utilized for weapons at its heavy water reactor in the city of Arak. Iran is less likely to provide more evidence proving that it did not carry out secret tests on the development of atomic weapons in Parchin or other military complexes. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency recently pointed out that the Islamic Republic continues to deny the IAEA access to sensitive military site which are suspected to be used for nuclear activities. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
After the extension of the nuclear talks, President Rouhani pointed out on state television that “I promise the Iranian nation that those centrifuges will never stop working.” The extension not only will not alter the Islamic Republic’s position on its nuclear program, but will give the ruling clerics the opportunity to be further empowered, making them more determined to pursue their regional hegemonic ambitions. [Emphasis added.]
Alireza Forghani, a former provincial governor (and pro-nuclear radical) who now serves as strategist at a think tank aligned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in his blog that Iran is pursuing a tactic of “elongation” in the talks, which “never are supposed to be brought to a successful conclusion.” He backs a policy of nuclear weapons being the Islamic Republic’s “definite right” and looks forward to a time when the United States faces “a nuclear Iran who not only has nuclear power, but also is equipped with nuclear weapons.” [Emphasis added.]
In a previous post headlined “Iran Needs a War,” Forghani cautioned that “American politicians should know that their next war with the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the war which guarantees Iranian Muslims survival, will be an utter destruction.” He also denounced “the childish behavior of Obama” regarding the negotiations and said that “nuclear weapons capabilities are essential in order to prevent U.S. freedom of action” and that Iran needed the capability to mount a “rapid response at the level of the atom bomb.” [ Emphasis added.]
The Obama administration is trying to portray the failure to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran as just part of the ebb and flow of the diplomatic process. But the signals coming from Tehran indicate that arms control negotiations are just another tool in Iran’s drive to achieve nuclear capability. [Emphasis added.]
Iran contends that the Obama Administration continues to lie about Iranian concessions, which Iran denies having made. Due to the overall credibility deficit of the Obama administration, I consider Iran more credible on the matter.
Iran over the weekend pushed back against key claims made by the administration to lawmakers and the press about further concessions agreed to by Iran following the last round of talk in Vienna regarding the country’s contested nuclear program.
In talking points disseminated to congressional offices since the extension in talks was announced, the administration has claimed that the terms of the agreement—which will prolong talks through July 2015—included “significant concessions” by Tehran, according to the Associated Press. [Emphasis added.]
However, Iran says that this is a lie and that no new concessions have been agreed upon.
Islam and Israel
Islam, the Religion of Peace Death and Subjugation, is not the root of all evil, but it engages in and promotes far more than its fair share of the worst types. Obama assists it in its depredations. Here’s a video of a Muslim preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem speaking with great warmth heat about Jews.
The words of that “preacher-teacher,” as Ayan Hirsi Ali would probably characterize him, and those of like-minded Islamists, have gained many devout followers among Palestinians. According to this article,
An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis, an opinion poll released Tuesday finds, according to The Associated Press (AP).
. . . .
The poll found 86 percent of respondents believe the Al-Aqsa mosque is in “grave danger” from Israel. It said 80 percent supported individual attacks by Arabs who have stabbed Israelis or rammed cars into crowded train stations. [Emphasis added.]
Islamists have been regularly clashing with Israeli police on the Temple Mount and escalated a campaign of harassment against Jewish visitors, who are already under severe restrictions due to Muslim pressure. The violence reached a peak with the recent attempted murder of prominent Jewish Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick.
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has blamed Israel for the ongoing tensions in Jerusalem.
The Iranian regime has launched a nationwide social media campaign called, “We Love Fighting Israel,” which encourages Iranian children, teens, and Internet users to photograph themselves alongside messages of hate for the Jewish state.
. . . .
Thousands of Iranians are reported to have already joined the electronic movement following comments by Khamenei’s outlining Iran’s goal of destroying the Jewish state.
“Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well,” [Supreme Leader] Khamenei was quoted as saying in a recent speech by the country’s state-run media. “By Allah’s Favor and Grace, we have passed through the barrier of denominational discord.” [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
. . . .
The anti-Israel campaign now “has gone viral on the web,” according to Iran’s state-controlled Mehr News Agency, “getting more and more boost from individuals who post photos reading similar sentences, [and] sharing the #Fightingthezionists hash tag.”
In 1975, after repeated attempts to kick Israel out of the U.N., the General Assembly succumbed to the pressure exerted by the Arab countries and determined that Zionism is racism. The decision was the cornerstone of the institutionalized factory of discrimination against Israel at the United Nations. The U.N. waited 16 long years before retracting its “Zionism is racism” decision. The protocols have been updated, but even with no official reminder, the stain remains on the walls of the general assembly hall and the stench is still in the U.N.’s corridors today. [Emphasis added.]
Of the 193 states that belong to the U.N., only 87 are democracies — less than half. The countries that are taking advantage of the democratic process at the United Nations are the same ones that suppress any spark of democracy within their borders. Although the U.N. uses a parliamentary mechanism, many of the hands raised to vote are the hands of brutal dictators. [Emphasis added.]
The U.N. has gone from being a stage for courageous statecraft to a theater of the absurd: The General Assembly allows wild Palestinian incitement, the Security Council has Venezuela and Malaysia managing peacekeeping forces, and then there is the Human Rights Council, in which the guardians of humanity are regimes without a shred of humanity, regimes that invent blood libels against Israel while in Syria, a tyrant slaughters hundreds of thousands of his own people. [Emphasis added.]
The UN created a unique organization, UNRWA, to handle refugees from Palestine/Israel while every other global refugee is managed in an under-funded, undermanned separate agency. The UN compounds the abuse by only allowing descendants of UNRWA to receive aid, while denying descendants of the rest of the world’s refugees any support.
. . . .
The UN only condemned the nationalist movement of Israelis as “racism” while ignoring nationalism of other countries
The UN censured Israel when the Israeli Prime Minister visited the holiest spot for Jews during regular visiting hours, but didn’t say a word while some countries were slaughtering thousands of people.
Unlike the UN believer in the cartoon, Obama remains unwilling to learn about the bases of, let alone to consider, other perceptions.
A senior official of the United Nation Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), also known to some as the United Nations Rocket Warehousing Agency), recently called for a boycott of the Jerusalem Post for publishing an editorial
by Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid that called for an audit of all allocated funds to UNRWA and the dismissal of its Hamas-affiliated employees. (“Proud Palestinians must lead the fight to reform UNRWA,” Dec. 1, 2014.)
And Obama often relies on the U.N. to tell Him how and where to “lead.”
For Obama and European leaders, Israel is reducible to the peace process. And the Israeli left depends on the support of foreign governments for its network of foreign funded non-profit organizations. The Israeli left can’t let go of its exploding version of ObamaCare [the peace process] because the left is becoming a foreign organization with limited domestic support. Its electorate isn’t in Israel; it’s in Brussels. [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
The Israeli left is short on ideas, both foreign and domestic, and its last remaining card is Obama.
Escalating a crisis in relations has been the traditional way for US administrations to force Israeli governments out of office. Bill Clinton did it to Netanyahu and as Israeli elections appear on the horizon Obama would love to do it all over again.
There’s only one problem.
The United States is popular in Israel, but Obama isn’t. Obama’s spats with Netanyahu ended up making the Israeli leader more popular. The plan was for Obama to gaslight Israelis by maintaining a positive image in Israel while lashing out at the Jewish State so that the blame would fall on Netanyahu. [Emphasis added.]
Obama considers Prime Minister Netanyahu the principal impediment to realization of His fantasy of Palestinian peace through creation of a Palestinian state. “Peace” with the Palestinians will not bring peace to Israel — aside from Islamic peace through death. Yet it seems that Obama is meddling in Israeli politics to get Prime Minister Netanyahu removed from office. Obama recently met with Netanyahu’s Israeli opponents:
The White House is still working on a detailed plan of action, but has lost no time in setting up appointments for the president to receive heads of the parties sworn to overthrow Netanyahu – among others, ex-minister Lapid, opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog of Labor and Tzipi Livni (The Movement), who was fired this week as Justice Minister along with Lapid. [Emphasis added.]
They will be accorded attractive photo-ops with Obama and joint communiqués designed to signify to the Israeli voter that the US president would favor their election to the future government and the country as a whole would gain tangibly from a different government to the incumbent one. [Emphasis added.]
This White House campaign would be accompanied by leaks from Washington for putting Netanyahu and his policies in a derogatory light. Messages to this effect were transmitted to a number of serving political figures as an incentive to jump the Likud-led ship to opposition ranks. The US administration has begun hinting that it may emulate the Europeans by turning the screws on Israel as punishment for the prime minister’s signature policy of developing West Bank and Jerusalem development construction. [Emphasis added.]
Conclusions
Should we, who claim to be civilized and therefore to support democracy with freedom — including freedom of religion but not freedom to engage in genocidal religious wars — respect and emphasize with the Islamic views of the “preacher-teacher” in the video embedded above and of Iran’s Supreme Leader that the Jews who infest the Earth must be hated and killed? Does Hillary Clinton’s sympathy and empathy meme apply only to our enemies? Does she consider the preacher-teacher, the Supreme Leader and their ilk to be our friends or enemies?
Rather than be troubled by the nature of Islam, Obama heartily approves of it. As far as the Middle East is concerned, He is troubled principally by Israel’s refusal to commit national suicide by bowing to His every demand which, in His apparent view, should bring peace to the entire region. If Israel fails to do as He demands, it must suffer the fate of a rabid dog so that its infection cannot spread.
Obama has been a disaster as a world leader and, when He has actually tried to lead He has done so, often in conjunction with the U.N., to deprive many of their freedoms while enhancing the abilities of others, particularly devotees of Islam, to trash even more of those freedoms. If, as seems increasingly likely, the P5+1 negotiations as eventually concluded permit Iran to get (or keep) nukes and the means to use them, the world will be a much less safe place for all.
If Obama succeeds, Iran will see to it that Israel is not the only nation to suffer the consequences of His actions.
(If Mr. Carter fails to change his views on Iran, or at least stop talking about them, how long will he last as Obama’s Secretary of Defense? — DM)
Ashton Carter / AP
President Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense Ashton Carter has a very strong position on nuclear non-proliferation issues, the Tower reports.
Some of those positions stand in contrast with those of the Obama administration.
Politico on Tuesday described him as a “leading member of a clique of defense intellectuals long concerned with the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack” and suggested he “could be more consequential when it comes to Obama’s plans for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.”
Two months before President Obama’s 2008 election, Carter argued, in a paper coauthored with diplomatic heavyweights including former Special Middle East Coordinator Dennis Ross and Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Executive Director Henry Sokolski, that “Iran’s nuclear development may pose the most significant strategic threat to the United States during the next Administration.” The Times of Israel covered Carter’s nomination, noting that he was a “vocal proponent of stronger action to stymie nuclear proliferation.” Carter had visited the Jewish state in 2013, and was quoted as telling a group of Israeli soldiers that “protecting America means protecting Israel, and that’s why we’re here in the first place.”
The Jerusalem Post reported on Friday that as part of the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Acquisition Group, Carter played an “instrumental” role in the transfer of F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. to Israel. Israel recently placed a preliminary order to purchase 25 more of the state of the art fighters. Speaking Friday to reporters at the State Department press briefing about U.S.-Israel ties, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf reaffirmed the closeness of the relationship, calling ties between the countries “incredibly close, essential” and “unshakable” and noting that it is “arguably the closest military-to-military relationship” the countries have ever had.
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