Archive for the ‘Iranian proxies’ category

“Death to America” Falling on Obama’s Deaf Ears

August 10, 2015

“Death to America” Falling on Obama’s Deaf Ears, American ThinkerEileen F. Toplansky, August 10, 2015

(Please see also, It’s Not Just Iran’s Hardliners Saying ‘Death to America.’  — DM)

The Iranian curriculum is based on an Iranian-style Islam called the New Islamic Civilization (NIC).  The battle between good and evil, which is to be waged on a global scale, “is the responsibility of each Iranian citizen,” and “it begins with defense.”  America is seen as “arrogant,” and “any kind of freedom of speech, political debate or appreciation of Iranian culture or values other than those espoused by the regime are intolerable[.]”

[T]reating Iran as a normal country instead of one that inculcates acts of aggression is extraordinarily dangerous.

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We are well past the point where we can ever believe Obama the man because, as those prescient about Obama’s background instinctively understood, whatever was taught  Obama the child is what is now being reflected in his dangerous anti-American actions.

Thus, the 17th-century Jesuit-inspired quotation of “give me the child, and I will mold the man” remains true.

This is why the idea that one can trust the Iranians is not only naive, but extraordinarily dangerous, given the education of their children.  In the May 2015 Special Interim Report entitled “Imperial Dreams: The Paradox of Iranian Education” by Eldad J. Pardo, the incessant propagandizing and intimidation of Iranian students is proof positive that they are being primed to attack those whom their leaders deem the enemy.  The first page of the report shows the map of a “New Dreams of World Power” with Iran at the center.  Underneath this map is a picture of “Iranian children preparing for martyrdom.”

Lest one think this is unthinkable, recall the fact that Iran and its proxies regularly send their children as suicidal bombers.  Thus, as Pardo recounts, the Iranian education curriculum includes “the ambition to impose Iranian hegemony on the world; a culture of militarism and jihad; blind obedience and martyrdom; and hostility and paranoia toward foreigners.”

In fact, “jihad war is unending,” and “the frenzied rush toward the end-of-time’s ‘horrifying battle'” is the lifeblood of continuous jihad.

The backdrop to all this education is the idea that Iran is committed to “total struggle for the creation of a just world order” and that such a “condition will remain until the coming of the Mahdi, the Shiite Messiah[.]”  The messianic ideal here is quite different from what most Westerners believe; that it is ignored will be a fatal mistake.  And Obama knows this, which is why Americans must stomach, yet again, his “compendium of demagoguery, historical revisionism and outright lying.”

Iranian students understand that “possible martyrdom on a massive scale and for which they practice from the first grade – could be launched as part of an Iranian ‘attack on countries ruled by oppressive governments.'”  Moreover, Iranian students study about “dissimulation” (taqiyya) and “misleading the enemy.”  They learn that “in time of need, dissimulation and  temporary pacts – even with ‘un-Godly, idolatrous governments’ – are proper (but only until such time as the balance of power should change).”  The idea of sacrifice is “constantly instilled in them,” as evidenced by the Teacher’s Guide for Persian, Grade 3 text.  Never is there any concern with the “human wave assault,” which includes many sacrificed schoolchildren.  Instead, enthusiasm for military participation is promoted in the first grade, for six-year-olds.

Surely Obama’s many Muslim Brotherhood advisers would have informed him of taqiyya, and since Obama early on learned the tenets of Islam, this is part of his worldview.  Whether one believes he is a pathological liar or not, the fact remains that Obama defends the Iranian deal with falsehoods and slurs.  Moreover, he recently exploited American college students at American University, much as his Iranian counterparts abuse their own children with incessant misinformation and propaganda.

The Iranian educational curriculum makes much of the Aryan-Shiite basis of Iranian identity wherein the Allies, and not Nazi Germany, are vilified, and, of course, the Holocaust is completely avoided.  Hence, the unremitting cries of “Death to Israel” fall on ears already primed to hate the Jew.  Furthermore, in echoes of Nazism, “children are instructed not to obey their parents in matters regarding martyrdom,” and pictures of soldiers are amply sprinkled in the textbooks.

This is of little concern to Obama, who has been surrounded by anti-Semites for many years.  The anti-Jewish hatred does not disturb him, nor does it deter him.  While Caroline Glick asserts that Obama maintains that “an anti-Semite is someone who refuses to recognize the 3,000-year connection between the Jews and the Land of Israel,” and “an anti-Semite is also someone who refuses to recognize the long history of persecution that the Jewish people suffered in the Diaspora,” this is hardly a ringing endorsement of ensuring that no harm will come to the Jewish people.  Acknowledging a connection to a piece of land is not the same as making certain that that land is not blown to smithereens.

The Iranian curriculum is based on an Iranian-style Islam called the New Islamic Civilization (NIC).  The battle between good and evil, which is to be waged on a global scale, “is the responsibility of each Iranian citizen,” and “it begins with defense.”  America is seen as “arrogant,” and “any kind of freedom of speech, political debate or appreciation of Iranian culture or values other than those espoused by the regime are intolerable[.]”

In essence, the “school textbooks prepare the entire Iranian population for a constant state of emergency, requiring Iranians to foment revolutions throughout the world, particularly across the Middle East, while evil arrogant enemies – who hate Iran and Islam – scheme against them.”  In fact, texts emphasize the martyrdom of women as well as cyber warfare tactics.  Most importantly, “students learn that no checks are needed on the Supreme Leader’s authority, including his right to sanctify new weapons” (italics mine).  Blind obedience to the Supreme Leader is mandatory.

In a Grade 11 Iranian text, students are enjoined to understand that jihad “covers a range of meanings including killing, massacring, murdering and fighting,” and jihad “permits its use against anyone, anywhere.”  There is “defensive jihad,” which refers to an “enemy transgressing the border or city of the Muslims, or defense of one’s own or other’s life, honor and property.”  Thus, as Muslims gain in number in American cities, it is clear that defensive jihad can be used, especially since defensive jihad is seen as a warfare that is “gradual” and that can be “military and sometimes cultural,” since it “sometimes aims at conquering a land or part of it and sometimes aims at political-economic control.”

Then there is “internal jihad,” which “represents a war with outlawed people who implement rebellion and disobedience as well as armed uprisings.”  Western ideas of freedom will be relegated to the dustbin of history, and those who desire it will be annihilated.

Finally there is “elementary jihad,” which at first glance sounds familiar to Western ears.  It is “defined as an attack on countries ruled by oppressive governments that do not allow free religious activities or freedom to listen to the call of religion.”  But there is no freedom of religion in Iran.  It can be only Islam.  There is no room for any other ideas.  And, in fact, “non-Islamic moral constraints” have no impact as Hezb’allah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, or any other Islamic-inspired group engages in jihad.

Thus, as Jeffrey Herf writes, treating Iran as a normal country instead of one that inculcates acts of aggression is extraordinarily dangerous.  This is a war of ideas – whose will remain supreme?  In essence, Obama is painting a bull’s-eye on America, and not on Iran, who continues the “Death to America” chant on a regular basis.  And while Mona Charen claims that “Obama doesn’t take the Iranian chant seriously,” I, for one, beg to disagree.

 

The day after the deal

August 9, 2015

The day after the deal, Israel Hayom, Prof. Eyal Zisser, August 9, 2015

(Please see also, Russia and US woo Saudis to help save Assad – albeit putting Israel and Jordan in danger from S. Syria.– DM)

[Soleimani] wanted Russia and Iran to agree on the division of the Middle East in a way that would serve their clients in the region (among them, Assad) and check their joint enemies (the Islamic State). After figuring that out, they probably moved on to the next topic: how to marginalize America in the region. As a means to both ends, Russia will continue to serve as Assad’s protector (despite his many crimes), all the while providing Iran with international backing. But above all it will send arms to Iran, to the Syrian regime, and if needed, to Hezbollah.

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Over the weekend it transpired that Maj. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, had visited Moscow two weeks ago and met with President Vladimir Putin. The Quds Force, in case you forgot, is in charge of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ clandestine operations (including terrorism). The Quds Force is responsible for providing aid to Hezbollah and Hamas as well as to Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. In light of his direct involvement in terrorism, the international community imposed sanctions on Soleimani, including travel restrictions.

Only last week, at a hearing on Capitol Hill, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed that the U.S. will make sure the sanctions on Soleimani would stay in effect and that the Obama administration would counter Iran’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East. But no one takes Kerry seriously anymore. While Kerry continues to engage Iran’s unimportant Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the real wheeling and dealing is actually in Moscow.

Soleimani did not go to Moscow because he had tickets to the Bolshoi. Rather, he arrived because he wanted to discuss “the day after the nuclear deal” with Putin. Namely, he wanted Russia and Iran to agree on the division of the Middle East in a way that would serve their clients in the region (among them, Assad) and check their joint enemies (the Islamic State). After figuring that out, they probably moved on to the next topic: how to marginalize America in the region. As a means to both ends, Russia will continue to serve as Assad’s protector (despite his many crimes), all the while providing Iran with international backing. But above all it will send arms to Iran, to the Syrian regime, and if needed, to Hezbollah.

The Russians, unlike the Iranians, don’t consider Israel to be an enemy state. But as a famous Russian official once said: “When you chop wood, chips fly.” Israel has become the latest chip — the collateral damage. Soleimani’s visit is just the tip of iceberg. It shed light on the not-so-secret deals that are being negotiated in the wake of the “Vienna nuclear agreement.” Europe, as usual, is focused on profit and its corporate executives are already traveling in droves to Tehran to ink deals. There are also political deals Iran wants to secure, which are as important for Tehran. Their price, however, will be measured in blood rather than in euros or dollars.

No one in the Middle East, it seems, is keen on parsing each and every provision in the nuclear deal. Nor is there an attempt to see whether, in the grand scheme of things, it is will have been a worthwhile endeavor some 10 or 15 years from now, when its key elements expire. In this region, what counts is the way this agreement is perceived here and now — and what really matters to people is the way it is portrayed in the media. Under that criteria, Iran is the victor and America is the vanquished, because it caved to Iran. The deal, according to how the media has portrayed it, is a crushing political blow to Israel and the moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia.

This knockout victory will likely produce a new Iranian-American partnership. At the very least, the two nations will mend fences. This will alienate many of Washington’s clients, who will have to look elsewhere for a more reliable ally. Egypt and the Saudis have already realized this and turned to Russia for aid and arms, figuring it would be more trustworthy than the “staff of this broken reed” (Isaiah 36:6).

Saudi Arabia is reportedly sending feelers to see if there is a deal to be had with Russia and Iran. Under the terms of the proposed deal, Saudi Arabia would withhold aid to the Syrian rebels if Iran ends its rogue presence in the state. Such a deal would secure Assad a victory over the insurgents, or a least ensure his regime survives.

The ongoing developments have caused panic, but not over the rising clout of Iran and Russia. The White House, it seems, is fretting over the possibility that Congress may vote against the Iran deal and further tarnish Obama’s image.

Russia and US woo Saudis to help save Assad – albeit putting Israel and Jordan in danger from S. Syria

August 9, 2015

Russia and US woo Saudis to help save Assad – albeit putting Israel and Jordan in danger from S. Syria, DEBKAfile, August 9, 2015

Lavrov_Kerry_and_al-Jubeir-_Doha_3.8.15Lavrov, Kerry, Al-Jubeir at Doha

[N]either Israel nor Jordan has been co-opted to this big power initiative, as though they are not concerned. However, both have a big stake in Saudi Arabia’s next decisions. If Riyadh is won over by US-Russian blandishments and goes back on its decision to boycott Assad, the Saudi-Israeli-Jordanian effort to support Syrian rebel control of southern Syria will fall apart. This will open up both countries to new perils on their  northern borders.

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Building on the nuclear accord signed in Vienna last month, the Obama administration has been in close communion with Moscow and Tehran on regional moves to save the Assad regime, as the key to their next regional policies, including a united front against the Islamic State.. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners are being assiduously wooed to join the new alignment being set up for this purpose. The live wire in getting them all together is Omani Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah, the secret broker who brought Iran and the United States to the negotiating table for a nuclear accord. This was first reported in the last DEBKA Weekly.

Wednesday, Aug. 7, Obama threw out his first hint on this development: “The window has opened a crack for us to get a political resolution in Syria, partly because both Russia and Iran, I think, recognize that the trend lines are not good for Assad,” he said. “Neither of those patrons are particularly sentimental; they don’t seem concerned about the humanitarian disaster that’s been wrought by Assad and this conflict over the last several years, but they are concerned about the potential collapse of the Syrian state. And that means, I think, the prospect of more serious discussions than we’ve had in the past.”

The US president then affirmed more strongly in a CNN interview Sunday, Aug. 9:  “Is there the possibility that having begun conversations around this narrow issue [the nuclear accord with Iran] that you start getting some broader discussions about Syria, for example, and the ability of all the parties involved to try to arrive at a political transition that keeps the country intact and does not further fuel the growth of ISIL and other terrorist organizations? I think that’s possible,” Obama said. “But I don’t think it happens immediately.”

The administration and its prospective partners are united by the will to destroy ISIS – in its Syrian stronghold, for starters – but are divided on much else, DEBKA file reports. And so the process is moving forward in careful steps.

Their initial focus is on Syria, the bloody battleground which in less than five years has left at least 300,000 dead and more than 10 million people homeless.

The plan the group started out with in the last ten days was a swap as simple as it was ruthless: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would slow their assistance to Syrian rebel groups, against whom President Bashar Assad’s army and allies would hold their fire; Iran, for its part, was to start withdrawing its support from the Yemeni Houthis insurgents.

The informal truce in Syria would be the stage for the Assad regime and rebel groups to start discussing a new government with room for opposition parties. The Islamists of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front would not be invited.

In Yemen, Tehran would cut back on the arms and intelligence which have enabled the Houthi insurgents to stand up to the combined forces of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. The pro-Western Yemeni President Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi would be restored to his palace in Sanaa and invite the insurgent leader, Abdu Malik Al-Houthi, to discuss his partnership in a new government.

This deal was tantamount to a joint US-Russian guarantee of Bashar Assad survival in power in return for a Tehran-Riyadh compact for Hadi’s reinstatement in Sanaa.

These arrangements were debated back and forth in exchanges, some semi-secret, among the leading actors for most of July. The visit to Riyadh of the Syrian intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk was set up by Moscow as a major push forward.

The plan was for the entire enterprise to be brought out in the open and sealed in Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, Aug. 3 at a conference attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir and other top Gulf diplomats.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was not there. But he put a strong oar into the proceedings by calling in at Muscat, Oman the day before the conference and subsequently on Friday Aug. 7. Assad also kept his hand in by sending his foreign minister Walid Moallem to Tehran and Muscat last week.

But then, at Doha, just as the package was ready to unveil, the Saudi foreign minister pulled away and blew it up with two provisions: a) Riyadh would not countenance Bashar Assad being allowed to stay in office, and: b) Saudi Arabia would not do business with any representative of the Assad regime.

This put a large spoke in the main wheel of the initiative and also scuttled some of the secondary plans depending on it.

But by then, a lot was happening in the Yemeni and Syrian war arenas:

1. Saudi and UAE armored forces had landed in Aden and were closing in on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. The Houthi rebels, trained and armed by Iran, were forced to retreat without negotiations on their future role in government.

2. Syrian rebel leaders, sensing the approaching betrayal, sent a secret delegation to Tehran to discuss terms for opening negotiations with Assad. They too were left at sea about the deals in play among Washington, Moscow, Tehran and Riyadh over their future.

Saturday, Aug.8, the Russians, egged on by the Americans, set about winning Riyadh into the fold, Foreign Minister Al-Jubeir was invited to pay a visit to Moscow Tuesday, Aug. 11, for talks about the Syrian conflict and the war on the Islamic State.

Refusing to accept that the new initiative had been grounded in Doha, Moscow presented the visit as continuing the ongoing dialogue on the issues raised at that encounter.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources note that neither Israel nor Jordan has been co-opted to this big power initiative, as though they are not concerned. However, both have a big stake in Saudi Arabia’s next decisions. If Riyadh is won over by US-Russian blandishments and goes back on its decision to boycott Assad, the Saudi-Israeli-Jordanian effort to support Syrian rebel control of southern Syria will fall apart. This will open up both countries to new perils on their  northern borders.

Column One: Obama’s enemies list

August 6, 2015

Column One: Obama’s enemies list, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, August 6, 2015

ShowImage (8)US President Barack Obama at the Rose Garden of the White House. (photo credit:OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO / PETE SOUZA)

[T]he real question lawmakers need to ask is whether the deal is good for America. Is Obama right or wrong that only partisan zealots and disloyal Zionists could oppose his great diplomatic achievement? To determine the answer to that question, you need to do is ask another one. Does his deal make America safer or less safe? The best way to answer that question is to consider all the ways Iran threatens America today, and ask whether the agreement has no impact on those threats, or whether it mitigates or aggravates them.

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In President Barack Obama’s defense of his nuclear deal with Iran Wednesday, he said there are only two types of people who will oppose his deal – Republican partisans and Israel- firsters – that is, traitors.

At American University, Obama castigated Republican lawmakers as the moral equivalent of Iranian jihadists saying, “Those [Iranian] hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal… are making common cause with the Republican Caucus.”

He then turned his attention to Israel.

Obama explained that whether or not you believe the deal endangers Israel boils down to whom you trust more – him or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, he explained, he can be trusted to protect Israel better than Netanyahu can because “[I] have been a stalwart friend of Israel throughout my career.”

The truth is that it shouldn’t much matter to US lawmakers whether Obama or Netanyahu has it right about Israel. Israel isn’t a party to the deal and isn’t bound by it. If Israel decides it needs to act on its own, it will.

The US, on the other side, will be bound by the deal if Congress fails to kill it next month.

So the real question lawmakers need to ask is whether the deal is good for America. Is Obama right or wrong that only partisan zealots and disloyal Zionists could oppose his great diplomatic achievement? To determine the answer to that question, you need to do is ask another one. Does his deal make America safer or less safe? The best way to answer that question is to consider all the ways Iran threatens America today, and ask whether the agreement has no impact on those threats, or whether it mitigates or aggravates them.

Today Iran is harming America directly in multiple ways.

The most graphic way Iran is harming America today is by holding four Americans hostage. Iran’s decision not to release them over the course of negotiations indicates that at a minimum, the deal hasn’t helped them.

It doesn’t take much consideration to recognize that the hostages in Iran are much worse off today than they were before Obama concluded the deal on July 14.

The US had much more leverage to force the Iranians to release the hostages before it signed the deal than it does now. Now, not only do the Iranians have no reason to release the hostages, they have every reason to take more hostages.

Then there is Iranian-sponsored terrorism against the US.

In 2011, the FBI foiled an Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in the US capital.

One of the terrorists set to participate in the attack allegedly penetrated US territory through the Mexican border.

The terrorist threat to the US emanating from Iran’s terrorist infrastructure in Latin America will rise steeply as a consequence of the nuclear deal.

As The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote last month, the sanctions relief the deal provides to Iran will enable it to massively expand its already formidable operations in the US’s backyard. Over the past two decades, Iran and Hezbollah have built up major presences in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Iran’s presence in Latin America also constitutes a strategic threat to US national security. Today Iran can use its bases of operations in Latin America to launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US from a ballistic missile, a satellite or even a merchant ship.

The US military is taking active steps to survive such an attack, which would destroy the US’s power grid. Among other things, it is returning the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to its former home in Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs.

But Obama has ignored the findings of the congressional EMP Commission and has failed to harden the US electronic grid to protect it from such attacks.

The economic and human devastation that would be caused by the destruction of the US electric grid is almost inconceivable. And now with the cash infusion that will come Iran’s way from Obama’s nuclear deal, it will be free to expand on its EMP capabilities in profound ways.

Through its naval aggression in the Strait of Hormuz Iran threatens the global economy. While the US was negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, the Revolutionary Guards unlawfully interdicted – that is hijacked – the Marshall Islands-flagged Maersk Tigris and held its crew hostage for weeks.

Iran’s assault on the Tigris came just days after the US-flagged Maersk Kensington was surrounded and followed by Revolutionary Guards ships until it fled the strait.

A rational take-home message the Iranians can draw from the nuclear deal is that piracy pays.

Their naval aggression in the Strait of Hormuz was not met by American military force, but by American strategic collapse at Vienna.

This is doubly true when America’s listless response to Iran’s plan to use its Houthi proxy’s takeover of Yemen to control the Bab el-Mandab strait is taken into consideration. With the Bab el-Mandab, Iran will control all maritime traffic from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Rather than confront this clear and present danger to the global economy, America abandoned all its redlines in the nuclear talks.

Then there is Iran’s partnership 20-year partnership with al-Qaida.

The 9/11 Commission found in its report that four of the 9/11 terrorists transited Iran before traveling to the US. As former Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Mike Flynn told Fox News in the spring, Iranian cooperation with al-Qaida remains deep and strategic.

When the US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, they seized hard drives containing more than a million documents related to al-Qaida operations. All but a few dozen remain classified.

According to Flynn and other US intelligence officials who spoke to The Weekly Standard, the documents expose Iran’s vast collaboration with al-Qaida.

The agreement Obama concluded with the mullahs gives a tailwind to Iran. Iran’s empowerment will undoubtedly be used to expand its use of al-Qaida terrorists as proxies in their joint war against the US.

Then there is Iran’s ballistic missile program.

The UN Security Council resolution passed two weeks ago cancels the UN-imposed embargoes on conventional arms and ballistic missile acquisitions by Iran. Since the nuclear deal facilities Iranian development of advanced nuclear technologies that will enable the mullahs to build nuclear weapons freely when the deal expires, the Security Council resolution means that by the time the deal expires, Iran will have the nuclear warheads and the intercontinental ballistic missiles required to carry out a nuclear attack on the US.

Obama said Wednesday that if Congress votes down his nuclear deal, “we will lose… America’s credibility as a leader of diplomacy. America’s credibility,” he explained, “is the anchor of the international system.”

Unfortunately, Obama got it backwards. It is the deal that destroys America’s credibility and so upends the international system which has rested on that credibility for the past 70 years.

The White House’s dangerous suppression of seized al-Qaida-Iran documents, like its listless response to Iran’s maritime aggression, its indifference to Iran’s massive presence in Latin America, its lackluster response to Iran’s terrorist activities in Latin America, and its belittlement of the importance of the regime’s stated goal to destroy America – not to mention its complete collapse on all its previous redlines over the course of the negotiations – are all signs of the disastrous toll the nuclear deal has already taken on America’s credibility, and indeed on US national security.

To defend a policy that empowers Iran, the administration has no choice but to serve as Iran’s agent. The deal destroys America’s credibility in fighting terrorism. By legitimizing and enriching the most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, the US has made a mockery of its claimed commitment to the fight.

The deal destroys the US’s credibility as an ally.

By serving as apologists for its worst enemy, the US has shown its allies that they cannot trust American security guarantees. How can Israel or Saudi Arabia trust America to defend them when it is endangering itself? The deal destroys 70 years of US nonproliferation efforts. By enabling Iran to become a nuclear power, the US has made a mockery of the very notion of nonproliferation and caused a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The damage caused by the deal is already being felt. For instance, Europe, Russia and China are already beating a path to the ayatollahs’ doorstep to sign commercial and military deals with the regime.

But if Congress defeats the deal, it can mitigate the damage. By killing the deal, Congress will demonstrate that the American people are not ready to go down in defeat. They can show that the US remains committed to its own defense and the rebuilding of its strategic credibility worldwide.

In his meeting with Jewish leaders Tuesday, Obama acknowledged that his claim – repeated yet again Wednesday – that the only alternative to the deal is war, is a lie.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Greg Rosenbaum, chairman of the National Democratic Jewish Council, which is allied with the White House, said that Obama rejected the notion that war will break out if Congress rejects the deal with veto-overriding majorities in both houses.

According to Rosenbaum, Obama claimed that if Congress rejects his nuclear deal, eventually the US will have to carry out air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to prevent them from enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

“But,” he quoted Obama as saying, “the result of such a strike won’t be war with Iran.”

Rather, Obama said, Iran will respond to a US strike primarily by ratcheting up its terrorist attacks against Israel.

“I can assure,” Obama told the Jewish leaders, “that Israel will bear the brunt of the asymmetrical responses that Iran will have to a military strike on its nuclear facilities.”

What is notable here is that despite the fact that it will pay the heaviest price for a congressional defeat of the Iran deal, Israel is united in its opposition to the deal. This speaks volume about the gravity with which the Israeli public views the threats the agreement unleashed.

But again, Israel is not the only country that is imperiled by the nuclear deal. And Israelis are not the only ones who need to worry.

Obama wishes to convince the public that the deal’s opponents are either partisan extremists or traitors who care about Israel more than they care about America. But neither claim is true. The main reason Americans should oppose the deal is that it endangers America. And as a consequence, Americans who oppose the deal are neither partisans nor turncoats.

They are patriots.

Nuclearizing Iran, Sabotaging Arabs

August 6, 2015

Nuclearizing Iran, Sabotaging Arabs, The Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, August 6, 2015

(Please see also, Obama’s Strategy Of Equilibrium. — DM)

  • Obama’s solution? To let Iran have legitimate nuclear bombs in a few years, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver them to the U.S. — or perhaps from America’s soft underbelly, South America, where Iran has been acquiring uranium and establishing bases for years. Or perhaps launched from submarines off America’s coast, which would make the identity of the attacker unknowable and a response therefore impossible. Incredibly, America’s politicians do not even seem to seem to be concerned about that.
  • We have just sacrificed Sunni stability for American ideology: empty slogans fed to us by clueless, if well-meaning, American officials.
  • As we watched one stable Arab regime fall after another, we have allowed ourselves to be destroyed from within by these bungling diplomats — from America, Europe, China and Russia. Instead of keeping our eyes on the real threat, we exhausted ourselves in wasteful, unending battles against the Jews — meanwhile letting the Iranian menace slip out of sight.
  • Obama really does deserve a Nobel Prize, but it should have been awarded by the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in gratitude for America’s surrender.

“Nation building” seems to have fallen into disrepute in the West, but it should not. It is vitally important — as the successes of Germany, Japan and South Korea attest.

Over the past few years, in our foolishness, we in the Middle East swallowed the deceptive bait of “democracy” dangled before us, even though we knew that it could not, in the misguided way it was presented, be implemented in the Middle East.

The idea was superb, but here in the Middle East, possibly in being impatient to “get credit” before the diplomats’ term of office were over, no one ever took the time to establish the institutions of democracy — equal justice under law, freedom of speech, property rights, the primacy of the individual rather than the collective, separation of religion and state — to show us in the Middle East how democracy actually operates, and to allow those institutions to take rootbefore ever holding an election.

So eager were Western leaders to take credit right away that they refused “let the rice bake.” Had the West introduced democratic elections to Japan and South Korea (where they eventually worked brilliantly) in the same way it muscled democracy into Iraq, it would never have taken root in those countries either. Had the Germans had been asked to vote right after World War II, they would most likely have reelected the Nazis — that was what they knew. It took seven years to re-educate the public to understand and accept a Konrad Adenauer.

What seems clear is that we have sacrificed Sunni stability for empty slogans — and for clueless, if well-meaning, American officials. As we watched one stable Arab regime fall after another, we allowed American ideology to destroy us from within. Instead of keeping our eyes on the real threat, we exhausted ourselves in wasteful, unending battles against the Jews — meanwhile letting the Iranian menace slip out of sight.

If we try to look at the positive side of the Iran nuclear agreement, it is just possible that Obama looked at the Sunni Arab states, fractured and at each other’s throats, and at the ruthless terrorist groups gaining ground in the expanding battle zones, and decided that we were too fractious for the U.S. to protect.

Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have been worsening the situation in the Arab world by funding Sunni terrorist organizations, thereby putting it on a course of complete chaos. Despite Arab wealth and power, we have been dealing almost exclusively with the marginal issue of Palestine and the Jews, to excuse our inability to be effective in giving U.S. President Barack Obama what he really needs: regional stability.

Obama sees Iran and its terrorist organizations, which are all unified, organized and obedient, opposing the Sunni Arabs. Obama may be betting on Iran to bring order to the Middle East.

Imagine if we and our fundamentalist Sunni terrorist organizations had actually focused on stopping the Iranians in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Imagine if we had abandoned, even momentarily, the dream of the Muslim Brotherhood (what the West calls “political Islam”) ruling the world. Imagine if we had stopped our stupid, useless acts of hatred, and could instead have focused on our common enemy, Iran. Our situation now would be immeasurably better. We would not be deviating from the teachings of Muhammad, because first we have to focus on the near enemy and then on the distant one. Iran is nearer and more dangerous than Europe and the United States, so Iran should have been — and still should be — the first Sunni target. We might have led Obama to adopt a different approach than allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb in ten years or sooner — but we did not, because of our weakness and distraction with marginal “causes.” Thus Obama, from a desire to stabilize the Middle East, seems to be betting on the strong horse, Iran.

The truth, however, may be somewhat different. It is entirely possible that Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, is employing a policy of “divide and conquer.” In the U.S., instead of trying to improve how children in the inner cities are being educated, he has been busy stoking racial and economic conflict. The Arabs are becoming increasingly suspicious that he is a historic “divide and conquer” manipulator. He may deliberately be creating fitna (civil strife) in the Arab world by whipping up conflict with Iran, so that America will one again look like the big power-broker — but at the expense of the Arabs.

We Arabs are expert conspiracy theorists, and interpret every political agenda as a hidden plot, but one only has to look at the Obama administration’s fawning support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey and Egypt, and how America supported the fall of Mubarak, and it immediately becomes obvious that the U.S. is trying to manipulate the fate of the Arabs.

Anyone following America’s rejection of, and now only reluctant support for, the reformist regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi understands that the Americans prefer what they consider “backward Arabs”: those controlled by regressive Islam.

That is the reason we see Obama’s policies as backing both the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and the theocrats in Iran. The ideologies of both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s mullahs would lead to most dangerous and regressive fate of both Sunni and Shiite Muslims around the world, as well as Americans at home — and these are the Muslims most loved by the current American administration. Or maybe, as many of us say here on the street, Obama is just trying to “get even” with the West and bring it to its knees, for being white, “imperialist” and non-Muslim. Obama’s solution? To let Iran have legitimate nuclear bombs in a few years, with the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver them to the U.S. — or perhaps from America’s soft underbelly, South America, where Iran has been acquiring uranium and establishing bases for years. Or perhaps launched from submarines off America’s coast, which would make the identity of the attacker unknowable and a response therefore impossible. Incredibly, America’s politicians do not even seem to seem to be concerned about that.

Obama really does deserve a Nobel Prize, but it should have been awarded by the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in gratitude for America’s surrender.

1190Perhaps President Obama’s Nobel Prize should have been awarded by the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in gratitude for America’s surrender.

Obama’s Strategy Of Equilibrium

August 6, 2015

Obama’s Strategy Of Equilibrium, Middle East Media Research Institute, Yigal Carmon and Alberto M. Fernandez, August 5, 2015

(The conflict between Shiite and Sunni factions has been going on since shortly after the death of Mohamed. Obama is not likely to bring reconciliation. — DM)

This article will analyze the strategy of creating an equilibrium between Sunnis and Shiites as a means to promote peace in the Middle East. It will examine the meaning of the strategy in political terms, how realistic it is, and what its future implications might be on the region and on the United States.

“It is worth noting that the first Islamic State created in the Middle East in the last 50 years was not the one created in the Sunni world in 2014 and headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” Rather, it was the Islamic Republic of Iran created in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and currently ruled by his successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who maintains – even following the Iran deal – the mantra “Death to America,” continues to sponsor terrorism worldwide, and commits horrific human rights violations.

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Introduction

In an interview with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times (“Obama Makes His Case on Iran Nuclear Deal,” July 14, 2015), President Obama asked that the nuclear deal with Iran be judged only by how successfully it prevents Iran from attaining a nuclear bomb, not on “whether it is changing the regime inside of Iran” or “whether we are solving every problem that can be traced back to Iran.” However, in many interviews he has given over the last few years, he has revealed a strategy and a plan that far exceed the Iran deal: a strategy which aims to create an equilibrium between Sunnis and Shiites in the Muslim world.

President Obama believes that such an equilibrium will result in a more peaceful Middle East in which tensions between regional powers are reduced to mere competition. As he told David Remnick in an interview with The New Yorker, “…if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion…you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare” (“Going the Distance,” January 27, 2014).

In discussing the Iran deal, the President recalled President Nixon negotiating with China and President Reagan negotiating with the Soviet Union in order to explain the scope of his strategy for the Middle East and the Muslim world. President Obama seeks, as did Presidents Reagan and Nixon with China and the Soviet Union, to impact the region as a whole. The Iran deal, even if major, is just one of several vehicles that would help achieve this goal.

This article will analyze the strategy of creating an equilibrium between Sunnis and Shiites as a means to promote peace in the Middle East. It will examine the meaning of the strategy in political terms, how realistic it is, and what its future implications might be on the region and on the United States.

The Meaning Of The Equilibrium Strategy In Political Terms

Examining the strategy of equilibrium requires the recollection of some basic information. Within Islam’s approximately 1.6 billion believers, the absolute majority – about 90% – is Sunni, while Shiites constitute only about 10%.  Even in the Middle East, Sunnis are a large majority.

What does the word “equilibrium” mean in political terms? In view of the above stated data, the word “equilibrium” in actual political terms means empowering the minority and thereby weakening the majority in order to progress toward the stated goal. However, the overwhelming discrepancy in numbers makes it impossible to reach an equilibrium between the two camps. Therefore, it would be unrealistic to believe that the majority would accept a policy that empowers its adversary and weakens its own historically superior status.

Implications For The Region

Considering the above, the implications of the equilibrium strategy for the region might not be enhancing peace as the President well intends; rather, it might intensify strife and violence in the region. The empowered minority might be persuaded to increase its expansionist activity, as can be already seen: Iran has extended its influence from Lebanon to Yemen. Iranian analyst Mohammad Sadeq al-Hosseini stated in an interview on September 24, 2014, “We in the axis of resistance are the new sultans of the Mediterranean and the Gulf. We in Tehran, Damascus, [Hizbullah’s] southern suburb of Beirut, Baghdad, and Sanaa will shape the map of the region. We are the new sultans of the Red Sea as well” (MEMRITV Clip No. 4530). Similarly, in a statement dedicated to the historically indivisible connection between Iraq and Iran, advisor to President Rouhani Ali Younesi stressed that, “Since its inception, Iran has [always] had a global [dimension]; it was born an empire” (MEMRI Report No. 5991).

In view of this reality, this strategy might create, against the President’s expectations, more bitterness and willingness on the part of the majority to fight for their status. This has already been realized; for example, when Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen after facing the Houthi/Shiite revolution, which it perceived as a grave danger to its survival, and created a fighting coalition within a month to counter it. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has previously demonstrated that it regards Bahrain as an area where any Iranian attempt to stir up unrest will be answered by Saudi military intervention. According to reports, Saudi Arabia has been supporting the Sunni population in Iraq, and in Lebanon, a standstill has resulted because Saudi Arabia has shown that it will not give up – even in a place where Iranian proxy Hizbollah is the main power. Hence, the strategy of equilibrium has a greater chance of resulting in the eruption of regional war than in promoting regional peace.

Implications For The United States

Moreover, this strategy might have adverse implications for the United States and its interests in the Sunni Muslim world: those countries that feel betrayed by the strategy might, as a result, take action against the United States – hopefully only politically (such as changing international alliances) or economically. These countries might be careful about their public pronouncements and might even voice rhetorical support to U.S. policy, as the GCC states did on August 3, but the resentment is there.

Realpolitik Versus Moral Considerations

The analysis presented here is based on principles of realpolitik: in politics, one does not align with the minority against the majority. However, sometimes other considerations take precedence. Morality is such an example: the Allies could not refrain from fighting Nazi Germany because it was a majority power – ultimately, they recognized the moral obligation to combat the Third Reich. However, with regard to the Middle East, the two adversaries are on equal standing: the Islamic Republic of Iran is no different than the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. President Obama and Secretary Kerry would be wrong to think that Mohammad Javad Zarif, the sophisticated partygoer in New York City, represents the real Iran. Zarif, his negotiating team, and President Rouhani himself, all live under the shadow and at the mercy of the Supreme Leader, the ayatollahs, and the IRGC.

“It is worth noting that the first Islamic State created in the Middle East in the last 50 years was not the one created in the Sunni world in 2014 and headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” Rather, it was the Islamic Republic of Iran created in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and currently ruled by his successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who maintains – even following the Iran deal – the mantra “Death to America,” continues to sponsor terrorism worldwide, and commits horrific human rights violations.

Analysis: Arabs see US-trained anti-Islamist force as only fit to ‘play paintball’

August 6, 2015

Analysis: Arabs see US-trained anti-Islamist force as only fit to ‘play paintball’, Jerusalem PostAriel Ben Solomon, August 6, 2015

ShowImage (7)AN ISIS member rides on a rocket launcher in Raqqa in Syria two months ago. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The deal with Iran and the cooperation with Iranian forces against Islamic State, include “Shi’ite militias that are no less criminal.”

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The Arab world perceives the dramatic failure of the small US-trained Syrian rebel force as a further indication that it cannot be a reliable ally against the Iran led Shi’ite axis.

A US defense official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday that at least five Syrian rebels it has trained are believed to have been captured by the Nusra Front.

That followed an attack by the Nusra Front on Friday thought to have killed one member of the so-called “New Syrian Forces,” in what would be their first battlefield casualty.

The incidents underscore the extreme vulnerability of the New Syrian Forces, a still tiny group estimated to number less than 60, who only deployed to the battlefield in recent weeks.

The Pentagon is far behind on its goals to train around 5,000 fighters a year.

Kirk Sowell, principal of Uticensis Risk Services, a Middle East-focused political risk firm, who closely follows Arab media summed it up this way on Twitter: “Pentagon: Arab media are laughing at you.”

Sowell posted a broadcast by pro-opposition Orient News, which expressed astonishment as to why the US would send in a force of only 50 to 60 fighters to help destroy Islamic State.

Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who closely follows Islamist opposition groups in Syria and Iraq, told The Jerusalem Post that “for many Sunni Arabs and Syrian Sunni Arab rebels in particular, this train-and-equip program has had no credibility from the outset.”

This is because the notion of fighting Islamic State while ignoring regime forces does not make sense for them, said Tamimi.

“US policymakers’ sense of reality on the ground is seriously in question with the apparent failure to anticipate a clash with the Nusra Front, which has a notable presence in the Azaz district into which the force of 50-60 men was inserted,” he continued.

Since the US has targeted Nusra Front in air strikes it is not surprising that the group would view a US backed group as a threat, he said.

Middle East researcher Ali Bakir, who also writes for Arab publications, told the Post on Wednesday that “no one in the Arab world takes this program seriously; I mean you would need around 50 to 60 people to play paintball but definitely not to fight Islamic State.”

“There is a profound general perception in the Arab world that the Obama administration is no less responsible than Iran and Russia in the Syrian crisis,” he said.

The deal with Iran and the cooperation with Iranian forces against Islamic State, include “Shi’ite militias that are no less criminal.”

This situation is increasingly seen in the Arab world as siding with the Shi’ites at the expense of the vast majority of Muslims, he asserted.

The US administration is more concerned about not jeopardizing the Iran deal than helping the Syrian people, Bakir added.

Mark Moyar: Lurching without direction

August 5, 2015

Mark Moyar: Lurching without direction, Power Line, Mark Moyar, August 5, 2015

Because crisis management focuses on reducing symptoms rather than eliminating causes, its practitioners typically resort to half measures and token gestures. By demonstrating that the White House is “doing something,” symbolic actions often suffice to alleviate press scrutiny and public pressure for action, at least temporarily. They seldom remedy the problem that they were ostensibly addressing.

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Mark Moyar is Visiting Scholar at The Foreign Policy Initiative and the author, most recently, of the important new book Strategic Failure: How President Obama’s Drone Warfare, Defense Cuts, and Military Amateurism Have Imperiled America. We invited Mark to write something for us bearing the subject of his book. He has responded with this column:

Last year, shortly before Barack Obama fired him, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel chided America’s President for “lurching from crisis to crisis without direction.” The treatment of foreign policy as an exercise in ad hoc crisis management has characterized Obama’s entire Presidency, as indeed it has every Democratic Presidency of the last half century. Fixated on domestic affairs and reluctant to assert American power overseas, Democrats from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama have viewed foreign policy challenges as nuisances to be kept off the front page of the New York Times, rather than problems to be solved through a coherent grand strategy.

Whereas a good strategy drives an active foreign policy, crisis management is inherently reactive. International problems reach the President’s attention mainly when they generate inordinate press coverage or cause a spike in unfavorable polling. Active adversaries, like North Vietnam in 1964 and Russia and ISIS in 2015, have consistently beaten a reactive United States to the punch and dodged the counterpunches.

Because crisis management focuses on reducing symptoms rather than eliminating causes, its practitioners typically resort to half measures and token gestures. By demonstrating that the White House is “doing something,” symbolic actions often suffice to alleviate press scrutiny and public pressure for action, at least temporarily. They seldom remedy the problem that they were ostensibly addressing.

In the case of Syria, Obama rejected recommendations from his cabinet to arm moderate Syrian rebels until 2013, by which time most of the moderate rebels had been killed or co-opted by extremists. He then decided to train and equip rebel forces in such small numbers and with such restrictions on their activities as to render them insignificant. When ISIS advances compelled Obama to restart American training of Iraqi forces, Obama put a ceiling on the number of U.S. trainers that limited throughput to 3,000 trainees per year, too few to make a difference in the war against ISIS or to lessen the influence of the 100,000 Iraqi Shiite militiamen whom the Iranians were training.

In Afghanistan, Obama authorized a troop surge, but began withdrawing troops much earlier than his generals advised, preventing completion of the military’s counterinsurgency campaign and discouraging Afghans from siding with the pro-American government. In Libya, Obama joined a NATO campaign against Muammar Gadhafi after international outrage about Gadhafi’s atrocities reached fever pitch, but his refusal to send American military forces to help secure the peace or protect American interests led to the collapse of central governance and the killing of the U.S. ambassador at Benghazi.

Of the recent additions to the administration’s list of token gestures and half measures, the most flagrant offender is Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Less well known is his response to the crisis of Russian expansionism. For more than a year, Eastern European allies and American critics—some of them within the Obama administration—have been calling for tougher American actions to discourage further Russian advances. Obama finally made his token gesture at the end of June, announcing that the United States would send American troops and heavy weaponry to several eastern European countries.

The joy that the initial announcement may have brought the eastern Europeans quickly faded when they saw the fine print, which was issued by U.S. ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute. The United States, Lute explained, was not going to deploy forces to eastern Europe on a permanent basis. “The tanks are empty, the … vehicles are empty, and will be parked, stored and maintained in training areas across the six Eastern most allies for training purposes,” Lute said. “Then the soldiers, on exercise after exercise, will be flown in.” One doubts that the Latvians will feel secure, or the Russians will feel deterred, by empty American vehicles and occasional visits from jet-setting American soldiers.

Many of Obama’s token gestures and half measures are clearly intended to keep simmering crises from boiling over until Obama leaves office. Administration spokesmen have repeatedly said that defeating ISIS will be a “multiyear” effort. The diluted U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is scheduled to last until the end of Obama’s term. Most of the fallout from Obama’s bad Iran deal will not hit ground until someone else occupies the White House. Obama and his proxies will no doubt craft stories explaining how his successor’s errors undid all of his foreign policy masterstrokes.

The President’s tokenism also serves one of the few national security objectives that Obama has pursued with any consistency, the diminution of American military power. The White House ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen as a means of diverting the American people’s attention and showing that the United States could still do damage to terrorists without large military forces. While boasting about the number of people killed by drones, Obama quietly forced through drastic reductions in the armed services and withdrew American forces from critical regions. The drone strikes, in actuality, succeeded mainly in killing low-level fighters and antagonizing the Pakistani and Yemeni governments to the point that the United States eventually had to discontinue most strikes.

If one believes that Obama’s foreign policy should be driven by mitigation of immediate crises, particularly those that might detract from perceived domestic achievements such as Obamacare and environmental regulation, then there may be cause for optimism about the next year and a half. If, on the other hand, one believes that Obama’s foreign policy should be driven by protection of America’s enduring national security interests, then there is cause only for worry. Obama’s remaining months in office will give America’s enemies time and space to accumulate strength. The continuance of passivity and tokenism may even invite audacious provocations from enemies seeking to steal more sheep before a more vigilant shepherd comes along.

Report: Iran orders Hezbollah not to retaliate now because finalizing nuclear deal

August 5, 2015

Report: Iran orders Hezbollah not to retaliate now because finalizing nuclear deal, Jerusalem PostAriel Ben Solomon, August 5, 2015

Iran instructed Hezbollah not to respond to reported Israeli Air Force strikes last week because it wants to focus on finalizing the nuclear deal with world powers, a Saudi newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Tehran does not want an escalation now that could risk the release of funds that will flow in from frozen assets as sanctions relief kicks in as the deal is finalized, sources told Al-Watan.

The unconfirmed report could well be false and part of the ongoing media battle going on between Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia and the Iran Shi’ite axis.

Iran will get access to over $100 billion of assets frozen abroad, US officials say, equivalent to a quarter of its annual output. The inflow may start around the end of this year, after Tehran is certified in compliance with the deal.

The alleged Israel Air Force drone attack last week struck a vehicle on the outskirts of the Druse village of Hader, near the Golan Heights. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that five people were killed in the attack – two members of Hezbollah and three from the Syrian National Defense Forces, a pro-government militia.

The observatory added that the cell was led and supervised by Kuntar, who was traded by Israel in 2008 in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli reservists killed by Hezbollah in 2006.

A second strike targeted a Lebanese military installation near the Syrian border, wounding six, according to Arab media reports.

Other sources told the Saudi paper that the Shi’ite group aims to cover up its inability to protect its fighters in Syria and particularly from Israeli attacks.

In January, Israel carried out a helicopter attack in Quneitra province that killed a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard general and several Hezbollah members including the son of the group’s late military commander, Jihad Mughniyeh.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah recently arrested a Lebanese engineer who was allegedly an Israeli spy and turned him over to Lebanese authorities, a security force told the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper in a report on Wednesday.

He was recruited and trained in Europe by Israelis, according to the source,

Iran’s deputy FM brands nuclear program ‘big loss’ economically

August 5, 2015

Iran’s deputy FM brands nuclear program ‘big loss’ economically, Times of Israel, August 4, 2015

(Please see also, The Iranian Nuke Deal Depends on This One Myth. — DM)

Iran deputy foreign ministerDeputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaking in Tehran, Iran, on October 22, 2013. (AFP/Atta Kenare)

Due to the pressure from above, . . .  the original report was removed by the national broadcasting service, which stated that the publication of Araqchi’s statements was a “misunderstanding.”

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Iran’s deputy foreign minister and senior nuclear negotiator has called the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program “a big loss” economically, but necessary to defend the country’s honor.

In a leaked off-the-record meeting with journalists Saturday, Abbas Araqchi stressed that “if we want to calculate the expenses of the production materials, we cannot even think about it.” But, he said, “we paid this price so we protect our honor, independence and progress, and do not surrender to others’ bullying.”

Yet, he explained, “If we value our nuclear program based only on the economic calculations, it is a big loss.”

Meeting with the country’s news chiefs under the direction of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Araqchi said the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s public diplomacy and media relations have so far been unable to sell the agreement to the Iranian people and “the national broadcasting [service] has to help so the people do not feel frustrated with the agreement.”

During the meeting, which was leaked by the Iranian media soon after, the deputy foreign minister suggested that the Iranian parliament should only review the agreement reached in Vienna, and not present it for ratification.

Araqchi stressed that Iran should declare its final position on the deal as soon as possible, “so that should Congress reject the agreement, the burden of rejection and the failure of the talks would fall on the United States.”

1234The Iranian Parliament (CC-BY Parmida76/Flickr)

“If the [Iranian] National Security Council approves the Vienna nuclear agreement and the leader of the Islamic Republic signs it, then this resolution becomes law,” he added.

With regards to the implications of the agreement on Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, Araqchi explained that, “we said during the talks that we cannot not provide weapons to Hezbollah, and we are not willing to sacrifice them [Hezbollah] for our nuclear program. Therefore, if you want to keep the weapon sanctions as part of the agreement, we will continue with our efforts. We discussed this matter for a while.”

The Western powers eventually agreed to separate that resolution from the agreement, Araqchi said.

This is in direct contrast to remarks by US officials, who claimed Tuesday that Iran’s support for terror groups was never considered for inclusion in the nuclear deal.

The Iranian minister told journalists that he took seriously previous American threats of a possible military action. “It might be that people do not know the details, however, our IRGC and military friends know that every night in 2007-8 we were concerned that we would wake up in the morning and Iran would be surrounded by all necessary means for an attack against it.”

Iranian military personnel had shown the country’s negotiating team maps of bases where potential foreign attack planes had been identified. “The attack on Iran was a matter of the political will of Mr. Obama,” Araqchi said. “Despite everything, we still continued to object and did not compromise.”

He said that the West tightened the economic sanctions as much as they could and they reached a level where their continuation would lead to a “confrontation.”

“They tried 10 years of economic sanctions and military threats,” he explained, “and it was our strength and capabilities that brought them to the negotiation table.”

Austria-Iran-Nuclear_Horo-e1401748045152-305x172Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, June 2, 2014. (AP/Ronald Zak)

Araqchi admitted that the regime had made some mistakes, and that those “mistakes in the past, made-up documentations and excuses were turned into claims against us.” He cited the example of International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, who Araqchi said submitted a 60-paragraph report that included Iran’s use of detonators with multiple timers.

Iran, Araqchi said, has “to be careful with the information that we provide them… It is not that we are dealing only with the IAEA and these spies, but we are dealing with all countries that have nuclear programs. There are formulas and methods that prevent us from providing excess information to the IAEA inspectors. We did not know this in the past and provided information that we should not have done.”

Against national interest and security

The content of this supposedly off the record briefing was published a day later on the website of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting and picked up almost immediately by various other news sites inside Iran.

Due to the pressure from above, however, the original report was removed by the national broadcasting service, which stated that the publication of Araqchi’s statements was a “misunderstanding.”

Some believe that radical elements within the national broadcasting authority, who oppose the nuclear deal, leaked the briefing in order to undermine the reformist government’s achievements.

Araqchi called the leak “immoral” and “unprofessional,” saying it went “against national interest and security.”

The leak apparently occurred just days after the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued confidential instructions to the media, warning them to avoid publications that could question “the achievements of the nuclear talks,” or would “indicate contradictions among the views of the high-ranking officials.”

On the day of leak, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said during an interview on live Iranian television that the achievements of the nuclear talks exceeded his initial expectations.