Before taking off from Cairo Sunday, Kerry issued this emphatic statement: “There can be absolutely no question that if the [Iran deal] is fully implemented, it will make Egypt and all the countries of this region safer.”
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Shortly before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Qatar Monday, Aug. 3, Iran’s highest authorities led by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sunday launched a public campaign to support Tehran’s noncompliance with the Vienna nuclear accord and UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of July 20, on its ballistic missile program. The campaign was designed by a team from Khamenei’s office, high-ranking ayatollahs and the top echelons of the Revolutionary Guards, including its chief, Gen. Ali Jafari.
It was kicked off with a batch of petitions fired off by the students of nine Tehran universities and Qom religious seminaries to Iran’s chief of staff Maj Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, demanding immediate tests of long-range ballistic missiles to prove that the missile ban was invalid.
It was essential, said one student letter, “…to underline the necessity for protecting the country’s defense capabilities and ensuring continued development of Iran’s ballistic missile capability.”
The students, whose influence on public opinion is substantial, went on to argue: “Firing the ballistic missiles in military drills would discourage the US Congress, the Israeli Knesset and their regional Takfiri mercenaries (a reference to the Islamic State) from future strikes against the Islamic Republic.”
The Security Council Resolution, which unanimously endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Vienna nuclear accord) signed by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, called on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic technology until the date eight years after the JCPOA Adoption Day.”
Tehran retorted that none of its ballistic missiles were designed to deliver nuclear weapons, and so this provision was void. Shortly after its passage, the foreign ministry in Tehran issued an assurance that “…the country’s ballistic missile program and capability is untouched and unrestricted by Resolution 2231.”
On July 30, Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s senior adviser on international affairs and member of the Expediency Council, told reporters, “The recent UNSC Resolution on Iran’s defensive capabilities, specially (sic) its missiles, is unacceptable to Iran.”
DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that Tehran deliberately engineered this campaign’s timing for it to surface the day before the arrival of John Kerry, the live wire behind the Vienna Accord, in Doha, Qatar, Monday. He has defined his mission as an effort to ease the concerns of the Gulf and other Arab nations about the negative affect of the accord on their security.
Before taking off from Cairo Sunday, Kerry issued this emphatic statement: “There can be absolutely no question that if the [Iran deal] is fully implemented, it will make Egypt and all the countries of this region safer.”
This proposition may be harder than ever to sell to Iran’s neighbors once its ballistic missiles are launched over their heads.
Scott reminded us this morning of Winston Churchill’s notice of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, suggesting that we ought to take seriously the statements of murderous purpose whether they come from a seemingly implausible Austrian-born corporal, or a soon-to-be nuclear-armed Iranian ayatollah. Of course, Mein Kampf was mostly ignored in the 1930s or dismissed as the unimportant or irrelevant thoughts that Hitler would discard once he assumed the “responsibilities” of high office.
As background research for one of my longer writing projects currently under way I have been reading old issues of the American Political Science Review from the late 1930s to see how the rise of European fascism and specifically German Nazism was treated. The majority of the articles and book reviews are either stupid, trivial, or superficial, i.e., they examine institutional changes and administrative structures in the value-free way typical of social science that can’t bring itself to consider making moral judgments. Hitler’s regime is treated as more or less normal (ditto the Soviet Union, of course). From these treatments a serious student would learn almost noting important about politics. These blinkered assessments remain the case even after the Reichstag fire, Kristallnacht, the Anschluss, the investment of all of Czechoslovakia following the Munich agreement, and even the outbreak of open war in 1939. While there were some clear voices about the deeper significance of what was taking place—one thinks of Hermann Rauschning’s 1939 best-seller The Revolution of Nihilism: Warning to the West—you typically didn’t find such clarity and depth among academic political scientists.
There are a few notable exceptions. One of them was Robert C. Brooks of Swarthmore College, who was president of the American Political Science Association in 1940. His presidential address at the December 1940 annual meeting of the APSA was entitled “Reflections on the ‘World Revolution’ of 1940,” and you could hardly ask for a more direct and sensible statement of what political science ought to be and to say. He opens by chiding his fellow academics for avoiding “contemporary, controversial political affairs.”
Some representative samples:
[S]ince Nazi Germany is the sole really effective totalitarian state, its overthrow should be the one great desideratum of democratic world politics. Nothing should be allowed to obscure that end. It was the tragic, nay criminal, blunder of Neville Chamberlain that he did not perceive this fact, that he believed in the possibility of gaining concessions from the insatiable Hitler by a policy of appeasement. For Britain, the consequences of this blunder have been tragic beyond all reckoning. Fortunately, in Winston Churchill a prime minister has been found who knows how to keep his eye on the ball. Let us hope that the President of the United States will follow his example.
Incredible as it may seem under such conditions, there are still said to be some appeasers on this side of the Atlantic, gentlemen willing to make a neat little loan—five billion dollars is the figure most frequently mentioned—to Germany as soon as her victory over Europe is complete. This, it is assumed, will soften any ill-feeling Hitler might cherish against us because of our earlier mistaken sympathies for the Allies. Also, poor fellow, he would need the money to buy our goods where with to repair the ravages of war and to feed the starving German people. Of course, once the loan were made, we would be too polite to inquire how much of it was spent, not for butter but for guns, the latter to be used against the United States. If political scientists cannot scotch so obviously ruinous a policy, one may well despair of the future of our profession. What is far worse, one would have to despair of the future of free government. . . [Emphasis added.]
Political scientists must be realists. As such, we know that if Britain is crushed, the only kind of peace we can hope for will be an armed peace—and that probably of short duration. . .
Combined attack by dictator powers upon America may result in our defeat or in our victory. In the former event, democracy will be dead upon this planet for a period of unpredictable length. Even so, let us hope that we might inflict wounds upon despotic aggressors from which they would not soon recover. This is not set down in malice; rather it would appear to be the only hope of future resurrection for our political principles. If democracy fighting for its life proves to be spineless and cowardly, why should any future generation wish to revive it? On the other hand, if it goes down fighting gloriously to the last ditch, it will not lose the power to fire the hearts of some future generation. Once more, as at the end of the eighteenth century, a race of rebels may be born of the sons of men.
Finally, the conclusion, which evokes the spirit of both Churchill and the famous words of Lincoln:
In the end, it is certain that Americans will not submit tamely to such a fate. They will not enter the door marked “Appeasement”: they will go out through the opposite door marked “Defiance.” I do not pretend to like the sort of future that confronts us. It may bring with it the heaviest burdens, the most cruel sacrifices. In all probability, things will get worse before they get better. It may fall to the lot of an American President to say, as did Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that he has “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Not liking a future, however, is no reason for not facing up to it. There is a deep satisfaction in resoluteness, through all perils, regardless of the outcome. Let us give thanks also that we are done with roseate illusions; that we are ready to deal with grim realities. Peace and justice may not be for our time, but we have the privilege of risking everything that they “shall not perish from the earth.”
For this Prof. Brooks gets posthumous induction into the Power Line 100 roster of Best Professors in America. Can anyone imagine a president of the APSA speaking in these tones today? Not likely. (And now that James Kurth is retired, is there anyone remotely like Brooks at Swarthmore today?)
(There is no public Internet access to the complete article unfortunately: You can only get it if you have a JSTOR account. It appears in the February 1941 issue of the APSR.)
(The views expressed in this rant — some of which are off-topic — are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
This is a partially updated version of Fixing the Creator’s worst mistakes, published on December 29, 2012. It deals mainly with Islam, Iran, the nuke “deal,” illegal immigration and Obama’s usurpation of power.
Islam and other religions
Obama is “our” Imam in Chief and in that capacity continues to preach that Islam is the religion of peace; there is neither Islamic violence nor any Islamic desire for it. Since the Islamic State is violent it is not Islamic.
Coptic Christians beheaded. So what? They weren’t other Muslims.
In Obama’s apparent view, Palestinians want the true peace of Islam. They abhor violence and want nothing more than to live in peace and harmony in Israel with their Jewish friends and neighbors. Their only obstacles are those senselessly thrown in their path by wicked, apartheid Israel at every turn.
That’s a lie.
The nuke “deal” with Iran
Since the Islamic Republic of Iran is also peaceful, it is Islamic and hence deserves nukes (which it claims neither to have nor to want) along with increased funding to support its hegemonic efforts to bring “stability” to the Middle East with the help of its many proxies.
It’s not MY fault.
Here’s lots more ObamaMoney. Have fun with your virgins!
Obama conceals critical details of His Iran “deal” from members of Congress and from the people, while sending His minions forth to obfuscate and lie about it. Even Iran now claims that the Obama administration has been lying about the “deal.”
“Any time, anywhere” inspections to discover the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program are a farce and have been at least since November of 2013. We were recently advised that under one or more side deals between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran, the IAEA will neither inspect sites such as the Parchin military facility nor collect samples there; Iran will collect the samples and provide them (or perhaps samples taken elsewhere) to the IAEA.
Why is Obama doing this? Mr. Fleitz, the interviewee in the above video, suggests that Obama sees Iran as having been too long victimized by the West and in need of freedom from Western oppression.
Illegal immigration
Obama’s fundamental transformation of America in His image continues to accelerate. Illegal immigrants are already overwhelming the country and He demands more of them.
to screw America even more
I am the greatest expert on the Declaration of Dependence
All power to the People Obama
Obama has also accelerated Congress’ partially self-imposed rush to impotence. States’ rights have become a sad joke and the United Nations has become even more powerful, wrongheaded and intrusive. Our military is more focused on climate change and “social justice” than on fighting our worst enemy, which cannot even be named.
Obama confers with His chief military adviser
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
By His Supreme Excellency, Barack Humble Hussein Obama
The first paragraph of the Declaration of Dependence refers to “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” However, according to the second paragraph of the Declaration,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Emphasis added.)
This raises what some may see as an important question: just who is that Creator fella, anyway? Is it Nature, Nature’s God or its earthly manifestation, Government? We need not answer directly due to the partisan overtones of the question. Suffice it to say that fairness and justice dictate that the Government over which I rule — as I had long been destined to do — has an obligation to correct the worst error of judgment and implementation made by that fella, whomever it may be. By correcting that error, I intend no disrespect to it or to anyone else. With few exceptions, everyone makes mistakes and when they are made it is My duty as your President to correct them.
Are all men are created equal?
No they are not, and it is the job of My Government to transform the nation, as I deem appropriate, to make everyone as nearly equal as is feasible consistent with providing the best governance possible. That is a daunting task, but since I won two presidential elections overwhelmingly I have a mandate to do it. I can and shall do it, so help Me — Allah everyone! You have nothing to lose but the chains in which you have long been unfairly bound by unnecessary and unjust freedoms.
Our Black and Brown Brothers and Sisters, whether from My America or from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, no less than invaders immigrants from Islamic nations, deserve to come to a truly welcoming America. Travel and resettlement are costly for them and they deserve the very best subsidies I can provide to afford them the leisure they want and hence deserve. That will enable them to evaluate all political candidates and to decide who will best serve My their interests. To that end, My Executive Decree is now being written to require that all promotional materials of a political nature be in Ebonics and Spanish as well as in all languages spoken or written in all Islamic nations unless I decree that it is not necessary for specific candidates whom I favor.
As the nation’s highest constitutional authority and scholar, I am uniquely qualified to interpret and otherwise ignore both the Constitution and the Declaration of Dependence. Both were written and adopted by White Male slaveholders, now despised by all good people.
Clearly, the statement that “all men are created equal” does not mean — as some have mistakenly claimed — equal before the law. Although the most humble of all men, I am so far above the law that I often have difficulty seeing it down below. The same is true in far lesser degree of accredited diplomats and many more. Others, such as those who maliciously oppose My sovereign will, are far beneath the law. No, equality does not mean “equal before the law.” It means equal in every respect except that. At least that’s what it should mean and it is My sworn duty to make it so. There cannot possibility be true equality without vigorous enforcement of My Decrees, to be promulgated now and in the future, mandating equality of both opportunity and result in all things.
Since it is my job to interpret and enforce our laws selectively I must also create those laws. That will be far more efficient.
An Executive Decree is now being drafted for My review, revision and signature. It will set forth the measures that are necessary to achieve our nation’s greatest dream — nay, her manifest destiny — of true equality for all. Very briefly, its directives will include the following:
1. Members of the Congress shall have no higher status or greater legislative authority than the poorest, lowest, most despised and least educated person in My nation — perhaps an illiterate, twelve year old, homeless transsexual drug abuser from Haiti. Hence, My Executive Decree shall declare the Congress in recess until truly representative members have been elected under Federal supervision to replace the elite obstructionists currently there.
In the meantime, I have my phone and veto pen ready.
2. During the congressional recess I shall, as your President, assume with great reluctance all legislative burdens which I have not already assumed. My people shall no longer be subjected to interminable partisan squabbles over such incomprehensible trivia as national debt limits, Federal budgets, tax fairness or anything else. The fruits of peace, love, joy and tranquility shall come to be enjoyed by all throughout My entire land.
3. Due to the peaceful outpourings of racial justice, tranquility, peace, love and joy due to My successful efforts to eliminate the scourge of White racism, there shall no longer be any excuse for privately owned Weapons of Mindless Destruction (WMDs). Hence, all shall be confiscated immediately and disposed of pursuant to Executive Decree.
4. All uniformed personnel of the armed forces shall have the same rank, pay and allowances. Staff Sergeant shall henceforth be the only military rank and all shall henceforth receive pay and allowances commensurate with that rank. The focus of all of My defense efforts will continue to be on social justice and the horrors of Climate Change. Accordingly, military personnel shall be given access to firearms only when called upon to enforce My Climate Change rules.
5. The gross unfairness of wealth maldistribution in the United States is unconscionable and that disgrace to humanity is compounded not only by an incomprehensible Internal Revenue Code but also by lengthy and even more incomprehensible IRS regulations. Accordingly, I shall decree a new and greatly simplified single tax rate of one hundred percent on all property and all earnings from any and all sources, with no deductions or credits. I shall also issue a new Revenue and Property Redistribution Decree granting $25,000 per person per year in cash as well as providing for the fair and just redistribution of all property confiscated in lieu of property tax payments. Since the unreasonably disparaged welfare safety net will no longer be needed it will be abolished.
6. Recognizing that My simplified tax plan may hamper states and other inferior governments in accessing revenues, all states and their subdivisions shall be abolished and the United States shall be divided into ten Federal Districts, to be governed by My appointed District Governors.
Conclusions
My simple, eminently fair and absolutely just decrees will transform My entire nation into a far better place for all of My people.
Islam absolutely must be recognized as the world’s preeminently peaceful religion; Christians, Jews and others must recognize this and accept the true enlightenment provided by the Holy Koran. If a few Jews or Christians are killed by Muslims who are ignorant of true Islamic teachings, that is far, far less hurtful to My people than the ravages of Climate Change. I believe that Pope Francis agrees with Me on this point.
As the monumental successes of My initiatives become clear throughout the world, I am confident that the United Nations will issue similar decrees for all nations, perhaps uniting some in UN protectorates to be governed in the fair and just ways of which the UN has over the years shown itself to be uniquely capable. The UN bows to no legitimate state or even to illegitimate states such as as Israel. Indeed, I am so confident that these wonders will come to pass that I have today notified the Secretary General that, when My work here is done, I shall give My service as his replacement higher priority than even My obligations to My own dear family.
Permit Me to commend those brave young people for their courage and superb intelligence in standing up for the highest, the best and brightest in our nation.
In closing, here’s another of my favorite songs. I hope you will enjoy it too:
Close observation of the militias, their activities, and their links to Tehran is invaluable in understanding what is likely to happen in the Middle East following the conclusion of the nuclear agreement between the P5 + 1 powers and Tehran.
The genius of the Iranian method is that it is not possible to locate a precise point where the Iranian influence ends and the “government” begins. Everything is entwined. This pro-Iranian military and political activity depends at ground level on the successful employment and manipulation of religious fervor. This is what makes the Hashed fighters able to stand against the rival jihadis of ISIS.
The deal itself proves that Iran can continue to push down this road while paying only a minor price, so why change? Expect further manifestations of the Tehran formula in the Middle East in the period ahead.
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In late June, I traveled to Iraq with the purpose of investigating the role being played by the Iranian-supported Shia militias in that country.
Close observation of the militias, their activities, and their links to Tehran is invaluable in understanding what is likely to happen in the Middle East following the conclusion of the nuclear agreement between the P5 + 1 powers and Tehran.
An Iranian stealth takeover of Iraq is currently under way. Tehran’s actions in Iraq lay bare the nature of Iranian regional strategy. They show that Iran has no peers at present in the promotion of a very 21st century way of war, which combines the recruitment and manipulation of sectarian loyalties; the establishment and patient sponsoring of political and paramilitary front groups; and the engagement of these groups in irregular and clandestine warfare, all in tune with an Iran-led agenda.
With the conclusion of the nuclear deal, and thanks to the cash about to flow into Iranian coffers, the stage is now set for an exponential increase in the scale and effect of these activities across the region.
So what is going on in Iraq, and what may be learned from it?
Power in Baghdad today is effectively held by a gathering of Shia militias known as the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization). This initiative brings together tens of armed groups, including some very small and newly formed ones. However, its main components ought to be familiar to Americans who remember the Iraqi Shia insurgency against the U.S. in the middle of the last decade. They are: the Badr Organization, the Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Kataeb Hizballah, and the Sarayat al-Salam (which is the new name for the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr).
All of these are militias of long-standing. All of them are openly pro-Iranian in nature. All of them have their own well-documented links to the Iranian government and to the Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Shia militiamen are becoming a fixture of daily life in the Iraqi capital.
The Hashed al-Shaabi was founded on June 15, 2014, following a fatwa by venerated Iraqi Shia cleric Ali al-Sistani a day earlier. Sistani called for a limited jihad at a time when the forces of ISIS were juggernauting toward Baghdad. The militias came together, under the auspices of Quds Force kingpin Qassem Suleimani and his Iraqi right-hand man Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Because of the parlous performance of the Iraqi Army, the Shia militias have become in effect the sole force standing between ISIS and the Iraqi capital.
Therein lies the source of their strength. Political power grows, as another master strategist of irregular warfare taught, from the barrel of a gun. In the case of Iraq, no instrument exists in the hands of the elected government to oppose the will of the militias. The militias, meanwhile, in their political iteration, are also part of the government.
In the course of my visit, I travelled deep into Anbar Province with fighters of the Kataeb Hizballah, reaching just eight miles from Ramadi City. I also went to Baiji, the key front to the capital’s north, accompanying fighters from the Badr Corps.
Asaib Ahl al-Haq fighters operating in Baiji in June
In all areas, I observed close cooperation between the militias, the army, and the federal police. The latter are essentially under the control of the militias. Mohammed Ghabban, of Badr, is the interior minister. The Interior Ministry controls the police. Badr’s leader, Hadi al-Ameri, serves as the transport minister.
In theory, the Hashd al-Shaabi committee answers to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi. In practice, no one views the committee as playing anything other than a liaison role. The real decision-making structure for the militias’ alliance goes through Abu Mahdi al Muhandis and Hadi al-Ameri, to Qassem Suleimani, and directly on to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
No one in Iraq imagines that any of these men are taking orders from Abadi, who has no armed force of his own, whose political party (Dawa) remains dominated by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his associates, and whose government is dependent on the military protection of the Shia militias and their political support. When I interviewed al-Muhandis in Baiji, he was quite open regarding the source of the militias’ strength: “We rely on capacity and capabilities provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (right) with Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani
The genius of the Iranian method is that it is not possible to locate a precise point where the Iranian influence ends and the “government” begins. Everything is entwined. This pro-Iranian military and political activity depends at ground level on the successful employment and manipulation of religious fervor. This is what makes the Hashed fighters able to stand against the rival jihadis of ISIS. Says Major General Juma’a Enad, operational commander in Salah al-Din Province: “The Hashed strong point is the spiritual side, the jihad fatwa. Like ISIS.”
So this is Tehran’s formula. The possession of a powerful state body (the IRGC’s Quds Force) whose sole raison d’etre is the creation and sponsorship of local political-military organizations to serve the Iranian interest. The existence of a population in a given country available for indoctrination and mobilization. The creation of proxy bodies and the subsequent shepherding of them to both political and military influence, with each element complementing the other. And finally, the reaping of the benefit of all this in terms of power and influence.
This formula has at the present time brought Iran domination of Lebanon and large parts of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Current events in Iraq form a perfect study of the application of this method, and the results it can bring. Is Iran likely to change this winning formula as a result of the sudden provision of increased monies resulting from the nuclear deal? This is certainly the hope of the authors of the agreement. It is hard to see on what it is based.
The deal itself proves that Iran can continue to push down this road while paying only a minor price, so why change? Expect further manifestations of the Tehran formula in the Middle East in the period ahead.
The undated document, titled “A Brief History of the Islamic State Caliphate (ISC), The Caliphate According to the Prophet,” seeks to unite dozens of factions of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban into a single army of terror. It includes a never-before-seen history of the Islamic State, details chilling future battle plans, urges al-Qaeda to join the group and says the Islamic State’s leader should be recognized as the sole ruler of the world’s 1 billion Muslims under a religious empire called a “caliphate.”
“Accept the fact that this caliphate will survive and prosper until it takes over the entire world and beheads every last person that rebels against Allah,” it proclaims. “This is the bitter truth, swallow it.”
Unlike al-Qaeda, which has targeted terror attacks on the United States and other western nations, the document said Islamic State leaders believe that’s the wrong strategic goal. “Instead of wasting energy in a direct confrontation with the U.S., we should focus on an armed uprising in the Arab world for the establishment of the caliphate,” the document said.
First the Muslim world. Then the world. It’s a straightforward strategy, one that Osama bin Laden flirted with but never truly committed to. Though he celebrated the Arab Spring, ISIS would reap its rewards.
Retired Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who also reviewed the document, said it “represents the Islamic State’s campaign plan and is something, as an intelligence officer, I would not only want to capture, but fully exploit. It lays out their intent, their goals and objectives, a red flag to which we must pay attention.”
The failure to target the radical Islamic ideas behind the group has given its fighters the opportunity to spread, Flynn said. “If I were in their shoes, I would say,’We are winning, we are achieving our objectives,’” Flynn said. “They have demonstrated an incredible level of resiliency and they will not be defeated by military means alone.”
We have yet to try defeating them by military means.
(Is North Korea’s Minister of Hyperbolic Statements assisting Iran? — DM)
I take it that the White House is willing to say and do just about anything in support of this catastrophic deal.
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AP Vienna bureau chief George Jahn reports: “Iran: US statements on attacking Tehran violates nuke deal” (subject-verb disagreement in the original, I hate to say). On Twitter, AP diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee concisely comments: “Already?!”
Here is Jahn’s report:
A senior Iranian official is accusing the U.S. of violating the nuclear deal with his country through comments indicating that the accord would make any attack on Tehran’s atomic program more efficient because it would result in greater insight about potential targets.
The July 14 deal foresees increased overview of Iran’s nuclear activities by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Reza Najafi, the IAEA’s chief Iranian delegate, quoted White House spokesman Josh Earnest as saying that would result in enhanced U.S. or Israeli military action against Iran — if needed — “because we’d been spending the intervening number of years gathering significantly more detail about Iran’s nuclear program.”
Israel is a harsh critic of the deal and says it is keeping all options open to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. The Obama administration says the agreement has accomplished its goal of preventing Tehran from getting such arms.
Still, as part of White House pushback against congressional and other critics of the deal, Earnest, in his comments to reporters July 17 said that the U.S. “military option would remain on the table” if Iran breaks out of the deal and races to make a bomb.
Najafi, in a July 24 letter posted to the IAEA website on Wednesday, called Earnest’s statement “outrageous.” He said it “seriously undermines the very basic principles” needed to implement the deal, adding that the comments amount to “a material breach of the commitments” agreed to by the United States and the five other world powers at the negotiating table with Iran.
Citing Earnest, Najafi also suggested that Washington could try to violate provisions of the nuclear deal committing the agency during its Iran monitoring to “protect commercial, technological and industrial secrets as well as other confidential information coming to its knowledge.”
I take it that the White House is willing to say and do just about anything in support of this catastrophic deal. Behind closed doors, to take an example from yesterday, Obama told Democratic congressmen hearing him out on the deal that if they were to help override his veto of congressional disapproval of the deal, he would do everything in his power to undermine their disapproval. Other than noting the White House’s willingness to say anything, I find the substance of Jahn’s report weird beyond immediate comment.
Obama will do anything to protect his legacy. And the fight has only begun.
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Obama has decided that two wildly unpopular policies, one foreign and one domestic, will be the final legacy of his wildly unpopular administration. The domestic policy is gun control. The foreign policy is Iranian nukes. While Americans will be disarmed, Iran will be getting ready for its ballistic missiles.
Ramming through wildly unpopular policies is what this administration does best. More than anything else, this administration will be remembered for the mix of bullying, smears, pop culture distractions, outright lies, bureaucratic sabotage and blatant lawbreaking with which it achieved its policy goals.
Iran is no different.
The sales pitch is going badly. John Kerry has probably managed to dissuade more senators by testifying than he would have if he had taken the fifth. A viral video featuring the Iran lobby’s Thomas Pickering lecturing failed movie star Jack Black on the importance of the deal earned all the wrong kind of laughs.
Too many Democrats are still sitting on the fence. Some have come out against the deal. So the White House is looking for weak points in a potential coalition against the deal.
Its opening move is a classical “Divide and Conquer” strategy that tries to split pro-Israel Democrats from Republicans. The Democrats are being told that a rejection of the deal means war with Iran. If they don’t back the deal, they will be warmongers. Those who oppose the deal with Iran will face the same anti-war coalition that targeted those Democrats who supported Bush’s overthrow of Saddam.
The deal is too unappealing to be sold on its merits, so it is instead being presented as the only alternative to a war. Obama and Kerry love nuance when it comes to finding all the positive sides to making deals with Iran or the Taliban, but quickly abandon it at home in favor of a polarized argument in which opponents of their latest terrorist appeasement are warmongers and traitors.
Jewish Democrats, in particular, are being told that Israel and Jews will be blamed for such a war.
John Kerry has already come out and said that Israel will be blamed. That’s nothing new for the Democratic Party. It wasn’t that long ago when Senator Hollings was claiming that Bush had invaded Iraq and passed tax cuts for the “Jewish vote”. To Jon Stewart, Obama referenced the Iraq War and suggested that the people against the deal “are not going to be making sacrifices” if there is a war.
That type of rhetoric sounded better coming from politicians who had served in the military, instead of a career community organizer who refers to a “Corpse-man” and uses Marines as umbrella stands.
Jewish Democrats who oppose the deal will be “Senator Lieberman-ed”, primaried by the left, smeared and added to the list of neo-con warmongers. Non-Jewish Democrats may be allowed a place at the table, like Kerry or Hillary, but only after they serve a penal term of appeasement as Secretary of State.
The Pollard release meanwhile begins the process of splitting Republicans from a pro-Israel coalition. The leverage is once again accusations of treason. Obama’s supporters showed where their argument was bound to end up when they spread the #47Traitors hashtag targeting Senators opposed to the deal.
Israel certainly hadn’t arranged for Pollard’s release. The administration isn’t being accommodating or trying to win over anyone. It’s calculatedly turning a former spy into a talking point during a debate involving Israel to add weight to the treason talking point.
Democrats who oppose the deal will be smeared as warmongers. Republicans who oppose it will be tarred as traitors.
Pollard’s shelf life as a talking point will be limited, but it won’t be hard to manufacture further scandals. An official here or there will be investigated for inappropriate contacts with Israeli officials or pro-Israel groups. The charges will fall apart on any real scrutiny, but the story will have achieved its results.
The last time the left wanted to kneecap pro-Israel opposition to Iran, it manufactured the Rosen-Weissman case targeting two AIPAC officials heavily involved in lobbying for sanctions on Iran. The case fell apart, but not before AIPAC offices had been raided and the media had written up a spy drama. But the real goal had been to link AIPAC to Feith, Wolfowitz and other Republican enemies of the left.
Now that the left controls the White House, it has even more leeway for its political witch hunts.
Reviving the Pollard case sends Republicans the message that national security and pro-Israel policies are a contradiction in terms. It also intimidates Jewish critics of the deal on both sides of the aisle. This is an administration that has used the IRS against its political opponents, including pro-Israel opponents like Z Street, and will not hesitate to use every arm of government against its domestic political enemies.
While the “Israel Lobby” is an incessant topic, the Iran lobby which, until Hagel’s resignation, controlled the offices of the Vice President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense is a black topic. Just about every critic is passed off as a pawn of an Israeli or Jewish organization, but mentioning that Secretary of State John Kerry has an Iranian son-in-law with reported connections to Iran’s Foreign Minister is off limits.
Obama welcomed in people like Charles W. Freeman, a Chinese state oil company board member and apologists for PRC atrocities from Tiananmen Square to Tibet, and Hamas fan Robert Malley, who wouldn’t have passed a security check to be dogcatchers in a dogless town. But now suddenly everyone else will be held to standards that Obama’s people don’t recognize or abide by for themselves.
The White House and its allies define any opposition as treason. Unwilling to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program, they are instead going nuclear on opponents of the deal. If they can split up the burgeoning coalition in Congress against the deal with accusations of treason, their own treasonous efforts to let Iran go nuclear and force the United States out of the Middle East will succeed.
And even if the tactic alone doesn’t win the day, it’s still an effective distraction.
ObamaCare was even more unpopular than the Iran deal, but Obama and his media allies kept up a barrage of distractions, attacks, smears and publicity stunts. Pollard is another way to swallow up airtime with a counter-topic while keeping opponents off balance. If Obama can’t sell the deal on its merits, he can always keep shifting the conversation to keep opponents on the defensive.
Selling the Iran deal on its merits has failed. It’s now being sold as the only alternative to war. Obama and Kerry had insisted, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, but now argue that their bad deal is better than no deal. And they demand that critics of their deal take responsibility for the alternative.
The entire line of argument is an admission that the deal is indefensible. The only possible defense of it is an attack on critics. Some of these attacks are crude. Others are subtle. Some attack directly, while others induce doubt, apathy and division.
Right now the biggest threat to Obama is the possibility that enough Democrats will join Republicans in shutting the deal down. If that happens, one of Obama’s sunset policy agendas will die. Coming off a defeat on Iran will leave him in poor shape for a fight over gun control. It will hand him a major defeat and finish off his unilateral foreign policy of signing treaties and starting wars without Congress.
Obama will do anything to protect his legacy. And the fight has only begun.
(Israel is properly distraught when Israeli Jews murder Palestinian children, but at least a smidgen of perspective is needed. — DM)
Nathaniel Weiss was 3 years old when Muslim terrorists burned him to death.
Ephraim Weiss was 10 months old
The Moses children were children.
The EU has demanded that Israel show “zero tolerance” for attacks on Muslims and yet it demands that Israel appease the terrorists who commit atrocities like these as a matter of state policy.
It is time for us to remember who the enemy is and what it does, not once in a blue moon, but day after day as part of a policy of violent genocidal hatred going back to Mohammed.
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The Palestinian Authority called their murderers heroes and Obama and Kerry obtained their release.
While the Israeli government is falling over itself to condemn a supposed arson attack, the government released Muslim terrorists involved in a horrific arson to get the PLO to peace negotiations. It did this under pressure from Obama, Kerry and the European Union.
A shocked and angry Israel today buried Rachel Weiss, 26, and her three young sons. They were burned to death in a firebomb attack on an Israeli passenger bus on Sunday night. Seven others were wounded, and three are hospitalized in serious condition.
Israeli soldier David Delarosa also died in the bombing when he attempted to save the family.
The four charred bodies — Rachel Weiss, 26, in a white shroud and her three sons, Netanel, 3, Rafael, 2, and Efraim, 10 months, together in an open pine coffin — were interred in a small hole scratched out of the hard rock on a barren hillside.
Most of the passengers got out of the burning bus in time, but Rachel Weiss and her children remained inside, with the mother throwing herself on her children in a vain attempt to protect them. A soldier tried to get them out but was driven back by the flames.
The Palestinian Authority terrorists who firebombed an Egged bus in the Jordan Valley in 1988, killing five and wounding five, made sure the wounds would be as painful as possible.
Juma’a Adem and Mahmoud Kharbish mixed glue with the gasoline, causing the flammable liquid to stick to the skin of the victims, two of whom were American-Israelis Sandy Bloom of New York City and her husband Dov of Pittsburgh.
They were walking free at the time they firebombed the bus, after having been previously jailed for attacking Jews with Molotov cocktails.
The terrorists struck at night Bloom told the Jewish Press.
“We left their children with the grandparents at the Kibbutz. We were on the bus when there was a flash and a boom,” he continued. “Within a second, we were covered with a flammable liquid and were burning up. The terrorists threw several firebombs, and one of them smashed through our window.
“The flammable liquid spilled on us, and we later found out that the terrorists mixed glue with the gasoline to cause more pain and more severe burns.
The Blooms were rushed to Hadassah Hospital. It was five weeks before Dov and Sandy could leave. “We also spent years of painful recuperation with more operations and skin grafts,” Dov Bloom added.
Obama and Kerry however backed the PLO’s demands that the terrorists, among many others, had to be freed by Israel before PLO boss Abbas would negotiate with Netanyahu.
When Kerry had first raised the prisoner issue in June, Netanyahu was adamant. “I can’t get that through my Cabinet,” he said. His right-wing Likud Party would never stand for it. Neither would the more hard-line Jewish Home Party. It wasn’t even certain that the coalition’s two centrist parties would.
But it happened anyway. The PLO threw a party for the terrorists it had extracted and the man Obama had described as Israel’s peace partner praised them as heroes.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a celebration in Ramallah in honor of the second set of 26 Palestinian terrorists released by Israel as part of Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations, calling the prisoners “heroes” despite their violent history.
At the Ramallah celebration, Abbas told the crowd, “We welcome our brothers the heroes coming from behind the bars to a world of freedom and liberty.”
Every released prisoner will receive a special grant and monthly stipend from the PA, between $710-$1,280, Israel Hayom reported.
American taxpayers end up footing the bill for that. They always do.
The EU has demanded that Israel show “zero tolerance” for attacks on Muslims and yet it demands that Israel appease the terrorists who commit atrocities like these as a matter of state policy. Yair Lapid, currently throwing a tantrum by claiming that any act of violence against Muslims is a declaration of war against Israel… voted to approve the release of terrorists.
At the entrance to Alfei Menashe there is a monument remembering Ofra Moses and her son Tal. If you look closely, you can make out the figure of Ofra still in her car seat–with Tal closely behind her, burned to death by Arabs. “What else does a man, a terrorist like this, have to do in order to get the death sentence?”, the father, Avraham Moses said, after the sentence of life imprisonment was announced.
Ofra Moses, 35,from the settlement of Alfei Menashe, near Kalkilya, was burned to death and her 5-year-old son, Tal, died of burns three months later. Her husband, Abraham; their two other children, Nir, 15, and Adi, 9; and a friend, Yossi Hilleli, 14, were all badly burned, but they recovered.
Their faces and bodies are still scarred and they are still grieving over their loss. But the surviving members of the Moses family had an impromptu party at their home here Wednesday night to celebrate the capture of Mohammad Daoud of Kalkilya
“You know the story of my family. In 1987 a terrorist threw a firebomb at the car my family was travelling in. He murdered my mother and my brother Tal, and injured my father, my brother, his friend and myself. It is a story you know. But… Me, you do not really know. I was 8 years old when this happened.
While my father was rolling me in the sand to extinguish my burning body, I looked in the direction of our car and watched as my mother burned in front of my eyes.
This story did not end that day in 1987. This story is the difficult life I have led since then. I am still 8 years old, hospitalized in critical condition. Screaming from pain. Bandaged from head to toe. And my head is not the same. No longer full of golden long hair. The head is burnt. The face, back, the legs and arms, burnt. I am surrounded by family members, but my mother is not with me. Not hugging and caressing. She is not the one changing my bandages. In the room next door, my brother Tal in lying. Screaming in pain. I call out to him to count sheep with me so he can fall asleep. Three months later, little Tal dies of his wounds. I am seated, all bandaged up, on a chair in the cemetery and I watch as my little brother is buried.”
This is what we should be outraged about.
A policy of mass murder whose perpetrators are funded by American and European taxpayers and whose freedom is obtained on behalf of a terrorist group by our governments.
Even though Israel freed most of the terrorists that Kerry and his PLO pals wanted, Kerry blamed Israel when the PLO trashed the negotiations. That is what we are dealing with. It is time for us to stop apologizing and stop appeasing.
It is time for us to remember who the enemy is and what it does, not once in a blue moon, but day after day as part of a policy of violent genocidal hatred going back to Mohammed. And it is time for us to remember that the governments that appease Islamic terrorists and the media that defend them have the blood of children like this on their hands.
Congress passed a law called the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, also known as Corker-Cardin, requiring the administration to formally submit the Iran nuclear deal, an unclassified verification assessment with any secret annexes, and other relevant materials to Congress.
The intention of that provision was for unclassified materials to be freely available so that an open debate on the public interest could occur. Members of Congress are pointing out that this is not what is happening—and are urging the Obama administration to allow their release.
******************
Seventeen unclassified Iran deal items have been locked in ultra-secure facilities ordinarily used for top secret info. Why is the Obama administration trying to bury this material?
Scattered around the U.S. Capitol complex are a series of Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facilities, or SCIFs, which are typically used to hold Top Secret information.But today in these deeply secure settings are a series of unclassified documents—items dealing with the Iran nuclear deal that are not secret, but that the Obama administration is nevertheless blocking the public from reading.
The Obama administration delivered 18 documents to Congress on July 19, in accordance with legislation requiring a Congressional review of the nuclear deal. Only one of these documents is classified, while the remaining 17 are unclassified.
Yet many of these unclassified documents cannot be shared with the public or discussed openly with the press. The protocol for handling these documents, set by the State Department and carried out by Congress, is that these unreleased documents can only be reviewed ‘in camera’—a Latin term that means only those with special clearance can read them—and must be held in various Congressional SCIFs.
Most staffers were hesitant to discuss—let alone share—a number of these documents, even though they’re not classified, because they require security clearances to view. By mixing a classified document with unclassified documents, critics of this arrangement contend, important facts are being kept from the public just as Congress is deciding whether to support or oppose the Iran deal.
“The unclassified items… should be public. This is going to be the most important foreign policy decision that this Congress will make,” a Republican Senate aide told The Daily Beast. “This is the administration that once said it would be the most transparent administration in history. They’re not acting like it.”
“Many in Congress view the administration’s tactic of co-mingling unclassified documents with classified documents and requiring Congressional staffers to have secret clearances just to view certain unclassified documents as an attempt by the administration to limit open debate,” a second senior Republican Congressional staffer said.
Among the 17 unclassified documents are important texts related to the Iran nuclear deal: One document, titled “Elements of Iran’s R&D Plan,” is based on the “safeguards confidential plan [between] Iran and the IAEA,” a State Department official said, and so it can’t be released publicly. The document describes how Iran’s research and development on its nuclear program, including on its centrifuges, could progress over time.
Other unclassified documents may be diplomatically sensitive: One is a letter from the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the U.K. to Secretary of State John Kerry; another is a letter from Kerry to the three foreign ministers and his Chinese counterpart as well.
The set includes a discussion paper written before the final agreement, on how sanctions would be dealt with in the interim. Yet another is a draft statement by the U.S. government, to be issued on a future Iran deal implementation day.
Bloomberg View’s Eli Lake and Josh Rogin previously reported the existence of the 18 documents submitted by the Obama administration to Congress, as well as some descriptions of what the set contained.
The Iran nuclear deal is unlike other arms control agreements “because it’s so complex and has so many moving parts,” said Jeffrey Lewis, Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “It goes into jaw-dropping detail.” So it’s not a complete surprise that there might be some sensitive ancillary documents to go along with the arrangement. Iran might not want the particulars of its nuclear research program in full public view, for instance.
The unreleased, unclassified documents are informative for Congress but not for public consumption, the State Department contends.
“Some of the documents are the types of documents which, like State Department cables and other internal USG documents, we would not post publicly but would share with Congress in appropriate circumstances. Others are documents that, while not part of the [Iran nuclear agreement] itself, pertain to it and we were clear with the other P5+1 members and Iran that we would be sharing those documents with Congress, and we have,” a State Department official said.
Added the official, “Congress has every document that we have, and every Member of Congress and every staff [member] with the necessary security clearance can review all of the documents.”
Some Democrats were supportive of the administration’s hush-hush approach. The documents are part of a sensitive diplomatic process involving Iran’s nuclear program, they argue, so it’s not surprising that there are some restrictions to the level of transparency the government will allow.
“The essential elements to make the decision on the deal are out there,” a senior Democratic aide said. “I don’t think there’s a lack of transparency or discussion on [the Iran deal], because you’ve had very detailed briefings and every member of Congress has been able to view these documents… The way they are stored is consistent and not unreasonable, and I don’t think there’s anything nefarious.”
Open government advocates, on the other hand, were appalled that unclassified documents this important were being kept both from public view—and, in a real way, from serious Congressional scrutiny.
“Keeping unclassified documents in a SCIF is overkill, even if the documents are sensitive or confidential. They simply don’t need the kind of sophisticated protection against clandestine surveillance that SCIFs are intended to provide,” said Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, working to reduce government secrecy.
“The primary obstacle to congressional review that is created by this arrangement is the requirement to physically be present in the SCIF. Members of Congress cannot review the material in their offices, or share it with trusted colleagues or with subject matter experts. It is a significant hindrance to review,” he added.
Congress passed a law called the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, also known as Corker-Cardin, requiring the administration to formally submit the Iran nuclear deal, an unclassified verification assessment with any secret annexes, and other relevant materials to Congress.
The intention of that provision was for unclassified materials to be freely available so that an open debate on the public interest could occur. Members of Congress are pointing out that this is not what is happening—and are urging the Obama administration to allow their release.
“A lot of both documents and discussion that have been held in a classified setting doesn’t have classified characteristics to it… to the extent that many [documents aren’t classified,] they should be made totally public, as far as I’m concerned, so that the public can evaluate for themselves,” Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez told The Daily Beast.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agrees. His spokesperson told The Daily Beast that he “believes that the administration should make these unclassified documents available to the public so the American people can see the details of the Iran nuclear deal.”
Iran’s long-range ballistic Shahab-3
Ephraim Weiss was 10 months old
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