Archive for the ‘Obama’ category

How the Islamic Republic Is Manipulating the U.S.

May 19, 2015

How the Islamic Republic Is Manipulating the U.S., Front Page Magazine, May 19, 2015

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Rouhani and the moderate camp have persuaded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that superficial diplomatic ties with the Obama administration will, in fact, empower the Islamic Republic, further its hegemonic ambitions, and raise Tehran’s economic status without the need for the Iranian leaders to give up on their revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

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There is a crucial Machiavellian (but not a strategic) tactical shift in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and its pursuit of regional preeminence.

First of all, Iranian leaders have realized that by superficially showing the Obama administration that the Islamic Republic is willing to restore diplomatic ties with his administration, they can in fact further advance their ideological and national interests.

Second, knowing that President Obama is desperate for a “historic” nuclear deal and the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, Iranian leaders have played the role very well by attempting to satisfy President Obama’s empty goals.

Third, the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic became cognizant of the fact that dealing with the Obama administration does not necessarily mean that they have to give up anything with respect to its domestic suppression, revolutionary Islamist principles, human rights abuses, regional hegemonic ambitions, anti-Americanism, hatred towards Israel, and foreign policy objectives.

The tactical shift, currently, is to satisfy President Obama’s personal and shallow objectives by allowing him to project that he is making historic moves (such speaking on the phone with the Iranian leaders), while simultaneously pursuing their own ideological objectives.

For example, most recently, Rouhani and the Obama administration agreed on opening new diplomatic offices in Tehran and Washington. For President Obama, opening diplomatic offices can be viewed as another “historic move” cited in his records or on his Wikipedia page. From the perspective of Iranian leaders, it is a crucial pillar for the advancement of Iran’s foreign policy and ideological objectives in the region without pressure from the US.

To pursue their objectives more efficiently, Iranian leaders have agreed to meet frequently with the diplomats at the highest level of the Obama administration, “negotiating,” and having some of their interactions publicly televised on American and Western media. In addition, the American and the Iranian flags are repeatedly shown next to each other in the high level meetings.

These moves, in fact, give legitimacy to the theocratic regime to further its ambitions.

The president was also delighted to make another “historic move” by speaking on the phone with his Iranian counterpart, President Hassan Rouhani. (One would wonder what a great accomplishment it is to pick up a phone and call another president.)

Washington and Tehran broke diplomatic ties in 1979. After the hostage crisis, high American officials and diplomats have not set foot on the Iranian soil due to Iran’s continuous violation of international norms and anti-Americanism.

Nevertheless, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have decided to turn a blind eye on Iran’s egregious human rights abuses, aggressiveness and violations of international laws.

In another shallow move, Kerry claimed to be proud to set foot on Iranian “territory.” He met with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Gholamali Khoshroo, in New York.

Instead of attempting to change the behavior of the Ayatollahs and their revolutionary principles, President Obama and Kerry are satisfied with these superficial “historic moves.”

Since Iran’s political establishments and policies are driven, not solely by national and geopolitical interests, but also by ideological Islamist (Shiite) principles, hardliners and the office of the Supreme Leader will always view a real rapprochement with the US as taboo.

Restoring full diplomatic ties can also be analyzed as betraying the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic, which were based on anti-Americanism, as well as their opposition to Western models of socio-political and socio-economic landscapes.

From the perspective of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who has the final say in foreign policy decisions — genuine diplomatic ties with the US will lead to the empowerment of Iranian civil society and secular factions. From the prism of the senior cadre of the IRGC, relationships with the American government might lead to the opening of the Iranian market, endangering the economic monopoly of IRGC institutions.

On the other hand, Rouhani and his technocrat team, who share the same objectives with the hardliners and want to preserve the interests of the Islamic Republic, came to the realizations that satisfying President Obama’s superficial and shallow objectives of “historic moves,” can indeed assist them in advancing their ambitions.

In conclusion, similar to the ongoing nuclear negotiations, Rouhani and the moderate camp have persuaded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that superficial diplomatic ties with the Obama administration will, in fact, empower the Islamic Republic, further its hegemonic ambitions, and raise Tehran’s economic status without the need for the Iranian leaders to give up on their revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

The veneer of civilization

May 19, 2015

The veneer of civilization, Israel Hayom, Sarah N. Stern, May 19, 2015

Throughout the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, U.S. President Barack Obama frequently stated that “no deal is better than a bad deal” and that “all options are on the table.”

And then, on April 2, after a framework agreement was concluded in Lausanne, Switzerland (but without even a piece of paper to wave, Neville Chamberlain-like), Obama said, “Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented … is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?”

As soon as the choice was altered from “a good deal or no deal” to “either this deal or war,” we witnessed a sudden surge in Iranian swagger and bravado, in both their words and their actions.

On May 7, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Deputy Commander Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami told Fars television: “We welcome war with the United States, as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success, to display the real potential of our power. We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios, and this is no big deal.”

On May 12, Mojtaba Zolnour, a member of the IRGC and a close personal friend of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said: “The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has divine permission to destroy Israel. The noble Quran permits the Islamic republic to destroy Israel. Even if Iran gives up its nuclear program, it will not weaken this country’s determination to destroy Israel.”

This Iranian saber rattling has been accompanied by renewed provocations. On April 28, in the Strait of Hormuz — a major oil route — an Iranian crew commandeered the Maersk Tigris, a cargo ship flying under the flag of the Marshall Islands, a U.S. protectorate. They held the ship for six days before releasing it and its crew members. And just a few days after that, Iranian gunboats opened fire on the Alpine Eternity, a Singaporean-flagged ship, and tried to force it into Iranian territorial waters.

The more the U.S. treats Iranians with kid gloves so as not to offend them and to keep them at the negotiating table, the more the Iranians feel a renewed sense of triumph, and disdain toward the United States and its allies. (One would think the Americans were the ones who needed sanctions lifted to help our ailing economy).

On May 6, Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who has been held in an Iranian prison since July 2014, was charged with espionage. This trumped-up charge was a direct rebuke to the United States, demonstrating just how much contempt the Iranians have for the U.S. It is clear that the Iranians believe that we are determined to give them their cake, and to let them eat it, too. And like a spoiled child in the midst of a temper tantrum, the more we give the Iranians, the more they demand.

The sad fact is that the American negotiating team is basing its entire strategy on little more than wishful thinking. While visiting Beijing at the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that a deal with Iran “will have a positive influence on North Korea” (although he did add that he wasn’t sure that the North Koreans were capable of “internalizing the message”). One wonders whether the secretary of state also believes in unicorns and fairies.

History indicates that the nuclear negotiations with North Korea were precisely what led to their possession of a nuclear bomb. It is actually the Iranians who have taken note and learned from the North Koreans, and not the other way around.

It has become increasingly obvious that the Obama administration does not know how to negotiate. It seems that they are intent on making a deal, any deal, with the Iranians. And the more they grovel, the more contemptible the United States becomes in the eyes of the Iranians.

That is why the United States Senate needs to hold a free and open debate on the details of the negotiations. Over the last two weeks, the leadership of both the House and the Senate did no one any favors by putting the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015 (Corker-Cardin) on the suspension calendar. This means it requires a straight up or down vote, with no room for attaching amendments or for discussion.

The real danger in the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015 is that it has turned this negotiation, which has the standing of an international arms treaty, into a bill that would require a veto-proof majority to block. That means that it will become law even if only 34 Senate Democrats support it. While a treaty requires a positive action of two-thirds of the Senate to approve it, now it will take two-thirds of the Senate to veto it, which is much more difficult to achieve, particularly during the immediate aftermath of a euphoric deal-signing ceremony, probably on the White House Lawn, replete with lofty speeches of “peace in our time.”

The framers of the Constitution were prescient when they required two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty. And these negotiations are nothing short of a nuclear arms treaty that will impact the order of the world for generations to come.

When the final deal is signed on June 30, the U.S. Senate must insist that it has the international standing of a treaty and demand that if it does not have the support of 67 senators, it is null and void.

In the meantime, those congressmen and senators who want to pretend that they are attentive to the genuine concerns of the Saudis, the Israelis and patriotic Americans wary of the Iranian negotiations, are now able to hide behind the Iran Nuclear Review Act, this piece of paper that they recently signed.

As the late Congressman Tom Lantos — the only Holocaust survivor in the U.S. House of Representatives — was fond of saying, “The veneer of civilization is paper thin.”

Liberating Our Jerusalem

May 18, 2015

Liberating Our Jerusalem, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 17, 2015

[T]here are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

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When Jordan’s Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city– the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

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Since then, the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is, however, standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as “settlers” living in “settlements,” and describe them as an “obstruction to peace.” Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as “settlements” is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to tip his hat to. How does one have “settlements” in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that, you would have to ask London and Washington D.C., where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough, this religion’s name isn’t even Islam– it’s diplomacy.

Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that, when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while, when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.

Vice President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, “It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice President who didn’t deserve that.” David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an “affront” and an “insult.” Two for the price of one.

Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration.”Israel’s Provocation”, the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a “diplomatic bomb” that went off in Biden’s face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.

Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It’s in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It’s insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.

That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it’s completely and undeniably true.

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When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn’t come crying that he’s been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were, then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It’s only the Jews who are the problem.

The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it’s as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.

But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that’s just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.

How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting; real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset Vice Presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stop or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.

That’s the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you’re a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It’s the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It’s the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that’s worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.

In 1966, Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.

When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine Providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.

As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six-Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War fought with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.

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Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.

As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that they are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.

Ramadi’s fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad. Jordan warns US air strikes won’t stop the terrorists’ advance

May 18, 2015

Ramadi’s fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad. Jordan warns US air strikes won’t stop the terrorists’ advance, DEBKAfile, May 18, 2015

 

Jordan’s King Abdullah has warned the Obama administration in an urgent message that US air strikes alone won’t stop the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq and Syria and, what is more, they leave his kingdom next door exposed to the Islamist peril. ISIS would at present have no difficulty in invading southern Jordan, where the army is thin on the ground, and seizing local towns and villages whose inhabitants are already sympathetic to the extremist group. The bulk of the Jordanian army is concentrated in the north on the Syrian border. Even a limited Islamist incursion in the south would also pose a threat to northern Saudi Arabia, the king pointed out.

Abdullah offered the view that the US Delta Special Forces operation in eastern Syria Saturday was designed less to be an effective assault on ISIS’s core strength and more as a pallliative to minimize the Islamist peril facing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf emirates.

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that US officials refused to heed Abdullah’s warning and tried to play it down, in the same way as Secretary John Kerry tried Monday, May 18, to de-emphasize to the ISIS conquest of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s largest province.

At a news conference in Seoul, Kerry dismissed the Islamists’ feat as a “target of opportunity” and expressed confidence that, in the coming days, the loss “can be reversed.”

The Secretary of State’s words were unlikely to scare the Islamists, who had caused more than 500 deaths in the battle for the town and witnessed panicky Iraqi soldiers fleeing Ramadi in Humvees and tanks.

Baghdad, only 110 km southeast of Ramadi, has more reason to be frightened, in the absence of any sizeable Iraqi military strength in the area for standing in the enemy’s path to the capital.

The Baghdad government tried announcing that substantial military reinforcements had been ordered to set out and halt the Islamists’ advance. This was just whistling in the dark. In the last two days, the remnants of the Iraqi army have gone to pieces – just like in the early days of the ISIS offensive, when the troops fled Mosul and Falujah. They are running away from any possible engagement with the Islamist enemy.

The Baghdad-sourced reports that Shiite paramilitaries were preparing to deploy to Iraq’s western province of Anbar after Islamic State militants overran Ramadi were likewise no more than an attempt to boost morale. Sending armed Shiites into the Ramadi area of Anbar would make no sense, because its overwhelmingly Sunni population would line up behind fellow-Sunni Islamist State conquerors rather than help the Shiite militias to fight them.

Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, who arrived precipitately in Baghdad Monday, shortly after Ramadi’s fall, faces this difficulty. Our military sources expect him to focus on a desperate effort to deploy Shiite militias as an obstacle in ISIS’s path to Baghdad, now that the road is clear of defenders all the way from Ramadi.

In Amman, King Abdullah Sunday made a clean sweep of senior security officials, firing the Minister of Interior, the head of internal security (Muhabarat) and a number of high police officers. They were accused officially of using excessive violence to disperse demonstrations in the southern town of Maan.

The real reason for their dismissal, DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources disclose, is the decline of these officials’ authority in the Maan district,  in the face of the rising influence of extremist groups identified with Al Qaeda and ISIS, in particular.

Kerry – North Korea can have a great nuke deal like Iran if it becomes as moderate

May 17, 2015

Kerry – North Korea can have a great nuke deal like Iran if it becomes as moderate, Dan Miller’s Blog, May 17, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

North Korea played those negotiating its denuclearization for fools, much as Iran has been doing more recently with Obama. It must not have been difficult to do. To continue the process with Iran, and to repeat it with North Korea, makes no sense.

Speaking in the People’s Republic of China on May 16th, Secretary Kerry offered North Korea a nuke deal

Kerry explained that an Iran deal could help in showing North Korea how “your economy can do better, your country can do better, and you can enter into good standing with the rest of the global community by recognizing — just like Iran — that there is a verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization for weaponization, even as you can have a peaceful nuclear power program.”

Iran has not agreed to “a verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization for weaponization” and likely never will. On April 15th, Iran disputed the accuracy of the Obama Administration’s April 2nd “fact sheet,” which had made such claims about the deal. In the highly unlikely event that Iran were it to claim to do accept such terms, it would “cheat” as it has done in the past. In this video, John Bolton speaks about the “deal” with Iran as well as the North Korean connection.

Nevertheless, Iran has already received many of the rewards of essentially irreversible sanctions relief, including augmented power, both military and financial, in the Middle East.

A deal like the one Iran is about to get by virtue of the Iran scam should be welcomed by North Korea. The countries have long cooperated on nukes and missile development, a matter apparently ignored during Obama’s P5+1 “negotiations” with Iran.

Kerry also said,

the United States will continue to work with its partners “to make it absolutely clear to the DPRK that their actions, their destabilizing behavior — unlike Iran’s — is unacceptable against any international standard.” [Emphasis added.]

Iran’s destabilization efforts and successes are, in Kerry’s view, apparently not “against any international standard.” Yet Iran does far more regional destabilizing than does North Korea — North Korea mainly relies upon bellicose bluster (with infrequent military actions against South Korea). Iran — a major if not the most active sponsor of terrorism —  sends its proxies throughout the Middle East while accusing America and others of destabilization. A likely “signing bonus” of up to fifty billion dollars for Iran if and when the “deal” is finalized will substantially further Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and power as well as its missile and nuclear weapons development.

Here’s a video of Iran having some fun:

According to Hossein Salami, Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Iran welcomes war with the United States:

This North Korean propaganda video purports to displays North Korean military prowess:

Conclusions

The rogue nations of Iran and North Korea are both intent upon maximizing their nuclear weapon capabilities. Both are totalitarian and have obscene human rights records. To trust either would be a gross mistake; yet that appears to be what Obama intends to do.

The only thing notably missing from Kerry’s offer is a requirement that North Korea abandon the Religion of Kim and adopt the glorious “Religion of Peace” instead. That would help North Korea to fit even better than at present into Obama’s policy of supporting America’s enemies and rejecting her friends. If Kim Jong-un would merely recognize Allah as the superior power, perhaps he could become the first Korean Ayatollah. Obama would probably be thrilled were North Korea to become the Democratic Islamic Republic of Korea (DIRK).

First US ground operation in Syria kills ISIS oil chief – as Islamists advance on three new fronts

May 16, 2015

First US ground operation in Syria kills ISIS oil chief – as Islamists advance on three new fronts, DEBKAfile, May 16, 2015

USspecialforcesJoran10.6.14US Special Operations forces in Jordan.

America’s first ground operation in the five years of Syrian war was directed against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – ISIS.  US sources report that Special Operations forces mounted a raid Saturday, May 16, on an ISIS convoy in the Deir a-Zour district of eastern Syria, and killed senior Islamist commander and oil and gas chief, Abu Sayyaf, when he resisted capture. His Iraqi wife, Umm Sayyaf, was taken to Iraq for interrogation by the US troops, all of whom returned safely.

Abu Sayyaf’s importance for the Islamist group cannot be overrated as the man in charge of its commandeered oil fields in Syria and Iraq. He also managed their overseas sales in a thriving black market, netting an estimated $5million a day for bankrolling the group’s wars.

Catching him alive was the preferred object of the raid. Under interrogation, he would have been a valuable source of information on the working of the group’s illicit oil and gas trade, how it was managed, the identities of its customers and routes of payment to the ISIS war chest.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the US raid was staged from Jordan, not Iraq. In normal circumstances, the Jordanians don’t permit US ground or air operations to be staged directly from their territory. However, a joint 10-day US-Jordanian war game, Eager Lion, was in progress in the Hashemite Kingdom. Some 10,000 troops from various countries, including the US, were practicing special operations against ISIS. And so the US unit was ready to hand a short distance from a high-value target at Deir a-Zour.

DEBKAfile adds that the operation came just two days after the Arab Gulf leaders’ summit convened by President Barack Obama ended at Camp David Thursday, May 14. The war on ISIS was a key item on their agenda.

Sources in Washington disclose that the order for the raid came directly from President Barack Obama on the advice of national security council heads in the White House. The troops landed in the middle of a hotbed of fighting between the Syrian army and ISIS. They were no doubt lifted in and out of the scene at speed by helicopter.

The Islamists are in full flight on three Syrian fronts (as well as the same number in Iraq). The group has overrun Al-Sina’a, Ar-Rusafa and Al-Omal in this district, as well as seizing Saker Island in the middle of the Euphrates River north of Deir a-Zour, from which it is shelling the largest Syrian air base in eastern Syria.

Islamist fighters are also advancing on Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra (Tadmor). This is a 2,000-old desert site with precious remains of antiquity, but also home to Bashar Assad’s infamous Tadmor prison, notorious for torture and summary executions.

ISIS targets near this ancient town are the biggest Syrian air base in central Syria and more oil fields. Most of the Iranian and Russian air transports delivering military equipment for the Syrian army and Hizballah land at this base.

The Islamists are additionally targeting Syrian military positions in eastern Homs.

As Ramadi Falls to Islamic State Terrorists, WH Says Their Momentum Has Been ‘Blunted’

May 15, 2015

As Ramadi Falls to Islamic State Terrorists, WH Says Their Momentum Has Been ‘Blunted’,Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, May 15, 2015

(It’s not even good spin. — DM)

Obama’s Not-So-Ironclad Guarantee

May 15, 2015

Obama’s Not-So-Ironclad Guarantee, Commentary Magazine, May 15, 2015

Now that the nuclear deal makes an Iranian bomb only a matter of when rather than if, the Gulf nations were hoping for more than just a carefully worded expression of American indifference.

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This was supposed to be the week when President Obama put on a show of his desire to reaffirm America’s support for its Arab allies. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states have spent the last year in the unusual position of agreeing more with Israel than the United States, as Obama pushes for détente with Iran. Like the Israelis, the Arabs are pondering their future in a region dominated by an Iranian nuclear threshold state that appears to be the lynchpin of the president’s foreign policy legacy. So to demonstrate his good will, Obama invited these nations to a summit at which he would convince them they had nothing to fear. But with the U.S. putting nothing on the table of substance that would allay those concerns about the weak nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran, the Saudi king and other leaders snubbed the event, turning it into a fiasco even before it began. But it turned out King Salman didn’t miss much. Though Obama offered what he called an “ironclad guarantee’ of America’s support for the Arabs, it was phrased in the kind of ambiguous language that rendered it meaningless. The meeting and especially the statement epitomized an Obama administration foreign policy that puts a premium on appeasing foes and alienating friends.

The wording of the president’s “guarantee” is a marvel of lawyerly ambiguity that any connoisseur of diplomatic doubletalk must appreciate:

In the event of such aggression or the threat of such aggression, the United States stands ready to work with our GCC partners to determine urgently what action may be appropriate, using the means at our collective disposal, including the potential use of military force, for the defense of our GCC partners.

Let’s unpack this carefully so we’re clear about what the United States isn’t promising its Arab allies. As even Obama’s cheerleaders at the New York Times noted, this “carefully worded pledge that was far less robust than the mutual defense treaty the Gulf nations had sought.” In the event of aggression, the U.S. isn’t going to spring into action to defend them. Instead it will “work” with them to “determine” what they might do. That falls quite a bit short of a hard promise of collective action, let alone the drawing of a line in the sand across which the Iranians may not cross. In other words, if something bad happens, Obama will talk with the threatened parties but he won’t say what he will do in advance or if he will do anything at all. If that is an “ironclad guarantee,” I’d hate to see what a less binding promise might sound like.

To understate the matter, this is not the sort of pledge that will deter an Iran that is emboldened by its diplomatic victory in the negotiations that let them their nuclear infrastructure and continuing working toward a bomb. Iran’s push for regional hegemony has also been boosted by the triumph of their Syrian ally Bashar Assad with the help of Tehran’s Hezbollah terrorist auxiliaries. With the Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatening to take over Yemen and Iran also resuming its alliance with Hamas in Gaza, the axis of Iranian allies has Arab states understandably worried about their future. Now that the nuclear deal makes an Iranian bomb only a matter of when rather than if, the Gulf nations were hoping for more than just a carefully worded expression of American indifference.

That’s why the statement at the end of the summit made no mention of America’s chief worry about the Gulf states: the possibility that the Saudis will, either acting alone or in concert with their neighbors, seek to match Iran’s nuclear potential. As critics of the Iran deal foretold, far from saving the Middle East from an Iranian bomb, it has set off an arms race that has will make the world a fare more dangerous place.

This omission will likely make the Iranians even more reluctant to give in to U.S. demands about sanctions, Tehran’s military research and the disposition of its stockpile of enriched uranium in the final stages of the nuclear talks. A better guarantee for the Arabs might have convinced the Islamist state that the president really meant business about strengthening the deal. In its absence, they have no reason to think Obama won’t fold as he has at every other stage of the negotiations.

Under the circumstances, it’s little wonder that Bahrain’s King Hamad preferred to go to a horse show London rather than confer with Obama. Just as Israel has learned that the United States is more interested in a new Iran-centric policy than it backing its traditional allies, so, too, must the Arabs come to grips with a new reality in which their Iranian foe is no longer restrained by the United States.

FIG LEAVES FALLING

May 15, 2015

Fig leaves falling, Power LineScott Johnson, May 14, 2015

Certain impediments complicate Barack Obama’s selling of the arrangement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Obama seeks to camouflage the arrangement as one that deters Iran from the acquisition of nuclear weapons. In reality, the arrangement will finance and expedite the mullahs’ acquisition of nuclear weapons.

John Kerry has issued ludicrous “guarantees” in connection with the arrangement. One such guarantee is categorical, but it’s not a money-back sort of a guarantee: “I say to every Israeli that today we have the ability to stop [the Iranians] if they decided to move quickly to a bomb and I absolutely guarantee that in the future we will have the ability to know what they are doing so that we can still stop them if they decided to move to a bomb.”

We may doubt the omniscience that is the predicate of Kerry’s guarantee. But this is strictly a limited warranty. Kerry doesn’t even “guarantee” that his boss would do anything about it if Iran were to break out. Kerry only guarantees that “we” could. Good to know. Kerry’s “guarantee” amounts to nothing more than meaningless verbiage two or three time over.

The arrangement will also provoke an equal and opposite reaction from the Sunni rivals of Iran such as Saudi Arabia. The Sunni rivals understand the nature of the arrangement in process. Their understanding accounts for Obama’s “lonely Arab summit.”

President Obama’s dubious fact-sheet setting forth Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reflects the fig leaves with which the president seeks to cover the nuts of the deal. Senator Rubio couldn’t get to first base in his proposal requiring any final deal to include the fig leaves. (Eli Lake dubbed it “Rubio’s new and improved poison pill.”)

The fig leaves are falling. The official Farsnews outlet reports that inspection of military sites is not included in the arrangement in process — this according to Iranian envoy to the IAEA Reza Najafi and despite the alleged parameter requiring Iran “to grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country.”

The alleged parameters regarding sanctions provide that Iran “will receive sanctions relief, if it verifiably abides by its commitments” and that “•U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.”

We have already learned that President Obama intends to reward Iran with a huge “signing bonus” at the outset of the arrangement. He will agree to the removal of all United Nations sanction on Iran at the same time. He will also waive our own statutory sanctions on Iran. Just about the last fig leaf remaining on this element of the deal is the (utterly meaningless) assertion: “If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.”

Now Bloomberg News reports that this fig leaf is falling too: “Russia rejects automatic sanctions return if Iran cheats on deal.” Bloomberg quotes Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin bluntly asserting yesterday, “There can be no automaticity, none whatsoever” in reimposing UN sanctions if Iran violates the terms of an agreement to curb its nuclear program.

Omri Ceren writes to comment this morning (footnotes omitted):

The statement really shouldn’t count as breaking news, even though it is. Reuters reported toward the very end of Lausanne that the Russians and Chinese were still rejecting the multilateral snapback. But then the Lausanne announcement happened, and President Obama declared from the Rose Garden that in fact “if Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place.” But then a week later the Associated Press reported that, no, “Russia and China are unlikely to accept any process that sees them sacrifice their veto power.”

At the end of April the American Enterprise Institute quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying the exact same thing that Churkin just told Bloomberg News: “in the hypothetical situation that Iran should fail to honour its commitments, then this process should not in any way be automatic.”

And yet the policy conversation has been proceeding as if multilateral snapback is actually a real thing that could happen in our reality.

Part of the reason is that snapback is all the Obama administration has left on the sanctions debate. White House officials had assured lawmakers for literally years that sanctions relief would be phased out only as Iran met a series of nuclear obligations. But after Lausanne, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set a new red line, in which he demanded that the relief must be immediate. The administration began trying to find ways to concede to his demand without violating its previous “phase out” promises, which is how the WSJ’s scoop about a $50 billion signing bonus came to be.

That apparently didn’t work, and so instead the administration went all-in on snapback. At his press conference with Renzi in the middle of April the President signaled the that he was prepared to cave on upfront sanctions relief because – he told journalists – what was actually important was snapback: “with respect to the issue of sanctions coming down, I don’t want to get out ahead of John Kerry and my negotiators… [o]ur main concern here is making sure that if Iran doesn’t abide by its agreement that we don’t have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops in order to reinstate sanctions. That’s our main concern.”

The arrangement’s alleged Iranian concession are, you might say, phony baloney all the way down.

Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran

May 14, 2015

Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran, Reuters via Ynet News, May 14, 2015

(But they won’t cheat after Obama gets his legacy deal. Right. — DM)

Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran.UN report says Tehran attempted to buy centrifugal compressors from company in Czech Republic, using false documentation to hide destination of order.

UNITED NATIONS/PRAGUE – The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, UN experts and Western sources said.

The incident could add to Western concerns about whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal being negotiated with world powers under which it would curb sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

The negotiators are trying to reach a deal by the end of June after hammering out a preliminary agreement on April 2, with Iran committing to reduce the number of centrifuges it operates and agreeing to other long-term nuclear limitations.

562262409915100640360noNuclear plant in Iran’s Bushehr (Photo: Reuters)

Some details of the attempted purchase were described in the latest annual report of an expert panel for the United Nations Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee, which has been seen by Reuters.

The panel said that in January Iran attempted to buy compressors – which have nuclear and non-nuclear applications – made by the US-owned company Howden CKD Compressors.

A Czech state official and a Western diplomat familiar with the case confirmed to Reuters that Iran had attempted to buy the shipment from Howden CKD in the Czech Republic, and that Czech authorities had acted to block the deal.

It was not clear if any intermediaries were involved in the attempt to acquire the machinery.

There was no suggestion that Howden CKD itself was involved in any wrongdoing. Officials at Prague-based Howden declined to comment on the attempted purchase.

The UN panel, which monitors compliance with the UN sanctions regime, said there had been a “false end user” stated for the order.

“The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions,” it added.

The report offered no further details about the attempted transaction. Iran’s UN mission did not respond to a query about the report.

Contract worth $61 million

The Czech state official said the party seeking the compressors had claimed the machinery was needed for a compressor station, such as the kind used to transport natural gas from one relay station to another.

The official declined to say exactly how the transaction was stopped, provide specifications of the compressors or confirm the intended purchaser. However, he made clear it was the Czech authorities who halted the deal

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the total value of the contract would have been about 1.5 billion Czech koruna ($61 million).

This was a huge amount for the company concerned, the previously named CKD Kompresory, a leading supplier of multi-stage centrifugal compressors to the oil and gas, petrochemical and other industries.

The firm was acquired by Colfax Corp. of the United States in 2013 for $69.4 million. A spokesman for Colfax declined to comment.

The United States and its Western allies say Iran continues to try to skirt international sanctions on its atomic and missile programs even while negotiating the nuclear deal.

The UN panel of experts also noted in its report that Britain informed it of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to blacklisted firms.

While compressors have non-nuclear applications in the oil and gas industry, they also have nuclear uses, including in centrifuge cascades. Centrifuges purify uranium gas fed into them for use as fuel in nuclear reactors or weapons, if purified to levels of around 90 percent of the fissile isotope uranium-235.

“Such compressors can be used to extract enriched uranium directly from the cascades,” Olli Heinonen, former deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a nuclear expert currently at Harvard University, told Reuters.

“In particular, they are useful when working with higher enrichment such as 20 percent enriched uranium,” he said, adding that precise specifications of the compressors in question would be necessary to make a definitive assessment.

Iran has frozen production of 20 percent enriched uranium, a move that Western officials cite as one of the most important curbs on Iranian nuclear activities under an interim agreement in 2013.

Tehran rejects allegations by Western powers and their allies that it is seeking the capability to produce atomic weapons and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA and the United States have said repeatedly that Tehran has adhered to the terms of the 2013 interim deal.