Obama’s America | WarSclerotic | Page 36

Archive for the ‘Obama’s America’ category

Contentions | Has Obama Read the Khamenei Palestine Book?

August 4, 2015

Contentions | Has Obama Read the Khamenei Palestine Book? Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, August 4, 2015

(Another interesting question would be, does Obama agree with any of Khamenei’s statements and, if so, which? — DM)

The Khamenei Palestine book is important not in and of itself but because the regime’s obsession with Israel is a key to its foreign policy. . . . But as much as Iran is focused on regional hegemony in which Sunni states would be brought to heel, as Khamenei’s Palestine illustrates, it is the fixation on Israel and Zionism that really animates their expansionism and aid for terror groups.

******************

It turns out President Obama isn’t the only world leader who writes books. His counterpart in Iran – Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has also just published a new book. But while it may not be as introspective as Obama’s Dreams From My Father, it does tell us at least as much about the vision of the person in charge in Tehran (as opposed to Hassan Rouhani, the faux moderate who serves as its president) as the president’s best-selling memoir. As Amir Taheri reports in the New York Post, Palestine is a 416-page diatribe against the existence of the state of Israel and a call to arms for it to be destroyed. Supporters of the nuclear deal the president has struck with Khamenei’s regime may dismiss this book as merely one more example of the Supreme Leader’s unfortunate ideology that must be overlooked. But as the New York Times noted last week, the administration’s real goal here isn’t so much in delaying Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon (which is the most that can be claimed for the agreement) as it is fostering détente with it. Seen in that light, the latest evidence of the malevolence of the Islamist regime should be regarded as yet another inarguable reason for Congress to vote the deal down.

In his interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on May 21, President Obama was asked directly about the significance of Iran’s anti-Semitism and its commitment to destroying Israel. The president said the anti-Semitism of the Iranian leadership did not mean they weren’t also “interested in survival” or being “rational.” As far as he was concerned, the ideology of the regime was not something that would influence its decisions.

But everything Khamenei says and, even more importantly, everything the regime does, by funding terrorist groups at war with Israel such as Hamas and Hezbollah or by embarking on a ruinously expensive nuclear project that placed it in conflict with the West, speaks to its commitment to policies that Obama may think are irrational but which are completely in synch with what he called its “organizing principle.” Why would a nation so rich in oil need to risk international isolation or war seek nuclear power if not to help Khamenei fulfill his pledge to “liberate” what is now Israel for Muslims?

The president told Goldberg that the American military option would be a sufficient deterrent to ensure that Iran didn’t violate the nuclear pact or behave in an irrational manner. But since the president has ruled out the use of force in a categorical manner, it’s hard to see why the Iranians would fear it once the U.S. and Europe are doing business with them. Even if it was a matter of snapping back sanctions, assuming that such a concept is even possible? Once the restrictions are unraveled, it’s fair to ask why would they work then when the president repeatedly tells us additional sanctions won’t work now and require us to accept the current deal that doesn’t achieve the objectives that the administration set for the negotiations when they began.

The Khamenei Palestine book is important not in and of itself but because the regime’s obsession with Israel is a key to its foreign policy. Iran constitutes a grave threat to Neighboring Arab countries that are at least as angry about the president’s embrace of Tehran as the Israelis since their nuclear status would undermine their security. But as much as Iran is focused on regional hegemony in which Sunni states would be brought to heel, as Khamenei’s Palestine illustrates, it is the fixation on Israel and Zionism that really animates their expansionism and aid for terror groups.

As Taheri notes in his article on the book, Khamenei distinguishes his idée fixe about destroying Israel from European anti-Semitism. Rather, he insists, that his policy derives from “well established Islamic principles.” Chief among them is the idea that any land that was once ruled by Muslims cannot be conceded to non-believers no matter who lives there now. While the Muslim world seems to understand that they’re not getting Spain back, the territory that constitutes the state of Israel is something else. Its central location in the middle of the Muslim and Arab worlds and the fact that Jews, a despised minority people, now rule it makes its existence particularly objectionable to Islamists like Khamenei.

Khamenei’s book shows that not only is he serious about wanting to destroy Israel and uproot its Jewish population, he regards this project as a practical rather than a theoretical idea. The administration ignores this because it wants to believe that Iran is a nation that wants to, as the president put it, “get right with the world.” But what it wants is to do business with the world while pursuing its ideological goals. The nuclear deal is a means to an end for the regime and that end does not involve good relations with the West or cooperation with other states in the region, let alone coexisting peacefully with Israel.

What is curious is that this is the same administration that regarded the announcement of a housing project in Jerusalem by low-level Israeli officials as an “insult” to Vice President Biden. But it chooses to regard the “death to America” chants led by regime functionaries in Iran as well as a book by the country’s leader indicating that Obama’s ideas about its character are fallacious as non-events. The only explanation for this remarkable lack of interest in Iranian behavior is an ideological fixation on détente with Tehran that is every bit as hardcore as any utterances that emanate from the mouth or the pen of the Supreme Leader.

Taken out of the context of a vision of friendship with the Iranian regime, the nuclear deal makes no sense. Yet squaring that vision with Khamenei’s literary effort is impossible. Members of the House and Senate must take note of this conundrum and vote accordingly.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Imperialism, Iran scam, Iranian anti-semitism, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Israel, Jews, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace in our time, Peace process, Progressives, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Foreign Policy, Ideology, Imperialism, Iran Scam, Iranian antisemitism, Iranian proxies, Iranian threats, Israel, Jews, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's antisemitism, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace in our time, Peace Process, Progressives, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

Comments: 1 Comment

Israeli Preemptive Action, Western Reaction

August 4, 2015

Israeli Preemptive Action, Western Reaction, National Review, Victor Davis Hanson, August 4, 2015

[W]e should conclude that any deal that leads, now or in the near future, to an Iranian bomb is unacceptable to Israel — a nation that will likely soon have no choice but to consider the unthinkable in order to prevent the unimaginable.

*********************

Will Israel do the unthinkable to stop the unimaginable?

The Obama administration seems peeved that almost everyone in Israel, left and right, has no use for the present Iranian–American deal to thwart Iran’s efforts to get the bomb. Indeed, at times John Kerry has hinted darkly that Israel’s opposition to the pact might incur American wrath should the deal be tabled — even though Kerry knows that the polls show a clear majority of Americans being against the proposed agreement while remaining quite supportive of the Jewish state. President Obama, from time to time, suggests that his agreement is being sabotaged by nefarious lobbying groups, big-time check writers, and neoconservative supporters of the Iraq war — all shorthand, apparently, for pushy Jewish groups.

Obama and his negotiators seem surprised that Israelis take quite seriously Iranian leaders’ taunts over the past 35 years that they would like to liquidate the Jewish state and everyone in it. The Israelis, for some reason, remember that well before Hitler came to power, he had bragged about the idea of killing Jews en masse in his sloppily composed autobiographical Mein Kampf. Few in Germany or abroad had taken the raving young Hitler too seriously. Even in the late 1930s, when German Jews were being rounded up and haphazardly killed on German streets by state-sanctioned thugs, most observers considered such activities merely periodic excesses or outbursts from non-governmental Black- and Brownshirts.

The Obama administration, with vast oceans between Tehran and the United States, tsk-tsks over Iranian threats as revolutionary hyperbole served up for domestic consumption. The Israelis, with less than a thousand miles between themselves and Tehran, do not — and cannot. Given the 20th century’s history, Israel has good reason not to trust either the United States or Europe to ensure the security of the Jewish state. Israel has learned from the despicable anti-Semitism now prevalent at the U.N. and from the increasing thuggery directed at Jews in Europe that the world at large would shed crocodile tears over the passing of Israel on the day of its destruction, but, the next day, sigh and get right back to business in a “that was then, this is now” style.

In 1981 the Israelis took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor — sold to Saddam Hussein by France. They were ritually blasted as state terrorists and worse by major U.S. newspapers and at the United Nations — though not by Khomeini’s Iran, which earlier had failed in a preemptive bombing strike to do much damage to the Osirak reactor. Today, in retrospect, most nations are privately glad that the Israelis removed the reactor from a country that had hundreds of years’ worth of natural-gas and oil supplies and no need for nuclear power — and that is now under assault from ISIS.

In 2007, when the Israelis preempted once more, and destroyed the al-Kibar nuclear facility that was under construction in Syria, the world, after initial silence, again in Pavlovian fashion became outraged at such preemptive bombing. The global chorus claimed that there was no intelligence confirming that the North Koreans had helped to launch a Syrian uranium-enrichment plant.

Yet eight years later, most observers abroad once again privately shrug that Bashar Assad most certainly had hired the Koreans to build a nuclear processing plant — and are quietly satisfied that the Israelis took care of it. Note that the al-Kibar site lies in territory now controlled by ISIS. One can imagine a variety of terrifying contemporary scenarios had the Israelis not preempted. Most of those who condemned Israel’s attack would now be worrying about an ISIS improvised explosive device, packed with dirty uranium, that might go off in a major Western city.

In all these cases, the Israelis assumed that Western intelligence about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East was unreliable. They took for granted that Westerners automatically would blame Israelis for any preemptive attack against an Islamic nuclear site. And they likewise concluded that, privately and belatedly, Westerners would eventually be happy that the Israelis had belled the would-be nuclear cat.

But in a larger sense, the Israelis also recall the sad story of the West and the Holocaust less than 75 years ago — a horror central to the birthing of a “never again” Jewish state. By 1943, the outlines of the Nazis’ Final Solution were well known in both Washington and London; Jews were already being gassed at German death camps in Poland in an effort to kill every Jew from the Atlantic Ocean to the Volga River.

It was also a matter of record that the major Western democracies — America, Britain, and prewar France — had refused sanctuary to millions of Jewish refugees who had been stripped of their property by the Third Reich and told to leave Germany and its occupied territories. In some notorious cases, shiploads of Jews were turned away after docking in Western ports and were sent back to Nazi-occupied Europe, where the passengers were disembarked and soon afterward gassed. Moreover, Israelis understand that Hitler’s Final Solution would have been far more difficult to implement without the active participation of sympathetic anti-Semites in occupied European nations, who volunteered to round up their own Jews and send them on German trains eastward to the death camps.

In the case of the United States, anti-Semitic or indifferent officials high up in the State Department and elsewhere within the Roosevelt administration went out of their way to hide data about the plight of Jewish refugees, and circumvented protocol in order to refuse entry into the United States to the vast majority of Jews fleeing the Holocaust. The British were nearly as exclusionary, and also did their best to stop Jewish refugees from fleeing to Palestine to escape the death camps.

As it happens, Fascist and Nazi-allied Japan was sometimes more sympathetic to Jews desperate to leave Europe than were the Allies. Indeed, Hitler and his Nazi top echelon constantly bragged about the fact that neither the Allied powers nor occupied European nations wanted to take Jews off Berlin’s hands — proof, in Nazi eyes, of a supportive wink-and-nod attitude to the Holocaust. Each time the Allies published a threat to the Nazi leadership that there would be an accounting and war-crime trials after the war, Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler remembered that none of these outraged governments wanted to accept Jews themselves, and thus they must secretly still have remained indifferent to their fate. Thus the threats rang hollow to the Nazis, and the crematoria burned on.

By mid-1943 at the latest, American authorities had comprehensive knowledge — from firsthand reports by camp escapees, from photo reconnaissance, and from brave Germans who passed on detailed inside information through the neutral Swiss — of the vast scope of the Holocaust. They were constantly beseeched by international Jewish advocates to at least bomb the crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz, which were within range of the Allies’ four-engine heavy bombers. Indeed, an Allied bombing mission would on occasion hit one of the key German factories that surrounded Auschwitz itself — to the delight of the doomed inmates of the death camps.

Given that eventually over 10,000 Jews per day were being gassed and cremated at Auschwitz, almost every Jewish leader advocated bombing the camps to destroy the rail links, the intricate camp machinery, and the SS guards so essential to the perpetration of the Holocaust. Again, such pleas were met with both indifference and lies, once more offered up by heralded American statesmen like U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long and well-connected consigliere and future “wise man” John McCloy of the War Department. The latter falsely argued at times that the camps were not really in reach of Allied bombers, or that the numbers of Jews being slaughtered were exaggerated, or that the diversion of even one or two missions from the strategic bombing of Germany would hamper the entire Allied war effort.

After the war, with rising Cold War tensions and a need to ensure that the West German public remained firmly in the new NATO alliance, many Nazi war criminals either were let out of prison early, had their sentences commuted, or were never charged at all. For all the Western empathy about the horrific Final Solution, Jews remembered (1) that it would once have been possible to save many fleeing Jews, if only the democracies had just allowed in political refugees; (2) that many of the death camps could have been leveled by Allied bombers in their last year or two of full-bore operation, saving perhaps 2 to 3 million of the doomed; and (3) that the political expediency of the postwar Western alliance had trumped bringing Nazi war criminals to a full accounting for their horrendous acts.

The Israelis have taken to heart lots of lessons over the last 70 years. They have concluded that often the world quietly wants Israel to deal with existential threats emanating from the Middle East while loudly damning it when it does. They have learned from the experience of the Holocaust that, for good or evil, Jews are on their own and can never again trust in the world’s professed humanity to prevent another Holocaust. And they are convinced that they can also never again err on the side of the probability that national leaders, with deadly weapons in their grasp, do not really mean all the unhinged things they shout and scream about killing Jews.

Given all that, we should conclude that any deal that leads, now or in the near future, to an Iranian bomb is unacceptable to Israel — a nation that will likely soon have no choice but to consider the unthinkable in order to prevent the unimaginable.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Holocaust, Ideology, Iran / Israel War, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Peace in our time, U.S. politics
Tags: Foreign Policy, Holocaust, Ideology, Iran / Israel war, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Peace in our time, U.S. politics

Comments: 5 Comments

More bad news for Obama from Iran about the secret deals

August 4, 2015

More bad news for Obama from Iran about the secret deals, Dan Miller’s Blog, August 4, 2015

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

An Iranian official recently stated that no International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) personnel will be permitted to enter military or missile sites. Another stated that “no country is permitted to know the details of future inspections conducted by the IAEA.” Their statements are probably consistent. There may well be other secret deals we don’t know about and perhaps never will. Meanwhile, Iran is preparing to test long range ballistic missiles “to prove that the missile ban was invalid.”

It's not MY fault.

It’s not MY fault.

I. No IAEA inspections of the sites that matter most

In an interview on Al Jazeera TV last week Ali Akbar Velayati, Security Adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, stated that

United Nations nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency would not be given access to Tehran’s sensitive military nuclear sites.

. . . .

“First, allow me to emphasize that the issue of the missiles and of Iran’s defensive capabilities were not part of the negotiations to begin with,” Velayati said. [Emphasis added.]

“No matter what pressure is exerted, Iran never has negotiated and never will negotiate with others – America, Europe, or any other country – about the nature and quality of missiles it should manufacture or possess, or about the defensive military equipment that it needs. This is out of the question.” [Emphasis added.]

A video of Mr. Velayati remarks, with translations by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), is available here. Since I have been unable to find it on You Tube I have no way to embed it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Velayati is essentially correct. The November 2013 Joint Plan of Action focused almost exclusively on Uranium enrichment, to the exclusion of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s military nuclear activities including missile research, development and testing.

II. Details of IAEA inspections will not be disclosed

Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador and permanent envoy to the IAEA, stated over the weekend that “no country is permitted to know the details of future inspections conducted by the IAEA.”

Najafi’s statement could mean (a) that no details about inspection methodology will be disclosed, (b) that no details about inspection results will be disclosed or (c) both. If inspection methodologies — who did the inspections as well as when, where and how, are not disclosed, what useful purpose will they serve, other than for Iran? If details of the results of inspections are not disclosed, that will also be the case. How, in either or both cases, will the members of the P5+1 negotiating teams have sufficient information to decide whether to “snap back” sanctions — if doing so is now even possible — or anything else?

III. Even details about inspections of non-military sites will be hidden

Considering Parts I and II together, and assuming that the statements of Iranian officials are reasonably consistent and not mere gaffes, IAEA personnel will be permitted to inspect non-military sites only and hence only to keep tabs on Uranium enrichment; even the details of those inspections will not be disclosed. Is that what Kerry and the other P5+1 negotiators had (pardon the expression) in mind?

IV. Iran says, Ballistic missile testing and development are OK

As reported by DEBKAfile,

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. [Emphasis added.]

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. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

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.” [Emphasis added.]

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.” [Emphasis added.]

This appears to confirm that all of Iran’s ballistic missile sites are off-limits to inspectors.

V. What does Kerry know?

When questioned by members of Congress on the secret deals, Secretary Kerry testified that he had neither seen nor read them but that he had been fully briefed and knew “exactly” what they say. Put charitably, it seems unlikely that he knew that much.

Less charitably, Kerry knew far more than he said and declined to be forthcoming. Now that two Iranian officials have provided highly important information, thus far probably unknown to Congress, will Kerry have additional comments? Not if he can help it.

VI. Conclusions

I wrote early and often about the miserable “deal” about to be entered into by P5+1 under Obama’s dubious leadership. As Iranian officials provide additional information it should be clear — even to the most enthusiastic “deal” supporters — that the “deal” is far worse than earlier thought possible and that the U.S. Congress is obligated to disapprove it and to override any Obama veto, partisan politics notwithstanding.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iranian media, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress, United Nations
Tags: Foreign Policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran secret deals, Iranian media, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress, United Nations

Comments: 1 Comment

Funding the Mullahs’ exeution spree

August 4, 2015

Funding the Mullahs’ exeution spree, Front Page Magazine, Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, August 4, 2015

(Yet “progressive” supporters of the “deal” seem not to be bothered — unless an African lion is killed. — DM)

hangings_in_iran_wikimedia_groundreport.com_640_0

Unfortunately, although President Obama is very vocal about defending the nuclear deal, the lifting of economic sanctions on the Ayatollah, the release of over a hundred of billion dollars to the ruling clerics of Iran, he has not issued any serious criticism against the leaders of the Islamic Republic with regards to the execution spree.

***********************

How the Obama administration is facilitating Iran’s unprecedented killing binge.

President Obama is determined to defend the Islamic Republic as a legitimate government that should receive sanctions relief. He has even overstepped his constitutional authority by signing the nuclear deal (a treaty) in the United Nations Security Council without getting the two-third vote of the Senate. He did not give Congress time to review the nuclear deal as he previously promised.

The Obama administration is advocating for a regime that has been on an execution spree on an unprecedented level, according to Amnesty International’s latest report. Since the beginning of this year, the Islamic Republic has executed approximately 700 people.

People being executed are usually not told about their death sentence until the noose is put around their neck and until they reach the gallows. Family members of the victims often do not know about the execution until weeks after.

As Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program said, “Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale.” He added, “The use of the death penalty is always abhorrent, but it raises additional concerns in a country like Iran where trials are blatantly unfair.”

I regularly speak with Iranian people living in various cities in Iran including Esfahan, Tehran, Tabriz, and Khorasan in order to obtain a better understanding on the ground. My family lives there too. The words of every one of them (about the current situation in Iran after the nuclear deal was reached) echoes what Zahra, an English teacher in the province of Esfahan, told me. She said, “Any cash given to the these Sheikhs in the government (the clerics) by the powers because of the nuclear deal, will not be distributed to the people. The money will not be used to improve people’s economic standards. The people on top will steal the money, saving it in their bank accounts, or send it to their Arab allies, Bashar Al Assad, Hezbollah, and the Iraqi government. They [Iranian leaders] are also going to increase domestic suppression if they begin seeing the flow of cash.”

If we look at the history of the Islamic Republic closely, we see that when a “reformist” president (Mohammad Khatami) was in power in Iran, the nation witnessed the same increase in executions and suppression. It was one of the worst periods of oppression and crackdowns on civil liberties. In addition, the number of executions normally rises under the so-called “moderates” and “reformists” rules.

When Iranian people feel that they might finally have a better relationships with the West, the ruling establishments ratchets up their imprisonment, torture, suppression and killings in order to show the people who is in charge and in order to impose fear. By using these tactics, they send a clear message that the Islamists are in charge, not the youth.

This staggering number of executions suggests that, as the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic were gaining global legitimacy due to the nuclear negotiations and “normalizing” relationships with the Obama administration, they have also increased their mass scale killings of their own citizens. At the same time, several American citizens are still spending time in Iran’s prison.

Unfortunately, although President Obama is very vocal about defending the nuclear deal, the lifting of economic sanctions on the Ayatollah, the release of over a hundred of billion dollars to the ruling clerics of Iran, he has not issued any serious criticism against the leaders of the Islamic Republic with regards to the execution spree.

In the Islamic Republic, one can be executed for actions which might not even be a crime or it might be a misdemeanor in other democratic countries. For example, one can be executed for “enmity against Allah” or “corruption on earth.” In addition, a non-Muslim man can be executed for having sex with a Muslim women, but not vice versa. One can be executed or stoned if he/she is married and has sex with an unmarried person. One can also be executed for cursing or using bad words against the prophet.

As the report by Amnesty International described, “They [death sentences] are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offenses, or acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty… Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation.”

Boumedouha observed, “For years, Iranian authorities have used the death penalty to spread a climate of fear in a misguided effort to combat drug trafficking, yet there is not a shred of evidence to show that this is an effective method of tackling crime…”

The more the Iranian leaders are empowered and emboldened financially, economically and politically, the more they tighten the noose on all freedoms (including speech, assembly, press, etc.), as well as basic inalienable human rights.

There are currently thousands of innocent people on death row waiting to be unfairly executed in the Islamic Republic. While President Obama finds it urgent to overstep his constitutional authority to quickly sign the nuclear deal with Iran and push for sanctions relief against the ruling clerics, he needs to pay close attention to how the empowerment of the ruling Islamists in Iran is adversely affecting the lives of millions of innocent people.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Executions, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran scam, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Sanctions, Theocracy, U.S. Constitution
Tags: Executions, Foreign Policy, human rights, Iran Scam, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Sanctions, Theocracy, U.S. Constitution

Comments: Be the first to comment

Contentions| The Real Goal of the Nuclear Deal: Iran Détente

August 3, 2015

Contentions | The Real Goal of the Nuclear Deal: Iran Détente, Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, August 3, 2015

To listen to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry defend their nuclear deal in recent weeks, you’d think the issue at stake is a narrow one that solely concerned whether or not the agreement retards Tehran’s quest for a bomb. The assumption from the administration and its apologists that the deal does this even minimally is a dubious one. But one of the subtexts of the misleading way they have been conducting their end of this debate is their effort to distract both Congress and the public from the broader goals of the pact. While critics of the deal have highlighted Obama’s refusal to make the sanctions relief dependent on an end to support for terrorism, ballistic missile production or the nature of Iranian government, the answers from the administration have been consistent. They want to restrict the discussion to purely technical nuclear issues that can be obfuscated by deceptive claims or to the false choice between the agreement and war. But, to its credit, one of the president’s chief media cheerleaders did highlight the real goals of the administration in an article published on Friday. The New York Times feature titled “Deeper Aspirations Seen in Nuclear Deal With Iran” ought to be required reading for all members of the House and Senate. The choice here isn’t one between a flawed nuclear deal and war, but between Iran détente with a tyrannical, anti-Semitic, aggressive Islamist regime and a reboot of the diplomatic process that has been hijacked by appeasers.

As the Times points out, prior to the announcement of the final, lenient terms of the deal that expires in ten years the administration wasn’t so coy about its real objective:

Before his fight for the deal in Congress, Mr. Obama was far more open about his ultimate goals. In an interview in The Atlantic in March 2014, he said that a nuclear agreement with Iran was a good idea, even if the regime remained unchanged. But an agreement could do far more than that, he said:

“If, on the other hand, they are capable of changing; if, in fact, as a consequence of a deal on their nuclear program those voices and trends inside of Iran are strengthened, and their economy becomes more integrated into the international community, and there’s more travel and greater openness, even if that takes a decade or 15 years or 20 years, then that’s very much an outcome we should desire,” he said. …

And in an interview in December, Mr. Obama even seemed to welcome the rise of a powerful Iran. “They have a path to break through that isolation and they should seize it,” he said. “Because if they do, there’s incredible talent and resources and sophistication inside of — inside of Iran, and it would be a very successful regional power.”

The importance of this context for the discussion of the deal cannot be overemphasized.

The deal ought to be defeated on its own merits because it fails to achieve the administration’s stated objectives about stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions. All it accomplishes, if it can even be said to do that much, is to delay Iran’s march to a bomb for the period of the agreement while permitting to continue research with a large nuclear infrastructure under a loose inspections regime that makes a mockery of its past promises on all these issues.

But the point on which the administration has been most reluctant to comment is the more than $100 billion in frozen assets that will be released to Tehran. Critics rightly believe this money will, one way or another, help subsidize Iran’s terrorist allies and push for regional hegemony that worries neighboring Arab states as well as Israel, whose existence is threatened by Iran becoming a threshold nuclear state with Western approval.

No rational argument can be mustered against this assertion since the money will be Iran’s to use as it likes and any prohibitions on Iranian adventurism are likely to be even less effective in a post-deal environment than they were prior to it. But if, like President Obama, you believe that Iran is in the process of transforming from a revolutionary threat whose goals are mandated by the extreme religious beliefs and Islamist ideology of its rulers into one eager to be friends with the world, the prospect of a stronger Iran doesn’t trouble you.

That’s why President Obama did not predicate these negotiations on any pledges, even ones that were transparently false, of good behavior from Iran. He claims that insisting on an end to Iranian state sponsorship of terror or forcing it to renounce its goal of eliminating Israel would have prevented him from getting a deal on the nuclear question. But that formulation has it backward. The point of the negotiations was never about the nuclear details, something that was made clear by the astonishing series of concessions that the administration made throughout the talks. In October 2012, during his foreign policy debate with Mitt Romney, Obama pledged that any deal would eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Now he is advocating for one that leaves it in place under Western sponsorship while rewarding Tehran with the lifting of sanctions.

What Obama always wanted was a deal at any price because he thought it was the pathway to a new entente with Iran that would end the conflict with its Islamist leaders. But while a future in which Iran would no longer be a terror sponsor bent on destroying Israel and dominating the Middle East would be a good thing there is no rational reason to imagine this will happen. Indeed, by strengthening its government the president is ensuring that they will never have to choose between their aggressive goals and economic prosperity.

That’s why rather than being sidetracked into debates about the nuclear details, opponents need to focus on the real goal of the deal: détente with a regime that threatens the U.S. and its allies. The deal fails as a nuclear pact. But it is perhaps an even greater disaster when one realizes that its premise is a naive belief that Islamist tyrants are so enraptured with Obama that they are about to abandon their deeply held beliefs and evil intentions.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress
Tags: Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran military, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress

Comments: 2 Comments

Iran: U.S. Banned from Knowing Details of Iran Nuclear Inspection Agreement

August 3, 2015

Iran: U.S. Banned from Knowing Details of Iran Nuclear Inspection Agreement, Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo, August 3, 2015

(Mr. Najafi states in the highlighted paragraph that “no country is permitted to know the details of inspections.“ That likely refers to the P5+1 negotiators as well as to nations other than Iran. Does it refer to the results of the inspections or to how and by whom they were conducted when? Either way, how will the P5+1 negotiators know whether Iran continues to seek nuke weaponization and whether to “snap back” sanctions? If they are told little more than “everything is just peachy,” will that be satisfactory evidence that Iran has not violated the “deal?” Please see also, Iran Openly Refuses UN IAEA Inspectors Access to Military Sites.– DM)

Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador and permanent envoy to the IAEA, stated over the weekend that no country is permitted to know the details of future inspections conducted by the IAEA. In addition, no U.S. inspectors will be permitted to enter Iran’s nuclear sites.

**********************

Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the nuclear inspection organization is barred from revealing to the United States any details of deals it has inked with Tehran to inspect its contested nuclear program going forward, according to regional reports.

Recent disclosures by Iran indicate that the recently inked nuclear accord includes a series of side deals on critical inspections regimes that are neither public nor subject to review by the United States.

Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador and permanent envoy to the IAEA, stated over the weekend that no country is permitted to know the details of future inspections conducted by the IAEA. In addition, no U.S. inspectors will be permitted to enter Iran’s nuclear sites.

“The provisions of a deal to which the IAEA and a second country are parties are confidential and should not be divulged to any third country, and as Mr. Kerry discussed it in the Congress, even the U.S. government had not been informed about the deal between IAEA and Iran,” Najafi was quoted as saying by Iran’s Mehr News Agency.

Due to the secretive nature of these agreements, IAEA officials vising with lawmakers are barred from revealing to them the details of future inspections.

The revelation has rattled lawmakers on Capitol Hill, several of whom are now rallying colleagues to sign a letter to President Barack Obama protesting these so-called side deals.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kansas) and at least 35 other lawmakers are circulating a letter to Obama to provide Congress the text of these agreements as is required under U.S. law.

“It has come to our attention that during the recent negotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, at least two side deals were made between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran,” the letter states, according to a copy obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“These side deals, concerning the ‘roadmap for the clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear programs,’ have not been made available to the United States Congress,” it states. “One deal covers the Parchin military complex and the other covers possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program.”

An informational email being circulated to lawmakers explains, “according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Obama Administration, these agreements have been negotiated in secret between the IAEA and Iran.”

Secretary of State John Kerry has personally “stated he has not seen these agreements and the Administration failed to submit these agreements as part of the JPCOA,” the email states.

Under the terms of a bill meant to give Congress a final say over the deal, the Obama administration is required to provide text of all agreements, the lawmakers write to Obama.

“Under the clear language of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which you signed into law, members of Congress are entitled to the text of these two side deals,” it states. “Specifically, members have a right to all ‘annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.’”

“Congress’s legal right to these documents creates a corresponding legal obligation for your administration to provide them for our review,” the letter says.

The lawmakers are demanding that the White House “immediately secure” these documents from IAEA “and then provide them to Congress” for review.

Pompeo and Rep. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) sent a separate letter to Obama administration official last week asking for them to disclose the nature of all secret side agreements with Iran.

Iran’s IAEA ambassador claims the agreements with the IAEA are separate from the actual nuclear accord inked with global powers.

“The Agency would know the nature of confidential documents and Iran have clearly briefed the IAEA on this; we have agreed on implementation of a roadmap which is not a part of the JCPOA, with the implementation already on process even before the Congress could examine and approve the deal,” Najafi was quoted as saying.

One senior congressional source familiar with the effort to obtain further information about the deal told the Free Beacon the Obama administration is not being transparent in the review process.

“On top of all the concessions–from ballistic missiles to conventional arms to a 24-day inspection period–we now learn that additional side deals were struck between the IAEA and Iran,” said a senior congressional source familiar with the effort to obtain further information about the deal.

“The Administration promised a transparent review process that would allow Americans and their elected representatives to assess the deal for themselves, but as it turns out, that was just utter bullsh**,” the source added. “The Administration signed off on an agreement that included a series of Iranian Eastern eggs, including secret deals regarding the possible military dimensions of Tehran’s nuclear program, to which Congress and the public are not privy.”

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Red Lines, U.S. Congress
Tags: Foreign Policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iran secret deals, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Red Lines, U.S. Congress

Comments: 1 Comment

Army is breaking, let down by Washington

August 3, 2015

Army is breaking, let down by Washington, Stars and Stripes, Robert H. Scales, August 2, 2015

(Last year I also wrote a depressing article on the lamentable combat readiness of our military. It’s here at my blog and here at Warsclerotic. The situation has continued to deteriorate. How could Obama’s America help to protect freedom, particularly against an enemy whose name must not be mentioned, without a combat effective military — even if Obama wanted to do it? — DM)

image military

U.S. paratroopers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade load a M119A2 howitzer at the 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, July 28, 2015.
GERTRUD ZACH/U.S. ARMY

Last month, Gen. Ray Odierno, outgoing Army chief of staff, and Gen. Mark Milley, his successor, testified to the difficulties faced by the Army. I’d like to make the same points by telling a story.

When I was a boy, tonsillitis was a dangerous illness. In 1952, it kept me in Tokyo General Hospital for weeks. I shared a cramped ward with dozens of soldiers horribly maimed in Korea. The hospital had only one movie theater. I remember watching a Western sandwiched between bandage- and plaster-wrapped bodies. I remember the antiseptic smells, the cloud of cigarette smoke and the whispers of young men still traumatized by the horrors of the war they had just left.

My dad came from Korea to visit me, and I recall our conversations vividly. At the time he was operations officer for the 2nd Engineer Battalion. He told me how poorly his men were prepared for war. Many had been killed or captured by the North Koreans. During the retreat from the Yalu River, some of his soldiers were in such bad physical shape that they dropped exhausted along the road to wait to be taken captive.

“We have no sergeants, son,” he told me, shaking his head, “and without them we are no longer an Army.”

In the early ’70s, I was the same age as my Korean-era dad. I had just left Vietnam only to face another broken Army. My barracks were at war. I carried a pistol to protect myself from my own soldiers. Many of the soldiers were on hard drugs. The barracks were racial battlegrounds pitting black against white. Again, the Army had broken because the sergeants were gone. By 1971, most were either dead, wounded or had voted with their feet to get away from such a devastated institution.

I visited Baghdad in 2007 as a guest of Gen. David Petraeus. Before the trip I had written a column forecasting another broken Army, but it was clear from what Petraeus showed me that the Army was holding on and fighting well in the dangerous streets of Baghdad. Such a small and overcommitted force should have broken after so many serial deployments to that hateful place. But Petraeus said that his Army was different. It held together because junior leaders were still dedicated to the fight. To this day, I don’t know how they did it.

Sadly, the Army that stayed cohesive in Iraq and Afghanistan even after losing 5,000 dead is now being broken again by an ungrateful, ahistorical and strategically tone-deaf leadership in Washington.

The Obama administration just announced a 40,000 reduction in the Army’s ranks. But the numbers don’t begin to tell the tale. Soldiers stay in the Army because they love to go into the field and train; Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently said that the Army will not have enough money for most soldiers to train above the squad level this year. Soldiers need to fight with new weapons; in the past four years, the Army has canceled 20 major programs, postponed 125 and restructured 124. The Army will not replace its Reagan-era tanks, infantry carriers, artillery and aircraft for at least a generation. Soldiers stay in the ranks because they serve in a unit ready for combat; fewer than a third of the Army’s combat brigades are combat-ready.

And this initial 40,000-soldier reduction is just a start. Most estimates from Congress anticipate that without lifting the budget sequestration that is driving this across-the-board decline, another 40,000 troops will be gone in about two years.

To be sure, the nation always reduces its military as wars wind down. Other services suffer reductions and shortages. But only the Army breaks. Someone please tell those of us who served why the service that does virtually all the dying and killing in war is the one least rewarded.

My grandson is a great kid. He’s about the same age I was when I was recovering at Tokyo General. Both of his parents served as Army officers, so it’s no wonder that in school he draws pictures of tanks and planes while his second-grade classmates draw pictures of flowers and animals. The other day he drew a tank just for me and labeled it proudly “Abrams Tank!”

Well, sadly, if he follows in our footsteps, one day he may be fighting in an Abrams tank. His tank will be 60 years old by then.

At the moment I’d rather he go to law school.

Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College.

Categories: Domestic policy, Economy, Foreign policy, Freedom, History, Ideology, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Korean conflict, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Rules of war, U.S. combat troops, Vietnam war
Tags: Domestic policy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Freedom, History, Ideology, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Korean conflict, Middle East, North Korea, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, U.S. combat troops, Vietnam war

Comments: Be the first to comment

Iran plans missile tests to flaunt defiance of Vienna deal and UNSC resolution

August 3, 2015

Iran plans missile tests to flaunt defiance of Vienna deal and UNSC resolution, DEBKAfile, August 3, 2015

iranian_long-range_ballistic_Shahab-3

Iran’s long-range ballistic Shahab-3

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.”

*********************

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.

Categories: Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Red Lines, Supreme Leader
Tags: Foreign Policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Red Lines, Supreme leader

Comments: 1 Comment

Moral clarity of the past

August 2, 2015

Moral clarity of the past, Power Line, Steven Hayward, August 2, 2015

(Please see also, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khameni publishes book on how to eliminate Israel. — DM)

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.)

Categories: Chamberlain, Churchill, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Germany, Hitler, Ideology, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1
Tags: Chamberlain, Churchill, Foreign Policy, Germany, Hitler, Ideology, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1

Comments: 1 Comment

Rant | Obama continues to fix the Creator’s worst mistakes

August 2, 2015

Rant | Obama continues to fix the Creator’s worst mistakes, Dan Miller’s Blog, August 2, 2015

(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

Coptic Christians beheaded. So what? They weren’t other Muslims.

Christians and Jews? Islamists are intent upon removing what they consider the curses of Christianity and Judaism. Pope Francis appears to be far more concerned about Climate Change; so does Obama.

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.

It’s not MY fault.

Here's more ObamaMoney. Have fun!

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 follow the Constitution. It's to old and too slow.

to screw America even more

I am the greatest expert on the Declaration of Dependence

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 talks strategy with His chief military advisor

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:

Categories: Christians, Culture, Death to America, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Human rights, IAEA, Ideology, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Islam, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic war on Christians, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Judaism, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Palestinians, Satire, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Military, United Nations
Tags: Christians, Culture, Death to America, Foreign Policy, Funding terrorism, human rights, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iran secret deals, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian threats, Islam, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic war on Christians, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Judaism, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Palestinians, Satire, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, U.S. military, United Nations

Comments: 1 Comment

Archives