Khamenei depends on the U.S. Congress to save his regime. Congressional members may want to think about that long and hard before voting on this disastrous deal next month.
**********************
For those who have only experienced either democracy or dictatorship, it is difficult to grasp the complexities of Iran’s political system, which is an autocracy that has adopted some democratic features. A careful reading of the Iranian constitution, however, clarifies for the reader that the Supreme Leader is the one and only person who wields ultimate power in that system, including appointment power for a vast number of positions.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily widely viewed as the regime outlet for the Supreme Leader’s ideas and policies, is one of those appointed to his job directly by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Thus, it was no surprise that Shariatmadari’s 15 August 2015 editorial, claiming that Khamenei opposes the nuclear deal, drew immediate attention. Obviously, Shariatmadari would not have written that without Khamenei’s consent. The confusing part, however, is that Hamid Reza Moghadam Far, top advisor to MG Mohammed Ali Jafari, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander, then harshly criticized Shariatmadari and warned him not to ascribe to the Supreme Leader his own ideas and understandings.
Given that Jafari is directly appointed by the Supreme Leader (just like Shariatmadari), and that there’s little history of this Iranian regime sending out such mixed messages from its own top ranks, the only conclusion possible is that sowing confusion is a calculated move at this time, intended to serve a regime objective.
For over three decades, the Islamic regime of Iran has made implacable enmity toward the U.S. and Israel the foundation of its official foreign policy, reflecting its leaders’ ideological dedication and fervor. Generations of young people have been indoctrinated to Islamic beliefs and recruited to the IRGC, Qods Force, and Basij on the basis of commitment to these beliefs. A blood-soaked litany of terror attacks instigated by this mullahs’ regime stretches from the ruins of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut through Khobar Towers, the East Africa Embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, 9/11 and hundreds of American troops killed and maimed by Iranian and Hizballah explosives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tehran’s support for Islamic terror groups has left a global trail of murder and mayhem. “Resistance” is what the Ayatollahs call it. “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are the slogans, chanted in endless repetition. America is the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan.” Never did the Supreme Leader imagine negotiating, much less reaching an actual agreement, with such hated enemies.
But the sanctions took their toll and financial collapse had to be avoided, even if it meant coming to the table to negotiate with the world’s superpowers, however noxious that was for Khamenei personally. Getting the West to believe Iran was desperate enough to obtain relief from sanctions that it would agree to limit its nuclear weapons program was only a clever ruse, of course, but it worked. The first step was allowing Hassan Rouhani, an old regime hand who’d served as negotiator in earlier talks, to become president. Khamenei needed Rouhani’s smiling demeanor to smooth international impressions of the Islamic Republic. The years-long cultivation of Secretary John Kerry by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif also would pay off big time. The clincher was bringing in Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, an old friend of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, to push through to the final agreement. Intelligence services like Iran’s are willing to invest lots of time and effort with targets at this level.
The American collapse on every single key issue—from enrichment (a stipulation demanded—and obtained—even before the first secret talks began in Oman in 2011) to centrifuges, the Arak plutonium-producing reactor, off-limits facilities, Iran’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), sanctions relief, and P5+1 technical assistance with nuclear development and site protection—surprised and delighted the Iranians. Contrary to Shariatmadari’s claims, the Supreme Leader is in fact quite satisfied with the nuclear deal; but, he cannot show that publicly, for two key reasons. If the U.S. Congress should vote against the deal, potentially leaving in place even some sanctions that President Obama could neither waive nor lift, Khamenei would find himself the public supporter of a failed deal. The powerful IRGC and Basij militia might hold him responsible for compromising the blood of martyrs and values of the Islamic Revolution for which the Iranian people sacrificed their economy and lives. And that would spell the end of the regime.
What to do? Khamenei wants the benefits of this deal without any of the possible liabilities. So, even as his trusted Iran Lobby pulls out the stops to make sure the deal goes through, he tries to find a way to support it without disappointing the guns that keep him in power. Solution: in public, Khamenei has spoken in general, nebulous phrases that convey no certain position. But in private, to certain audiences among the IRGC, Qods Force, and Basij, he pretends to oppose the deal. To others, he expresses support. Each group is allowed to go out and express its understanding of the Supreme Leader’s position with the media. Meanwhile, Khamenei plays the game safely and waits to see which way the deal will go.
If something goes wrong with the deal, Khamenei will be the one who warned Rouhani’s negotiating team not to trust the Americans. Publicly, then, he can discredit Shariatmadari and claim the media misstated his position (even though everyone knows that without Khamenei’s prior permission, neither Jafari nor Kayhan’s editor-in-chief would even discuss the subject). The regime is trapped in a web of its own making. It has radiated hatred toward Israel and the West for so long and so insistently that it cannot now just stop chanting “Death to America” or calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the map. Nor can it abandon its terror proxies across the region. Disappointing the IRGC and Basij that are the backbone of this regime would shake the very foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran: unthinkable.
Khamenei depends on the U.S. Congress to save his regime. Congressional members may want to think about that long and hard before voting on this disastrous deal next month.
This piece was co-written by Daniel Akbari, a lawyer certified to practice before the Supreme Court of Iran, holds a master’s degree from Texas State University and a graduate certificate in homeland security from the Bush School of Government and Public service.
(The views expressed in this post — which for the most part consists of links to and quotations from recent articles posted at Warsclerotic — are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Over the past few days, Iranian officials have confirmed that international inspections of its nuke sites will be severely limited if permitted at all. This post provides excerpts from recent articles quoting them.
Iran’s nuke sites
The restrictions noted in this post are in addition to previously disclosed prohibitions on access by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to military sites, which Iran itself will inspect instead. Even The Daily Beast has mentioned this problem in reliance on an Associated Press article which states,
All IAEA member countries must give the agency some insight into their nuclear programs. Some are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations— like Iran — suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections. [Emphasis added.]
The agreement in question diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied — trying to develop nuclear weapons. [Emphasis added.]
Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, said he could think of no similar concession with any other country.
A senior Iranian official declared on Monday that international nuclear inspectors would only be permitted into the country once they receive approval from the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry, putting another roadblock between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran’s contested nuclear sites.
Sayyed Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and one of the top negotiators in talks that led to the recently inked nuclear deal, told the country’s state-controlled press that Iran’s intelligence apparatus must approve of any inspector who is issued a visa to enter Iran. [Emphasis added.]
International nuclear inspectors will only be permitted into the country after offering proofs of suspicious activity at the sites to be inspected, Iran’s Defense Minister Brig. Gen Hossein Dehqan said Tuesday. DEBKAfile: This condition is not contained either in the nuclear deal Iran signed with the six world powers last month or in its contract with the IAEA. How will the international watchdog obtain proofs if it is denied visits for inspections? [Emphasis added.]
Iranian leaders prevented a top International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official from disclosing to U.S. officials the nature of secret side deals with the Islamic Republic by threatening harm to him, according to regional reports. [Emphasis added.]
Yukiya Amano, IAEA director general, purportedly remained silent about the nature of certain side deals during briefings with top U.S. officials because he feared such disclosures would lead to retaliation by Iran, according to the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI).
Amano was in Washington recently to brief members of Congress and others about the recently inked nuclear accord. However, he did not discuss the nature of side deals with Iran that the United States is not permitted to know about.
Iran apparently threatened Amano in a letter meant to ensure he did not reveal specific information about the nature of nuclear inspections going forward, according to Iranian AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi.
“In a letter to Yukiya Amano, we underlined that if the secrets of the agreement (roadmap between Iran and the IAEA) are revealed, we will lose our trust in the Agency; and despite the US Congress’s pressures, he didn’t give any information to them,” Kamalvandi was quoted as saying Monday during a meeting with Iranian lawmakers, according to Tehran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.
“Had he done so, he himself would have been harmed,” the official added. [Emphasis added.]
If these analyses are correct, and they appear to be, there will be no meaningful “anytime anywhere” international inspections of Iranian military sites. Although Obama has repeatedly said that the current nuke “deal” is not based on trust, that appears to its only basis, an absurd one.
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.]
. . . .
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.”
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.”
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi underlined that there are not any obstacles to the country’s missile program. [Emphasis added.]
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s missile activities, as planned inside the country, will not face any obstacles,” the senior officer stressed on Sunday.
The general also reiterated that Iran’s missile tests are going to be carried out in a timely manner according to the plans endorsed by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
Iran – North Korea nuke nexis
Nuke cooperation between Iran and North Korea was not considered during the P5+1 “negotiations.” The text of the current “deal” is silent on the subject. Kerry’s State Department has limited media contact with Douglas Frantz, his Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bureau of Public Affairs, to avoid releasing information on the Iran – North Korea nuke nexus. Mr. Frantz, formerly a highly respected journalist, had written extensively on North Korea’s nuclear program.
An honest accounting would quite likely reveal something that many press reports have alleged, but U.S. administration officials have never publicly confirmed: A history of nuclear weapons collaboration between Iran and nuclear-proliferating North Korea.
. . . .
Drawing on “previously secret reports, international officials, independent experts, Iranian exiles and intelligence sources in Europe and the Middle East,” Frantz wrote that “North Korean military scientists recently were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They are assisting in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials.”
. . . .
Perhaps Frantz should recycle that article to Secretary of State John Kerry, who while testifying to a congressional panel last month was asked about its allegations by Rep. Christopher Smith, and ducked the question.
. . . .
[I]t appears that as a State Department advocate of a free and well-informed press, Frantz himself is not free to answer questions from the press about his own reporting on North Korea’s help to Iran in designing a nuclear warhead. The State Department has refused my repeated requests to interview Frantz on this subject. Last year, an official at State’s Bureau of Public Affairs responded to my request with an email saying, “Unfortunately Assistant Secretary Frantz is not available to discuss issues related to Iran’s nuclear program.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Of course, the real problem for the Obama administration is that an officially confirmed story of Iran-North Korea collaboration on nuclear warheads could spell further trouble for winning congressional approval of this nuclear deal.
Conclusions
Assuming (a highly dubious assumption) that Kerry and Obama’s other P5+1 “negotiators” wanted to limit Iran’s Uranium enrichment to peaceful purposes, to terminate its nuke weaponization and to restrict its missile development and use they failed. It might have been entertaining to have watched Obama instruct Kerry on how to negotiate for magic carpets in a Persian market. The Persians saw Obama’s P5+1 “negotiators” as suckers and took all of their cash. They then took whatever honor they may once have had.
With international inspections permitted, if at all, only at Iran’s whim, and international sanctions “snap back” a fantasy, Iran has been given a bright green light to do whatever it pleases. What pleases Iran should not please even Obama, who envisions a new era of Middle East stability as a major fruit of His victory in getting the July 2015 “deal.”
Iran plans to “stabilize” Israel first. Israel is the only free and democratic nation in the Middle East; America was once her most reliable ally. No longer, but perhaps one fine day she will be again.
A conference of religious scholars features speaker after speaker calling Israel’s annihilation inevitable and promising that a “new phase” in that effort is about to begin. [Emphasis added]
While some in the United States and among its Western allies may hope that a nuclear weapons deal with Iran might steer the Islamic Republic in a new, more responsible direction, hardliners draw new lines and issue new threats.
On Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei took to social media to attack the United States and Israel. “We spare no opportunity to support anyone #FightingTheZionists,” wrote the ayatollah, whose regime supplies Hizballah and Hamas with rockets and other weapons of terror.
Here’s a recent video from Iranian television showing how Iran plans to eliminate Israel.
The July 2015 “deal” remains a mystery shrouded in secrecy and deception. Obama has tried to mislead the the American public and the Congress. He has threatened members who have voiced opposition and characterized them as disloyal. Congress should kill the “deal.” Those members whose ultimate loyalty is to America rather than to Obama will vote to do so and then to override his veto.
To appreciate the key paragraph in Senator Bob Corker’s Washington Post op-ed opposing the Iran deal, you need to review his extemporaneous remarks at the August 5 hearing of the Senate Banking Committee – addressed to both the witness, Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, and to his Democratic colleagues. Corker was one of the few Republican senators who did not sign Senator Tom Cotton’s letter to Iran, and he worked across the aisle to craft the Congressional review of the deal. On August 5, he spoke first to the Democratic senators sitting there: “I want to say that I think Senator Donnelly, Senator Heitkamp, Senator Warner, Senator Tester, Senator Schumer, Senator Menendez all know that I have been very open to supporting an agreement.” Then he recounted a Saturday phone conversation he had had the previous month with Secretary of State Kerry, when “I actually thought he was listening to what I was saying.”
I was standing in my driveway, and I emphasized the importance of these last pieces [of negotiations]. And I’m talking about the inspections. I’m talking about the … possible military dimensions [PMD]. We all know they’re involved militarily. And how important that was, not just from the standpoint of what it said, but the indication to us — that we were really going to apply these things, that we were really going to be tough and make this agreement stand.
And when I got the documents – and I’ve been through all of them extensively – I have to say my temperature rose very heavily. And then when I saw that we were lifting the conventional ban in five years, the missile ban in eight years, and on the front end, lifting the missile test ban on top of what these agreements said, I was very troubled. …
I was very discouraged with the final round … But I worked with Senator Cardin, my friend – I began with Senator Menendez – over an excruciating period of time to make sure that the way this agreement, the Iran Review Act, we got the documents, and we got them in a way that was acceptable to y’all. We spent all weekend with you, the White House, and others on this Iran Review Act, and we were to get all agreements, including the side agreements. Now, the very entity that we’re counting on to do the inspection – we can’t even get a copy of the side agreement that lays out how we’re gonna deal with Parchin. And I would say to everyone here, if you haven’t been down to the Intel area you ought to see what Iran is doing today, while we’re sitting here, in Parchin. …
We can’t even see the agreement that relates to how we’re gonna deal with the PMD. By the way, all sanctions relief occurs regardless of what they do with the PMD. All the IAEA has to write is a report. But if they “D-Minus” it, meaning they don’t tell us much … sanctions relief still occurs. … [T]hese issues that we have been so concerned about, we saw they were just punted on, negotiated away, issues that we, with great sincerity, talked with the administration about, and yet they were just punted on.
At that time, Senator Corker had not yet met privately with IAEA Director General Amano, or in executive session with Under Secretary Sherman, where he was promised oral explanations – but no documents – regarding the IAEA agreements with Iran. Corker’s statement today contains a revealing conclusion about what senators learned from those sessions:
[T]he inspections process is deeply flawed. Through verbal presentations regarding possible military dimensions, many in Congress are aware of the unorthodox arrangements agreed to by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the administration and our negotiating partners to keep from upsetting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Those actual agreements remain secret, but we know that at best they are most unusual and speak to the P5+1’s low commitment to holding Iran’s feet to the fire.
At the same hearing, Senator Cotton questioned Under Secretary Sherman about why the documents are classified: “This is not a U.S. government document, it’s not a covert action, it’s not subject to sensitive collection methods of our intelligence community, Iran knows what they agreed to, you know what’s in [them] … [and] U.S. law that was in fact signed in the middle of these negotiations required Congress to receive the text of all agreements, to include agreements to which the United States was not a party.” Sherman emphasized how important it is to safeguard confidential IAEA agreements with all countries. But the real reason may have been revealed in this colloquy:
COTTON: How long are these documents?
SHERMAN: Very short.
COTTON: Like the Roadmap itself?
SHERMAN: I’d have to stop and think back, but it’s very short.
Perhaps what is most noteworthy about the side agreements is not the allegedly confidential nature of them, but the fact that they are scandalously short. At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on August 4 regarding the Iran deal, there was this colloquy between Ambassador Robert Joseph, who headed the negotiations with Libya in 2003 that dismantled Libya’s nuclear program, and Senator Corker:
JOSEPH: [I]n terms of what may or may not be in these secret agreements, my sense is that if these agreements did provide for a real way forward on PMD and on Parchin you’d see them.
CORKER: They’d be on the table.
JOSEPH: You’d see them. Why, you know, after four years of stonewalling on these issues by Iran, we for whatever reason could think that these are going to be resolved by a couple of side agreements and they’re going to be resolved by mid-December? My view is that’s just sheer fantasy.
Sheer fantasy, but under the Roadmap the fantasy will play out until the IAEA issues its report on December 15 – two months after Congress must vote on the deal.
(Three additional videos are available at the linked site. — DM)
A video shows the Revolutionary Guard Corps massing on a hill overlooking Jerusalem.
A conference of religious scholars features speaker after speaker calling Israel’s annihilation inevitable and promising that a “new phase” in that effort is about to begin.
While some in the United States and among its Western allies may hope that a nuclear weapons deal with Iran might steer the Islamic Republic in a new, more responsible direction, hardliners draw new lines and issue new threats.
On Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei took to social media to attack the United States and Israel. “We spare no opportunity to support anyone #FightingTheZionists,” wrote the ayatollah, whose regime supplies Hizballah and Hamas with rockets and other weapons of terror.
Perhaps more chilling is an animated video from the Islamic Revolution Design House, a media outfit associated with Iranian hardliners. It shows a soldier preparing for battle. He puts on a Revolutionary Guard patch, and then a Qassam Brigades headband, followed by a ski mask and a Palestinian scarf around his neck, while arming himself with a machine gun and a pistol. As he puts on a helmet, we see him looking over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, home of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque. The image pulls back, showing the soldier amid a sea of conquering troops.
A concluding message invokes Ayatollah Khomeini’s threat that Israel must be wiped off the map and promises that day is coming soon.
A conference held in Beirut late last month reinforced that message over and over again. The General Assembly of Islamic Resistance Ulema (Scholars) held its first gathering under the banner “Unity for Palestine.” The weekend meeting included fiery rhetoric from an Iranian ayatollah and Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“Annihilation of the Zionist regime is a sure thing and Quranic pledge,” Ayatollah Mohsen Araki told the assembly. Araki is secretary general of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, emphasizing the importance of unifying “Muslims in countering the regime of Zionism and the arrogant World.”
Many of the speeches were uploaded to YouTube and translated by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Nasrallah called Israel a “cancerous tumor” and said “It is only a matter of time” before it is defeated.
“We believe with certainty that Israel, this cancerous tumor, is headed for extinction, and that Palestine and Jerusalem will be returned to their people. It is only a matter of time and [this outcome] is linked to the will, action, jihad, and sacrifices of the Ummah, according to the principle: If you achieve victory for Allah, Allah will lead you to achieve victory.” Nasrallah said it was Allah’s will for Muslims to achieve “final victory over the Zionist scheme” and urged the assembly not to waste the opportunity.
“The day in which we will all pray in Jerusalem, Inshallah (God willing) is inevitably coming Inshallah. All of these calamities, conspiracies, and crises are merely trials to strengthen and make fit all those who believe in this project and in this path to enable them to be worthy of the coming victory. Some people may gain victory but then waste it.
Allah Almighty wants our Ummah (nation) in its final victory over the Zionist project and in restoring Palestine and Jerusalem to be worthy of this huge historic victory and to be worthy of preserving this victory and not to lose it as many victories have been lost.”
Muhammad Hasan Zamani, a former Iranian cultural counselor in Egypt who runs the Department of International Islamic Madrasas for the General Assembly of Islamic Resistance Ulema, maintained the theme, insisting there is no peaceful resolution that would end in Iran’s acceptance of a Jewish state.
“Israel must be erased from the map of the world. These are the golden words Imam Khomeini (may God have mercy on him) uttered. Why do we assert the obligation of erasing Israel from the world, and not speak of erasing America and other unjust countries from the world? We in Iran say slogans in marches, Death to Israel, Death to America, Death to the English, and so forth and so on.”
Iran considers America the “greater Satan,” Zamani went on to say, but the Islamic Republic respects other governments which were chosen by their people. By contrast, he claimed Israel is not legitimate: “I say that the example of the rule of the Zionists is the example of thieves who attack a house and occupy the house and the people of the house defend their house.”
Sheikh Abdel Halim Qadhi, a professor at Zahidan University, explained that the conflict is inherently about religion. “[T]he Holy Quran makes it know that Jews are the enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and their holy places and rites,” he said.
“Jihad is the most powerful and only way to liberate Palestine and defend Jerusalem,” he added, saying “God loves those who fight in his way.”
In a final statement from conference attendees, the group emphasized “the first and most important obligation is to unite the Umma to liberate the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem, reported Al-Manar, a Lebanese news outlet considered close to Iran’s proxy Hizballah. The group also said “resistance” was the way “to achieve victory in Lebanon and Palestine, despite the unlimited support received by the Zionist enemy and continuing inaction of the countries in the region.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, published a 416-page book earlier this month outlining the destruction of Israel, referring to the Jewish state as an ally of “The American Great Satan.”
The book features a long-term strategy that entails terrorizing Israel in a war of attrition that would lead to Jews leaving Israel for other countries.
Supporters of the nuclear deal say it’s a fantasy to expect a better outcome should Congress override President Obama’s expected veto of a vote to defeat the agreement. The combined statements of Iran and its supporting clerics makes clear, however, that the true fantasy is any expectation Iran will turn away from terror as a result of its engagement with world powers.
Thanks to President Obama, radical Islam is the winner of the nuclear deal and the US emerges as the biggest loser when it comes to its national, economic, geopolitical and strategic interests. In addition, except for Israel and the United States, almost every country in the world (as well as Shiite militia groups) appear to be benefiting from the nuclear deal – economically, strategically, and geopolitically — as a result of rekindling relationships with the Islamic Republic. Not only does this deal damage the US and Israel’s national and economic interests, but it also strengthens the same forces and axis which have repeatedly sworn war and violence against Americans.
A strong argument can be made that one of the major birthplaces of fundamentalist Islamism, which at its core aims at opposing and fighting the United States, is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The mission of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism began heavily when the ruling mullahs of Iran, with the leadership of Ayatollah Rooh Allah Khamenei, came to power. This mission remains and will continue to remain the major pillar of the Islamic Republic as well as the keystone of the mullah’s political and ideological establishments.
Since then, the Islamic Republic, with IRGC and its proxies, has been attacking and slaughtering Americans. They also attempt to scuttle US foreign policy. The United States is not their sole target. They also interfere with the national and economic interest of several countries in the Middle East and beyond including Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, etc.
Without a doubt, this is a regime that breeds anti-Americanism and hatred towards Jewish and Christian people. So, what is President Obama’s solution to offset such a threat? Surrender — while continuing to give bonuses and gifts to the Iranian regime.
After Russia and China, Switzerland was the first European country to officially lift economic and political sanctions against the Islamic Republic citing the nuclear deal which was reached between the Islamic Republic and six world powers. The sanctions included restrictions on trade in precious metals, petrochemical products, petroleum products as well as the transport of Iranian crude oil. Switzerland issued a statement pointing out that the “Federal Council (government) wishes today’s steps to be seen as a sign of its support for the implementation of the nuclear agreement and its interest in deepening bilateral relations with Iran.” It also added that it will seek to “promote a broad political and economic exchange with Iran.”
Other European countries are going to follow as well. What is going to happen next? Billions off dollars are going to flow into a government whose primary objective is to fight with the United States.
Russia, China, and other rivals will benefit economically, politically, strategically, and ideologically from the nuclear deal. It is the United States which not only is not gaining anything (economically, geopolitically, security-wise, or strategically) from this deal, but also is significantly empowering its rivals.
In the next phase, the nuclear deal will significantly tip the balance of power in favor of US rivals and the anti-American axis. China, Russia and the Iran-Assad-Hezbollah-Haman’s alliance will be considerably strengthened.
What does President Obama think that a political regime — that has been fighting the United States tooth and nail and that is responsible for the killing of many Americans in the Middle East — is going to use the billions of dollars it earns to promote? It certainly will not be pro-American or pro-Israel ideology, democratization, social justice, rule of law, human rights, or freedom of speech, press, and assembly.
Mr. Obama recently delivered a speech at American University pointing out that “just because Iranian hardliners chant ‘Death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe.” He added, “In fact, it’s those hardliners … chanting ‘Death to America’ who’ve been most opposed to the deal. They’re finding common cause with the Republican Caucus.”
There are several fallacies in his statements. First of all, he is implying the Republicans are similar to those Iranian politicians who are anti-American. Republicans are attempting to preserve the national and economic interest of their country when it comes to the Islamic Republic, but Iranian politicians are sworn to fight American interests and wipe out Israel.
Secondly, President Obama argues that Iranian hardliners are against the nuclear deal. This is absolutely inaccurate. It was because of the approval of Iran’s Supreme autocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that the deal was signed. The hardliners are the ones who will gain the most from this deal.
Third, it is true that not all Iranian people believe in “Death to America,” but Mr. Obama is dodging the major point. When it comes to international politics and the mission of fighting America, it honestly does not matter what Iranian people believe or do not believe. What matters is the political establishment of the Islamic Republic and the government which has the hard power (weapons, military, financial means, oil, etc) to fight with the US.
Finally, it is not only the hardliners that chant “Death to America,” but the entire group of ruling clerics and leaders of the Islamic Republic that believe this with a passion. We should not forget that a major slogan of President Rouhani (the so-called “moderate”) is: “Saying ‘Death to America’ is easy. We need to express ‘Death to America’ with action.” Or, as the other supposed “moderate” and “pragmatist,” Rafsanjani pointed out, “If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel[.]”
United Nations and European Union sanctions on some of Iranian war criminals will also be lifted as part of the nuclear pact. One of these figures is General Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—Qods Force, who is the mastermind behind creating Shiite militia groups and terrorists across the region. He oversaw the training, financing, and arming of these militia groups. These groups are directly or indirectly fighting the United States and American soldiers as well.
As Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Barbero stated Sunday in The Weekly Standard, the lifting of international sanctions against Gen. Soleimani is a “shameful betrayal” of the “the American families of Suleimani’s casualties, and …those of us who lost friends and comrades.”
What if the Iranian leaders circumvent the guidelines put into place by the deal down the road? Then, too bad. If the Iranian leaders, as predicted, are caught deceiving their way towards obtaining a nuclear bomb, it will be too late to do anything. The economic and political sanctions will have been lifted, leaving the Iranian government with a surplus of funds. The US, which was in a stronger position when sanctions were imposed on the Islamic Republic, will become the weaker player. Russia and China will block any re-imposition of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. At that point, unfortunately, it will be the US in the desperate position, not the Islamic Republic. Radical Islam will exponentially spread against the US, as well as democratic and Western values around the globe.
Attesting to the seriousness of Iran’s intent, Jmail Majdalani, PLO executive committee member and personal representative of Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, has arrived in Tehran. He is there to arrange his boss’s first visit in many years to the Iranian capital.
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Al Qods commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, acting on the orders of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this week set up a new Iranian command to fight Israel, DEBKAfile reports exclusively from its military and intelligence sources.
It has been dubbed the Eastern Command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.The Al Qods Brigades, which are the external terrorist arm of the Guards, are organized according to sectors, with commands for Hizballah, the Palestinians, Syria, Iraq and the Gulf.
Their newest sector is the Eastern Command which, our sources report has been assigned as its first task to start handing out weapons, including missiles, to any Palestinian West Bank group willing to receive them. Tehran’s object is to transform the West Bank into a territory hostile to Israel on the model of southern Lebanon which is ruled by the armed Hizballah and the Gaza Strip under the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
In the first week of August, Tehran published a book of 416 pages written by Ali Khamenei entitled “Palestine.” The cover image was labeled “The flagbearer of Jihad to liberate Jerusalem.”
The volume was released to Western sources, who reported that the most constantly recurring phrases in the text in relation to Israel are “nabudi” – meaning annihilation; imha – meaning disappearing or fading out; and “zaval” meaning effacement.
Khamenei asserts that Israel must be destroyed because it captured Islam’s third most sacred city and is the foremost ally of “Big Satan” – America.
The Iranian leader goes into detail about exactly how Israel should be annihilated – not by “classical wars” or “massacres of the Jews” but by means of a “long period of low-intensity warfare designed to make life impossible for a majority of Israeli Jews.”
When he visited Beirut on Aug. 12, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Zavad Zarif said it was necessary after the nuclear deal, to “confront the challenges of the region, the most important of which is the Zionist and extremist regime.”
Members of the Obama administration wave away these disclosures of Iranian intent as no more than letting off steam to pacify the hard-line opponents of the nuclear deal – US Secretary of State John Kerry said on July 24: “I also told them that their chants of Death to American and so forth are neither helpful and they’re pretty stupid.”
But in Iran, the supreme leader’s words are treated as decrees demanding obedience. Indeed, at the first conference of the new Eastern Command, Gen. Soleimani read out passages from Khamenei’s book and told the officers that they were under orders to carry those decrees out to the letter.
Attesting to the seriousness of Iran’s intent, Jmail Majdalani, PLO executive committee member and personal representative of Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, has arrived in Tehran. He is there to arrange his boss’s first visit in many years to the Iranian capital.
The U.S. has provided approximately $5 billion to the Palestinians in bilateral aid since the mid-1990s and about $540 million this year. The EU added more than €500 million ($558 million), making it the largest single-year donor. Why should Palestinian Authority (PA) not have to pay the bill for its own savage behavior? And why is the U.S. so determined to protect it?
According to the deputy head of UNRWA, the organization needs $101 million in order to open schools on time. Why does the Hamas government not pay for its own children to go to school? And why does the Hamas government not pay for the repair of its own people’s houses? UNRWA and the U.S. government seem to believe that the PA and Hamas cannot be expected to spend their own funds — or donated funds — on the needs of their own people. Hamas can therefore use all its funds to make war.
As long as Hamas and the PA are permitted both to spend sponsors’ money on terrorism and warfare while escaping responsibility for the needs of their people, and as long as Iran is a key donor — with all the temptations, means and opportunity to “wipe Israel,” as it repeatedly threatens to do — the idea of a U.S.-led “peace process” is fantasy.
The Obama Administration has made it clear that it will not pursue Israeli-Palestinian “peace talks” while the Iran deal remains fluid. But as the President heads into his last year in office, the “two state solution” apparently remains an important political aspiration. The Iran deal and the “peace process” are linked by concerns over Iranian behavior on the non-nuclear front, and concerns about American willingness to remain the sort of ally Israel has found it to be in the past.
The following stories — all involving money and how it is spent — should be understood together:
U.S. requests lower bond for Palestinian appeal of terror case
Infant mortality in Gaza
Schools in Gaza may not open
Iranian assistance to Hamas
First, the U.S. Department of Justice this week asked a judge to “carefully consider” the size of the bond he requires from the Palestinian Authority (PA) as it appeals the award of damages to the victims of six terrorist attacks that killed and injured Americans in Israel. Concerned about the possible bankruptcy of the PA, Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken added a statement to the Justice Department filing, saying, “A P.A. insolvency and collapse would harm current and future U.S.-led efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The Palestinian Authority was proven in a U.S. court to have organized and paid for terrorist attacks that killed Americans and Israelis. The U.S. has provided approximately $5 billion to the Palestinians in bilateral aid since the mid-1990s and about $540 million this year. The EU added more than €500 million ($558 million), making it the largest single-year donor. Why should PA not have to pay the bill for its own savage behavior?
And why is the U.S. so determined to protect it?
Second, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), which maintains camps for Palestinians in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and parts of the West Bank, released a broadside last week entitled, “Infant Mortality Rises in Gaza for the First Time in 50 Years.” Subhead: “UNRWA’s Health Director says the [Israeli and Egyptian] blockade may be contributing to the trend.”
Such a rise would be a terrible thing, and Israeli culpability would be terrible also. But is it true? It takes only a few clicks of the computer keys to find out.
Palestinian infant mortality in the West Bank and Gaza has been on a straight downward slope since 1968. Using CIA Factbook figures, infant mortality was 158 per 1000 from 1950-55; 87 per 1000 in 1968 (using an Israeli government publication); 25 per 1000 in 1985-90; and is at 14 per 1000 today in Gaza. Where is the rising trend? The UNRWA release came from an article entitled “Increasing Neonatal Mortality among Palestine Refugees in the Gaza Strip,” published by PLOS ONE, an “open access” online journal.
The study itself notes, “These estimates are based on small numbers of deaths, and the confidence intervals are wide, so the infant mortality rate could in fact be stable or continuing to decline” (emphasis added). Yet its conclusion reads, “In conclusion, we have estimated that, for the first time in five decades, the mortality rate has increased among Palestine refugee newborns in Gaza, and this may reflect inadequate neo-natal care in hospitals.”
An Israeli website that evaluated the entire study caught the inherent contradiction. “They didn’t have enough data to reach the conclusion they did… Those two statements have no place in a serious scientific paper and would merit its immediate rejection.”
Third, having dispensed with scare mongering about infant mortality, let us turn to the other UNRWA broadside of the week: “Without New Cash, UNRWA Schools Won’t Open.” According to the deputy head of the organization, UNRWA needs $101 million in order to open schools on time.
Why does the Hamas government not pay for its own children to go to school?
This is similar to a story last January, in which UNRWA suspended the repair of Palestinian houses in Gaza because of a shortage of international donor money, and it raises the question: Why does the Hamas government not pay for the repair of its own peoples’ houses?
It is UNRWA’s belief — like that of the U.S. government, apparently — that Palestinian governments, including the one on the U.S. list of sponsors of terrorism, have to be protected from the consequences of their own war-making, support for terrorism, and thievery. UNRWA and the U.S. government seem to believe that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas cannot be expected to spend their own funds — or donated funds — on the needs of their own people.
Which brings us to Iran; the only country working assiduously to ensure that its client, Hamas in Gaza, gets the assistance it needs to meet its goals, and then meets those goals.
According to Israeli government sources, Iran’s most recent assistance includes “cash, military training for Hamas fighters, weaponry, and electronics equipment including for use against Israeli drones… Hamas has also been training fighters in the use of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and is training recruits to fly paragliders across the border.”
Bridging the Sunni-Shia divide, for the goal of genocide: Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (left) confers with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in 2010. (Image source: Office of the Supreme Leader)
UNRWA and Iran, with a supporting role played by the United States, have long made it possible for Hamas and the PA to spend other people’s money building more tunnels, arming multiplemilitias, paying “salaries” to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails, and improving the quality of their rockets and missiles. They know — and Israel knows — that between the Israeli government and the international aid agencies including, but not limited to, UNRWA, no Palestinians will starve, no one will go without medical care, no one will go homeless (except those homeless because Hamas confiscated about 20% of the cement and steel meant to restore Gaza houses damaged in last year’s war). Hamas can therefore use all its funds to make war.
As long as Hamas and the PA are permitted both to spend sponsors’ money on terrorism and warfare while escaping responsibility for the needs of their people, and as long as Iran is a key donor — with all the temptations, means and opportunity to “wipe Israel,” as it repeatedly threatens to do — the idea of a U.S.-led “peace process” is fantasy.
[W]ith majorities in both houses of Congress opposed to the deal, the Associated Press tells us it can still proceed as an executive agreement. Of course it can. And the next president, who will probably be a Republican, can revoke it; and this Congress, or a subsequent one, can pass legislation inconsistent with it. That’s what happens when you don’t have the votes to ratify a treaty.
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This Associated Press story, headlined “Obama can do Iran nuclear deal even if Congress disapproves,” is getting a lot of attention:
The September vote on the Iran nuclear deal is billed as a titanic standoff between President Barack Obama and Congress. Yet even if U.S. lawmakers reject the agreement, it’s not game-over for the White House.
A congressional vote of disapproval would not prevent Obama from acting on his own to start putting the accord in place. …
Obama doesn’t need a congressional OK to give Iran most of the billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions that it would get under the agreement, as long as Tehran honors its commitments to curb its nuclear program.
“A resolution to disapprove the Iran agreement may have substantial political reverberations, but limited practical impact,” says Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It would not override President Obama’s authority to enter into the agreement.”
That is correct. The president has the constitutional authority to enter into an executive agreement. Which is where debate over the Iran deal began, with an open letter to Iran’s leaders that was signed by 47 Republican senators and posted on Senator Tom Cotton’s web site. The letter explained that the Iran agreement was not being submitted to the Senate for ratification as a treaty. Therefore, as a mere executive agreement, it could be canceled with a stroke of the pen by America’s next president:
First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement. …
What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.
Tom Cotton’s letter was viciously attacked by liberals, but what it said was obviously correct. Now, with majorities in both houses of Congress opposed to the deal, the Associated Press tells us it can still proceed as an executive agreement. Of course it can. And the next president, who will probably be a Republican, can revoke it; and this Congress, or a subsequent one, can pass legislation inconsistent with it. That’s what happens when you don’t have the votes to ratify a treaty.
The views expressed in this article are those of my fictitious guest author and do not necessarily reflect mine, those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Kim Wu-hu, the highly respected director of North Korea’s Ministry of Everlasting Truth. She is variously believed to be Kim Jong-un’s sister or illegitimate daughter.
Kim Jong-un (also known as Kim Chi-un), the universally beloved Dear Leader of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, today announced a bold new plan for peace with the illegitimate regime known as the Republic of Korea. It was met with tremendous joy and relief worldwide. Millions gathered in Pyongyang to celebrate, as even the leader of the rogue regime known as Obama’s America held a televised press briefing to praise Kim’s brilliant plan.
Dear Leader Kim’s plan is radical only in its overwhelming simplicity and has just two parts:
1. The illegitimate criminal regime known as the Republic of Korea (“ROK”), which unlawfuly occupies a southern province of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (“DPRK”), will disarm immediately and turn over all of its weapons to the DPRK for safekeeping. Neutral international inspectors from the DPRK and Iran will travel to the ROK in one week to verify the ROK’s compliance. Should the ROK be found not to have complied, the DPRK and its ally Iran will make merciless war on it to force its voluntary compliance.
2. At least seventy-five percent of all males over the age of ten years living in the DPRK’s southern province under the rogue ROK regime will adopt Kim’s hairstyle and, within one month, present themselves to international inspectors who will determine whether they have complied in a satisfactory manner. The DPRK will provide suitable antiaircraft equipment to deal humanely with any who have not.
Many nations, even those which — for unknown and inexplicable reasons — have previously considered the DPRK less than trustworthy, responded enthusiastically. Even Obama, leader of the illegitimate regime known as Obama’s America, promptly held a televised press briefing. He announced that, in a show of solidarity with the DPRK, He will promptly (a) adopt Dear Leader Kim’s hairstyle, (b) issue executive decrees requiring all U.S. and allied military personnel to do the same and (c) seek to disarm His own rogue regime under terms similar to those graciously offered to the ROK. Suitable terms of American surrender to Russia, China and Iran will also be sought.
Obama expressed sincere regret that Republican warmongers will oppose His historic peace efforts for partisan purposes. He also noted that they are racists (as all opposition to Him clearly shows) and are therefore alligned with the apartheid Jewish regime that still occupies Palestine despite His vigorous efforts to impose a two state solution. He stated that their treasonous opposition will not matter, because He will accomplish everything He desires through Executive Decrees.
Here is a photo of Obama showing off His new hairstyle. (A wig was needed because His hair will take time to grow to the necessary length.)
During the press conference Obama also announced the immediate withdrawl of all U.S. military forces from the ROK and termination of planned joint military exercises there to prevent brutal attacks by the DPRK on the ROK and, indeed, on His own illegitimate province. He proudly proclaimed, again, that peace and negotiation are always better than war and stated that His Secretary of State, John Kerry, had already left for Pyongyang, Tehran, Moscow and Beijing to meet with his counterparts.
Kerry begins his journey
Immediately following Obama’s press briefing, and in lieu of a question and answer period, the reporters broke out spontaneously in song to praise Obama.
Kerry, fresh from his Herculean successes in negotiating the surrender of Obama’s America (as well as the rogue Jewish regime occupying Palestine) to Iran, expects to face difficulties in negotiating the terms of surrender to the DPRK, China and Russia. Iran will not be a problem, Kerry stated proudly but humbly, because his diplomatic skills are well known there and he is highly respected because of them.
The science is settled and can no longer be disputed. A brave new world awaits. We have only our chains to lose and true world peace and prosperity to gain. We must thrust ever onward and upward together until we finally achieve all of the changes we have been waiting for!
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Editor’s comment
Due to limits on North Korea’s internet, Kim Wu-hu was unable to provide suitable graphics. I provided them for her.
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