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Column One: Rubio, Cruz and US global leadership

December 18, 2015

Column One: Rubio, Cruz and US global leadership, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, December 17, 2015

For the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy; But are they too late?

At some point between 2006 and 2008, the American people decided to turn their backs on the world. Between the seeming futility of the war in Iraq and the financial collapse of 2008, Americans decided they’d had enough.

In Barack Obama, they found a leader who could channel their frustration. Obama’s foreign policy, based on denying the existence of radical Islam and projecting the responsibility for Islamic aggression on the US and its allies, suited their mood just fine. If America is responsible, then America can walk away. Once it is gone, so the thinking has gone, the Muslims will forget their anger and leave America alone.

Sadly, Obama’s foreign policy assumptions are utter nonsense. America’s abandonment of global leadership has not made things better. Over the past seven years, the legions of radical Islam have expanded and grown more powerful than ever before. And now in the aftermath of the jihadist massacres in Paris and San Bernadino, the threats have grown so abundant that even Obama cannot pretend them away.

As a consequence, for the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy. But are they too late? Can the next president repair the damage Obama has caused? The Democrats give no cause for optimism. Led by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential hopefuls stubbornly insist that there is nothing wrong with Obama’s foreign policy. If they are elected to succeed him, they pledge to follow in his footsteps.

On the Republican side, things are more encouraging, but also more complicated.

Republican presidential hopefuls are united in their rejection of Obama’s policy of ignoring the Islamic supremacist nature of the enemy. All reject the failed assumptions of Obama’s foreign policy.

All have pledged to abandon them on their first day in office. Yet for all their unity in rejecting Obama’s positions, Republicans are deeply divided over what alternative foreign policy they would adopt.

This divide has been seething under the surface throughout the Obama presidency. It burst into the open at the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night.

The importance of the dispute cannot be overstated.

Given the Democrats’ allegiance to Obama’s disastrous policies, the only hope for a restoration of American leadership is that a Republican wins the next election. But if Republicans nominate a candidate who fails to reconcile with the realities of the world as it is, then the chance for a reassertion of American leadership will diminish significantly.

To understand just how high the stakes are, you need to look no further than two events that occurred just before the Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate.

On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to close its investigation of Iran’s nuclear program. As far as the UN’s nuclear watchdog is concerned, Iran is good to go.

The move is a scandal. Its consequences will be disastrous.

The IAEA acknowledges that Iran continued to advance its illicit military nuclear program at least until 2009. Tehran refuses to divulge its nuclear activities to IAEA investigators as it is required to do under binding UN Security Council resolutions.

Iran refuses to allow IAEA inspectors access to its illicit nuclear sites. As a consequence, the IAEA lacks a clear understanding of what Iran’s nuclear status is today and therefore has no capacity to prevent it from maintaining or expanding its nuclear capabilities. This means that the inspection regime Iran supposedly accepted under Obama’s nuclear deal is worthless.

The IAEA also accepts that since Iran concluded its nuclear accord with the world powers, it has conducted two tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, despite the fact that it is barred from doing so under binding Security Council resolutions.

But really, who cares? Certainly the Obama administration doesn’t. The sighs of relief emanating from the White House and the State Department after the IAEA decision were audible from Jerusalem to Tehran.

The IAEA’s decision has two direct consequences.

First, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, it paves the way for the cancellation of the UN’s economic sanctions against Iran within the month.

Second, with the IAEA’s decision, the last obstacle impeding Iran’s completion of its nuclear weapons program has been removed. Inspections are a thing of the past. Iran is in the clear.

As Iran struts across the nuclear finish line, the Sunni jihadists are closing their ranks.

Hours after the IAEA vote, Turkey and Qatar announced that Turkey is setting up a permanent military base in the Persian Gulf emirate for the first time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Their announcement indicates that the informal partnership between Turkey and Qatar on the one side, and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State on the other hand, which first came to the fore last year during Operation Protective Edge, is now becoming a more formal alliance.

Just as the Obama administration has no problem with Iran going nuclear, so it has no problem with this new jihadist alliance.

During Operation Protective Edge, the administration supported this jihadist alliance against the Israeli-Egyptian partnership. Throughout Hamas’s war against Israel, Obama demanded that Israel and Egypt accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms, as they were presented by Turkey and Qatar.

Since Operation Protective Edge, the Americans have continued to insist that Israel and Egypt bow to Hamas’s demands and open Gaza’s international borders. The Americans have kept up their pressure on Israel and Egypt despite Hamas’s open alliance with ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula.

So, too, the Americans have kept Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at arm’s length, and continue to insist that the Muslim Brotherhood is a legitimate political force despite Sisi’s war against ISIS. Washington continues to embrace Qatar as a “moderate” force despite the emirate’s open support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and ISIS.

As for Turkey, it appears there is nothing Ankara can do that will dispel the US notion that it is a credible partner in the war on terror. Since 2011, Turkey has served as Hamas’s chief state sponsor, and as ISIS’s chief sponsor. It is waging war against the Kurds – the US’s strongest ally in its campaign against ISIS.

In other words, with the US’s blessing, the forces of both Shi’ite and Sunni jihad are on the march.

And the next president will have no grace period for repairing the damage.

Although the Republican debate Wednesday night was focused mainly on the war in Syria, its significance is far greater than one specific battlefield.

And while there were nine candidates on the stage, there were only two participants in this critical discussion.

Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz faced off after weeks of rising contention between their campaigns.

In so doing, they brought the dispute that has been seething through their party since the Bush presidency into the open.

Rubio argued that in Syria, the US needs to both defeat ISIS and overthrow President Bashar Assad.

Cruz countered that the US should ignore Assad and concentrate on utterly destroying ISIS. America’s national interest, he said, is not advanced by overthrowing Assad, because in all likelihood, Assad will be replaced by ISIS.

Cruz added that America’s experience in overthrowing Middle Eastern leaders has shown that it is a mistake to overthrow dictators. Things only got worse after America overthrew Saddam Hussein and supported the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak.

For his part, Rubio explained that since Assad is Iran’s puppet, leaving him in power empowers Iran. The longer he remains in power, the more control Iran will wield over Syria and Lebanon.

The two candidates’ dispute is far greater than the question of who rules Syria. Their disagreement on Syria isn’t a tactical argument. It goes to the core question of what is the proper role of American foreign policy.

Rubio’s commitment to overthrowing Assad is one component of a wider strategic commitment to fostering democratic governance in Syria. By embracing the cause of democratization through regime change, Rubio has become the standard bearer of George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

Bush’s foreign policy had two seemingly contradictory anchors – a belief that liberal values are universal, and cultural meekness.

Bush’s belief that open elections would serve as a panacea for the pathologies of the Islamic world was not supported by empirical data. Survey after survey showed that if left to their own devices, the people of Muslim world would choose to be led by Islamic supremacists. But Bush rejected the data and embraced the fantasy that free elections lead a society to embrace liberal norms of peace and human rights.

As to cultural meekness, since the end of the Cold War and with the rise of political correctness, the notion that America could call for other people to adopt American values fell into disrepute. For American foreign policy practitioners, the idea that American values and norms are superior to Islamic supremacist values smacked of cultural chauvinism.

Consequently, rather than urge the Islamic world to abandon Islamic supremacism in favor of liberal democracy, in their public diplomacy efforts, Americans sufficed with vapid pronouncements of love and respect for Islam.

Islamic supremacists, for their part stepped into the ideological void without hesitation. In Iraq, the Iranian regime spent hundreds of millions of dollars training Iranian-controlled militias, building Iranian-controlled political parties and publishing pro-Iranian newspapers as the US did nothing to support pro-American Iraqis.

Although many Republicans opposed Bush’s policies, few dared make their disagreement with the head of their party public. As a result, for many, Wednesday’s debate was the first time the foundations of Bush’s foreign policy were coherently and forcefully rejected before a national audience.

If Rubio is the heir to Bush, Cruz is the spokesman for Bush’s until now silent opposition. In their longheld view, democratization is not a proper aim of American foreign policy. Defeating America’s enemies is the proper aim of American foreign policy.

Rubio’s people claim that carpet bombing ISIS is not a strategy. They are right. There are parts missing from in Cruz’s position on Syria.

But then again, although still not comprehensive, Cruz’s foreign policy trajectory has much to recommend it. First and foremost, it is based on the world as it is, rather than a vision of how the world should be. It makes a clear distinction between America’s allies and America’s enemies and calls for the US to side with the former and fight the latter.

It is far from clear which side will win this fight for the heart of the Republican Party. And it is impossible to know who the next US president will be.

But whatever happens, the fact that after their seven-year vacation, the Americans are returning the real world is a cause for cautious celebration.

Categories: Democrats, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Islamism, Middle East, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Republicans, U.S. 2016 elections
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Who’s the crazy one?

December 10, 2015

Who’s the crazy one? Front Page Magazine, David Horowitz, December 10, 2015

dt

Donald Trump’s great contribution is saying the unsayable; putting things on the table that would otherwise be buried; calling a spade a spade in a time when political correctness has made us unable to discuss things that have to do with our basic national survival.  This is the crux of the issue.  Every time he creates a controversy like this he also tells this country that its emperors, Republican and Democrat, have no clothes. That they prefer propriety over defending the country.  That they are dedicated only to keeping the lid on a cauldron of threat and challenge they have allowed to boil over.

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

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration until we can figure out why Islamic terrorists have been able to enter our country and devised ways to protect ourselves. This has caused the left and right establishments to dogpile on Trump. Echoing the sentiments of virtually all Democrats and many Republicans, aWashington Post editorial has declared that Trump’s proposal disqualifies him as a candidate because in the Post’s view what he recommends is unconstitutional and therefore un-American. But President Obama has issued executive orders – as it happens orders that sabotage our borders – that he himself has called unconstitutional (“I don’t have the authority to stop deportations”).  Has the Post editorialized that this is un-American and disqualifies him for the presidency? Has it called for Obama to be impeached? Have Democrats ridiculed Obama for his un-American prescriptions?

Consider the nature of the threat. A 2009 “World Opinion” survey by the University of Maryland showed that between 30 and 50% of Muslims in Jordan, Egypt and other Islamic countries approved of the terrorist attacks on America and that only a minority of Muslims “entirely disapproved” of them. ISIS has acknowledged its plans to use refugee programs to infiltrate its terrorists into the United States and other infidel countries. In Minneapolis we have a Somali refugee community many of whose members have returned to Syria to fight for ISIS. Other Muslim immigrants like Major Hassan and Tashfeen Malik have carried out barbaric acts of terror here at home. Today Muslim terrorists are using assault rifles and pipe bombs, but we know they have Sarin gas and other chemical weapons which they might use tomorrow. The terrorists inexorably arrive along with the other immigrants, no one in authority apparently knowing who’s who. Who, then, in his right mind does not think that Muslim immigration poses a serious security threat to us?

The outrage against Trump should properly have been directed at our president who refuses to identify the enemy as Islamic terrorism, who has opened the door to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to the Islamic America-haters in Iran, whose policies have created the vacuums that ISIS has filled, and who even after Paris and San Bernardino is determined to bring 100,000 immigrants from Syrian war zones to our unprotected shores. This outrage is missing and it is precisely because it is missing that Trump’s unconstitutional proposal resonates with so many rightly concerned Americans. When the man in charge of our security is by general consensus out to lunch in regard to fighting the war on Islamic terror, or protecting us at home, a proposal like Trump’s, which at least recognizes the threat, is going to resonate with the public.

In middle of a crisis of national security, the Democratic Party seems to think that climate change and especially gun ownership are greater threats to our survival than the one that comes from hundreds of millions of Muslims who think America should be attacked and who believe the whole world should be put under medieval Islamic law. In the face of this threat, the Democratic Party and its leaders seem to have no problem with the fact that we have more than 350 “Sanctuary Cities” that are dedicated to sabotaging our immigration laws; that we have no southern border and as a result have 179,000 illegal alien criminals and who knows how many terrorists in our country today.

Once again we have Trump to thank for changing the surreal conversation about whether having a border at all is compatible with American values, and forcing people to focus on the dangers we face. Republicans are generally defenders of this country, but not in this controversy over Donald Trump. Would that they would use the same ridicule and outrage over the Democrats’ many betrayals of our country and its citizens through proposals to expose us to our enemies as they do over a proposal to protect us from them. Trump’s idea may be unconstitutional and unworkable, but it springs from a desire that is honorable and patriotic. The appropriate response would be to propose alternatives that recognize the same dangers and serve the same ends but do so within constitutional limits.

Donald Trump’s great contribution is saying the unsayable; putting things on the table that would otherwise be buried; calling a spade a spade in a time when political correctness has made us unable to discuss things that have to do with our basic national survival.  This is the crux of the issue.  Every time he creates a controversy like this he also tells this country that its emperors, Republican and Democrat, have no clothes. That they prefer propriety over defending the country.  That they are dedicated only to keeping the lid on a cauldron of threat and challenge they have allowed to boil over.

The 2016 election will be a referendum on the defense of this country and its survival. Let’s see who answers the call.

Categories: Democrats, Donald Trump, Islamic invasion, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Obama and Islam, Republicans
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The Elephant In The Room

October 2, 2015

The Elephant In The Room, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Yigal Carmon*, October 2, 2015

(Please see also, Iran wants to renegotiate parts of the nuke “deal.” That may be good. Have opponents of the “deal” given up? If so, why? — DM)

It may be that these opponents believe that the agreement is a done deal that cannot be stopped and that the current U.S. administration will follow through with it no matter what. This approach reflects not realism but ignorance. Obviously the administration wants to follow through with the deal. But the deal is no longer in it hands. It is Khamenei who is throwing a spanner in the works, declaring that he will not implement the agreement that the West believed it concluded on July 14.

In order to get Iran to implement the agreement, the language of the JCPOA will have to be changed and a new Security Council resolution will have to be passed. While in theory this would not be impossible, it would require a new process, entailing, at the very least, a public political debate in the West – one that would reveal Iran’s unreliability as a partner and would cost valuable time. And time is not on the side of the U.S. administration.

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

On September 3, 2015, not two months after the July 14 announcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at Vienna and its celebration at the White House and in Europe, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dropped a bombshell.

In a speech to the Iranian Assembly of Experts, he backtracked from the agreement, demanding a new concession: that the sanctions be “lifted,” not merely “suspended.”[1] If that term is not changed, said Khamenei, there is no agreement. If the West only “suspends” the sanctions, he added, Iran will merely “suspend” its obligations. Giving further credence to his threat, he announced that it is the Iranian Majlis that must discuss and approve the agreement (or not), because it represents the people – when it is well known that the majority of its members oppose it, and Iranian President Hassan Rohani made every effort to prevent such a discussion in the Majlis from taking place.

Adding insult to injury, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Khamenei and head of Iran’s Center for Strategic Research, said on September 19 that the negotiations, concluded and celebrated less than two months previously on July 14, are actually “not over yet.”[2]

Khamenei’s demand to replace “suspension” with “lifting” is not just semantic. It is a fundamental change, because the snapback of sanctions – the major security mechanism for the entire agreement – cannot take place with “lifting,” but only with “suspension.”

Ever since Khamenei dropped this bombshell, the Western media has maintained total silence, as if this were a trivial matter not worthy of mention, let alone analysis.

One might understand this reaction on the part of those who support the deal. Perhaps they are shocked, at a loss, and therefore hope that if they pretend they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Indeed, this is the futile policy regularly adopted by ostriches.

However, one cannot but be astounded by the silence on the part of the opponents of the deal, including – oddly enough – Israel and the U.S. Republicans. One would expect these opponents to pounce on Khamenei’s statement and raise hell over Iran’s infanticide of the two-month-old agreement. One would expect them to bring it to the forefront of a new debate over the deal in any possible forum – in the U.S., the U.N., and the E.U.

But – nothing.

It may be that these opponents believe that the agreement is a done deal that cannot be stopped and that the current U.S. administration will follow through with it no matter what. This approach reflects not realism but ignorance. Obviously the administration wants to follow through with the deal. But the deal is no longer in it hands. It is Khamenei who is throwing a spanner in the works, declaring that he will not implement the agreement that the West believed it concluded on July 14.

In order to get Iran to implement the agreement, the language of the JCPOA will have to be changed and a new Security Council resolution will have to be passed. While in theory this would not be impossible, it would require a new process, entailing, at the very least, a public political debate in the West – one that would reveal Iran’s unreliability as a partner and would cost valuable time. And time is not on the side of the U.S. administration.

Right now, Iran is exposed almost daily as the ally of Russia against the U.S. Three months after the “historic” agreement declared by the White House, Iran continues to seek “Death to America,” and the Iranian foreign minister, the “hero” of the agreement, needs to apologize in Iran for “accidentally” shaking hands with the U.S. president. The truth of the agreement is emerging, and it is not certain that what Iran is now demanding will pass.

Interestingly enough, the White House’s first reaction was to brush off Khamenei’s demand. Iran, said Josh Earnest, should just do what it what it had undertaken to do in the agreement, and stop roiling the waters.[3]

A more sober response followed. There was hope that the meeting set for September 28 between the P5+1 and Iranian foreign ministers, on the margins of the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly, would produce a solution, but this hope was in vain. Iranian President Rohani fled back to Iran, on the pretext of the hajj tragedy in Mecca, and no one in the West knows how to proceed.

The Western media, for its part, is perpetuating its total blackout on the issue, hoping perhaps for a miracle in the secret U.S.-Iran talks, which this administration has been conducting for years. But even a secret U.S. concession will be no solution. Even if it were to offer a secret commitment to remove the sanctions altogether, Khamenei will not be satisfied. He openly challenged the U.S., and he needs its public capitulation. He will celebrate publicly any secret concession. Moreover, any new U.S. concession will prompt Khamenei to make ever more demands.

The most recent developments, and the emergence of Russia as a new-old contender for power vis-à-vis the U.S. in the world, particularly in the Middle East, will only encourage Khamenei to cling to his tried and true ally, Russia. Indeed, this administration has no objection to Russia’s resurgence in the Middle East, but Russia’s blatant anti-U.S. stance in every venue except in the private, honeyed Putin-Obama talks will ultimately lead even the blindest of Democrats to realize that Iran is indeed an enemy of the U.S. – as Iran plainly declares – and that any further concessions to it make no sense.

It seems that the worst nightmare of the supporters of the deal – that Iran will do away with the July 14 agreement – is about to come to pass.

*Y. Carmon is president and founder of MEMRI.

Endnotes:

[3] Earnest said: “What we have indicated all along is that once an agreement was reached, as it was back in mid-July, that we would be focused on Iran’s actions and not their words, and that we will be able to tell if Iran follows through on the commitments that they made in the context of these negotiations. And that is what will determine our path forward here. We’ve been crystal clear about the fact that Iran will have to take a variety of serious steps to significantly roll back their nuclear program before any sanctions relief is offered – and this is everything from reducing their nuclear uranium stockpile by 98 percent, disconnecting thousands of centrifuges, essentially gutting the core of their heavy-water reactor at Arak, giving the IAEA the information and access they need in order to complete their report about the potential military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. And then we need to see Iran begin to comply with the inspections regime that the IAEA will put in place to verify their compliance with the agreement. And only after those steps and several others have been effectively completed, will Iran begin to receive sanctions relief.  The good news is all of this is codified in the agreement that was reached between Iran and the rest of the international community. And that’s what we will be focused on, is their compliance with the agreement.” Whitehouse.gov, September 4, 2015.

Categories: Democrats, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, JCPOA, Khamenei, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Obama, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Republicans, Rouhani, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, U.S. politics, Western media
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Iran wants to renegotiate parts of the nuke “deal.” That may be good.

September 22, 2015

Iran wants to renegotiate parts of the nuke “deal.” That may be good. Dan Miller’s Blog, September 22, 2015

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

 

Iran wants sanctions relief to be lifted, immediately, and not merely suspended. Iran should not get that. If it doesn’t, it may well terminate the “deal” unilaterally. If Iran gets what it wants, the Senate should review the “deal” as a treaty and reject it. Either outcome would be a substantial improvement over the current “deal” and the morass in which it is embedded.

This post is based on a September 21st article at Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) titled “Expected September 28 NY Meeting Between P5+1 Foreign Ministers And Iran Could Signify Reopening Of Nuclear Negotiations To Address Khamenei’s September 3 Threat That If Sanctions Are Not Lifted, But Merely Suspended, There Will Be No Agreement.”

The MEMRI article cites statements by Supreme Leader Khamenei and one of his senior advisers, Ali Akbar Velayat. The latter said, on September 19th,  “the nuclear negotiations are not over yet.” Khamenei has said much the same thing.

Khamenei said, in a September 3, 2015 speech to the Assembly of Experts, that he did not accept the terms of the agreement and demanded that the sanctions be immediately lifted rather than merely suspended; otherwise, he said, there would either be no agreement, or Iran too would merely suspend its execution of its obligations under the JCPOA.

. . . .

“Freezing or suspension [of the sanctions] is unacceptable to me… If they suspend [the sanctions], we too will suspend [what is incumbent upon us]. If we are to implement what [is required of us], the sanctions must be [actually] cancelled.

Iran has thus made clear that it will not abide by the nuke “deal” as written; unless it gets the changes it now demands, it will either terminate the deal or violate it. If, as seems likely for the reasons cited in the MEMRI article, the September 28th meeting involves discussion of the deal, it will either be renegotiated or it won’t be.

If the “deal” is not renegotiated, or is renegotiated and Iran does not get what it demands, it may very well terminate the deal. Iran has already received substantial sanctions relief, is already open for business and is already doing lots of it with many more nations than previously. Termination would be a rebuff to the “Great Satan,” would not damage Iran much economically and it could proceed with its “peaceful” nuke program without even farcical nuke self-inspections.

If The Obama administration and others cave and Iran gets what it demands or enough to satisfy it, the “deal” will be very different from what was previously presented to the Congress under the Corker legislation. That legislation purported to eliminate the constitutional requirement of approval of the “deal” by a two-thirds Senate majority before going into effect and permitted it to go into effect unless rejected by half of the membership of both houses; Obama promised to veto such a rejection and put the “deal” into effect. The House has disapproved the “deal” but the Senate has not acted because of Democrat fillibusters, urged by the White House. Under the new “deal,” the ability of the United States to “snap back” sanctions would be vitiated; a possible but very difficult if not impossible to accomplish, “snap back” had been among the reasons cited by many of those who favored the “deal” (often despite its many other flaws) for supporting it.

If a deal eliminating the “snap back” is struck, Obama, et al, may well claim that it’s none of the business of the Congress since, by virtue of the Corker legislation, it has already eliminated its constitutional authority to deal with the JCPOA as a treaty, regardless of any “minor” change.

I hope, but am less than confident, that both houses of the Congress will reject this contention vigorously and repeal the Corker legislation. Whatever benefits or other legitimacy the Corker legislation may once have been thought to have it no longer has. Repeal will probably require use of the “nuclear option” to invoke cloture to end a Democrat filibuster in the Senate. If — as seems likely — Obama vetoes the rejection, the Congress should state that it no longer considers itself bound by the Corker legislation. Next, the Senate should treat the renegotiated “deal” as a treaty, regardless of whether Obama agrees to send it to the Senate, and reject it. It should do so even if, as also seems likely, that requires use of the “nuclear option” to invoke cloture.

Obama has precipitated what may well become a constitutional crisis. If the Congress does its job, Obama will be the loser and America will be the winner — even if it becomes necessary to take out Iran’s nukes militarily.

Categories: Democrats, IAEA, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian economy, Iranian military sites, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Khamenei, Nuclear option, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, P5+1, Republicans, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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The nuclear option to stop the nuclear Iran?

September 16, 2015

The nuclear option to stop the nuclear Iran? Power Line, Steven Hayward, September 16, 2015

No, I’m not talking about using nuclear weapons to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, though I have several times over the last few years heard from very knowledgeable and well-placed people in the defense and foreign policy community that if it comes down to Israel having to defend itself alone against the imminent deployment of Iranian nukes they might have to resort to using their nuclear capacities to stop it, because they lack our conventional capacity to penetrate Iran’s hardened nuclear facilities. It would be an awful moment for the world as well as Israel itself, but it serves as a prompt to ponder the consequences of Obama’s obvious decision to take U.S. military action off the table.

Rather, I’m speaking of using the so-called “nuclear option” in the Senate to abolish the filibuster for a vote on the disapproval of this terrible agreement, which right now Senate Democrats will block with a filibuster so they don’t have to go on record with a vote, and so Obama won’t have to cast an unpopular veto. With polls showing that public support for the Iran agreement is as low as 21 percent, Senate Republicans can quote Harry Reid’s arguments for invoking the “nuclear option” for confirming judges last session: surely having the Senate cast a vote on this treaty is way more important than confirming judges? Make Obama veto the bill disapproving the deal, and make Senate Democrats vote against overriding the veto.

If the Senate GOP took this step, it would go a long way toward showing the conservative grassroots that they can indeed stand up to Obama and the Democrats on the Hill. Plus they’d be reasserting their constitutional duty to render “advice and consent” on treaties, even if Obama has evaded this constitutional requirement by calling it an “executive agreement.”

Categories: Democrats, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Nuclear option, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Republicans, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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Off topic (?) | To bring America back we need to break some stuff

September 15, 2015

To bring America back we need to break some stuff, Dan Miller’s Blog, September 14, 2015

(The article is not immediately pertinent to Israel because the current President will continue to be Obama and his tame Congress will continue to go along to get along. However, the 2016 U.S. presidential elections are very pertinent to Israel’s future, so I am taking the liberty of posting it here. For those not familiar with the acronym “RINO,” it is a term of disparagement referring to Republicans who would probably be happier if they were Democrats. Needless to say, the views expressed in the article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

In December of 2011, I wrote an article titled The U.S. Constitution and Civil War. A remark by Cokie Roberts — that we need to ignore parts of the Constitution to save the rest — inspired my article. To bring America back, we don’t need to, nor should we, ignore or otherwise break the Constitution; it is America’s foundation. We do need to destroy and rebuild much of the mess that has been wrongly erected atop that foundation.

Obama and Constitution

Who should be our next President?

Daniel Greenfield, in an article titled This is the America We Live in Now, wrote,

We are not this culture. We are not our media. We are not our politicians. We are better than that.

We must win, but we must also remember what it is we hope to win. If we forget that, we lose. If we forget that, we will embrace dead end policies that cannot restore hope or bring victory.

What we have now is not a movement because we have not defined what it is we hope to win. We have built reactive movements to stave off despair. We must do better than that. We must not settle for striving to restore some idealized lost world. Instead we must dream big. We must think of the nation we want and of the civilization we want to live in and what it will take to build it. [Emphasis added.]

Our enemies have set out big goals. We must set out bigger ones. We must become more than conservatives. If we remain conservatives, then all we will have is the America we live in now. And even if our children and grandchildren become conservatives, that is the culture and nation they will fight to conserve. We must become revolutionaries. [Emphasis added.]

If we don’t, perhaps we should surrender and petition to join the European Union. Our unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy could merge with that of the EU and our Congress could merge with the impotent EU Parliament.

Joining the EU would not fit well with the U.S. Constitution, but so what? Obama and “pragmatic” judges have twisted and distorted it. They pay but scant attention to its clear language or that of the statutes they misconstrue. Most in the current crop of Republicans in the Congress have been willing to surrender whenever Obama blows His dog whistle and run to Him with hopes that He may offer them small bones.

Our once great nation is itself broken, but not necessarily beyond repair. It needs to be fixed before it gets to the point where it can’t be, and we are rapidly approaching that point. Our Constitution must be revived, and as revived survive, if America herself is to survive. America can’t be fixed with fresh paint and new floral arrangements featuring a “new” Bush.

When Ronald Reagan was first mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate, my first thought was that we don’t need a washed-up grade B movie actor/former Democrat leftist as President. I was wrong. He became the best President America has seen in my thus far seventy-four years on Earth. We need another Reagan, but who should it be? There are only a few good candidates and the Republican establishment opposes, with such insipid vigor as it can muster, all of them. It wants Jeb Bush, or in any event a Bush clone, to march stolidly toward a new Amerika.

Donald Trump

The mainstream media cannot understand why Trump continues to lead in the polls. Neither can the RINOs. Trump can’t possibly continue to lead; why, he is not even a politician! On September 12th, Sharyl Attkisson posted an article titled Donald’s Duck: 7 Reasons Why Nothing Sticks to Teflon Trump. In it, she explored seven of the reasons why it is claimed that Trump “can’t win.”

1. Trump doesn’t know the names of terror leaders.

2. Trump doesn’t have a plan.

3. Trump isn’t conservative enough.

4. Trump has flip-flopped.

5. Trump personally insults people.

6. Trump is against immigrants.

7. Trump won’t apologize.

Please read her analysis pointing out the fallacies behind these talking points as seen by Trump supporters; I think they are correct.

On September 13th Sundance, writing at The Last Refuge, posted an article titled The GOPe Roadmap, Status Update and The Event Horizon… There, he pointed out the RINOs’ multifaceted plan to defeat Trump and to install Jeb Bush as “our” next President. Jeb wants to lead us to more of the same namby-pamby nonsense that gave us Obama, the “great healer.” I don’t want to go there and want to stay as far away from there as possible. Please read Sundance’s article in its entirety. It’s excellent and so is this sequel about the upcoming CNN debate and the night of the long knives.

What will Trump do if elected?

I don’t know what Trump will do if elected President. He probably can’t make things worse, will try very hard to make them better and may well succeed. Please watch “lunatic” Trump respond to questions during this interview.

The only thing I am confident that the RINO candidates would do is to continue America’s collective swirl down the toilet. I very much like Ted Cruz (he would also be an excellent Secretary of State) and Ben Carson (Secretary of Health and Human Services?). Carina Fiorina? I like her thus far but need to learn more.

Trump has captured the public attention and, in many cases, its admiration and trust. Apparently many of his supporters feel as I do and are “mad as hell and don’t want to take it anymore.”

Please compare and contrast these Obama and Hillary campaign videos:

Obama won His last two elections by campaigning for change “we” can believe in. Trump has thus far campaigned for change those who think America was great before Obama got to mucking around with her do believe in and want to have implemented.

Much is yet unknown about where and how Trump will lead the nation as her President. One thing seems clear, at least to me: he will discard that which is broken and replace it with what we need. So long as he does not muck around with the Constitution (as Obama has done with abandon), I think we should give him an opportunity to try.

gop-elite

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

trump-punch-600-la

H/t Kingjester’s Blog

Categories: Democrats, Donald Trump, European Union, Hillary Clinton, Immigration, Iran scam, Israel, Jeb Bush, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Pat Condell, Republicans, U.S. 2016 elections, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, U.S. media, U.S. politics
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Satire but not funny|Kim Jong-un has replaced John Boehner as Speaker of the House

September 11, 2015

Kim Jong-un has replaced John Boehner as Speaker of the House, Dan Miller’s Blog, September 11, 2015

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

We have met the enemy and it is us: we have become too tired to be effective and hence are becoming indifferent. The charade on Capitol Hill continues, and not only about the nuke “deal” with Iran. Will the carnival end before it’s too late, or will Obama continue to win?

The House speaker is elected by all House members, not just those of the majority party. He need not be a member of the House. Boehner having resigned because a serious medical condition often reduces him to tears, one group of Democrats nominated Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to replace him. However, due to her support for Hillary Clinton, she fell out of favor with the White House so another group of Democrats nominated Kim Jong-un at Obama’s request. To avoid the appearance of confrontation, Republicans offered no candidates. Kim won by seventeen votes, becoming the first non-US citizen to hold the office thus far this month.

tearsofboehnerDebby

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reporting for duty!

REPORTING FOR DUTY!

The current upset was precipitated by Republican members’ disagreements with Boehner and other party leaders about how best to deal with the catastrophic Iran nuke “deal” without unnecessarily offending the President. Kim Jong-un is expected to substitute his own brand of leadership for Boehner’s leadership through ambivalence.

A majority also deemed Kim the best qualified to negotiate with Dear Leader Obama on behalf of the House because, as the undisputed leader of a rogue nuclear nation himself, he should be able to pull not only Obama’s strings but also those of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Rogue Republic of Iran.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined comment on the situation beyond refusing to comment on whether Obama met privately with Kim to congratulate him. However, Obama is generally thought to have confirmed that He fully supports Kim’s way of governing his own Democratic Peoples’ Republic and — subject to the few pesky restraints still imposed by an antiquated Constitution that He has not yet found ways to sneak around — He does His best to emulate him. In that connection, Obama asked Kim for recommendations on antiaircraft guns to deal humanely with Jews and other traitors who oppose Him (Please see also, New York Times Launches Congress ‘Jew Tracker’ – Washington Free Beacon.)

Desiring to gain Obama’s total good will, Kim promised to have derogatory cartoons of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton painted on all future North Korean nukes and missiles just before they explode. In return, Obama promised to issue executive orders granting North Korea the permanent right to declassify any and all U.S. documents it sees fit pertaining to the security of the United States and to obtain copies, gratis, from the Government Printing Office.

House Speaker Kim Jong-un will next meet with Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran to make two common sense proposals, with which Khamenei is certain to agree:

First, Kim will propose that a group of highly regarded North Korean nuclear experts — under his personal guidance and supervision — conduct all nuke inspections in Iran and draw all conclusions concerning any past or present Iranian nuclear program based on them exclusively. Those conclusions will be drawn on behalf of, and in lieu of any conclusions drawn by, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, immediately endorsed this plan as “splendid and totally consistent with any and all IAEA – Iran “secret deals.”

Second, Kim will propose that Khamenei promise not to nuke anyone until all sanctions have been permanently eliminated, unless he really wants to.

Obama is thought to have agreed with every aspect of the Kim plan and to have directed Secretary Kerry to tell Khamenei that if he agrees all sanctions will be eliminated permanently, via executive decree, and hence even more expeditiously than previously expected. Due to a successful Senate filibuster yesterday, Obama can issue the executive decree very soon; Today — Friday, September 11th — is being considered seriously due to the obvious symbolism of the date.

H/t Freedom is just another word

arming

The inevitable success of Kim’s mission will result in a win-win situation for nearly everyone, particularly the financially strapped IAEA, and the true Peace of Obama will prevail throughout all parts of the world that He considers worth saving. Remember — it’s all for the Children!

veto (1)Mushroom cloud

 

Addendum

하원 의장 김정은 의 문 사랑하는 북미 친구 , 그것은 오바마 대통령 아래에서 당신의 인생 이 곧 Amerika 민주주의 인민 공화국 이 될 것입니다 무엇 에 미래의 삶을 위해 잘 준비 것을 진심으로 희망 합니다. 배리 와 나는 제출 된 것을 기쁘게 사람들을 위해 가능한 한 오랫동안 지배 구조 의 우리의 양식 에 서서히 적응 을 하기 때문에 전환이 원활 하게 하기 위해 함께 열심히하고 고통 일했다 .

Translation:

Statement of House Speaker Kim Jong-un

My dear North American friends, it is my sincere hope that your life under President Obama has prepared you well for your future life in what will soon become the Democratic People’s Republic of Amerika. Barry [a.k.a. Barack] and I have worked long and hard together to acclimate you gradually to our transformed and transformational form of governance and hence to make the transition as smooth and painless as possible for those pleased to submit. Now, we will accelerate the progress.

Conclusions

It does not have to be that way. Here, in closing, are a few words from Daniel Greenfield.

We don’t have to give in to despair. If we do, we are lost. Lost the way that the left is lost. Lost the way that the Muslim world is lost.

We are not savages and feral children. We are the inheritors of a great civilization. It is still ours to lose. It is ours to keep if we understand its truths. [Emphasis added.]

We are not alone. A sense of isolation has been imposed on us as part of a culture war. The task of reconstructing our civilization and ending that isolation begins with our communication. We are the successors of revolutions of ideas. We need to do more than keep them alive. We must refresh them and renew them. And, most importantly, we must practice them.

We are not this culture. We are not our media. We are not our politicians. We are better than that.

We must win, but we must also remember what it is we hope to win. If we forget that, we lose. If we forget that, we will embrace dead end policies that cannot restore hope or bring victory.

What we have now is not a movement because we have not defined what it is we hope to win. We have built reactive movements to stave off despair. We must do better than that. We must not settle for striving to restore some idealized lost world. Instead we must dream big. We must think of the nation we want and of the civilization we want to live in and what it will take to build it.

Our enemies have set out big goals. We must set out bigger ones. We must become more than conservatives. If we remain conservatives, then all we will have is the America we live in now. And even if our children and grandchildren become conservatives, that is the culture and nation they will fight to conserve. We must become revolutionaries.

We must think in terms of the world we want. Not the world we have lost.

This is the America we live in now. But it doesn’t have to be.

It can be up to us, not to those who hate America and all for which she once stood.

Categories: Democrats, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Executive agreements, Fatwa, filibuster, Foreign policy, Freedom, Funding and protecting Iran's nukes, Human rights, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamism, Israel, Jews, John Boehner, Kerry, Khamenei, Kim Jong-un, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's affinity for Obama, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Peace in our time, Political Islam, Regime change, Republicans, Satire, September Eleven, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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Senate Democrats sustain Iran nuclear deal, free Obama to lift sanctions

September 10, 2015

Senate Democrats sustain Iran nuclear deal, free Obama to lift sanctions, Washington Times, Stephen Dinan, September 10, 2015

Democrats rallied behind President Obama Thursday, successfully filibustering to preserve the deal he and international leaders negotiated to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, clearing the way for the White House to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic next week.

House Republicans were attempting a last-ditch effort to derail the deal, with a vote expected later in the day certifying that the president broke the law governing Congress’s review of the Iran deal. But Senate GOP leaders have rejected that avenue of attack, and Mr. Obama is expected to consider the Senate vote enough backing to move ahead next week.

“This is historic, this is grand, this is visionary,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. “This is about peace.”

Opponents vehemently disagreed, predicting that a new arms race in the Middle East, and eventually war, would be the result of giving Iran access to tens of billions of dollars, lifting restrictions on conventional weapons and allowing the regime to retain the right to enrich nuclear material.

Public sentiment is adamantly opposed to the deal, according to polls, and a bipartisan majority in Congress voted to reject the agreement, including all Republican senators and four Democrats. But they were unable to surmount Democratic leaders’ filibuster, falling just two votes shy.

Under the terms of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, signed into law earlier this year, Mr. Obama was required to submit the final agreement to Congress, and give lawmakers 60 days to review it before he could unilaterally lift sanctions. Congress needed to pass a resolution of disapproval in order to stop him, but Thursday’s filibuster short-circuited that effort.

Republicans could try again next week, ahead of the Sept. 17 date when Mr. Obama says he’ll be able to lift sanctions, but there’s little chance any senators will change their votes barring overwhelming pressure.

Across the Capitol, House Republican leaders are trying a new tactic, having concluded that Mr. Obama didn’t submit to Congress some of the side-agreements involved in the Iran deal, so the 60-day clock hasn’t actually started.

In particular, the International Atomic Energy Agency has refused to share agreements it reached with Iran governing how inspections of the regime’s nuclear facilities will be done. Republicans said without seeing those agreements, it’s impossible to judge how easy it will be for Iran to backslide.

“No American citizen has read this entire agreement,” Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kansas Republican, told colleagues as he pleaded with them to stop the deal.

The House was slated to vote later Thursday on a resolution officially stating the president hasn’t complied with the law. On Friday, the House will vote on two other measures: One would direct the president not to lift sanctions until January at the earliest, and the other would officially approve the Iran deal — Republicans intend for that to fail.

Mr. Obama said Thursday that if Congress hadn’t backed him, he would have had no other option to stop Iran’s program other than to strike at its nuclear facilities.

“We can either prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon through diplomacy, or be left with a form of war,” the president said in answering questions about the deal on Quora.com. “Those are the options. As commander in chief, I have not shied away from using force when necessary, but I cannot in good conscience place the burden of war on our men and women in uniform without testing a diplomatic agreement that achieves a better result.”

Thursday’s vote was a major victory for Mr. Obama and his top lieutenants in Congress, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who corralled enough supporters to ensure Mr. Obama’s moves couldn’t be stopped.

Categories: Democrats, filibuster, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Republicans, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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Our World: The Republican fall guys

September 9, 2015

Our World: The Republican fall guys, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, September 8, 2015

Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.

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The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.

ShowImage (11)Kim Jong-un, North Korea leader. (photo credit:KNS / KCNA / AFP)

The Iran nuclear deal is presented as an international agreement between the major powers and Iran. But the fact is that there are really only two parties to the agreement – President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party on the one hand, and the Iranian regime on the other.

Over the past week or so, more and more Democrats have fallen into line behind Obama. At the same time, word is getting out about what Iran is doing now that it has its deal. Together, the actions of both sides have revealed the role the nuclear pact plays in each side’s overall strategies for success.

On the Iranian side, last Wednesday the National Committee of Resistance of Iran revealed that North Korean nuclear experts are in Iran working with the Revolutionary Guards to help the Iranians prevent the UN’s nuclear inspectors from discovering the scope of their nuclear activities.

The NCRI is the same opposition group that in 2003 exposed Iran’s until then secret uranium enrichment installation in Natanz and its heavy water plutonium facility in Arak.

According to the report, the North Koreans “have expertise in ballistic missile and nuclear work areas, particularly in the field of warheads and missile guidance.”

“Over the past two years the North Korean teams have been sharing their experiences and tactics necessary for preventing access to military nuclear sites,” NCRI added.

Although, as The Washington Times reports, NCRI’s finding have yet to be verified, it is unwise to doubt them.

North Korea has been assisting Iran’s nuclear program for nearly 20 years. The US began applying sanctions on North Korea for its ballistic missile proliferation activities in Iran 15 years ago. Iran’s Shahab and Ghadr ballistic missiles are modeled on North Korea’s Nodong missiles.

The Syrian nuclear installation that Israel reportedly destroyed in 2007 was a duplicate of the Yangbyon heavy water reactor in North Korea. The Deir al-Zour reactor was reportedly built by North Korean nuclear personnel and paid for by Tehran.

North Korea’s heavy involvement in Iran’s nuclear weapons program tells us everything we need to know about how Iran views the nuclear deal it signed with the Obama administration and its international partners.

For the past 22 years, the North Koreans have been playing the US and the international community for fools. Ever since February 1993, when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first discovered that North Korea was conducting illicit nuclear activities, Pyongyang has been using its nuclear program to blackmail the US.

The pattern repeats itself with maddening regularity.

First, the US discovers that North Korea is engaging in illicit nuclear activities. Over the years, these activities have gone from illicit development of plutonium-based nuclear bombs to expelling UN inspectors, to testing long-range ballistic missiles, to threatening nuclear war, to testing nuclear bombs and threatening to supply the bomb to terrorist groups.

Second, the US announces it is applying sanctions to North Korean entities.

Third, North Korea responds with more threats.

The sides then agree to sit down and negotiate the scaling back of North Korea’s nuclear activities. In exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to talk, the US provides the hermit slave state with whatever it demands. US concessions run the gamut from sanctions relief, to cash payments, provision of fuel, assistance in developing “peaceful” nuclear sites at which the North Koreans expand their nuclear expertise, removal of North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, the provision of formal US commitments not to use force to block North Korea’s nuclear progress, to more cash payments and sanctions relief.

The North then formally agrees to scale back its nuclear program and everyone is happy.

Until the next time it is caught cheating and proliferating.

And then the cycle starts again.

In each go around, the US expresses surprise at the scope of North Korea’s illicit nuclear and missile activities. In every cycle, US intelligence failed to discover what North Korea was doing until after the missiles and bombs were tested and UN inspectors were thrown out of the country.

Despite North Korean brinksmanship and ballistic missile warhead development, the US prohibits its ally South Korea from developing its own nuclear deterrent or even taking steps in that direction.

For their part, while negotiating with the Americans, the North Koreans have proliferated their nuclear technologies and ballistic missiles to Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Libya.

Given North Korea’s clear strategy of using nuclear blackmail to develop its nuclear arsenal and maintain the regime’s grip on power, you don’t need to be a master spy to understand what the presence of North Korean experts in Teheran tells us about Iran’s strategy for nuclear empowerment.

The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.

Given how well the strategy has worked for the psychotic North Koreans who have no economy, no allies and no proxies, it is clear that Iran, with its gas and oil deposits, imperial aspirations, terrorist proxies and educated population believes that this is the strategy that will launch it to world-power status.

This then brings us to the Democrats.

Depending on their pro-Israel protestations, the Democratic position in support of the deal ranges from optimism to pessimistic minimalism. On the side of the optimists, we have the Obama administration.

Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and their advisors insist that the deal is fantastic. It blocks Iran’s path to the bomb. It opens the possibility of Iran becoming a positive actor on the world stage.

On the other end of the Democratic spectrum are the pessimists like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

As they see it, the deal is horrible. It empowers and enriches Iran and legitimizes its nuclear program.

But still, they claim, the deal keeps Iran’s nuclear ambitions at bay for a few years by forcing Iran to submit to the much touted UN inspections regime.

So it is a good deal and they will vote in favor of it and then vote to sustain a presidential veto of a congressional decision to oppose it.

Obviously, the presence of North Korean nuclear experts in Tehran makes a mockery of the notion that Iran has any intention of exercising good faith with UN inspectors. But that isn’t the point.

The point is that the Democrats have no intention of doing anything to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. They just don’t want to be blamed for Iran becoming a nuclear power. They want the Republicans to shoulder the blame. The purpose of the deal from their perspective to set the Republicans up to be blamed.

Obama and his Democratic followers insist that if Iran doesn’t act in good faith, the US will reimpose sanctions. Worse comes to worst, they insist, the US can just walk away from the deal.

This of course is utter nonsense.

Obama won’t walk away from his signature foreign policy. He will devote his energies in his remaining time in office to covering up for Iran. That is why he is breaking the law he signed and refusing to hand over the side deals regarding the farcical nature of UN inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites to Congress.

Moreover, after insisting that the deal is the best way to prevent a holocaust or that it is the only way a Jewish mother can protect the homeland of her people, Democratic lawmakers are not going to rush to acknowledge that they are lying. Now that they’ve signed onto the deal, they own it.

Of course, the Iranians are another story. While the Democrats will not abandon the deal no matter what, the Iranians signed the deal in order to abandon it the minute it outlives its usefulness. And that works just fine for the Democrats.

The Democrats know that the Iranians will use any step the Republicans take to try to enforce the deal’s verification regime or condition sanctions relief on Iranian abidance by the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear activities as an excuse to walk away from the deal. They also know the Iranians will remain in the deal as long as it is useful to them.

Since the Iranians intend to hide their nuclear activities, the Democrats assume Tehran will stay in until it is financially and militarily ready to escalate its nuclear activities.

The Democrats believe that timetable will extend well beyond the lifespan of the Obama administration.

Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.

You have to give credit to the administration and its Iranian chums. At least they are consistent. They have constructed an agreement that gives them both what they care about most. Iran, as always, wants to dominate the region and develop the means to destroy Israel and its Arab adversaries at will. The administration, as always, wants to blame the Republicans.

Israel and the Arabs understand the game that is being played. It is time for the Republicans to get wise to it.

Categories: Democrats, Denial, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - North Korea axis, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Middle East, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Republicans, U.S. Congress, U.S. politics
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Obama secures rubber stamp for Iran deal catastrophe

September 3, 2015

Obama secures rubber stamp for Iran deal catastrophe, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, September 3, 2015

(Please see also, Use Our Senatorial Nuclear Option to Stop Iran’s Radioactive Nuclear Option. Make Senators vote yes or no on the “deal.”— DM)

obama-wc2

Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has pushed President Obama’s nuclear appeasement deal with Iran over the top. With her decision to vote in favor of the deal, Obama now has the support of the 34 senators he needs to uphold his expected veto of a congressional resolution of disapproval. If enough craven Democrats back a planned filibuster to prevent a vote on the floor of the Senate, Obama will not even have to use his veto pen.

The nightmare of a financially secure nuclear armed Iran, legitimized by the Obama administration and its international partners, is about to envelop us.

Ironically, Obama warned in a speech he delivered on September 1st in Alaska that a potentially bleak future could lie ahead, in which “there’s not going to be a nation on this Earth that’s not impacted negatively.”

“People will suffer,” Obama said. “Economies will suffer. Entire nations will find themselves under severe, severe problems…more conflict.”

President Obama is right to be concerned about the future, but his stated reason for his concern is entirely misplaced. Obama was talking about climate change, which he considers to be a man-made disaster. In truth, Obama himself has created a far more imminent disaster with his nuclear deal.

In his climate change speech, Obama spoke about our “grandkids” who “deserve to live lives free from fear, and want, and peril.” He added that we need to prove “we care about them and their long-term futures, not just short-term political expediency.”

Obama, and the partisan loyalists who support him no matter what, are the ones letting down our grandkids. They are the ones who have sacrificed our grandkids’ long-term futures at the altar of short-term political expediency. The only long-term future that Obama is interested in is his own legacy.

By President Obama’s own admission, no later than 15 years from now – when my granddaughter will be just 18 years old – Iran will be in a position to develop enough enriched materials to produce nuclear bombs with virtually no “break-out” time. The deal’s major nuclear restrictions, such as they are, will have gone away, even assuming that Iran had not cheated in the meantime.

The deal’s inspection mechanism is a farce, including most notably, Iran’s self-inspection of its military site where it is suspected that nuclear weaponization research and development work was carried out. The military facility at Parchin is off-limits to onsite inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Yet the Obama administration continues to lie to the American people about how comprehensive the IAEA inspections will be. Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted this falsehood on September 2nd:  “With this #IranDeal, the IAEA can go wherever the evidence leads. No facility…will be off limits.”

The Iranian leaders also will get their hands soon on hundreds of billions of dollars. No doubt they will use some of their treasure trove from sanctions relief to fund their terrorist proxies all over the world. Obama admitted in his speech defending his deal last month at American University that monies from sanctions relief “will flow to activities we object to.” He acknowledged that “Iran supports terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. It supports proxy groups that threaten our interests and the interests of our allies – including proxy groups who killed our troops in Iraq. They try to destabilize our Gulf partners.”

Yet Obama tells the American people not to worry about such real-life risks. Instead, he diverts attention to his Chicken Little climate change hype that the sky will fall if we do not take urgent action now.

Much of the rest of the Iranians’ windfall from sanctions relief will go towards developing and acquiring, from North Korea, Russia and other sources, advanced military technology and long-range missiles.

Iran’s leaders have made it abundantly clear that they do not consider themselves bound by either the 5-year UN Security Council arms embargo or the 8-year missile embargo.  For example, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani declared: “We will buy, sell and develop any weapons we need and we will not ask for permission or abide by any [U.N.] resolution for that.”

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said last month that “We are considering the design, research, and production of [missiles] that are highly destructive, highly accurate, radar evasive, and tactical.”

Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said: “Some wrongly think Iran has suspended its ballistic missile programs in the last two years and has made a deal on its missile program.” To emphasize his point, the commander announced that Iran “will have a new ballistic missile test in the near future that will be a thorn in the eyes of our enemies.”

The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, announced plans to expand the reach of Iran’s missiles.

The Iranian thugs are not limiting themselves to purely defensive weapons. “They (the US and the Zionists) should know that the Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine,” said Brigadier General Mohsen Kazzemeini, the IRGC’s top commander in the Tehran Province (as quoted by Iran’s Fars News Agency). “We will continue defending not just our own country, but also all the oppressed people of the world, especially those countries that are standing on the forefront of confrontation with the Zionists,” he added.

The Obama administration, which conceded as part of the nuclear deal to agree to unconditional term limits on the arms and missile embargoes, barely raised an eyebrow at Iran’s refusal to be bound by even these limited embargoes. In fact, Kerry went so far as to say that “they are not in material breach of the nuclear agreement for violating the arms piece of it.”

A sobering report was just released by the Iran Strategy Council, led by retired generals Chuck Wald (Commandant of Marine Corps) and James Conway (Deputy Commander of European Command). It warns of the deal’s likely dangers to America’s own national security and of the “cascading instability” it will produce in the Middle East region and beyond:

“The final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has potentially grave strategic implications that directly threaten to undermine the national security of the United States and our closest regional allies. By allowing Iran to become a nuclear threshold state and enabling it to become more powerful and expand its influence and destabilizing activities – across the Middle East and possibly directly threatening the U.S. homeland – the JCPOA will place the United States in far worse position to prevent a nuclear Iran.”

The report’s authors predict that the “nightmare scenarios of WMD and terrorism on the soil of the United States and its allies will become more probable.”

Nevertheless, the Obama administration is spiking the ball, exulting over its evident victory in keeping enough Democratic senators on board to protect Obama’s deal.

The White House tweeted: “If your house is on fire, would you refuse to put it out because there could be another fire in 15 years?”

The question should be: “If your house is flammable, would you hand your enemy a match?”

Kerry, who turned on his own fellow soldiers during the Vietnam War, tweeted: “I have had the privilege of serving our country in times of peace and in times of war—and peace is better.”

When Neville Chamberlain returned from Germany with his infamous Munich Pact in hand, he declared: “I believe it is peace for our time…Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

The long nightmare of World War II ensued shortly thereafter. Thanks to Barack Obama and John Kerry, we are entering the nightmare leading inevitably to an emboldened, well-funded Iran equipped with nuclear arms and the missiles to deliver them.

Categories: Climate change, Democrats, Denial, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran scam, Iran UN arms embargo, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Republicans, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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