Richard Engel on Obama’s Strategy Against Islamic State: The Definition of Stupidity, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, May 21, 2015
Posted tagged ‘Foreign Policy’
Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi
May 21, 2015Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, May 21, 2015
Islamic State fighters celebrate their take over of Ramadi with a victory ‘parade.’ (Photo: Islamic State social media)
The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.
Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.
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The Islamic State (ISIS) has captured Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, reportedly “terrifying” Iraqi officials who now foresee a “tsunami of international terror.” It is an important achievement for the terrorist group aimed at pre-empting a potential Sunni tribal uprising.
The Sunni tribes in Anbar Province were critical to the success of the 2007 “surge” that ousted the Islamic State’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The deterioration in the relationship between these tribes and the central Iraqi government was likewise critical to the terrorists’ comeback in Iraq.
The Islamic State remembered these lessons and acted quickly as the Iraqi government began training tribal fighters and the U.S. defense budget allotted $179 million to Kurdish and Sunni tribal forces. The U.S. forgot these lessons and has long rejected Sunni and Kurdish pleas for direct aid to fight the Islamic State.
The Obama Administration is now planning to change course and directly arm and train the Iraqi Sunni tribes after the fall of Ramadi. The White House previously chose to work only through the central Iraqi government that has given the Kurds and Sunnis inadequate support.
A delegation of 11 Sunni tribal leaders, including Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the President of the Anbar Awakening Council, flew to the U.S. on January 18 to plead for direct assistance. Former President George W. Bush called Abu Risha and listened to his complaints for 20 minutes and offered to help. Administration officials were less willing. One tribal official said, “I wouldn’t call it the ‘cold shoulder,’ but it certainly was a cool one.”
The Obama Administration told them that it would only work through the elected central government. Its viewpoint was that working with forces outside the government’s authority undermines the Iraqi leadership and threatens the country’s unity.
That standpoint ignores what was learned after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Nothing threatens Iraq’s unity and the government’s authority more than instability. Direct U.S. aid to the Sunni tribes helped save Iraq from disintegration into sectarian enclaves ruled by terrorists and militias.
The Islamic State struck Ramadi during a sandstorm that delayed American air support. Former U.S. Central Command advisor Ali Khedery says that a Kurdish member of parliament informed him that 6,000 Iraqi Security Forces fled when faced with a mere 150 Islamic State fighters. About 500 Iraqi security personnel and civilians died in two days. The Iraqi officials spoke straight forwardly and admitted that the current strategy is failing.
The Pentagon says it has finished training about 7,000 Iraqi Security Forces and another 3-4,000 are in the process of training, but training won’t solve the problem of collapsing Iraqi forces. The U.S. trained the Iraqis from 2003 until the withdrawal in 2011. The strategy of waiting for the Iraqi security forces to become strong enough to stabilize the country is the same strategy that failed before the surge.
Iraqi personnel flee because they don’t want to die for a lost cause or to fight for a replacement worse than the Islamic State.
The Iraqi Security Forces face a fundamental disadvantage when battling the Islamic State: They want to live and their enemies want to die. This disadvantage is further compounded by a lack of confidence. If given the choice to die fighting in a losing battle or to flee and perhaps regroup later with better chances of victory, they will choose the latter.
An Anbar official placed the blame on the Iraqi government, telling CNN, “If 10% of the government’s promises had been implemented, Ramadi would still in our hands and the Islamic State wouldn’t dare to be anywhere near the city.”
Iraqi Sunnis are faced with a terrible choice. The Iranian-backed Shiite militias are often nicknamed “Shiite ISIS” because their crimes are comparable to ISIS but are less known by the West because they aren’t broadcasted. However, the Anbar Provincial Council is officially welcoming them now out of desperation and perhaps an awareness that their opposition will be ignored anyway.
The Shiite militias should be expected to mistreat the local Sunnis the second after the Islamic State is expelled or even during the fighting. Tribal support is far from unanimous. The son of the largest tribe’s leader is in the U.S. asking for support right now and bluntly warned that sending the Shiite militias into Anbar Province “will cause a civil war.”
The New York Times has noticed the change in American attitude towards the Shiite militias. Pentagon spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said, “As long as they’re controlled by the central Iraqi government, there’s a place for them.” Yet, only two months ago, Central Command Commander General Austin said, “I will not—and I hope we will never—coordinate or cooperate with Shiite militias.”
The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.
Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.
In March, the U.S. withheld support to Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State in Tikrit because of the involvement of Iranian-backed militias and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranian proxies stalled and could move no further, displaying the value of U.S. air support. The Iraqis chose America and the Iranians were removed from the battle. U.S. aid delivered the victory that the Iranians could not.
The Iraqis had been asking for U.S. for more help including possibly advisors on the ground since October 2013. By March 2014, the Iraqis were asking for airstrikes on the Islamic State. The Islamic State blitz into Iraq began in June.
The Iraqi ambassador complained that the U.S. had denied requests for help including Apache helicopter sales, thereby putting Iraq “in an uncomfortable position in seeking support from whoever is available on the ground.” He emphasized that the “U.S. is our strategic partner of choice.”
Iran opposed the return of U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq as advisors. The Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to attack the advisors and two other Iranian-backed militias alsoforcefully opposed U.S. involvement. The Iraqi government went ahead anyway.
Even now, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is in Russia and talking to China and Iran about delivering arms that the U.S. refuses to provide.
The U.S. needs to give the Iraqi government a clear choice: Iran or us.
The Iraqi government should be put on notice. If it is willing to restrain the Shiite militias and work with us to disband them, then we will provide all necessary aid. We will help negotiate with the Sunni tribes so their local forces operate within a national framework.
If the Iraqi government chooses Iran, then we will cut our aid and redirect it towards our Sunni, Kurdish and Christian partners while maintaining contact with friendly Shiites. We will not act as the air force for Iranian proxies. If necessary, we will talk about a role for the forthcoming Arab force led by Egypt to replace yours.
It is positive news that the Obama Administration is reversing its stance and will directly help the Sunni tribes, but the anti- Islamic State strategy requires an anti-Iran strategy.
The Pope and the Palestinians
May 20, 2015The Pope and the Palestinians, Front Page Magazine,
(The article also deal with Islam in general, as to which the Pope’s fantasies reflect those of the Obama Administration and others. — DM)
Perhaps the ultimate expression of this faith in Islam was Pope Francis’ assertion in Evangelii Gaudium that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”
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Contrary to reports in the mainstream press, Pope Francis did not call Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas “an angel of peace.” The correct translation of the pope’s words is “I have thought of you: that you could be an angel of peace.”
Why, then, was it so easy to believe the initial reports? Perhaps because the initial reports seemed to align with previous papal overtures to Palestinian leaders. Pope Francis had previously called Abbas a “man of peace,” he has shown sympathy for Palestinian grievances, and other popes have given the appearance of lending legitimacy to the Palestinian cause. For example, Pope John Paul II is reported to have received PLO leader Yasser Arafat on twelve different occasions.
Arafat was a terrorist. One would think that the Vatican would have wanted to limit its contacts with him. The same goes for Abbas. He has repeatedly honored and praised Palestinian “martyrs” who have slaughtered innocent Jews. There is evidence that he helped fund the 1972 operation that killed eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Why is he accorded such a cordial reception at the Vatican?
Although the Church has often declared its spiritual bond with Jews, it has had a less harmonious relationship with the nation where approximately half the world’s Jews now reside. The Vatican was the last Western government to accord diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel (in 1993). In addition, on several occasions, prominent prelates have likened Israel to King Herod, the murderer of innocents; and others have accused Israel of being an apartheid state. Meanwhile, Catholic NGOs such as Pax Christi and Trocaire have been major players in the boycott, divest, and sanctions campaign against Israel.
Of course, the BDS campaign directly impinges on Israeli security. So do the calls by numerous Christian leaders to tear down the security barrier that divides Israel from the West Bank. On his trip to the Holy Land a year ago, Pope Francis allowed himself to be photographed in prayer at a section of the wall where a large graffiti message compared Bethlehem to the Warsaw Ghetto. In a naïve gesture of solidarity with Palestinians, the pope was unwittingly lending credence to the idea that the Israelis could be compared to the Nazi occupiers of Poland.
The wall was constructed to prevent suicide attacks against Israeli citizens. It’s estimated that its construction has saved thousands of lives. To suggest that the wall is offensive, as many Christians have done, is to suggest that Jewish lives don’t matter. Moreover, such judgments betray an entirely lopsided view of the situation. Take the Gaza conflict. The Catholic hierarchy typically had little to say about the daily rocket barrages launched against Israeli citizens from Gaza, but it was quick to condemn Israel on those occasions when it finally retaliated. In a similar vein, Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, blamed last year’s Gaza war on the Israeli embargo which, he said, had turned Gaza into “a factory of desperate people, designed to easily turn into extremists.”
In short, many Catholic leaders have shown a tendency to blame Israel for defending itself. The implication, of course, is that there would be no need for defense if Israel would only go to the peace table and make the concessions demanded of it by the Palestinians. The Vatican’s recent recognition of the “State of Palestine” reflects this naïve view of the situation. The supposition is that the Palestinians only want to be left in peace, whereas there is abundant evidence that the deepest desire of Palestinian leaders is for the extermination of Israel. Have Vatican officials never seen the photos of Abbas holding up a map of Palestine that encompasses all of the territory currently known as Israel? Are they unaware that he has personally called for a Palestine that is Judenrein? Didn’t they notice that when Israel gambled on disengaging from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Gaza soon turned into a terrorist state governed by an obsession to destroy Israel?
From the Israeli point of view, the call to cooperate with the Palestinian “peace” agenda is a call to cooperate in its own demise. Whenever I hear a UN representative or a Vatican spokesman call for peace talks between Israel and Palestine, I think of that scene from Goldfinger in which James Bond is about to be sliced in two by a laser beam. “Do you expect me to talk?” he asks. “No, Mr. Bond,” replies Goldfinger, “I expect you to die.” The Vatican hasn’t yet grasped the point that the Palestinian leadership doesn’t want the Israelis to talk, it wants them to die.
By words and by actions, the Vatican continues to suggest that there is a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This policy not only does a disservice to Jews, it also does a disservice to Catholics and other Christians. The main effect of the moral equivalence stance is to sow confusion among Catholics at a time when they need to be clear and unconfused—clear about Islam, that is. The Vatican policy toward Palestine reflects it overall stance toward the Islamic world. In other words, let’s overlook the dark side—the terrorism, the anti-Semitism, the oppression of Christians and other minorities—and let’s put the best face on the Mohammedan faith. For the sake of peace. And also for the sake of maintaining the threadbare narrative that Islam is a close cousin of Catholicism and, therefore, a religion of peace. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this faith in Islam was Pope Francis’ assertion in Evangelii Gaudium that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”
How well has this policy worked? Not very. Catholics and other Christians who lived in Muslim lands and who took seriously the Catholic version of “this has nothing to do with Islam” soon found that the tiny minority of misunderstanders were legion and had murder on their minds. Many found out too late. Years of indoctrination in the myth of Islam’s pacific nature had left them unprepared for the violence. Not that the Church was the only culprit. The secular opinion-makers had been preaching the same gospel. The irony is that the Church wants Israel to adopt the same policy of make-believe about Islam that has contributed to the death and displacement of millions of Christians.
The policy requires an almost total denial of facts. In the case of the Arab-Israeli crisis it means ignoring the terrorist ties of the Palestinian government, its unity coalition with Hamas, the massive state-sponsored indoctrination of Palestinian children, and the oft-stated goal of eliminating Israel. Ironically, it also necessitates that one ignore the ongoing persecution of Christians in the Palestinian territories.
The Palestinian leaders do a good job of hijacking Christian themes and imagery in order to gull Christians into thinking that they are, indeed, brothers in Christ. Thus, Palestinians have milked the massacre-of-the-innocents meme for all its worth. They also like to claim that Jesus was the first Palestinian. Another favorite theme is that the Palestinian people are the “new Jesus” who is being crucified by the Israelis.
Many in the Catholic hierarchy seem to fall for the ruse, but the steady exodus of Christians from the Palestinian territories tells a different story. The overall population of Christians in the Palestinian areas has declined from 15 percent in 1950 to 2 percent today. After the Palestinian Authority took control over Bethlehem in 1995, the Christian population there declined by half. In the Gaza Strip, only a few hundred Christians remain. That’s because Christians in Palestine, like Christians in most Muslim-majority societies, are treated as second-class citizens—subject to rape, intimidation, and legalized theft.
Meanwhile, the Christian population of Israel continues to grow. Palestinian Christians want to live there and so do persecuted Christians in other parts of the Middle East. Despite years of propaganda to the contrary, they have come to realize that Israel is a safe haven in a world of Islamic chaos.
Do Christians who migrate to Israel know something that the Vatican doesn’t know? The facts are there for everyone to see, but not everyone sees them. Why do Catholic leaders persist in assigning moral equivalence when there is no moral equivalence? Normally, a belief in moral equivalence grows out of a relativistic outlook. But presumably we can rule that out in the case of Catholic prelates. A more likely cause of their moral neutrality is a misapplication of the principle of “judge not.” Christians today are highly conscious of the sins of Western civilization and are therefore reluctant to judge those who lie outside it—in this case, Muslims. However, the principle is meant to apply to judgments about the state of an individual’s soul, not his behavior. And it was never meant to apply to withholding judgments about ideologies and belief systems.
The reluctance to see the mote in the other’s eye can eventually slide over into willful blindness. There are numerous warnings in the New Testament about spiritual blindness and they apply to those within the Church as well as to those without. The big danger for Church leaders is not that they will be seen as judgmental in the eyes of the world, but that they will be seen as foolishly naïve in the eyes of history.
“First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday” is a well-known slogan in the Middle East. It means that after the Islamists finish with the Jews, they will come after the Christians. The fate of the Saturday people and the Sunday people is intertwined. And the fate of both is put in jeopardy when Christian leaders insist on holding on to a fantasy-based picture of Islam.
Next challenge for US after Ramadi defeat: Iranian ship nears Yemeni shore
May 19, 2015Next challenge for US after Ramadi defeat: Iranian ship nears Yemeni shore, DEBKAfile, May 19, 2015
Iranian aid vessel with “medical relief” personnel
DEBKAfile’s analysts strongly doubt that the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier and strike force, which have been monitoring the Iranian flotilla’s movements, will be ordered to intervene against the Iranian ships reaching the Yemeni port.
Tehran, for its part has threatened to treat any such inspections as an act of war.
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Tuesday, May 19, two days after Ramadi’s fall to the Islamic State landed a major blow to Baghdad and US strategy in the region, 10,000 troops – more than half American – ended a large US-led military exercise in Jordan that was designed to practice tactics for countering ISIS. Taking part surprisingly in the two-week exercise was a heavy US nuclear-capable B-52H bomber, which flew in from the United States, crossing through Israeli air space and returning to home base when it was over.
This was the first time in the 12 years since the US invasion of Iraq that a B-52H, which can deliver nuclear weapons and bunker buster bombers, has appeared in Middle East skies for any military mission.
East of Jordan, as some 25,000 refugees from Ramadi slept in the open, the Islamist conquerors began moving on their next target, the Habbaniyah air base some 70 km west of Baghdad. Its fall would cut Baghdad off from northern and eastern Iraq and place it under siege from three directions – north, east and west.
Most Arab members have dropped out of the US-led coalition committed to fighting the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Syria. This has left the US Air Force to bear the brunt of the aerial campaign. Its average of 19 air strikes a day is far too few to have any real effect on ISIS’s battle momentum. It certainly did not stop the long columns of black-clad Islamist fighters swarming on Ramadi from all directions in hundreds of tanks, APCs and minivans armed with heavy machine guns, and taking control of the capital of Iraq’s largest province, Anbar.
Western intelligence from the Ramadi region offered disturbing accounts of thousands of fully-armed ISIS fighters springing up apparently from nowhere to descend on the city, with no one able to see where they came from and no air action to scatter them before they entered the city.
After the Ramadi defeat, the Obama administration’s next major test in the region comes from an Iranian cargo vessel heading, accompanied by two warships, for the Yemeni Red Sea port of Hodeida and scheduled to dock Thursday, May 21. According to Tehran, the ship will unload 2,500 tons of humanitarian aid for Yemen, and the hundreds of passengers who disembark are Red Crescent medical relief workers.
The Saudi, US and Egyptian fleets have imposed a sea and air blockade on Yemen to prevent Iran provding the Yemeni Houthi rebels with fresh arms. Saudi and other regional intelligence agencies are convinced that the “paramedics” are in fact Revolutionary Guards officers and instructors in disguise, sent to strengthen the Houthi revolt.
Washington, Riyadh and Cairo have all vowed to stop the Iranian flotilla from putting into port in Yemen and said that its vessels will be forced to submit to inspections to make sure no illicit weapons are aboard and to confirm the passengers’ identities.
Tehran, for its part has threatened to treat any such inspections as an act of war.
Deputy Revolutionary Guards Commander Gen. Masoud Jazayeri put it plainly when he said: “I am distinctly stating that the patience of Iran has limits. If the Iranian aid ship is prevented from reaching Yemen then they, Saudi Arabians and United States, should expect action from us.”
DEBKAfile’s analysts strongly doubt that the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier and strike force, which have been monitoring the Iranian flotilla’s movements, will be ordered to intervene against the Iranian ships reaching the Yemeni port. It is not a good moment for President Barack Obama to upset Tehran when he is in dire need of the Iraqi Shiite militias controlled by Iran to stand up to ISIS before its columns reach Baghdad.
Without the US, it is hard to see Saudi and Egyptian warships directly engaging an Iranian naval force and risking a major military conflagration.
Therefore, just as the B-52H came and went without action to impede ISIS’s creep closer to Baghdad, the Roosevelt is not likely to halt Iranian warships before they reach Yemen.
Documents: Feds Knew Benghazi Attack Planned in Advance
May 19, 2015Documents: Feds Knew Benghazi Attack Planned in Advance, Washington Free Beacon,
(Please see also, Arab military chiefs approve Egyptian-led intervention in Libya — DM)
Gutted U.S. consulate in Libya / AP
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch from their May 2014 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed against the State Department and the Department of Defense revealed that the Obama administration knew about the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi at least 10 days before the attack.
The documents also revealed that the DOD immediately reported the attacks on the consulate.
The documents included an August 2012 analysis predicting the failure of President Obama’s policy of a regime change in Syria as well as a warning about the rise of the Islamic State. The documents also included a confirmation that United States was aware of an arms shipment from Benghazi to Syria.
One of the documents from the DOD’s Defense Intelligence Agency dated September 12, 2012, the day after the attacks in Benghazi, lays out the details of the attack on the consulate and assesses that it was carefully planned by the terrorist group “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman.”
The group is known to have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood as well as to al Qaeda. Rahman is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The group’s goal was to “kill as many Americans as possible,” according to the documents, which were sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
An October 2012 DOD document contained the first official document that the Obama administration knew of the shipment of weapons from the Benghazi to rebel forces in Syria.
Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155 mm howitzers missiles.
During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the (Qaddafi) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.
The heavily redacted document did not reveal which weapons were sent to Syria
The DIA consistently warned of the deterioration of the situation in Iraq and warned that it creates an ideal situation for Al Qaeda to return to Mosul and Ramadi, according to an August 2012 report. During this time the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria. The agency warned of dire consequences but blocked out what most of what those consequences were.
The State Department produced a single document from a separate lawsuit that Judicial Watch had filed against the department. The document was created by Hillary Clinton’s office the morning after the attacks on the consulate in Benghazi and was sent throughout the State Department.
Neither the State Department nor Hillary Clinton have turned over any documents in regards to Benghazi or her personal email account that was used during her as well as other top aides during her time as Secretary of State.
Judicial Watch has filed multiple FOIA requests and has waited over two years for the documents that they have received.
“These documents show that the Benghazi cover-up has continued for years and is only unraveling through our independent lawsuits,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “The Benghazi scandal just got a whole lot worse for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”
Arab military chiefs approve Egyptian-led intervention in Libya
May 19, 2015Arab military chiefs approve Egyptian-led intervention in Libya, DEBKAfile, May 19, 2015
(Obama will be displeased. — DM)
Arab military chiefs held an unpublicized meeting in Cairo Monday to confirm coordinated plans for Egyptian-led regional intervention into the eastern Libya region of Cyrenaica to drive out the armed extremists, who have kept the country locked in chaos since Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster, and install a stable government in the region;s capital of Benghazi. The meeting was attended by the chiefs of staff of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Sudan and the Libyan Tobruk government. Talks are ongoing with France and Libya to take part in the operation. Both have a direct interest in putting a stop to the ungoverned flow of African refugee migrants to Europe through Libya, which is being used by Islamic State terrorists to infiltrate Europe. France will be asked for logistic support and special forces for the Libyan operation and Italy to provide naval support. Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi is seeking early military action cut down the fast-expanding ISIS threat to his country, the region and southern Europe.
How the Islamic Republic Is Manipulating the U.S.
May 19, 2015How the Islamic Republic Is Manipulating the U.S., Front Page Magazine,
Rouhani and the moderate camp have persuaded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that superficial diplomatic ties with the Obama administration will, in fact, empower the Islamic Republic, further its hegemonic ambitions, and raise Tehran’s economic status without the need for the Iranian leaders to give up on their revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.
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There is a crucial Machiavellian (but not a strategic) tactical shift in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and its pursuit of regional preeminence.
First of all, Iranian leaders have realized that by superficially showing the Obama administration that the Islamic Republic is willing to restore diplomatic ties with his administration, they can in fact further advance their ideological and national interests.
Second, knowing that President Obama is desperate for a “historic” nuclear deal and the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, Iranian leaders have played the role very well by attempting to satisfy President Obama’s empty goals.
Third, the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic became cognizant of the fact that dealing with the Obama administration does not necessarily mean that they have to give up anything with respect to its domestic suppression, revolutionary Islamist principles, human rights abuses, regional hegemonic ambitions, anti-Americanism, hatred towards Israel, and foreign policy objectives.
The tactical shift, currently, is to satisfy President Obama’s personal and shallow objectives by allowing him to project that he is making historic moves (such speaking on the phone with the Iranian leaders), while simultaneously pursuing their own ideological objectives.
For example, most recently, Rouhani and the Obama administration agreed on opening new diplomatic offices in Tehran and Washington. For President Obama, opening diplomatic offices can be viewed as another “historic move” cited in his records or on his Wikipedia page. From the perspective of Iranian leaders, it is a crucial pillar for the advancement of Iran’s foreign policy and ideological objectives in the region without pressure from the US.
To pursue their objectives more efficiently, Iranian leaders have agreed to meet frequently with the diplomats at the highest level of the Obama administration, “negotiating,” and having some of their interactions publicly televised on American and Western media. In addition, the American and the Iranian flags are repeatedly shown next to each other in the high level meetings.
These moves, in fact, give legitimacy to the theocratic regime to further its ambitions.
The president was also delighted to make another “historic move” by speaking on the phone with his Iranian counterpart, President Hassan Rouhani. (One would wonder what a great accomplishment it is to pick up a phone and call another president.)
Washington and Tehran broke diplomatic ties in 1979. After the hostage crisis, high American officials and diplomats have not set foot on the Iranian soil due to Iran’s continuous violation of international norms and anti-Americanism.
Nevertheless, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have decided to turn a blind eye on Iran’s egregious human rights abuses, aggressiveness and violations of international laws.
In another shallow move, Kerry claimed to be proud to set foot on Iranian “territory.” He met with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Gholamali Khoshroo, in New York.
Instead of attempting to change the behavior of the Ayatollahs and their revolutionary principles, President Obama and Kerry are satisfied with these superficial “historic moves.”
Since Iran’s political establishments and policies are driven, not solely by national and geopolitical interests, but also by ideological Islamist (Shiite) principles, hardliners and the office of the Supreme Leader will always view a real rapprochement with the US as taboo.
Restoring full diplomatic ties can also be analyzed as betraying the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic, which were based on anti-Americanism, as well as their opposition to Western models of socio-political and socio-economic landscapes.
From the perspective of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who has the final say in foreign policy decisions — genuine diplomatic ties with the US will lead to the empowerment of Iranian civil society and secular factions. From the prism of the senior cadre of the IRGC, relationships with the American government might lead to the opening of the Iranian market, endangering the economic monopoly of IRGC institutions.
On the other hand, Rouhani and his technocrat team, who share the same objectives with the hardliners and want to preserve the interests of the Islamic Republic, came to the realizations that satisfying President Obama’s superficial and shallow objectives of “historic moves,” can indeed assist them in advancing their ambitions.
In conclusion, similar to the ongoing nuclear negotiations, Rouhani and the moderate camp have persuaded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that superficial diplomatic ties with the Obama administration will, in fact, empower the Islamic Republic, further its hegemonic ambitions, and raise Tehran’s economic status without the need for the Iranian leaders to give up on their revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.
The veneer of civilization
May 19, 2015The veneer of civilization, Israel Hayom, Sarah N. Stern, May 19, 2015
Throughout the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, U.S. President Barack Obama frequently stated that “no deal is better than a bad deal” and that “all options are on the table.”
And then, on April 2, after a framework agreement was concluded in Lausanne, Switzerland (but without even a piece of paper to wave, Neville Chamberlain-like), Obama said, “Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented … is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?”
As soon as the choice was altered from “a good deal or no deal” to “either this deal or war,” we witnessed a sudden surge in Iranian swagger and bravado, in both their words and their actions.
On May 7, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Deputy Commander Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami told Fars television: “We welcome war with the United States, as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success, to display the real potential of our power. We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios, and this is no big deal.”
On May 12, Mojtaba Zolnour, a member of the IRGC and a close personal friend of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said: “The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has divine permission to destroy Israel. The noble Quran permits the Islamic republic to destroy Israel. Even if Iran gives up its nuclear program, it will not weaken this country’s determination to destroy Israel.”
This Iranian saber rattling has been accompanied by renewed provocations. On April 28, in the Strait of Hormuz — a major oil route — an Iranian crew commandeered the Maersk Tigris, a cargo ship flying under the flag of the Marshall Islands, a U.S. protectorate. They held the ship for six days before releasing it and its crew members. And just a few days after that, Iranian gunboats opened fire on the Alpine Eternity, a Singaporean-flagged ship, and tried to force it into Iranian territorial waters.
The more the U.S. treats Iranians with kid gloves so as not to offend them and to keep them at the negotiating table, the more the Iranians feel a renewed sense of triumph, and disdain toward the United States and its allies. (One would think the Americans were the ones who needed sanctions lifted to help our ailing economy).
On May 6, Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who has been held in an Iranian prison since July 2014, was charged with espionage. This trumped-up charge was a direct rebuke to the United States, demonstrating just how much contempt the Iranians have for the U.S. It is clear that the Iranians believe that we are determined to give them their cake, and to let them eat it, too. And like a spoiled child in the midst of a temper tantrum, the more we give the Iranians, the more they demand.
The sad fact is that the American negotiating team is basing its entire strategy on little more than wishful thinking. While visiting Beijing at the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that a deal with Iran “will have a positive influence on North Korea” (although he did add that he wasn’t sure that the North Koreans were capable of “internalizing the message”). One wonders whether the secretary of state also believes in unicorns and fairies.
History indicates that the nuclear negotiations with North Korea were precisely what led to their possession of a nuclear bomb. It is actually the Iranians who have taken note and learned from the North Koreans, and not the other way around.
It has become increasingly obvious that the Obama administration does not know how to negotiate. It seems that they are intent on making a deal, any deal, with the Iranians. And the more they grovel, the more contemptible the United States becomes in the eyes of the Iranians.
That is why the United States Senate needs to hold a free and open debate on the details of the negotiations. Over the last two weeks, the leadership of both the House and the Senate did no one any favors by putting the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015 (Corker-Cardin) on the suspension calendar. This means it requires a straight up or down vote, with no room for attaching amendments or for discussion.
The real danger in the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015 is that it has turned this negotiation, which has the standing of an international arms treaty, into a bill that would require a veto-proof majority to block. That means that it will become law even if only 34 Senate Democrats support it. While a treaty requires a positive action of two-thirds of the Senate to approve it, now it will take two-thirds of the Senate to veto it, which is much more difficult to achieve, particularly during the immediate aftermath of a euphoric deal-signing ceremony, probably on the White House Lawn, replete with lofty speeches of “peace in our time.”
The framers of the Constitution were prescient when they required two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty. And these negotiations are nothing short of a nuclear arms treaty that will impact the order of the world for generations to come.
When the final deal is signed on June 30, the U.S. Senate must insist that it has the international standing of a treaty and demand that if it does not have the support of 67 senators, it is null and void.
In the meantime, those congressmen and senators who want to pretend that they are attentive to the genuine concerns of the Saudis, the Israelis and patriotic Americans wary of the Iranian negotiations, are now able to hide behind the Iran Nuclear Review Act, this piece of paper that they recently signed.
As the late Congressman Tom Lantos — the only Holocaust survivor in the U.S. House of Representatives — was fond of saying, “The veneer of civilization is paper thin.”
Liberating Our Jerusalem
May 18, 2015Liberating Our Jerusalem, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 17, 2015
[T]here are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.
There will be peace when all the Jews are gone.
Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.
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When Jordan’s Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city– the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.
Since then, the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is, however, standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as “settlers” living in “settlements,” and describe them as an “obstruction to peace.” Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.
Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as “settlements” is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to tip his hat to. How does one have “settlements” in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that, you would have to ask London and Washington D.C., where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.
They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough, this religion’s name isn’t even Islam– it’s diplomacy.
Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that, when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while, when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.
Vice President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, “It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice President who didn’t deserve that.” David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an “affront” and an “insult.” Two for the price of one.
Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration.”Israel’s Provocation”, the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a “diplomatic bomb” that went off in Biden’s face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.
Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It’s in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It’s insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.
That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it’s completely and undeniably true.
When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn’t come crying that he’s been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were, then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It’s only the Jews who are the problem.
The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it’s as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.
But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.
There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that’s just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.
How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting; real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset Vice Presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stop or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.
That’s the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you’re a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It’s the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It’s the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that’s worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.
In 1966, Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.
When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine Providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.
As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six-Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War fought with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.
Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.
As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that they are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.
Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.
Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.
Ramadi’s fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad. Jordan warns US air strikes won’t stop the terrorists’ advance
May 18, 2015Ramadi’s fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad. Jordan warns US air strikes won’t stop the terrorists’ advance, DEBKAfile, May 18, 2015
Jordan’s King Abdullah has warned the Obama administration in an urgent message that US air strikes alone won’t stop the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq and Syria and, what is more, they leave his kingdom next door exposed to the Islamist peril. ISIS would at present have no difficulty in invading southern Jordan, where the army is thin on the ground, and seizing local towns and villages whose inhabitants are already sympathetic to the extremist group. The bulk of the Jordanian army is concentrated in the north on the Syrian border. Even a limited Islamist incursion in the south would also pose a threat to northern Saudi Arabia, the king pointed out.
Abdullah offered the view that the US Delta Special Forces operation in eastern Syria Saturday was designed less to be an effective assault on ISIS’s core strength and more as a pallliative to minimize the Islamist peril facing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf emirates.
DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that US officials refused to heed Abdullah’s warning and tried to play it down, in the same way as Secretary John Kerry tried Monday, May 18, to de-emphasize to the ISIS conquest of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s largest province.
At a news conference in Seoul, Kerry dismissed the Islamists’ feat as a “target of opportunity” and expressed confidence that, in the coming days, the loss “can be reversed.”
The Secretary of State’s words were unlikely to scare the Islamists, who had caused more than 500 deaths in the battle for the town and witnessed panicky Iraqi soldiers fleeing Ramadi in Humvees and tanks.
Baghdad, only 110 km southeast of Ramadi, has more reason to be frightened, in the absence of any sizeable Iraqi military strength in the area for standing in the enemy’s path to the capital.
The Baghdad government tried announcing that substantial military reinforcements had been ordered to set out and halt the Islamists’ advance. This was just whistling in the dark. In the last two days, the remnants of the Iraqi army have gone to pieces – just like in the early days of the ISIS offensive, when the troops fled Mosul and Falujah. They are running away from any possible engagement with the Islamist enemy.
The Baghdad-sourced reports that Shiite paramilitaries were preparing to deploy to Iraq’s western province of Anbar after Islamic State militants overran Ramadi were likewise no more than an attempt to boost morale. Sending armed Shiites into the Ramadi area of Anbar would make no sense, because its overwhelmingly Sunni population would line up behind fellow-Sunni Islamist State conquerors rather than help the Shiite militias to fight them.
Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, who arrived precipitately in Baghdad Monday, shortly after Ramadi’s fall, faces this difficulty. Our military sources expect him to focus on a desperate effort to deploy Shiite militias as an obstacle in ISIS’s path to Baghdad, now that the road is clear of defenders all the way from Ramadi.
In Amman, King Abdullah Sunday made a clean sweep of senior security officials, firing the Minister of Interior, the head of internal security (Muhabarat) and a number of high police officers. They were accused officially of using excessive violence to disperse demonstrations in the southern town of Maan.
The real reason for their dismissal, DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources disclose, is the decline of these officials’ authority in the Maan district, in the face of the rising influence of extremist groups identified with Al Qaeda and ISIS, in particular.
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