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Ben Shapiro: Obama’s Faith in Iran

March 26, 2015

Ben Shapiro: Obama’s Faith in Iran, Truth Revolt via Front Page Magazine, March 26, 2015

 

TRANSCRIPT:

President Obama has made it one of his chief missions to reach out to the Islamic Republic of Iran. His attempt to cut a nuclear deal with Iran – a deal that would leave Iran with a huge number of centrifuges intact and a crippling sanctions regime against it largely removed – is merely the latest signal that the President has faith that the Iranian dictatorship can be an ally to the United States. In 2009, Obama said this:

My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community.  This process will not be advanced by threats.  We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect. You, too, have a choice.  The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations.

In 2009, Iran began shooting dissenters in the streets.

Obama said this particular shooting was “heartbreaking” and blathered about the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice. Then he went back to catering to the mullahs.

In 2011, Obama did virtually nothing when Iran began filling the vacuum left by the United States in Iraq. This week, Obama signaled that he was ready to cut a deal with Iranian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad – a man he said “had to go” after Assad used weapons of mass destruction on his own people in 2011. Earlier this year, the Obama State Department labeled the radical Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen – a group that burns American flags and screams “Death to the Jews” – a “legitimate political constituency.” This week, Obama celebrated the Iranian holiday of Nowruz at the White House, with Michelle Obama gushing, “I think it’s so fitting we’re holding this celebration here today.”

How wrong is Obama about Iran?

Let’s look back at history. In 1979, after Jimmy Carter let the Shah of Iran fall, the Ayatollah Khomeini took over. The new regime promptly popularized the slogan “Death to America,” and took Americans at the embassy hostage. Every Friday for the last 37 years, massive prayer sessions led by the mullahs chant that slogan. Here’s one from last year, as our friends at MEMRI reveal:

 

Murals like this one are not uncommon across Tehran.

It’s not just sloganeering. The bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983 was carried about by Hezbollah, a Shiite Iranian proxy group. The United States believes that Hezbollah was behind the bombing of US Marine barracks in Beirut that same year as well, and Reagan reportedly thought about bombing Iranian Revolutionary Guard stations in retaliation. The continuous kidnapping of Americans ended up leading to the Iran-Contra scandal when the Reagan administration began smuggling weapons to the Iranians in an attempt to free American hostages. During this period, the Iranian regime used child soldiers; the president encouraged those above the age of 12 to volunteer. A reported 95,000 children under the age of 18 were wounded or killed in the war.

Iran provided significant material support for the 9/11 hijackers. According to the 9/11 Commission Report:

Senior managers in al Qaeda maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is based mainly in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Al Qaeda members received advice and training from Hezbollah. Intelligence indicates the persistence of contacts between Iranian security officials and senior al Qaeda figures after Bin Ladin’s return to Afghanistan…we now have evidence suggesting that 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi “muscle” operatives traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001….In sum, there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.

The Commission concluded, “We believe this topic requires further investigation by the U.S. government.” No further investigation ever took place.

During the Iraq War, the Iranian government heavily facilitated the rise of Shiite militias dedicated to the murder of American troops. In Afghanistan, they provided material support to the Taliban to assist in the murder of American troops. All of this continued during the Obama administration. Obama’s own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said in 2011 that Iranian-backed militas were “killing our troops” in Iraq. He said that Iranian officials “know about it.” “Iran is playing an outsized role,” Mullen said. “That has to be dealt with. It’s killing our people.”

Obama’s solution: pull out of Iraq and hand the country over to Iran, which had already helped turn the country into shambles with its allied leader, Nouri Al-Maliki, cleaning security forces of Sunnis. His replacement is an even more pro-Iranian leader, Haider al-Abadi.

Even as the Iranian economy suffers from global sanctions and Saudi attempts to undercut Iranian oil prices, Iran’s expansionism grows. Iraq. Syria. Lebanon. Yemen. The Saudis live in fear. So do the Jordanians and the Egyptians.

Iranian power over the past three decades has meant thousands of dead Americans. But Obama keeps pushing for Iranian power nonetheless. Which means thousands more dead Americans in our future.

Categories: Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Shiite, Sunni, Terrorism, Theocracy
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US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program

March 25, 2015

US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program, Israel National News, Ari Yashar, Matt Wanderman, March 25, 2015

DimonaDimona nuclear reactor circa 1960sNational Security Archive/Flash 90

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.

The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.

Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATOcountries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.

The 386-page report entitled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations” gives a detailed description of how Israel advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s.

Israel is “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,” reveals the report, stating that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.

The revelation marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs.

The report also notes research laboratories in Israel “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,” the key labs in developing America’s nuclear arsenal.

Israel’s nuclear infrastructure is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,” it adds.

“As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960,” the report reveals, noting a time frame just after America tested its first hydrogen bomb.

Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally funded agency operating under the Pentagon, penned the report back in 1987.

Aside from nuclear capabilities, the report revealed Israel at the time had “a totally integrated effort in systems development throughout the nation,” with electronic combat all in one “integrated system, not separated systems for the Army, Navy and Air Force.” It even acknowledged that in some cases, Israeli military technology “is more advanced than in the U.S.”

Declassifying the report comes at a sensitive timing as noted above, and given that the process to have it published was started three years ago, that timing is seen as having been the choice of the American government.

US journalist Grant Smith petitioned to have the report published based on the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the Pentagon took its time answering, leading Smith to sue, and a District Court judge to order the Pentagon to respond to the request.

Smith, who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, reportedly said he thinks this is the first time the US government has officially confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power, a status that Israel has long been widely known to have despite being undeclared.

Categories: Department of Defense, Elections in Israel, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama
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The Myth of Netanyahu’s Racism

March 23, 2015

The Myth of Netanyahu’s Racism, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 23, 2015

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel’s cultural conflict is a complex one. It doesn’t just pit Jews against Arabs or Muslims against Jews, it pits Arab Druze against European Jewish leftists and Aramean Christians against Arab Muslims. The left prefers cheap shots to actually understanding the complexities of a country that can’t be summed up with a keffiyah and a protest sign. After their election defeat, Obama and the media have decided to reduce Israel to Netanyahu and Netanyahu to the devil. It’s the easy way out, but it fails to take account of men like Ayoub Kara or Father Naddaf, of the Likud landslide in Arab-al-Naim and of Lieberman’s wins in Arab towns and villages. The Jews and Arabs are more complex than the left would like them to be.

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Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party got its best numbers not in Jerusalem, where it only won a quarter of the vote, or Sderot, the city under siege where it still got less than half, or Maaleh Adumim, a city of some 40,000 known as a “settlement” because it is located in ’67 Israel where it also took less than half.

Its best numbers appear to have come from Arab-al-Naim, a Bedouin settlement, where it scored three-quarters of the vote.

The residents were uninterested in any of the accusations of racism being aimed at Netanyahu by the media. Instead they were interested in housing. As one resident put it, “I used to sleep in a cave with my goats. Now I ask my daughter what wallpaper she wants in her room.”

Netanyahu’s election comment about Arabs being bused in to vote has been seized on as a useful excuse to explain how the media’s poll numbers that showed Netanyahu losing align with the actual results by claiming that a rash of racist Israelis rushed to vote. But that fails to explain why the exit polls were still badly wrong. A more realistic explanation is that the media’s polling was biased against Netanyahu. But it’s easier for the media to accuse Netanyahu of racism than admit to its own biases.

When Netanyahu warned about Arabs being bused in, he obviously was not talking about his own Arab voters, but the Joint Arab List whose MKs include Ahmed Tibi, who claimed that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, Tibi’s brother-in-law, Osama Sa’adi, who represented Hamas terrorists, Haneen Zoabi, who met with Hamas officials and defended the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens and Jamal Zahalka, who attended a Hamas rallyand claimed that Israel would be destroyed.

Also on the list is Masud Ghanim, a Muslim Brotherhood member who called for replacing Israel with an Islamic Caliphate and stated that he supports Hezbollah.

The Joint Arab List is composed of several parties. Hadash has its roots in the Israeli Communist Party. Despite the name, it rejects Israel and its only remaining Jewish MK is Boris ‘Dov’ Khenin, the son of David Khenin the party’s co-founder and General Secretary of the Communist Youth Union. Balad was founded by Azmi Bishara who fled Israel after being investigated as an enemy spy. Balad had already been suspended for calling for war against Israel. The United Arab List emerged out of the local Muslim Brotherhood franchise and is stacked with Muslim Brotherhood members.

The Muslim Brotherhood believes that the Islamic apocalypse requires exterminating the Jews.

The Joint Arab List unites Communists with Islamists into one big political terrorist organization. The reasons why Netanyahu and Israelis would be concerned about its members picking up seats are obvious. Imagine Communists sitting in the Senate during the Cold War and Al Qaeda members sitting there now. As Arab al-Naim shows, the issue was not ethnicity; it was Islamic terrorism.

The media’s cries of racism fail to explain places like Arab-al-Naim where the Arab vote helped Netanyahu. Or the Arab-Druze town of Abu Sinan where Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, despite its media image as right-wing, captured almost 14 percent of the vote. But then again the “xenophobic” and “racist” party has Hamad Amar, a Druze IDF veteran, in the sixth place on its list.

In Netanyahu’s Likud Party, Druze lawmaker Ayoub Kara returned to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. If Obama thinks that Netanyahu is far right, he hasn’t met Ayoub Kara who urged protesters, “Say ‘No!’ to Barack Hussein Obama and ‘Yes!’ to the nation of Israel.”

“Everyone understands that withdrawing from land will yield us nothing but a ‘red carpet’ at the ‘peace treaty’ signing ceremony,” he said during the campaign.

Netanyahu didn’t win Kara’s village of Isifya. The center-right Kulanu party running on a program of social development and economic reform did. The Likud barely placed, but Yisrael Beiteinu scored 10 percent of the vote.

While there is an Arab bloc, the Arab vote is also a lot more complicated than it seems.

There are Arab Christians who define themselves as Aramaic rather than Arab and minority groups such as the Druze and the Bedouin who have a different relationship with Israel than the stone-throwing Keffiyah-wearer prized by European protest tourists.

From the earliest days of the reborn state, entire clans and ethnic groups aligned for or against Israel. Thus the Al-Husayini clan, which gave the world Hitler’s Mufti and Arafat, led the campaign against Israel while the Abu Ghosh family maintained friendly relations with the Jews. Druze and Bedouin serve in the Israeli army and there is a growing movement of Arab Christians who have decided to serve as well.

Netanyahu has met with Father Gabriel Naddaf who has led the movement, and Naddaf identifies as Aramaic, rather than Arab, while encouraging other Christians to reclaim an Aramaic heritage. In Jish, the Maronite Christian center of the Aramean revival, the United Arab List won decisively, but Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu scored 11 percent. 5 people even cast votes for Yachad. Shas, the party of Middle Eastern Jews, came in sixth.

The media has accused Netanyahu of offering a bigoted appeal by warning about Arab voters being bused in. It doesn’t care to dwell on the subject of which group would be most moved by such an appeal. That would reveal certain inconvenient facts about the relationships of the Israeli left.

The Israeli left remains a project of European Ashkenazi Jews. The Middle Eastern Mizrahi Jews were refugees from Muslim persecution and want a strong leadership that protects the country. The left gets a fraction of its vote from Middle Eastern Jews. Netanyahu gets half his votes from them.

The Israelis most likely to respond to anti-Muslim rhetoric are refugees from Muslim countries. The lefty activists most likely to condemn them as racist colonizers emigrated from Russia and Germany.

Meretz, Israel’s farthest left party, has an Arab MK. It has no Mizrahi MKs. Yisrael Beiteinu has a Druze and a Mizrahi MK. Israel’s right is more fundamentally diverse than its left and its stronger stand on Islamic terrorism helps it pick up support from Jewish and non-Jewish minorities.

Lieberman does better than Netanyahu among some Arab voters because he projects strength. When he talks about cutting off the heads of traitors, he’s speaking with a vocabulary that is entirely familiar in the region. Nobody in the Middle East picks the weak horse and those Arabs who support Israel prefer the bellicose Lieberman to the more moderate Netanyahu.

“Even in a hundred years’ time, the Middle East will not speak Yiddish and the answer to terror is a deterrent penalty,” Ayoub Kara said.

Those Arabs that support Israel want to see a strong country and they don’t wring their hands when conservative Israeli politicians say politically incorrect things. The Joint Arab List wants to see it gone and those who vote for them are no more likely to spare the Jewish State no matter how softly it speaks.

Israel’s cultural conflict is a complex one. It doesn’t just pit Jews against Arabs or Muslims against Jews, it pits Arab Druze against European Jewish leftists and Aramean Christians against Arab Muslims. The left prefers cheap shots to actually understanding the complexities of a country that can’t be summed up with a keffiyah and a protest sign. After their election defeat, Obama and the media have decided to reduce Israel to Netanyahu and Netanyahu to the devil. It’s the easy way out, but it fails to take account of men like Ayoub Kara or Father Naddaf, of the Likud landslide in Arab-al-Naim and of Lieberman’s wins in Arab towns and villages. The Jews and Arabs are more complex than the left would like them to be.

Categories: Arabs, Christians, Elections in Israel, Islam, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Obama, Palestinians, Terrorists
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For Obama, Bibi’s words matter while Iran’s don’t

March 22, 2015

For Obama, Bibi’s words matter while Iran’s don’t, Times of Israel, Shmuley Boteach, March 22, 2015

(Please see also, Iranians Chant “Death to America” While Negotiations Continue. — DM)

President Obama says that Bibi’s words matter when it comes to a Palestinian state. “We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership,” he told The Huffington Post. The President used Netanyahu’s statement as cause for a “reassessment” of American ties with Israel.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest echoed the sentiment in last Thursday’s White House briefing that the Prime Minister’s words could bring punishment. “Words matter,” he said. There could be “consequences” for Netanyahu’s statements. “Everybody who’s in a position to speak on behalf of their government understands that that’s the case, and particularly when we’re talking about a matter as serious as this one.”

So let’s get this straight. When foreign leaders speak, it matters. What they say is consequential. Bibi’s going to have to pay for his remarks.

But I have one question. Why doesn’t any of this apply to Iran? Why, on Saturday Ayatollah Ali Khameini uttered the words “Death to America” even as John Kerry was expressing optimism the very same day that the United States would come to a nuclear accord with Iran!

Suddenly, Iran’s words don’t matter?

Taking this further, the most hair-raising aspect about the growing American rapprochement with Iran is that it has all happened while Iran has continued to repeatedly threaten the annihilation of the Jewish people. Ayatollah Khameini has called Jews dogs and tweeted as recently as this past November that “there is no cure for Israel other than annihilation.”

Now, if words matter, how can the United States continue to speak to his government while they are openly threatening a second holocaust? Why did President Obama and John Kerry not establish a repudiation of these genocidal words and threats as a precondition for any talks?

The hypocrisy is startling. And it leads to a more important point.

By now it’s clear to all that President Obama positively loathes Prime Minister Netanyahu more any other world leader. His hostility to the Prime Minister has become so pronounced that the President can no longer disguise or control it.

Am I the only one that finds it just a touch unseemly for the leader of the free world to hate the leader of the only free country in the Middle East?

The President has a good relationship with Erdogan, the tyrant of Turkey, who has destroyed his nation’s democracy and allows fighters to pass through his nation to join ISIS. President Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia to pay his personal condolences upon the passing of arch-misogynist King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a man who wouldn’t even allow women to drive a car. And he utters not an unkind word about Ayatollah Khameini, the world’s foremost terrorist.

But he hates Netanyahu. Go figure.

For years we Americans have heard that our President is cerebral and unflappable. That he famously remains cool under the most challenging circumstances. It turns out that this is true for every world leader except one, Benjamin Netanyahu, who makes the President’s blood boil.

Don’t we deserve to know why?

If the two leaders merely had bad personal chemistry, I could understand. They’re not the best of friends. Fine. But for Obama the hatred of Netanyahu has become positively visceral, personal, and irrepressible.

My own belief is this. President Obama is desperate for some foreign policy victories. There’s a year-and-a-half left to his Presidency and the world is on fire. From Iran to Boko Haram to ISIS to Putin to Hezbollah to Al Qaida and Hamas, bad guys are running amok under this president. American Foreign policy is a shambles.

The only ally President Obama can truly expert pressure on for a deal that would give him the lasting foreign policy legacy he needs and craves is Israel. And in the past Israeli Prime Ministers have proven so utterly malleable. American Presidents have squeezed them like lemons.

But Bibi refuses to be squeezed. He won’t play ball. He won’t withdraw from Judea and Samaria and allow “Hamastan” on his eastern border the way it is in Gaza. He won’t shut up about America’s capitulation to the Iranian mullahs that would leave them with a military-grade nuclear program. He won’t go quietly into the nuclear night while America appeases one of the most violent and vile regimes on earth.

This darned Bibi guy just won’t bend.

And our President finds the intransigence so utterly frustrating.

He prayed and hoped that someone else might win the Israeli election. And some of the President’s top political operatives went and worked for Herzog. But, huff and puff as he might, the President could not blow Bibi’s house down.

So now he’s stuck with him. A stick-necked Prime Minister, getting in the way of the President’s peace deals with Iran and the Palestinians.

And with no way of getting rid of the Israeli nuisance, all the President can do is continue to give interviews that express his dislike and frustration, not realizing that we’re reaching a point where the President is beginning to look positively un-Presidential and where is enmity is becoming unbecoming.

It’s called democracy, Mr. President. Bibi won. And it’s time for the world’s foremost democracy, the United States of America, to live with it and work with the man who has the mandate of the Israeli people, just as you have the mandate of the American people.

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Elections in Israel, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Palestinians, Supreme Leader, Two state solution
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Unstated Factor in Iran Talks: Threat of Nuclear Tampering

March 22, 2015

Unstated Factor in Iran Talks: Threat of Nuclear Tampering, New York Times,  and , March 21, 2015

JP-SABOTAGE-master675Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, center, said someone had tried to sabotage an Iranian reactor’s cooling system. Credit Laurent Gillieron/European Pressphoto Agency

[R]eaching an accord is quite different than reaching a state of trust. Inside Iran, there will be pressure to keep making slow progress on a nuclear program that is central to the ambitions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and thousands of scientists who have labored for years. And in the uneasy alliance among Israel, the United States and Europe there will be continued debate about whether to supplement diplomatic pressure with covert action to keep Iran from getting to the threshold of being able to build a weapon.

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WASHINGTON — In late 2012, just as President Obama and his aides began secretly sketching out a diplomatic opening to Iran, American intelligence agencies were busy with a parallel initiative: The latest spy-vs.-spy move in the decade-long effort to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Investigators uncovered an Iranian businessman’s scheme to buy specialty aluminum tubing, a type the United States bans for export to Iran because it can be used in centrifuges that enrich uranium, the exact machines at the center of negotiations entering a crucial phase in Switzerland this week.

Rather than halt the shipment, court documents reveal, American agents switched the aluminum tubes for ones of an inferior grade. If installed in Iran’s giant underground production centers, they would have shredded apart, destroying the centrifuges as they revved up to supersonic speed.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Sabotage
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France balks at the US-Iranian deal on five counts – not least with an eye on its Gulf ties

March 21, 2015

France balks at the US-Iranian deal on five counts – not least with an eye on its Gulf ties, DEBKAfile, March 21, 2015

hollande_obama-IranObama and Hollande fail to meet on nuclear Iran.

Why does Washington respect France’s right to balk at its nuclear policy but disallows prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s objections in the name of Israel’s security?

The answer is simple. It is easier to put the squeeze on the Israeli prime minister than the president of France or Gulf rulers. Obama has hit on the presentation of Netanyahu’s hawkish attitude as the main hurdle in the way of a nuclear deal as a useful tactic for dealing with the spreading opposition to the deal in Europe and the Persian Gulf.

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President Barack Obama failed to shift French President France Hollande from his objections to the nuclear accord taking shape between the US and Iran in the call he put through to the Elysée Friday night, March 30 [sic]. US Secretary of State John Kerry fared no better Saturday, when he met British, French and German Foreign ministers in London for a briefing on the talks’ progress intended to line the Europeans up with the American position. He then found, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, that France was not alone; Germany too balked at parts of the deal in the making.

The French are demanding changes in five main points agreed between Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif before the Iranians quit the talks Friday:

They insist that –

  • Iran can’t be allowed to retain all the 6,500 centrifuges (for enriching uranium) conceded by the Americans. This figure must be reduced.
  • Similarly, the stocks of enriched uranium accepted by the US to remain in Iranian hands are too large.
  • France insists on a longer period of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work before sanctions are eased. It is pushing for a longer moratorium – 25 years rather than the 15 years offered by the Obama administration – and guarantees at every stage.
  • The main sticking point however is France’s insistence that UN sanctions stay in place until Iran fully explains the evidence that has raised suspicions of past development work on a nuclear warhead design. The Iranians counter that they could never satisfy the French condition, because they would never be able to prove a negative and disprove evidence of a weapons program that is forged.There is no chance of Tehran ever admitting to working on a nuclear warhead – or allow US inspectors access to suspected testing sites – because that would belie supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s solemn contention that Iran’s nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and always has been.

DEBKAfile’s Gulf sources disclose that the tough French bargaining position in the nuclear stems partly from its intense ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, including the United Arab Emirates.

France maintains military bases in the Gulf, including air and unit units in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The emirates moreover have become the most profitable market for the French munitions industry.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have been pushing Paris hard not to sign off on the text shaping up between the Obama administration in Tehran because they believe it would place their national security at grave risk.

This raises an interesting question: Why does Washington respect France’s right to balk at its nuclear policy but disallows prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s objections in the name of Israel’s security?

The answer is simple. It is easier to put the squeeze on the Israeli prime minister than the president of France or Gulf rulers. Obama has hit on the presentation of Netanyahu’s hawkish attitude as the main hurdle in the way of a nuclear deal as a useful tactic for dealing with the spreading opposition to the deal in Europe and the Persian Gulf.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, France, Germany, Gulf states, Iran, Iran scam, Israel, Kerry, Khamenei, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1
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Security Challenges of the New Israeli Government

March 21, 2015

Security Challenges of the New Israeli Government, Middle East Forum, Efraim Inbar, March 19, 2015

1111Israel lies at the center of the territorial caliphate envisioned by ISIS – and that’s only it’s second greatest security concern.

The US is racing toward an agreement that will legitimize the nuclear threshold status of Iran

Israel’s main challenge is to maintain its freedom of action, while on a collision course with current American policy.

Israel must prepare for worst-case scenarios, not best-case dreams.

 

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A new Likud-led government will take office in Jerusalem in the upcoming weeks. The government will have to face many security challenges emerging from the turbulent strategic environment.

The most important issue is Iran. The US is racing toward an agreement that will legitimize the nuclear threshold status of Iran. Many key Mideast powers have signaled their displeasure with the nascent accord, as well as their desire to develop uranium enrichment capabilities on par with Iran.

The American attempt to offer a nuclear umbrella to forestall regional nuclear proliferation – which is a strategic nightmare – is doomed to failure. No Arab leader trusts President Obama. Therefore, only a military strike to destroy the Iranian capability to produce fissionable material needed for nuclear bombs can stop nuclear proliferation in the region.

The only country with ‘enough guts’ to do this is Israel. This decision must be taken by the next Israeli government. The timetable for such a strike is not to be determined by additional Iranian progress on the nuclear path, but by the perceptions of regional leaders of Iranian ambitions and power. The expansion of Iranian influence to Iraq and Yemen, in addition to its grip over Syria and Lebanon, has heightened threat perceptions. American willingness to accept a greater Iranian regional role undermines American credibility and underscores the need for Israeli action in the near future.

An Israeli strike is needed to prevent nuclear proliferation and to prevent imperial and Islamist Iran from acquiring hegemony in the Middle East. History indicates that such Israeli actions are not welcomed by American administrations, but are highly appreciated later on. In this case, it is Israel that will have to save the Americans from themselves.

Israel’s main challenge is to maintain its freedom of action, while on a collision course with current American policy. This is not an easy endeavor, but Israel has large reservoirs of goodwill in the US that should allow Israel to act on its cardinal security interests against the will of an unpopular American president.

Despite the fact that some of the Arab armies that posed a threat to Israel have largely disintegrated and the power differential between Israel and its Arab neighbors grows constantly, the Jewish state still faces great hostility from Islamist sub-state armed groups. Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad cannot conquer Israel, but have acquired impressive capabilities to cause massive damage to Israel. Large armored formations are still needed to tackle those challenges. In addition, Israel’s active defense missile capabilities must be augmented.

Unfortunately, the IDF is underfunded, which has led to cuts in ground forces and in training for the regular army and its reserves. Whoever will be the new defense minister has the task of securing a much larger, multi-year military budget on which the IDF can definitively plan a sustained force build-up. Israel’s strong economy can definitely sustain larger defense layouts.

Another area that needs attention is the navy. Over 90 percent of Israel’s exports travel via the East Mediterranean. Moreover, this area is rich in energy resources that are vital for Israel’s future prosperity. Yet, the East Mediterranean is increasingly becoming an Islamic lake.

Turkey under Erdogan grows more hostile every month. Syria is an Iranian ally, and its civil war has brought about the rise of Islamist militias of all kinds. Lebanon is largely ruled by Hezbollah – a Shiite radical organization aligned with Iran. Hezbollah occasionally perpetrates attacks against Israel and has threatened to hit Israel’s gas rigs at sea. Hamas, a radical Sunni terrorist group linked to Iran, has taken over Gaza. It has launched thousands of rockets into Israel and staged attacks on Israeli gas installations in the Mediterranean. In Sinai, a plethora of Islamist armed groups are challenging the sovereignty of Egypt and even attacked targets along the Suez Canal. Libya is no longer a real state and the Islamist militias are fighting to carve out areas of influence. In short, we may soon see real piracy and terrorist attacks in the East Mediterranean.

Israel’s responses must include a larger and stronger navy. This is an expensive project that has already started. Hopefully, all budgetary problems will be overcome. Fortunately, some of the vessels needed for this are procured in Germany (not the US), while others can be built in Israel if enough money is allocated.

The strategic landscape of the Middle East is begetting new leaders and new ruling elites. Israel’s intelligence apparatus faces a difficult job in identifying the important players and their modus operandi. Many of the devils Israel knew are no longer in power. This means greater uncertainty and higher chances of surprises. Since Israel cannot prevent all surprises (that is their nature), it must prepare for worst-case scenarios rather than be tempted by best-case, rosy dreams.

Categories: Arab nations, Caliphate, Foreign policy, IDF, International Community, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Terrorism
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Marco Rubio Delivers Blistering Speech on Obama’s Assault on Israel

March 20, 2015

Marco Rubio Delivers Blistering Speech on Obama’s Assault on Israel, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, March 19, 2015

(An extensive catalogue of Obama’s relations with Israel. — DM)

Categories: Diplomacy, Elections in Israel, Foreign policy, Iran, Islam, Islamism, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, U.S. Congress
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Obama’s Unraveling Foreign Policy

March 20, 2015

Obama’s Unraveling Foreign Policy, Front Page Magazine, , March 20, 2015

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Secretary of State John Kerry has long been an admirer of Bashar Assad. He absurdly characterized Assad as “a man who wants change” and advocated the return of Israel’s strategic Golan Heights to the Syrian dictator. Of course, had Israel heeded Kerry’s advice, ISIS, Hezbollah or Iran or perhaps all three would today be swimming in Israel’s Sea of Galilee.  In February 2009, in a sickening display of corrupt morals or lack of scruples, or perhaps both, Kerry was photographed having an intimate dinner with Assad and his wife. In 2011, the year that Assad commenced genocide against his people, he described the autocrat as a “very generous” man.

Kerry hasn’t lost a step since that time. His assessment of regional threats continues to be marred by poor judgment and delusion. On Face the Nation Kerry stated that “we have to negotiate with [Assad].” His State Department quickly backpedaled and tried to clean up the mess by issuing a nonsensical clarification but the very fact that such a statement would be uttered speaks volumes of Kerry’s abject lack of understanding. Imagine if a leader of the Allied command had issued a proclamation of willingness to negotiate with Hitler during World War II. Such a scenario of course would have been unthinkable but in the Obama White House, appeasement and vacillation rule the day.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Kerry astounded analysts when he announced that he had “great respect – great respect – for the religious importance of a fatwa.” The alleged fatwa that he was referencing was purportedly issued by Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Khamenei, opposing acquisition of nuclear weapons. Kerry has now officially incorporated Islamic fatwas into US foreign policy and is relying on the edicts of a medieval mullah as a cornerstone of his ongoing talks with the Islamic Republic.

Moreover, in an effort to appease the mullahs, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, recently issued a report to the Senate which removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats. Iran is the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism and employs proxy militias such as Hezbollah to foment regional instability and expand its hegemony. It has either directly or indirectly through its proxies, committed acts of terrorism on five continents. Yet the report is inexplicably devoid of such references. The only logical conclusion that one can draw is that the administration fears alienating Iran during the nuclear negotiations or alternatively, sees Iran as a positive regional force and a potential ally. Either conclusion is frighteningly surreal and demonstrates with utmost clarity how far removed from reality this administration has become.

But while coddling the mullahs, the administration has been busy at work trying to undermine the region’s only democratic leader. A number of high-level Obama campaign operatives worked relentlessly with a left-wing organization called One Voice and its left-wing Israeli affiliate V-15, to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One Voice was also the recipient of a State Department grant of $350,000. Though One Voice and the State Department denied that any money was channeled into the campaign, a US Senate panel has commenced an investigation into possible links between the State Department and efforts to meddle in an overseas election campaign of a long-time ally.

Clearly, One Voice is nervous. Shortly after lawmakers began questioning One Voice’s use of State Department funds, the nonprofit organization filed for a new IRS status that would enable it to engage in political activism. Its current status precludes such activity. It would indeed be interesting to see how quickly the IRS moves to grant One Voice’s application given the way the government agency dragged its heels on 501c3 exemptions for groups perceived to be right-wing or pro-Israel. My guess is that the IRS will move rather quickly on this one.

Despite Obama’s best efforts to publicly disparage Netanyahu – who among us can forget “chickensh*tgate” – and the State Department’s covert meddling campaign, Netanyahu secured a clear and decisive victory over his left-wing rivals. Israeli voters, who overwhelmingly distrust Obama, did not take kindly to Obama’s interference and the voting outcome reflected that.

Irrespective of Obama’s personal animus toward Israel’s democratically elected leader, the Israeli-US alliance transcends personality differences and endures because of shared moral values and strategic interests. That used to be the conventional wisdom before Obama’s ascendancy but the president has done all that is within his power to translate his loathing for Netanyahu to wrecking relations with the Jewish State. During Operation Protective Edge, while Hamas was hurling rockets at Israeli civilian population centers, Obama held up shipments of Hellfire missiles to Israel. His Secretary of State in the meantime, was busy adopting the talking points of Israel’s sworn enemies trying to force the Israelis to accept a ceasefire arrangement – unanimously rejected by the Israeli cabinet – that made no mention of Israel’s security concerns.

But the Mideast is not the only place where Obama has fouled things up. In 1994 the United States (along with Great Britain and the Russian Federation) signed a security agreement with Ukraine whereby the signatories would guarantee Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and Ukraine would in exchange, relinquish its arsenal of nuclear weapons, relics of the Cold War.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, as the memorandum of understanding came to be known, proved to be as worthless as the paper it was written on. Russia’s land grab in Crimea as well as its territorial infringements in eastern Ukraine and Obama’s feckless response to this naked aggression has caused great harm to American credibility. The United States still refuses to supply the poorly equipped Ukrainian army with weapons sorely needed to combat a Russian-backed insurgency.

The lack of seriousness in which the administration regards the dire situation in eastern Ukraine was amply demonstrated by National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Appearing on the Charlie Rose show, Rice was asked about military setbacks experienced by Ukrainian forces in the recent fighting. Her response? Uncontrollable laughter as though she was some vapid, giggling high school teen. It was an embarrassing display, even for an Obama official.

We are currently witnessing the unraveling of a pusillanimous American foreign policy marked by vacillation, indecision and naiveté where dictators are coddled and allies are undermined; where sound decisions based on geo-political dictates are substituted by fatwas and other bizarre religious edicts and where discussion on serious foreign policy issues is addressed with laughter and giggles. The Obama administration has substantially undermined the credibility of the United States among friends and enemies alike. The next administration, Democrat or Republican, will be forced to pick up the shattered pieces of a broken, dysfunctional and directionless foreign policy, the sad but natural result of eight years of Obama.

Categories: Assad, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Free world, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Islamism, Israel, Kerry, Khamenei, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Peace process
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Pres Obama Dismisses Questions About Netanyahu’s Election Win – Cavuto

March 20, 2015

Pres Obama Dismisses Questions About Netanyahu’s Election Win – Cavuto, via You Tube, March 19. 2015

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Elections in Israel, Fatah, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, International Community, Iran scam, Islamism, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Peace process, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, United Nations
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