IRGC Navy Commander Ali Fadavi Presents New “Strategic” Weapon, Says: We Have Deterred America, MEMRI Videos via You Tube, March 4, 2015
Posted tagged ‘Middle East’
IRGC Navy Commander Ali Fadavi Presents New “Strategic” Weapon, Says: We Have Deterred America
March 4, 2015Arab Commentators Strongly Back Netanyahu on Congress Speech, Iran Nuclear Threat
March 4, 2015Arab Commentators Strongly Back Netanyahu on Congress Speech, Iran Nuclear Threat, Algemeiner, Shirym Ghermezian, March 3, 2015
Prime Minister Netanyahu addresses Congress on the Iranian nuclear threat. Photo: Screenshot.
“What is absurd, however,” Abbas continues, “is that despite this being perhaps the only thing that brings together Arabs and Israelis (as it threatens them all), the only stakeholder that seems not to realize the danger of the situation is President Obama, who is now infamous for being the latest pen-pal of the Supreme Leader of the World’s biggest terrorist regime: Ayottallah Ali Khamenei.”
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Leading Arab opinion makers weighed in on the controversy surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Tuesday and expressed strong support for his stance on the Iranian nuclear threat.
In an op-ed for the Saudi Arabian daily Al-Jazirah on Monday, columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj asserted that Netanyahu is justified in his campaign against the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, according to The Middle East Media Research Institute. Al-Faraj said Netanyahu’s effort to prevent the signing of the agreement is in the interests of the Gulf states, and that the prime minister “is right to insist on addressing Congress about the nuclear deal.”
“I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury,” Al-Faraj wrote. “I believe that Netanyahu’s conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents.”
The powerful editor-in-chief of Al Arabiya English, Faisal J. Abbas, published a column on Tuesday in which he asked Obama to take notes from Netanyahu on the extent of the Iranian threat. In the piece, titled “President Obama, Listen to Netanyahu on Iran,” Abbas says, “one must admit, Bibi did get it right, at least when it came to dealing with Iran.”
Abbas notes that Netanyahu “hit the nail right on the head” when he said at a recent event in Tel Aviv that “Middle Eastern countries are collapsing and that ‘terror organizations, mostly backed by Iran, are filling in the vacuum.’” In his remarks, Netanyahu “managed to accurately summarize a clear and present danger, not just to Israel (which obviously is his concern), but to other US allies in the region,” Abbas writes.
“What is absurd, however,” Abbas continues, “is that despite this being perhaps the only thing that brings together Arabs and Israelis (as it threatens them all), the only stakeholder that seems not to realize the danger of the situation is President Obama, who is now infamous for being the latest pen-pal of the Supreme Leader of the World’s biggest terrorist regime: Ayottallah Ali Khamenei.”
Abbas slams Obama’s “controversial take on managing global conflicts that raises serious questions.” The “real Iranian threat” says Abbas, is not just the country’s nuclear ambitions, “but its expansionist approach and state-sponsored terrorism activities which are still ongoing.”
Netanyahu, Churchill and Congress
March 2, 2015Netanyahu, Churchill and Congress, The Gatestone Institute, Richard Kemp, March 1, 2015
There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill’s speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu’s today; both with no less purpose than to avert global conflagration. And, like Churchill’s in the 1930s, Netanyahu’s is the lone voice among world leaders today.
There is no doubt abut Iran’s intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz. Israel is not the only target of Iranian violence. Iran has long been making good on its promises to mobilize Islamic forces against the US, as well as the UK and other American allies. Attacks directed and supported by Iran have killed an estimated 1,100 American troops in Iraq in recent years. Iran provided direct support to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.
Between 2010 and 2013, Iran either ordered or allowed at least three major terrorist plots against the US and Europe to be planned from its soil. Fortunately, all were foiled.
Iran’s ballistic missile program, inexplicably outside the scope of current P5+1 negotiations, brings Europe into Iran’s range, and future development will extend Tehran’s reach to the US.
It is not yet too late to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. In his 1941 speech to Congress, Churchill reminded the American people that five or six years previously it would have been easy to prevent Germany from rearming without bloodshed. But by then it was too late.
This vengeful and volatile regime must not in any circumstances be allowed to gain a nuclear weapons capability, whatever the P5+1 states might consider the short-term economic, political or strategic benefits to themselves of a deal with Tehran.
In a few days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the US Congress for the third time. The only other foreign leader to have had that privilege was Winston Churchill. Like Churchill when he first spoke to Congress in December 1941, Netanyahu is taking a risk.
For Churchill the risk was to his life — he had to make a hazardous transatlantic voyage aboard the battleship HMS Duke of York through stormy, U-boat infested waters. For Netanyahu the risk is to his own political life and to his country’s relationship with the United States, given the intense presidential opposition to his speech.
But like Churchill was, Netanyahu is a fighting soldier and, like Churchill, a tough political leader, unafraid to shoulder such risks when so much is at stake. And in both cases, the stakes could not be higher, greater than their own lives, political fortunes or rivalries and affecting not just their own countries and the United States, but the whole of the world.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of U.S. Congress on May 24, 2011. (Image source: PBS video screenshot)
There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill’s speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu’s today: both with no less a purpose than to avert global conflagration.
Speaking days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill summarized the course of the war thus far but then concluded with a dramatic appeal to the American people for Anglo-American unity to prevent conflict in the future, reminding them that “twice in a single generation, the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us.”
“Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to mankind,” he asked, “to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for the third time?”
No less profound, and no less far-reaching, will be Netanyahu’s appeal for American-Israeli unity in the face of a new danger. A danger perhaps even greater than Churchill was able to comprehend in pre-nuclear 1941. Whereas Churchill spoke of a future, as yet unknown peril, Netanyahu will focus on the clear and present threat to world peace if Iran is allowed to produce nuclear weapons.
And like Churchill in the 1930s, Netanyahu’s is a lone voice among world leaders today.
In pursuit of both uranium and plutonium tracks to a bomb, as well as the development of long-range ballistic missiles, there is no doubt about Iran’s intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz.
It is Netanyahu’s duty to sound the alarm against such a prospect. It is Israel’s survival that is at stake. It is Israel that will have to conduct military intervention if the US will not. And it is Israelis who will die in any subsequent regional conflagration.
But this is not only an existential threat to Israel — it is a danger to other states in the Middle East and to us all. Doubtful of Western resolve, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are already investigating the development of their own nuclear capabilities.
An agreement that leaves Iran with the potential to achieve nuclear breakout will trigger a Middle East arms race that will exponentially increase the risks of global nuclear war, a risk multiplied by the vulnerability of regional governments to overthrow by extremists.
Iran’s ballistic missile program, inexplicably outside the scope of current P5+1 negotiations, brings Europe into Iran’s range, and future development will extend Tehran’s nuclear reach to the US. The world’s number one sponsor of terrorism, the regime of the ayatollahs would have no qualms about supplying their terrorist proxies with nuclear weapons.
This is the greatest threat the world faces today. Yet all the signals suggest that the P5+1, driven by President Obama’s apparent desperation for détente with Tehran, is already set on a path towards 1930s-style appeasement that will end with Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
The view that Cold War style containment and mutual deterrence could prevent this apocalyptic, fanatical regime from using its nuclear weapons is dangerously naïve. Yet the Western leaders who seem to be on the verge of reaching an agreement are not naïve. Lacking the moral strength to face down Iran, they see deception and appeasement as the only way out of their dilemma.
To gauge their intentions, we do not need to rely just on frequent Iranian threats, such as those of General Hossein Salami, who said recently, with negotiations still under way: “As long as the US continue to use the Islamic world as the scene for their regional policies, all the forces of the Islamic world will undoubtedly be mobilized against them.” In the same interview, he threatened Israel too: “The very existence of the Zionist entity and its collapse are of crucial importance.”
Iran’s determination to bring about the violent collapse of the “Zionist entity” is continuously manifested in its directing and funding of armed attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians at home and overseas, by proxies including Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Gaza conflict last summer, for example, owed much to Iranian funding and weaponry.
Just a few weeks ago, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Mohammad Allahadi was operating with senior Hizballah commanders to set up a new front on Syrian territory in the Golan, from which to launch attacks against Israel. He was killed by an Israeli air strike while visiting his planned area of operations.
Israel is not the only target of Iranian violence. Iran has long been making good on its promises to mobilize Islamic forces against the US, as well as the UK and other American allies. Attacks directed and supplied from Tehran killed an estimated 1,100 American troops in Iraq in recent years. Strikes have been facilitated in Afghanistan, killing US, British and other Coalition soldiers.
Iran provided direct support to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks and continues to harbor Al Qaeda terrorists. Between 2010 and 2013, Tehran either ordered or allowed at least three major terrorist plots against the US and Europe to be planned from its soil. Fortunately, all were foiled. Direction, support and facilitation to both Sunni and Shia terrorist groups in planning attacks against the US and its allies continues today.
This vengeful and volatile regime must not in any circumstances be allowed to gain a nuclear weapons capability, whatever the P5+1 states might consider the short-term economic, political or strategic benefits to themselves of a deal with Tehran.
Even before the world’s first experience of nuclear bombing in August 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt both understood the dangers of allowing their enemies and potential enemies to acquire such capability. When Allied intelligence identified a Nazi uranium production plant in Oranienburg in eastern Germany, 612 bombers destroyed it in a single raid in March 1945 with 1,506 tons of high explosives and 178 tons of incendiary bombs, to prevent it falling into the hands of advancing Russian troops.
Only a strong stand by the West, and rejection of an agreement that allows development of nuclear weapons, will ensure that such action does not in the future become necessary against Iran. In his 1941 speech to Congress, Churchill reminded the American people that five or six years previously it would have been easy to prevent Germany from rearming without bloodshed. But by then it was too late, and the world was engulfed in unprecedented violence.
It is not yet too late to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. The American people, the American government and the West as a whole must heed Netanyahu’s clear warning not to reach a deal that will allow the mendacious and malevolent Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons. Instead, sanctions that stand a chance of compelling Tehran to abandon its world-threatening ambitions must be maintained, and if necessary, increased.
Iran’s Expansive Role In The Middle East And Latin America, And The Nuclear Negotiations
February 28, 2015Iran’s Expansive Role In The Middle East And Latin America, And The Nuclear Negotiations, Center for Security Policy, Nancy Menges Luis Fleischman, February 26, 2015
(Aside from everything, what’s wrong with letting Iran get and use (or keep and use) nukes? Afer all, they are “our” partner for peace.)– DM)
As negotiations move forward on a nuclear arms agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the United States along with the P5+1 appears to be oblivious to activities of Iran in the Western Hemisphere and other regions of the world.
In the Middle East, Iran has most recently supported insurgencies in both Bahrain and Yemen. The pro-Iranian Houthis just overthrew the American backed government in Yemen which we were working with on terrorism related issues.
In Syria, Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, continue to support the Bashar Al Assad regime with Hezbollah fighting together with Assad’s forces. So far 200,000 people have been killed in Syria with millions dispersed in refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey. Hezbollah now has a perfect excuse to be involved in supporting Assad by invoking the need to defeat the bloody Islamic State. Hezbollah may think that this card could play well in the West which is trying to avoid direct intervention to defeat ISIS and would prefer that local forces to do the fighting.
In Iraq, hundreds of thousands of young Shiites are fighting as part of Iranian-backed militias, with a Shiite sectarian orientation likely to aggravate the sectarian strife prevailing in the country. These militias outnumber the Iraqi security forces, and in addition members of the Iranian revolutionary guards, the pro-Iranian Badr organization, and the pro-Iran Katain Hezbollah are heavily involved, mostly operating outside of Iraqi government control.
In Latin America ever since the election of the late Hugo Chavez to the presidency of Venezuela in 1998, Iran has become more embedded in the region in an effort to spread its influence. Several episodes and activities are illustrative of this point.
For at least ten years if not longer, there have been direct airline flights from Caracas to Tehran. Though these are commercial airlines no passengers are allowed and no one seems to know the cargo they carry but it is believed that weapons and members of Hezbollah or the Iranian Revolutionary Guards might be on those flights. Hezbollah has reportedly trained Venezuelan and other guerillas and has strengthened relations with a number of revolutionary regimes in the region. Likewise, tunnels built across the Mexican-American border are akin to those built by Hezbollah along the Israeli/Lebanese border.
In 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder accused the Iranian Quds Force of plotting to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. Though Iran vehemently denied complicity, the American government pointed to high officials in the Iranian hierarchy with having approved the plan.
Another Iranian activity that goes largely unnoticed is Iran’s outreach to several small Caribbean nations. In return for financial assistance, these nations have issued passports to Iranian citizens who wish to enter the United States but could not do so using their Iranian passports. Venezuela and a number of other countries connected directly or indirectly to ALBA countries are providing passports to Iranians. One of those holding such a passport is Moshen Rabbani, the man believed to be behind the terrorist attacks against the Argentinean Jewish Community Center (AMIA) in 1994.
Iran has also been the recipient of uranium from Venezuela.
Most recently the government of Uruguay confirmed that an Iranian diplomat left the country after Uruguayan security suspected him of collecting intelligence about the Israeli embassy in Montevideo.
The diplomat was thought to have placed an explosive device near the Israeli embassy early in January. The device was not particularly powerful but investigations carried out by Uruguayan intelligence indicated the possibility of Iran’s involvement in this serious incident. It was not clear to the authorities whether the device was intended to do harm or was just testing their ability to respond.
But what is astonishing about this story is that two months earlier another incident occurred which was intentionally kept out of the public eye by the Uruguayan government. Indeed, on November 24, somebody placed a suitcase near the building that belonged to the old Israeli embassy in Montevideo. Although the suitcase was empty, cameras located a car belonging to the Iranian embassy nearby. Inside there was a man that the police could not identify immediately but it was assumed he was an Iranian diplomat. The police concluded that the empty suitcase was aimed at testing Uruguayan security forces’ ability to respond.
The Uruguayan government apparently decided to expel the diplomat, who himself, is an appointee of the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That appointee was a vocal anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier and apparently served as a translator in the conversations between Ahmadinejad and the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. Furthermore, the man was reportedly working in Uruguay with Muslim converts that have been activists in a radical left wing party. These individuals could well have been potential candidates for terrorist recruitment; an activity Iran has been systematically performing.
Interestingly enough, Uruguay has been and is a friendly country towards Iran (without being a close ally like Venezuela and the other ALBA countries). Uruguay’s outgoing president, Jose Mujica, declared in the past that his country would pursue relations with Iran because it is good and convenient for the country. The Uruguayan foreign minister Luis Almagro was a commercial attaché in Teheran for about five years and under his watch commercial relations between the two countries flourished. Likewise, a Uruguayan parliamentary delegation visited Teheran to strengthen relations and Almagro himself defined Uruguay and Iran as “two countries that fight against injustice and oppression”. (Almagro is the most likely candidate to be the next Secretary General of the Organization of American States).
The incident in Uruguay is another instance where Iran once again displays its nature as a terrorist entity that does not hesitate in using its embassies and the good faith of the host countries to apply its lethal methods. This is what Iran did in Argentina previous to the two deadly terrorist attacks against the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community center.
Why shouldn’t Iran be doing so if there is no demand for Iran to stop supporting and encouraging terrorism? After all, a year ago Argentina signed a memorandum with Iran where representatives from that country would be part of the investigation into a terrorist attack where Iran remains the main suspect. By the same token, the chief investigator of the terrorist attack, Mr. Nisman, is dead because he dared to investigate a suspected cover up by the Argentinean government-a government that allegedly wanted to exonerate Iran.
Furthermore, the Argentinean foreign minister Hector Timerman summoned the American and Israeli Ambassadors and asked that these two countries stop meddling in Argentinean internal affairs and stop bringing Middle East conflicts to Argentina. The irony of this statement is that Iran chose Argentina as the target of its’ own intense hatred and violence.
Iranians probably laugh at these events where they are being given a pass over and over again. So, the fact that Iranians may have considered an attack on the Israeli Embassy in a country that is friendly to them such as Uruguay shows the ruthless nature of the regime and how little relations or agreements mean to them.
The negotiations between Iran and the P 5 +1 are mainly focused on Iran’s nuclear program. Thus, Iran is treated as a partner in a negotiation over a specific issue but Iran’s terrorist and treacherous nature is not a factor being considered in this equation.
At this point the U.S. strategy could well be to try to reach an agreement with Iran where the latter would be allowed to enrich uranium at a low level. However, there could be a possibility that if Iran decides to develop nuclear weapons, it could take the Iranians a short time to develop them from the moment they make the decision to do so.
The examples of Iran’s activities show several negative signs. First, if Iran can betray friendly countries like Uruguay, why wouldn’t it betray the P5+1? Likewise, what makes us think that we can live with a terrorist subversive Iran that not only has good chances of having a dominant role in a post-ISIS Syria and Iraq but also expands its influence and activities beyond the Middle East including regions as far as Latin America (from where Iran can strike the U.S. via a terrorist attack or by placing missiles in friendly countries such as Venezuela or Nicaragua)?
Iran presents a very complex challenge. Iran’s non –nuclear, threat is not being discussed, nor considered. This possible nuclear arms agreement should not be treated, as if it were something comparable to a commercial transaction. After all, as a nation state, Iran for the last thirty five years has been the foremost exporter of terrorism.. As the United States along with the P5+1 continues with its negotiations with Iran, they might question whether as a non-nuclear power, Iran presents a threat to world peace and stability and if so how will that play out once they were to become a nuclear power.
On moral blindness
February 27, 2015On moral blindness, Israel Hayom, Dror Eydar, February 27, 2015
1. Scholars who study our civilization a hundred years in the future will be able to point out the key geopolitical shifts in the Middle East, the collapse of the geographical nations and the return to the ancient social borders, and the rise of radical Islam. They will describe how the Islamic Republic of Iran took over countries like Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, its tentacles of terrorism reaching every corner, including Gaza, Judea and Samaria.
They will study the Iranian nuclear issue and be able to quote hundreds of instances in which Iranian leaders vowed to destroy the Jewish state. But when they begin studying the Israeli society of our time, they will encounter a failure of logic. Amid a virtual consensus on preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb, they will not be able to understand the Israeli focus on bottles recycled by the prime minister’s wife, the electrician the prime minister hired and the frivolous reports that grabbed massive headlines while world powers were busy leaving Iran with the ability to manufacture a bomb. They will have trouble understanding what the Jews were arguing about while facing such an obvious threat.
In an effort to solve this mystery, the scholars will turn to historians who studied the 1930s in Europe: Western leaders’ willful blindness to Hitler’s explicit threats; Europe’s desperate longing for reconciliation with the fuhrer. They will review the history of France, which was warned in those years but failed to prepare an army. They will review Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of “peace for our time” while waving a worthless piece of paper. They will examine the history of European Jewry, which failed to accurately read the political map. Among other things, they will look at U.S. Jewry in the 1940s. They may read the memoirs of Rebecca Kook, the daughter of Hillel Kook, a prominent member of the Irgun.
2. In 1940, the members of the Irgun arrived in the U.S. at the behest of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, to recruit a Hebrew army to fight the Nazis alongside the allied forces. In 1942, when the extermination of Europe’s Jewry began to emerge, the delegation changed course and devoted themselves to saving Jewish lives. They had the nerve to challenge the official stance adopted by the Roosevelt administration — accepted with little opposition by the Jewish leaders of the United States — that the only way to save the Jews was to win the war.
The Irgun members pressured the leaders of the free world to make saving Jewish lives a goal of equal importance to winning the war, and to dedicate special resources to making it happen. They focused their efforts on campaigning in the media, among intellectuals, in the U.S. Congress and to the administration. They convinced then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board — an executive agency created to save Jews. It is estimated that the board was responsible for saving 200,000 Jewish lives.
The future scholars will delve deep into the battle waged by the Jewish leadership in America against the Irgun’s delegation. The mudslinging campaign against them was not led by the administration. It was spearheaded by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Sol Bloom — a New York Jew, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise and Nahum Goldmann of the American Jewish Congress and other Jewish leaders.
Every effort made by the Irgun delegation was met with criticism and active sabotage efforts. They claimed that their activity was too political, too vocal, too aggressive, and that in fact they did not represent anyone. Hundreds of letters were sent to senators and representatives and Jewish leaders. The letters said that the Irgun members were part of a fascist terrorist outfit from Palestine. Jewish activists handed out pamphlets warning that the delegation would bring catastrophe and destruction on the Jewish people.
Several explanations were provided for this hostile behavior. The main explanation was that Jewish leadership’s fear of tarnishing the image of the Jewish community. In a secret British Foreign Office document, Nahum Goldmann was quoted as saying that just as Hitler brought anti-Semitism to Europe, Hillel Kook would bring anti-Semitism to the U.S.
At the end of the 19th century, Germany’s Jews were also fearful of Zionism. It made them susceptible to accusations of dual loyalty, and labeled them as belonging in Palestine. That is why they resisted the Zionist movement and made extra efforts to be even more German than the rest of the Germans.
3. For the last 20 years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning anyone who would listen of Iran’s perilous ambitions. Much like Nazi Germany, Iran and radical Islam do not threaten only Israel but the entire free world. But the left-wing liberal mindset, inspired by U.S. President Barack Obama, complacently dismisses these warnings, often with a side of disrespect.
Over the last month, the White House and a long line of cultural figures and politicians have been confronting a far greater threat: Netanyahu’s upcoming speech at the U.S. Congress. The future historians will note the American Jews who disrespected the Israeli prime minister for fighting for the safety of his people. They will add to that list a number of Israelis who took pains to undermine Netanyahu’s legitimacy and sabotage his address.
One of these critics, Peter Beinart, recently slammed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel for urging Obama to join him at Netanyahu’s address.
“Wiesel is acutely, and understandably, sensitive to the harm Jews suffer. Yet he is largely blind to the harm Jews cause,” Beinart wrote. Cause to whom? To the Palestinians, of course. The American Left is stuck in its 1980s elitist morality that refused to see that the reality has changed.
There is no occupation anymore, Mr. Beinart. Certainly not in the way that you and your friends make it out. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria enjoy expanded autonomy — a de facto state with a national anthem, a flag, a government and enormous budgets. It is true that the IDF is present on the outskirts, because we do not trust our neighbors. But incidentally, they, too, do not trust themselves to ward off Hamas and the radical Islamists. Israel in fact protects the lives of the Palestinian leadership and population from the perils of the Islamic caliphate, which has the ability to turn the lives of these Arabs into a hell devoid of human rights, and heads.
4. This blindness is not just geopolitical, but it is also moral. We are students of the great teacher Rabbi Akiva, who in the second century classified the commandment to “love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) as a great principle of the Torah (Genesis Rabbah 24:7). In this he built on the work of Hillel the Elder who in the first century B.C.E. placed the entire Torah upon the foundation of this dictum (Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Shabbat 31a).
But the same Rabbi Akiva taught us that in the event of a conflict between your life and your neighbor’s life, “your brother shall live with you.” Namely, your own life comes first (Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Baba Mezi’a, 62a). That is the proper way to approach altruistic love. If you do not love your own life, or the lives of your own people, more than the lives of others, especially those who are hostile toward you, then you do not truly possess a moral understanding, but rather a nihilistic intellectualism that plays pretend in living rooms across the east and west coasts of the U.S.
Next Tuesday, truth seekers will be called upon to support Netanyahu when he addresses a joint session of Congress. The State of Israel needs your courageous support.
Special Report: How Iran’s military chiefs operate in Iraq
February 25, 2015Special Report: How Iran’s military chiefs operate in Iraq, Reuters, February 24, 2015
A tank belonging to the Shi’ite Badr Brigade militia takes position in front of a gas station in Suleiman Beg, northern Iraq in this September 9, 2014 file photo. CREDIT: REUTERS/AHMED JADALLAH/FILES
The face stares out from multiple billboards in central Baghdad, a grey-haired general casting a watchful eye across the Iraqi capital. This military commander is not Iraqi, though. He’s Iranian.
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(Reuters) – The face stares out from multiple billboards in central Baghdad, a grey-haired general casting a watchful eye across the Iraqi capital. This military commander is not Iraqi, though. He’s Iranian.
The posters are a recent arrival, reflecting the influence Iran now wields in Baghdad.
Iraq is a mainly Arab country. Its citizens, Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims alike, have long mistrusted Iran, the Persian nation to the east. But as Baghdad struggles to fight the Sunni extremist group Islamic State, many Shi’ite Iraqis now look to Iran, a Shi’ite theocracy, as their main ally.
In particular, Iraqi Shi’ites have grown to trust the powerful Iranian-backed militias that have taken charge since the Iraqi army deserted en masse last summer. Dozens of paramilitary groups have united under a secretive branch of the Iraqi government called the Popular Mobilisation Committee, or Hashid Shaabi. Created by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, the official body now takes the lead role in many of Iraq’s security operations. From its position at the nexus between Tehran, the Iraqi government, and the militias, it is increasingly influential in determining the country’s future.
Until now, little has been known about the body. But in a series of interviews with Reuters, key Iraqi figures inside Hashid Shaabi have detailed the ways the paramilitary groups, Baghdad and Iran collaborate, and the role Iranian advisers play both inside the group and on the frontlines.
Those who spoke to Reuters include two senior figures in the Badr Organisation, perhaps the single most powerful Shi’ite paramilitary group, and the commander of a relatively new militia called Saraya al-Khorasani.
In all, Hashid Shaabi oversees and coordinates several dozen factions. The insiders say most of the groups followed a call to arms by Iraq’s leading Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But they also cite the religious guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, as a key factor in their decision to fight and – as they see it – defend Iraq.
Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organisation, told Reuters: “The majority of us believe that … Khamenei has all the qualifications as an Islamic leader. He is the leader not only for Iranians but the Islamic nation. I believe so and I take pride in it.”
He insisted there was no conflict between his role as an Iraqi political and military leader and his fealty to Khamenei.
“Khamenei would place the interests of the Iraqi people above all else,” Amiri said.
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO HOSPITAL
Hashid Shaabi is headed by Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, a former Badr commander who once plotted against Saddam Hussein and whom American officials have accused of bombing the U.S. embassy in Kuwait in 1983.
Iraqi officials say Mohandis is the right-hand man of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Mohandis is praised by some militia fighters as “the commander of all troops” whose “word is like a sword above all groups.”
The body he heads helps coordinate everything from logistics to military operations against Islamic State. Its members say Mohandis’ close friendships with both Soleimani and Amiri helps anchor the collaboration.
The men have known each other for more than 20 years, according to Muen al-Kadhimi, a Badr Organisation leader in western Baghdad. “If we look at this history,” Kadhimi said, “it helped significantly in organizing the Hashid Shaabi and creating a force that achieved a victory that 250,000 (Iraqi) soldiers and 600,000 interior ministry police failed to do.”
Kadhimi said the main leadership team usually consulted for three to four weeks before major military campaigns. “We look at the battle from all directions, from first determining the field … how to distribute assignments within the Hashid Shaabi battalions, consult battalion commanders and the logistics,” he said.
Soleimani, he said, “participates in the operation command center from the start of the battle to the end, and the last thing (he) does is visit the battle’s wounded in the hospital.”
Iraqi and Kurdish officials put the number of Iranian advisers in Iraq between 100 and several hundred – fewer than the nearly 3,000 American officers training Iraqi forces. In many ways, though, the Iranians are a far more influential force.
Iraqi officials say Tehran’s involvement is driven by its belief that Islamic State is an immediate danger to Shi’ite religious shrines not just in Iraq but also in Iran. Shrines in both nations, but especially in Iraq, rank among the sect’s most sacred.
The Iranians, the Iraqi officials say, helped organize the Shi’ite volunteers and militia forces after Grand Ayatollah Sistani called on Iraqis to defend their country days after Islamic State seized control of the northern city of Mosul last June.
Prime Minister Abadi has said Iran has provided Iraqi forces and militia volunteers with weapons and ammunition from the first days of the war with Islamic State.
They have also provided troops. Several Kurdish officials said that when Islamic State fighters pushed close to the Iraq-Iran border in late summer, Iran dispatched artillery units to Iraq to fight them. Farid Asarsad, a senior official from the semi-autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan, said Iranian troops often work with Iraqi forces. In northern Iraq, Kurdish peshmerga soldiers “dealt with the technical issues like identifying targets in battle, but the launching of rockets and artillery – the Iranians were the ones who did that.”
Kadhimi, the senior Badr official, said Iranian advisers in Iraq have helped with everything from tactics to providing paramilitary groups with drone and signals capabilities, including electronic surveillance and radio communications.
“The U.S. stayed all these years with the Iraqi army and never taught them to use drones or how to operate a very sophisticated communication network, or how to intercept the enemy’s communication,” he said. “The Hashid Shaabi, with the help of (Iranian) advisers, now knows how to operate and manufacture drones.”
A MAGICAL FIGHTER
One of the Shi’ite militia groups that best shows Iran’s influence in Iraq is Saraya al-Khorasani. It was formed in 2013 in response to Khamenei’s call to fight Sunni jihadists, initially in Syria and later Iraq.
The group is responsible for the Baghdad billboards that feature Iranian General Hamid Taghavi, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Known to militia members as Abu Mariam, Taghavi was killed in northern Iraq in December. He has become a hero for many of Iraq’s Shi’ite fighters.
Taghavi “was an expert at guerrilla war,” said Ali al-Yasiri, the commander of Saraya al-Khorasani. “People looked at him as magical.”
In a video posted online by the Khorasani group soon after Taghavi’s death, the Iranian general squats on the battlefield, giving orders as bullets snap overhead. Around him, young Iraqi fighters with AK-47s press themselves tightly against the ground. The general wears rumpled fatigues and has a calm, grandfatherly demeanor. Later in the video, he rallies his fighters, encouraging them to run forward to attack positions.
Within two days of Mosul’s fall on June 10 last year, Taghavi, a member of Iran’s minority Arab population, traveled to Iraq with members of Iran’s regular military and the Revolutionary Guard. Soon, he was helping map out a way to outflank Islamic State outside Balad, 50 miles (80 km) north of Baghdad.
Taghavi’s time with Saraya al-Khorasani proved a boon for the group. Its numbers swelled from 1,500 to 3,000. It now boasts artillery, heavy machine guns, and 23 military Humvees, many of them captured from Islamic State.
“Of course, they are good,” Yasiri said with a grin. “They are American made.”
In November, Taghavi was back in Iraq for a Shi’ite militia offensive near the Iranian border. Yasiri said Taghavi formulated a plan to “encircle and besiege” Islamic State in the towns of Jalawala and Saadiya. After success with that, he began to plot the next battle. Yasiri urged him to be more cautious, but Taghavi was killed by a sniper in December.
At Taghavi’s funeral, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, eulogized the slain commander. He was, said Shamkhani, one of those Iranians in Iraq”defending Samarra and giving their blood so we don’t have to give our blood in Tehran.” Both Soleimani and the Badr Organisation’s Amiri were among the mourners.
A NEW IRAQI SOUL
Saraya al-Khorasani’s headquarters sit in eastern Baghdad, inside an exclusive government complex that houses ministers and members of parliament. Giant pictures of Taghavi and other slain al-Khorasani fighters hang from the exterior walls of the group’s villa.
Commander Yasiri walks with a cane after he was wounded in his left leg during a battle in eastern Diyala in November. On his desk sits a small framed drawing of Iran’s Khamenei.
He describes Saraya al-Khorasani, along with Badr and several other groups, as “the soul” of Iraq’s Hashid Shaabi committee.
Not everyone agrees. A senior Shi’ite official in the Iraqi government took a more critical view, saying Saraya al-Khorasani and the other militias were tools of Tehran. “They are an Iranian-made group that was established by Taghavi. Because of their close ties with Iranians for weapons and ammunition, they are so effective,” the official said.
Asarsad, the senior Kurdish official, predicts Iraq’s Shi’ite militias will evolve into a permanent force that resembles the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. That sectarian force, he believes, will one day operate in tandem with Iraq’s regular military.
“There will be two armies in Iraq,” he said.
That could have big implications for the country’s future. Human rights groups have accused the Shi’ite militias of displacing and killing Sunnis in areas they liberate — a charge the paramilitary commanders vigorously deny. The militias blame any excesses on locals and accuse Sunni politicians of spreading rumors to sully the name of Hashid Shaabi.
The senior Shi’ite official critical of Saraya al-Khorasani said the militia groups, which have the freedom to operate without directly consulting the army or the prime minister, could yet undermine Iraq’s stability. The official described Badr as by far the most powerful force in the country, even stronger than Prime Minister Abadi.
Amiri, the Badr leader, rejected such claims. He said he presents his military plans directly to Abadi for approval.
His deputy Kadhimi was in no doubt, though, that the Hashid Shaabi was more powerful than the Iraqi military.
“A Hashid Shaabi (soldier) sees his commander … or Haji Hadi Amiri or Haji Mohandis or even Haji Qassem Soleimani in the battle, eating with them, sitting with them on the ground, joking with them. This is why they are ready to fight,” said Kadhimi. “This is why it is an invincible force.”
Hero of the Middle East: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
February 23, 2015Hero of the Middle East: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, The Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, February 23, 2015
(Please see also Obama kept reform Muslims out of summit on extremism. — DM)
The courageous, historic speech yesterday by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islam, calling for the reform of Islam, was the result of the even more courageous, historic speech delivered a few weeks ago by Egypt’s devoutly Muslim President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the current American administration’s great friend, is the poison tree whose fruit is the Islamist terrorism embodied by the ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram and others.
Apparently some of the Sunni Arab States have not yet realized that their own national security, and ability to withstand Iran, depend on how strong Egypt is.
It is possible, in fact, that U.S. policy is to weaken the Sunni world seeking to unite under el-Sisi’s flag of modernity. With European complicity, the U.S. Administration is trying to defraud the Arabs and turn the Israel-Palestine conflict into a center of Middle Eastern chaos, in order to hide the nuclear deal they are concocting with Iran.
The treachery of the U.S. Administration is the reason why Egypt’s faith in the United States, which is supposed to defend the Arabs against a nuclear Iran, has effectively evaporated.
And now the greatest American insanity of all time: America and Turkey are arming and training Islamist terrorist operatives in Turkey, on the ground that they are “moderates” opposed to Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. They either ignore or are unaware that there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist terrorist. The other name of the “moderates” opposing Assad is ISIS.
The Muslim Brotherhood, in effect, runs Turkey. According to recent rumors, Turkey is also planning to build a nuclear reactor, “for research and peaceful purposes.”
Sheikh Dr. Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islam, yesterday delivered a courageous, historic speech in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, urging reform in religious education to curb extremism in Islam. Al-Tayyeb’s address was the result of an even more courageous and historic speech, delivered a few weeks ago by Egypt’s devoutly Muslim President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, at Al-Azhar University.
El-Sisi’s monumental statement, truly worthy of a Nobel Prize, is having a seismic result. Al-Sisi directed his remarks, about the ills of Islam to Islamic clerics in Egypt and around the world. It was enormously brave of him. He did not single out radical Islam, but he did call on all Muslims to examine themselves, carry out a religious revolution and renew their faith.
El-Sisi, a man of monumental courage, urged Muslims not to behave according to the ancient, destructive interpretations of the Qur’an and Islam that make the rest of the world hate them, destroy Islam’s reputation and put Muslim immigrants to Western countries in the position of having to fight their hosts. He claimed that it is illogical for over a billion Muslims to aspire to conquer and subdue six billion non-Muslims.
Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, delivered a historic speech to top Islamic scholars and clergy at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, December 28, 2014. (Image source: MEMRI)
Islam deals in depth with uniting the Muslim nation (umma) and mutual responsibility among Muslims, as though they were one entity. The Prophet Muhammad (S.A.A.W.) said that every drop of Muslim blood is more precious than the entire Kaaba. Thus the liberty ISIS took upon itself to burn alive a Jordanian pilot and 45 Egyptians, to spread terrorism throughout Syria, Iraq and Egypt and to kill other Muslims in various locations around the globe, claiming they were “infidels,” is heresy in and of itself.
The calls for the deaths of “a million shaheeds” and the killing of Jews for the sake of Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, as was done by Arafat in the past, and is being done now by his heirs in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, are a crime; they are extremist incitement that is opposed to the forgiving and compromising spirit of Islam. The murder and terrorism carried out by terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ] and other Islamist organizations against Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims is contrary to the modern Islam needed in the contemporary era.
El-Sisi was correct that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sunni ideology, which drives most of the extremist Islamist organizations around the world, preaches forced conversion of “infidels” to Islam at any price, or death. Some of the “infidels” are supposed to join Islam of their own accord(targ’ib), out of self-serving interest, and some not of their own accord (tarhib), out of fear and death threats. Such conversions are also contrary to the original Islam, which states that no one is to be forced to convert to Islam and that a calm religious dialogue should be held.
However, a few days after President el-Sisi’s speech, which attempted to unify Muslims and Christian Copts, the Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliated terrorist organizations increased their attacks on Egyptian civilians and security forces throughout Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, as well as murdering 21 Egyptian Christian Copts in Libya. The Muslim Brotherhood knows that behind the scenes, U.S. President Obama supports the movement, especially the branch in Egypt seeking to overthrow President Sisi. This approval from the U.S. encourages the Muslim Brotherhood to be even more determined to subvert and undermine Egypt’s stability, sabotage its economic rehabilitation and destroy the el-Sisi regime.
In this atmosphere of American support, the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis terrorist group in the Sinai Peninsula operates under Muslim Brotherhood protection. It recently changed its name to the “Sinai Province” of the Islamic State and swore allegiance to the “Caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It is currently working hand-in-hand with Hamas in the Gaza Strip to weaken el-Sisi’s Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula.
Other Islamist terrorist organizations also kill Egyptian civilians and security forces with bombs and assault rifles. In the name of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, they indiscriminately attack people on public transport, in airports and in public places, with the intent of retaking control of Egypt.
For this reason, an Egyptian court recently designated Hamas a terrorist organization, along with its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and outlawed both of them. In response, Qatar, a slippery agent in the service of America but also, treacherously, in the service of Iran, allowed armed Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operatives to be interviewed by its Al-Jazeera TV. The operatives called the Egyptian president a traitor to the Islamic-Arab cause and to those seeking to “liberate Palestine.”
At the same time, Qatar continues to use its Al-Jazeera TV to broadcast hate propaganda targeting the el-Sisi regime, to disseminate videos and to fabricate insulting quotes intended to cause friction between el-Sisi on one side and the leaders of the Arab world and the Gulf States on the other — and to keep them from giving hungry Egyptians economic aid.
As the date for the economic conference in Sharm el-Sheikh (in the Sinai Peninsula) nears, Al-Jazeera’s propaganda machine has moved into ever-higher gear. Apparently, some of the Sunni Arabs states have not yet realized that their own national security and ability to withstand Iran depend on how strong Egypt is.
The U.S. Administration could easily halt the subversion of Egypt, but not only does it turn a blind eye, it suffers from a peculiar form of ignorance that makes it fight ISIS while at the same time supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, the hothouse of most Islamic terrorist organizations, including ISIS. The damage done to Egypt and the cracks in the weak Sunni Muslim ranks in the Middle East will eventually harm American interests and expose the Gulf States to the increasing Iranian threat.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the current American administration’s great friend, is the poison tree whose fruit is the Islamist terrorism embodied by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram and others. This linkage has become obvious to all the Arab states, while the U.S. and Europe steadfastly ignore the danger to their own survival, and refuse to outlaw them.
It is possible, in fact, that U.S. policy is to weaken the Sunni world that is seeking to unite under el-Sisi’s flag of modernity. With European complicity, the U.S. Administration is trying to defraud the Arabs and turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a center of Middle Eastern chaos, in order to hide the nuclear deal they are concocting with Iran. That is why the West does not really want to rehabilitate the Palestinian refugees by settling them in the Arab states, and why the West continues to nourish false Palestinian hopes that perpetuate this conflict.
The treachery of the U.S. Administration is the reason why Egyptians’ faith in America, which is supposed to defend the Arabs against a nuclear Iran, has effectively evaporated.
In the meantime, Iran’s Houthi proxies have taken over Yemen, threatening the entire Persian Gulf from the south. The el-Sisi regime is currently in the market for new allies, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin recently paid a visit to Egypt to examine the possibilities of building a nuclear reactor, sounding the first chord of a regional nuclear arms race.
The problems of the Middle East begin in the United States: that was the claim of participants in the Al-Jazeera TV show, “From Washington.” They described American policy towards Egypt as hesitant, indecisive and undemocratic. They claimed that the U.S. Administration had not yet decided whether or not to support el-Sisi, who heralded change and the willingness to fight radical Islam (a fight America used to participate in) or to remain neutral and waffle, in view of Egypt’s presumed instability. The Americans seem to be putting their all money on the extreme Islamists, who they seem to think will eventually win the bloody conflict currently being waged in Egypt.
The Americans have forgotten that under Mubarak, the regime turned a blind eye to attacks against Israel that were carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood and their carefully fostered agents. Unfortunately, since el-Sisi was elected, Egypt itself has become a victim of radical Islamic terrorism. The U.S. Administration, however, appears clearly to hate el-Sisi, and seems to be doing its utmost to undermine him and see him thrown out.
Under ousted President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt was tolerant and patient toward the U.S. Administration’s best friends, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Islamist and Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Al-Qaeda, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, all of which set up camp in the Sinai Peninsula. These terrorist groups smuggled weapons in from Iran, Sudan, Libya and Lebanon; dug smuggling and attack tunnels; developed missiles and carried out terrorist attacks “only” against Israel, the current U.S. Administration’s other apparent enemy, even though so many American Jews foolishly voted for them.
Now those same Islamist and Palestinian terrorist organizations are striking a mortal blow to the security or Egypt, and killing its civilians and security personnel.
The Muslim Brotherhood, mindful of America’s pro-Islamist policy toward it, is deliberately indulging in a wave of terrorism in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. Muslim Brotherhood operatives there are targeting civilians, public transport, airports and natural gas pipelines, all to undermine Egypt’s internal security and bring down el-Sisi’s regime in favor of extremist Islamists and a nuclear-threshold Iran.
In the current international situation, the U.S. Administration has apparently finally cut a deal with Turkey — which will be flimsy and ethereal — that allows Turkey to do the only thing it really cares about: to bring down the regime of Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad.
The U.S. is also trying to cut a deal with Qatar, which along with Turkey openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist proxies in Egypt, Gaza, Syria and Iraq, who in general work against Western interests.
The ironic result is that Turkey plays host to both NATO and senior Hamas figures, while it deliberately ignores the slaughter by ISIS of Kurds and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood, in effect, actually rules Turkey. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party make it easy for foreign fighters to cross the Turkish border into Syria and join the ranks of ISIS. Meanwhile, the Turkish government wages a diversionary propaganda war against Israel. According to recent rumors, Turkey is also planning to build a nuclear reactor, “for research and peaceful purposes.”
Another surreal result is that Qatar hosts the U.S. military bases, while it finances and encourages terrorist organizations operating against Israel and the Egypt. It also panders to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual mentor of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terrorist who issues fatwas permitting the murder of civilians and approves death sentences for apostasy.
And now the greatest American insanity of all time: the U.S. and Turkey are arming and training Islamist terrorist operatives in Turkey, on the grounds that they are “moderates” opposed to Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. They either ignore or are not aware that there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist terrorist.
The other name of the “moderates” opposing Bashar Assad is ISIS; Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah are now even saying that the U.S. is arming ISIS.
In the meantime, the Egyptian army continues its struggle against Islamist terrorist targets in the Sinai Peninsula and Libya, unaided, and even undermined, by the U.S.
In view of the U.S. Administration’s collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, I am persuaded that in the near future it will be possible to find a joint Egyptian-Israeli-Palestinian formula for eradicating the Hamas-PIJ enclave of terrorism, this time by Arabs.
Most ironically of all, in the shadow of American zigzagging, a joint Arab-Israeli front is developing against Sunni and Shi’ite radicalism, and the Palestinians can only profit from it. Thus el-Sisi, who, with towering vision and courage, dares to speak openly about the poison tree of radical Islam and its fruit, when others are afraid, is a truly great Islamic hero.
Aiding Islamic Terrorists Is Our Foreign Policy
February 20, 2015Aiding Islamic Terrorists Is Our Foreign Policy, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 20, 2015
In the White House, Obama has tried to shape an Islamist future for the Middle East, favoring Islamist governments in Turkey and Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood. He saw his role as paving the way for the next generation of regional regimes that would be explicitly Islamist.Obama’s foreign policy in the region has been an elaborate exercise in trying to draw up new maps for a caliphate. The inclusion of terrorist groups in this program isn’t a mistake. It’s not naiveté or blindness. It’s the whole point of the exercise which was to transform terrorist groups into governments.
Obama’s foreign policy in the region has been an elaborate exercise in trying to draw up new maps for a caliphate. The inclusion of terrorist groups in this program isn’t a mistake. It’s not naiveté or blindness. It’s the whole point of the exercise which was to transform terrorist groups into governments.
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Obama says that we are not fighting a war on Islam. What he leaves out is that under his administration the United States is fighting in a civil war that is taking place within Islam.
It’s not a conflict between the proverbial moderate Muslim and the raging fanatic. That was an outdated Bush era notion. Instead Obama has brought us into a fight between Muslim governments and Muslim terrorists, not on the side of the governments we were allied with, but on the side of the terrorists.
It’s why Egypt is shopping for French planes and Russian nukes. Yemen’s government was run out of town by Obama’s new Iranian friends in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis are dumping oil.
Iran and Qatar are the regional powers Obama is closest to. What these two countries have in common, is that despite their mutual hostility, they are both international state sponsors of Islamic terrorism.
Obama’s diplomats will be negotiating with the Taliban in Qatar. Among the Taliban delegation will be the terrorist leaders that Obama freed from Gitmo. And Iran gets anything it wants, from Yemen to the bomb, by using the threat of walking away in a huff from the hoax nuclear negotiations as leverage.
In Syria and Iraq, Obama is fighting ISIS alongside Islamic terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and Iran. In Libya, he overthrew a government in support of Islamic terrorists. His administration has spoken out against Egyptian air strikes against the Islamic State Jihadists in Libya who had beheaded Coptic Christians.
At the prayer breakfast where he denounced Christianity for the Crusades was the foreign minister of the Muslim Brotherhood government of Sudan that has massacred Christians. Unlike Libya, where Obama used a false claim of genocide to justify an illegal war, Sudan actually has committed genocide. And yet Obama ruled out using force against Sudan’s genocide even while he was running for office.
The United States now has a strange two-tier relationship with the Middle East. On paper we retain a number of traditional alliances with old allies such as Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia, complete with arms sales, foreign aid and florid speeches. But when it comes to policy, our new friends are the terrorists.
American foreign policy is no longer guided by national interests. Our allies have no input in it. It is shaped around the whims of Qatar and Iran; it’s guided by the Muslim Brotherhood and defined by the interests of state sponsors of terror. Our foreign policy is a policy of aiding Islamic terrorists.
It’s only a question of which terrorists.
Obama’s familiar argument is that ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters shouldn’t be called Islamic terrorists. Not even the politically correct sop of “Radical Islam” is acceptable. The terrorists are perverting Islam, he claims. The claim was banal even before September 11, but it bears an entirely new significance from an administration that has put Muslim Brotherhood operatives into key positions.
The administration is asserting the power to decide who is a Muslim. It’s a theological position that means it is taking sides in a Muslim civil war between Islamists.
This position is passed off as a strategy for undermining the terrorists. Refusing to call the Islamic State by its name, using the more derogatory “Daesh,” denying that the Islamic terrorists are acting in the name of Islam, is supposed to inhibit recruitment. This claim is made despite the flood of Muslims leaving the West to join ISIS. If any group should be vulnerable to our propaganda, it should be them.
But that’s not what this is really about.
According recognition to a state is a powerful diplomatic tool for shaping world politics. We refuse to recognize ISIS, as we initially refused to recognize the USSR. Obama resumed diplomatic ties with Cuba. His people negotiate and appease the Taliban even though it was in its own time just as brutal as ISIS.
Obama is not willing to recognize ISIS as Islamic, but he does recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as Islamic. Both are violent and murderous Islamists. But only one of them is “legitimate” in his eyes.
Those choices are not about terrorist recruitment, but about building a particular map of the region. Obama refuses to concede that ISIS is Islamic, not because he worries that it will bring them more followers, this is a tertiary long shot at best, but because he is supporting some of their rivals.
The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism has brought a covert strategy out into the spotlight. Despite its name, it’s not countering violence or extremism.
The new director of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, the axis of Obama’s CVE strategy, is Rashad Hussain who appeared at Muslim Brotherhood front group events and defended the head of Islamic Jihad. In attendance was Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, yet another Muslim Brotherhood linked group, who had urged Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI and defended Hamas and Hezbollah.
In Syria, the United States is coordinating with Assad and backing the Syrian rebels, who have their own extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and even Al Qaeda. This could be viewed as an “enemy of my enemy” alliance, but this administration backed the Brotherhood before it viewed ISIS as a threat. Top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry, had focused on outreach to Assad under Bush.
They’re not allying with Assad and the Brotherhood to beat ISIS. They’re fighting ISIS to protect the Brotherhood and their deal with Iran.
In the White House, Obama has tried to shape an Islamist future for the Middle East, favoring Islamist governments in Turkey and Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood. He saw his role as paving the way for the next generation of regional regimes that would be explicitly Islamist.
The Arab Spring was a deceptive code name for a clean sweep that would push out the old leaders like Mubarak and replace them with the Muslim Brotherhood and other likeminded Islamists. Islamic terrorism, at least against the United States, would end because their mission had been accomplished.
Stabilizing unrest by putting the destabilizers in charge wasn’t a new idea. Carter helped make it happen in Iran. And the more violent an Islamic terrorist group is, the more important it is to find a way to stop the violence by putting them in charge. The only two criteria that matter are violence and dialogue.
So why isn’t Obama talking to ISIS? Because ISIS won’t talk back. It’s impossible to support a terrorist group that won’t engage in dialogue. If ISIS were to indicate any willingness to negotiate, diplomats would be sitting around a table with headchoppers in less time than it takes a Jordanian pilot to burn.
And that still might happen.
Obama isn’t trying to finish off ISIS. He’s keeping them on the ropes the way that he did the Taliban. Over 2,000 Americans died on the off chance that the Taliban would agree to the negotiations in Qatar. Compared to that price in blood, the Bergdahl deal was small potatoes. And if Obama is negotiating with the Taliban after all that, is there any doubt that he would negotiate to integrate ISIS into Iraq and Syria?
Obama’s foreign policy in the region has been an elaborate exercise in trying to draw up new maps for a caliphate. The inclusion of terrorist groups in this program isn’t a mistake. It’s not naiveté or blindness. It’s the whole point of the exercise which was to transform terrorist groups into governments.
Stabilizing the region by turning terrorists into governments may sound like pouring oil on a fire, but to progressives who believe in root causes, rather than winning wars, violence is a symptom of discontent. The problem isn’t the suicide bomber. It’s our power structure. Tear that down, as Obama tried to do in Cairo, and the terrorists no longer have anything to fight against because we aren’t in their way.
Bush tried to build up civil society to choke off terrorism. Obama builds civil society around terrorists.
Obama does not believe that the terrorists are the problem. He believes that we are the problem. His foreign policy is not about fighting Islamic terrorists. It is about destroying our power to stop them.
He isn’t fighting terrorists. He’s fighting us.
Why is Obama fixated on Iran?
February 20, 2015Why is Obama fixated on Iran? Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, February 20, 2015
America is ready to legitimize a seismic shift in the global balance of power through a grand civilizational bargain with the ayatollahs of Iran.
It is ardor for Islam and sympathy for Islamic ambitions of global leadership, not just distaste for American overreach, that apparently fuels Obama’s secretive dash toward a deal with Iran.
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Why does U.S. President Barack Obama so desperately want a deal with Iran? Why is he so fixated on a grand bargain with the Islamic republic, the world’s biggest killer of Americans? What explains the president’s passion to embrace the radical mullahs of Tehran, despite the fact that all America’s traditional allies in the region are calling for him to check Iran’s advances? Why the deferential approach that seeks Iran’s partnership, instead of its isolation?
The question becomes even sharper when you consider the fact that Iran is patently not seeking integration in the Middle East or reconciliation with the West, but rather obviously domination of the region and apocalyptic victory over the West.
After all, you don’t have to be an expert to discern the expansionist and threatening Iranian strategy. Tehran is seeking to create a land corridor under its domination from the Persian Gulf through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. The only missing link in this land bridge of Shiite supremacy is Anbar province in western Iraq, now under Islamic State control. Now you understand why Iranian troops are leading the fight against ISIS in this zone.
What is harder to understand are American airstrikes against ISIS in Anbar, which seem to be tailored to match the movements of Iranian ground advances. The clear U.S.-Iranian military coordination in this theater of operations gives lie to Washington’s denials that it has already entered into a tacit alliance with Iran.
While the defeat of ISIS is a rational American policy goal, acquiescence to Iranian ascendancy in ISIS’s stead is not. Nor is American acceptance of the Iranian takeover of Yemen, through its Zaydi/Houthi Shiite allies — which gives Iran choke-off control of the vital Bab el-Mandeb waterway at the opening the Red Sea. Obama’s Washington hasn’t even whimpered in protest or concern about this.
We also have no indication that in its current negotiations with Tehran the administration has tackled Iranian adventurism in Syria and Lebanon, and along Israel’s northern and southern borders. Just the opposite: The administration says that the talks with Iran have been narrowly focused on centrifuges and uranium stockpile limits. Iran’s regional subversion (plus its long-range missile capabilities and its human rights record, etc.) has not been on the agenda.
I don’t believe for a second that Obama truly thinks he can bring about substantial moderation of Iranian diplomatic and military behavior; that by giving Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the comprehensive sanctions relief and renewed international legitimacy that Iran seeks, the Islamic republic will stop being the expansionist and aggressive Islamic republic it is.
That’s just not believable. Iran has consistently cast its quest for regional power as a movement of “Islamic resistance” against the U.S. and its sidekick, Israel. There is no basis for the assumption that moving to a less polarized relationship with Iran will accelerate a transition toward a more democratic, less theocratic, and less expansionist regime within Iran. On the contrary: A nuclear deal that lifts sanctions without addressing Iran’s regional ambitions would have the effect of greatly strengthening Iran’s hand.
And indeed, an Iranian Islamic empire is emerging in vast swaths of territory, from Shiraz to Sanaa and from Tabriz to Tripoli, right under Obama’s nose.
So again, what could possibly explain Obama’s relentless pursuit of strategic partnership with Iran — a partnership that is so perceptibly detrimental and dangerous to the West and to Israel and other long-standing American allies in the region?
A spate of recent articles by American analysts (Anthony Cordesman, Bill Kristol, Colin Dueck, Eli Lake, Elliott Abrams, Eric Edelman, Jonathan Tobin, Josef Joffe, Michael Doran, Michael Ledeen, Raymond Ibrahim, Victor Davis Hanson, Walter Russell Mead) have sought to plumb the depths of Obama’s fervor for rapprochement with Iran.
They mostly conclude that the roots of Obama’s approach rest in the fairly widespread, basically liberal, and quintessentially leftist convictions that America has for decades been sinful and diplomatically domineering, and must atone for its arrogance through retrenchment and accommodation. Obama shares the progressive aversion to the use of American power. Hence his chronic need to apologize for it.
Thus, U.S. Cold War culpability — in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, South America and Cuba — is a burden on America that must be addressed by shrinking America’s global footprint, and allowing indigenous, revolutionary movements to legitimately emerge and stabilize.
As such, the rules of nuclear non-proliferation are an unfair Western construct and need not apply to Iran. China is an authentic power with vast continental rights. And Israel is an abnormality, a Western outpost of capitalism and privilege where it has never really belonged, an irritant that should be treated like any other country as much as politically possible — no more.
In short, Obama believes that he will be leaving the world a better place by cutting America down to size.
To me, this is an insufficient explanation of Obama’s symptoms. Nor does it help to call Obama messianic and self-absorbed — as in George Will’s delicious quip this week that “If narcissism were oil, this president would be Saudi Arabia.”
None of this explains the depth of commitment to a deal with Iran that Obama has evinced since his first day in office (and perhaps, even before taking office, as Michael Doran has sought to show in Mosaic magazine). Nor does it explain the administration’s commitment to keeping everybody in the dark about the extent of its apparent pact with Iran.
It seems to me that Obama’s fervor for Iran lies somewhere much more fundamental: In a deep-seated ideological belief that Islam has a rightful leadership place in the world.
Consider the fact that Obama’s inaugural address abroad was “A New Beginning,” delivered in Cairo in 2009 — a contrite appeal to the Muslim world for forgiveness and for partnership. Go back and listen to Obama wax eloquent about “hearing the call of the azaan” as a young man in Indonesia, and about the historical achievements of Islamic civilization in algebra and architecture. This is Obama speaking from the recesses of his soul.
Consider Obama’s refusal to acknowledge the Manichean and irreconcilable nature of the challenge posed to the West by radical Islam; his refusal to even mutter the words “Islamic extremism” or “jihadism”; and his absolute unwillingness to connect terrorism to Islam or even admit that Islamic terrorists deliberately target Jews (like those Jews in Paris’ Hyper Cacher grocery).
The terms radical Islam and Islamic terrorist aren’t in Obama’s lexicon because deep down Obama doesn’t believe that Western (or Judeo-Christian) civilization is any better than Islamic civilization.
No better, perhaps, than even the Islamic State group. Speaking to the National Prayer breakfast in Washington on February 5, Obama said: “Before we get on our high horse and think this [ISIS beheadings, sex slavery, crucifixion, roasting of humans, etc.] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
This is tantamount to saying that the West is rooted in immorality, and that it is time for other, no less moral, and possibly more moral, powers to emerge — specifically, Islamic powers. It is equivalent to saying that the denouement of America and rise of an Islamic superpower will elevate world politics to a better sphere.
It is like saying — actually this is exactly what Obama is saying! — that America is ready to legitimize a seismic shift in the global balance of power through a grand civilizational bargain with the ayatollahs of Iran.
It is ardor for Islam and sympathy for Islamic ambitions of global leadership, not just distaste for American overreach, that apparently fuels Obama’s secretive dash toward a deal with Iran.
Obama defends Islam at all cost
February 18, 2015Obama defends Islam at all cost, American Thinker, Carol Brown, February 18, 2015
Think about it. Have you ever heard Obama criticize Islam? I never have.
[W]hen three individuals who were Muslim were recently shot in North Carolina in a crime that local police have not identified as a hate crime, Obama stated: “No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.”
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How President Obama responds to events around him appears to be dictated by a highly specific set of rules, all of which fall within under broad umbrella of disdain for America. In this way, every word he speaks (and those he refuses to say) and every action he takes (as well as those he avoids) unfolds in a predictable, if not also menacing manner.
- Demonize the wealthy. (Unless the wealthy person is a Democratic Party supporter.)
- Blame white people and the United States for bad things that have happened, are happening, and may happen to black people. (Unless a black person is the victim of jihad, in which case Obama will not use the event to stoke racial hatred. Protecting Islam trumps the chip on his shoulder regarding black victimhood.)
- Defend Islam while never defending any other religion. Toward that end, denigration of Christians and/or Jews is permitted.
It seems like a long time ago that Colleen Hufford was the victim of a savage jihadist attack when a devout Muslim sliced off her head. But it was just a few months ago. And if you recall, after the attack Obama had no comment. None.
At least not about Colleen Hufford. Or jihad. He did, however, have a comment that was so important the message was hand-delivered and read aloud to members of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City where Obama expressed his sympathy for what a rough month the Muslim community had following the attack while offering thanks to all of them.
Beyond that, Obama remained silent on the matter, deferring to the FBI.
Of course he did not follow that script after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson. Oh no. Obama, Eric Holder, and all the rest weighed in immediately and kept weighing for what seemed like forever.
Standard operating procedure for the Obama administration – something we saw on full display when earlier this month Jen Psaki would not say that the terror attack that killed four Jews at a kosher market in France was an act of anti-Semitism. Instead, the administration claimed the entire affair was random and deferred to French authorities to determine the pesky details of motive and truth.
Once again, just as the administration deferred to the FBI after Hufford was slain, they deferred to some other party – in this case the French authorities. And this may well sound official to those who lack critical thinking. It may even come across as sound, wise, appropriate, and even presidential.
But of course it’s all hogwash. The knee jerk over-reaction to certain things, the under-reaction to other things, and the distraction techniques they employ are all by design.
And the design was crystal clear when, earlier this month, as part of Obama’s desperate drive to absolve Islam of any responsibility for the murderous brutality that is unfolding around the world, he had the audacity to say that the media overstates the threat of terrorism. He accused the media of exploiting terrorism because “if it bleeds, it leads.”
He spoke as if referring to ambulance chasing coverage by a tabloid magazine. It was appalling to realize this man-child was talking about coverage of genocide. Of institutionalized kidnapping, rape, torture, and all manner of barbarity under the banner of the religion he seems to love so very dearly.
Depraved does not even begin to describe Obama’s words.
When reality does not fit his script, there is no depth to which he will not sink. We have seen this play out over and over again. His determination to turn the public eye away from the awful truth before us is relentless.
It is sick. And it feels sick to be exposed to it, to him, and the abject evil he seems to embody.
This sickness has been playing out for years, though with two years left to his presidency, Obama seems to be pulling out all the stops as he utilizes a variety of ways to defend Islam. Including when he does and does not jump to conclusions.
As Daniel Greenfield recently wrote in Front Page Magazine: “When Muslims kill Americans, then Obama is all about not jumping to conclusions.”
Greenfield noted that after the Boston Marathon bombing Obama stated: “We still do not know who did this or why and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before they have all the facts.” And after the Fort Hood massacre, Obama stated: “We don’t know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” And yet, when three individuals who were Muslim were recently shot in North Carolina in a crime that local police have not identified as a hate crime, Obama stated: “No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.”
Then, last week, ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. And just as Obama refused to acknowledge that four Jews who were murdered in the kosher market in Paris were targeted because they were Jews, Obama refused to identify the faith of the victims in Libya, as if they were targeted because they were Egyptian. The full statement put out by the White House reads:
The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens. ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.
This heinous act once again underscores the urgent need for a political resolution to the conflict in Libya, the continuation of which only benefits terrorist groups, including ISIL. We call on all Libyans to strongly reject this and all acts of terrorism and to unite in the face of this shared and growing threat. We continue to strongly support the efforts of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General Bernardino Leon to facilitate formation of a national unity government and help foster a political solution in Libya.
“Twenty-one Egyptian citizens.” Never mind that the video ISIS made of the barbaric murders identified the victims by their faith. Per a report at Reuters:
A caption on the five-minute video read: “The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church.” Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: “Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for.”
(“Crusaders.” Where have I heard that reference in the recent past?)
Obama’s omission of the victims’ religion was not the only glaring confirmation of the nature of the man-child in the oval office. His statement that ISIS “is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity” was also telling since ISIS is absolutely constrained by (and motivated by) faith: the Islamic faith.
Once again, Obama used words (those said and those not said) to suggest that the daily jihadist bloodbath is some mysterious, amorphous, inexplicable horror. And in this way, he defends Islam by not implicating it in any of the hell on earth we are bearing witness to.
Think about it. Have you ever heard Obama criticize Islam? I never have.
Col. Ralph Peters had a pointed comment on this very thing recently when he said: “Look at the facts. The only religion this president is willing to come out and defend is Islam.”
It’s so patently obvious. And yet the media scarcely raises the issue.
Meanwhile, when Chris Matthews interviewed State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf Monday, she went on record saying that we can’t win the war by killing ISIS.
Why not? And what, pray tell does she suggest? She suggests that we try to figure out the root cause for why people join ISIS.
OK. That shouldn’t be too hard. Except we’re dealing with the Obama administration, so of course the glaring truth will be avoided at all cost. And so the hypothesis for the root cause is: poverty, lack of jobs, and lack of opportunity.
I have an idea. How about we tell the truth? How about if we say what the root cause is? How about if we point to the Quran and read some relevant excerpts so everyone can connect the dots? And how about if, in addition to identifying the root cause, we also kill as many terrorists as we possibly can?
Every time there is a terror attack, every time the violent teachings of the Quran play out on the world stage, every time the media engages in malpractice by not doing their research and informing the public, and every time the president of the United States defends Islam, the entire world is that much more at risk – each and every one of our lives is put in increased danger.
Whoever would have imagined that the President of the United States would be facilitating terror? And whoever would have imagined that such a person would be elected not once. But twice.
None of this may be news to most readers. But it will likely be news to some. Please help others understand.
May the victims of jihad rest in peace and may their deaths not be in vain.
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