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Grand Gas Project Signifies Futility of Anti-Iran Sanctions: President

March 17, 2015

Grand Gas Project Signifies Futility of Anti-Iran Sanctions: President, Tasnim News Agency (Iranian), March 17, 2015

(Iran claims to have done quite well with sanctions, or what sanctions remained after November of 2013, despite all the money it has been spending in Iraq and Syria, not to mention terrorism elsewhere. Why, then, the demand that all sanctions be removed instanter? Will Kerry ask? Not likely.– DM)

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TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani described the inauguration of the 12th development phase of the massive offshore South Pars gas field as a testimony to the ineffectiveness of the Western sanctions against Iran.

“The inauguration of the 12th phase illustrates that sanctions, pressures, and illegal and inhumane measures cannot push the (Iranian) nation back,” President Rouhani said in a Tuesday ceremony in the southern province of Bushehr for the official coming into service of the giant gas field’s 12th phase.The president explained that Iran’s gas production now exceeds 100 million cubic meters, stressing that such a great job has been accomplished while the country has been slapped with the cruel sanctions.Iran has also experienced economic growth and inflation reduction with the sanctions being in place, Rouhani added.

According to Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the 12th phase, which has been totally designed and developed by the local experts, has cost more than $7.5 billion.

The 12th phase can produce 80 million cubic meters of gas and 120,000 barrels of gas condensates on a daily basis, bringing the country $17.5 million in revenue every day.

Zanganeh has also hailed the new phase as a helpful source of revenue while Iran is hit by “cruel economic sanctions” and the global oil price decline has diminished the country’s financial resources.

The 12th phase extends over an area of approximately 205 square kilometers along Iran-Qatar joint border. Located at a distance of 105 kilometers from the coast, the 12th phase alone contains about 5 percent of the whole gas reserves in the South Pars filed.

South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters (South Pars) in the Persian Gulf.

Categories: Diplomacy, Economy, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Gas, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iraq, Islamic State, Kerry, Nukes, Obama, Rouhani, Sanctions, Terrorism
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Book review: The Islamic War

March 16, 2015

The Islamic War: Book review, Dan Miller’s Blog, March 16, 2015

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

The Islamic War, Martin Archer, 2014

The novel begins with a terror attack on a residential area in Israel, resulting in multiple causalities. It may, or may not, have involved members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Menachem Begin is the Israeli Prime Minister and Ariel Sharon is the Defense Minister. The story begins immediately after the (postponed?) end of the Iran – Iraq war in 1988.

A massive armor, infantry, artillery and air attack on Israeli positions in the Golan follows the terrorist attack. The Israelis are outnumbered and suffer many thousands of casualties.

Israel had anticipated a simultaneous attack via Jordan, so most Israeli tank, infantry and air resources are deployed there, rather than in the Golan, to conceal themselves and await the arrival of Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian forces. They come and are defeated, most killed or fleeing. The Israeli forces then move into Syria and have similar successes there as well.

As the story evolves, it becomes evident that Israel must have known that the Iran – Iraq war had been allowed to fester to permit Iran, Iraq and Syria to develop a well coordinated plan to dispose of Israel, in hopes that a surprise attack could be made as soon as the Iran – Iraq war ended. Other events also suggest that Israel had prior notice:

Nuclear facilities of several hostile nations explode mysteriously.

The Israeli Navy had managed to infiltrate Iranian oil ports — apparently before the attack on the Golan — without being noticed. Then, at a propitious moment near the end of the fighting elsewhere, they destroyed all oil tankers in, entering or leaving port, along with all Iranian oil storage facilities.

The Israel Navy, which had suffered no losses, then moved to Saudi Arabia to protect her oil ports and ships coming to buy her oil and leaving.

As these events unfold, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey* are negotiating a united front against Iran, Iraq and Syria, much to the displeasure of the U.S. Secretary of State, who wants a cease fire and return to the status quo ante. Fortunately, the U.S. President favors Israel and her coalition and generally ignores his SecState.

I won’t spoil the story by relating what happens at the end, but it’s very good for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Kurds, and very bad for Iran, Iraq and Syria. The novel is well worth reading, perhaps twice.

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*Historical note: Turkey in 1988 was reasonably secular and also in other ways quite different from now. Egypt under President Al-Sisi is, in some but not all respects, similar to Egypt in 1988 under President Mubarak. Beyond a good relationship with Israel, Al-Sisi is working to modernize and reform Islam by turning it away from the violent jihad which drives both the Islamic State (Sunni) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (Shiite). Egypt remains under fire from the Obama administration due to the “coup” which ousted President Morsi, who had made Egypt essentially an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt now helps to protect Israel with her military presence in the Sinai to oppose Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood activities there. Saudi Arabia and Jordan, like most countries in the Middle East, look out for the interests of their rulers first and are quite concerned about both the Islamic State and Iran.

Categories: Arab nations, Caliphate, Combat troops, Diplomacy, Egypt, Foreign policy, Golan, Gulf states, IDF, Intelligence, Iran, Iran - Iraq war, Iran military, Iraq, Iraqi military, Islamic jihad, Israel, Jordan, Kurds, Mossad, Muslim Brotherhood, Nukes, Obama, Oil, Saudi Arabia, Sisi, State Department, Syria, Terrorism, Turkey
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UPDATE: US intel report scrapped Iran from list of terror threats

March 16, 2015

US intel report scrapped Iran from list of terror threats, Times of Israel, March 16, 2015

(This is to clarify and expand upon an earlier article on the same subject, also posted today. — DM)

An annual report delivered recently to the US Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats, after years in which they featured in similar reports.

The unclassified version of the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities, dated February 26, 2015 (PDF), noted Iran’s efforts to combat Sunni extremists, including those of the ultra-radical Islamic State group, who were perceived to constitute the preeminent terrorist threat to American interests worldwide.

In describing Iran’s regional role, the report noted the Islamic Republic’s “intentions to dampen sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia,” but cautioned that “Iranian leaders—particularly within the security services—are pursuing policies with negative secondary consequences for regional stability and potentially for Iran.

“Iran’s actions to protect and empower Shia communities are fueling growing fears and sectarian responses,” it said.

The United States and other Western nations, along with a coalition of regional allies, both Sunni and Shiite, has been launching attacks against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria in recent months. The Sunni group, also known by its acronyms IS, ISIS and ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda that has carved out a self-proclaimed caliphate across large swaths of Syria and Iraq, both of whose governments are allied with Iran’s.

The Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is funded and mentored by Tehran, has been fighting the Islamic State, independently of the American-led campaign, both in Syria and Iraq.

Meanwhile, the US has been engaged in marathon talks with Iran in an effort to reach an agreement on its nuclear program. Tehran, according to the National Intelligence threat assessment, has “overarching strategic goals of enhancing its security, prestige, and regional influence [that] have led it to pursue capabilities to meet its civilian goals and give it the ability to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do so.”

The report said that it was unclear whether or not Iran would eventually decide to build nuclear weapons, but noted that should the Iranian government decide to pursue such a course, it would face no “insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear weapon.” It lingered on Iran’s pursuit of intercontinental ballistic missile technology as a likely delivery system for a nuclear weapon, and delineated Iranian threats in the realms of counterintelligence and cyber warfare.

According to one Israeli think tank, the removal of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah from the list of terror threats, where they featured in previous years, was directly linked to the campaign against the Islamic State.

063_464519556-e1425017740218-305x172Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in Washington, DC, February 26, 2015 (photo credit: Evy Mages/Getty Images/AFP)
 

“We believe that this results from a combination of diplomatic interests (the United States’ talks with Iran about a nuclear deal) with the idea that Iran could assist in the battle against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and maybe even in the battle against jihadist terrorism in other countries,” the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said in an analysis of the report (Hebrew PDF). It also noted the Iran and Hezbollah were both listed as terrorism threats in the assessment of another American body, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and Lebanese Hezbollah are instruments of Iran’s foreign policy and its ability to project power in Iraq, Syria, and beyond,” that assessment, also submitted to the Senate of February 26, said in its section on terrorism. “Hezbollah continues to support the Syrian regime, pro-regime militants and Iraqi Shia militants in Syria. Hezbollah trainers and advisors in Iraq assist Iranian and Iraqi Shia militias fighting Sunni extremists there. Select Iraqi Shia militant groups also warned of their willingness to fight US forces returning to Iraq.”

Israel, as well as Sunni allies of the US, has often warned that Iran, through Hezbollah and other proxies, has been sowing instability in the region. An escalating dispute between Jerusalem and Washington over the terms of an eventual agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has seen Israeli official rail against the relatively conciliatory tone adopted by US officials toward Iran, in light of the shared interest in combating the Islamic State.

In a polarizing speech before a joint session of Congress on March 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to persuade American lawmakers of the folly of signing an agreement with Iran, and, comparing its leaders to those of the Nazi regime of World War II, cautioned that it “poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also [to] the peace of the entire world.”

Iran has made bellicose statements toward Israel, threatening to destroy the Jewish state, often citing Israeli talk of attacking its nuclear facilities, which it maintains are for peaceful purposes.

Hezbollah, which is based to Israel’s north in Lebanon and the Syrian Golan Heights, has largely refrained from attacking Israeli targets since the bloody Second Lebanon War of 2006, although there have been skirmishes along the border.

In one recent confrontation, Israel struck first, purportedly destroying a Hezbollah unit near the front line of the Golan Heights. Among the seven dead on January 18 were an Iranian general, a top Hezbollah commander and the son of another former commander in chief. Some two weeks later, Hezbollah took revenge, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding seven in a cross-border attack.

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Hezbollah, Iran, Iran scam, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Terrorism
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Having the U.N. Security Council bless a deal wouldn’t make it binding under our Constitution.

March 15, 2015

Having the U.N. Security Council bless a deal wouldn’t make it binding under our Constitution, National Review online, Andrew C. McCarthy, March 14, 2015

So, as we warned earlier this week, the international-law game it is.

It is no secret that Barack Obama does not have much use for the United States Constitution. It is a governing plan for a free, self-determining people. Hence, it is littered with roadblocks against schemes to rule the people against their will. When it comes to our imperious president’s scheme to enable our enemy, Iran, to become a nuclear-weapons power — a scheme that falls somewhere between delusional and despicable, depending on your sense of Obama’s good faith — the salient barrier is that only Congress can make real law.

Most lawmakers think it would be a catastrophe to forge a clear path to the world’s most destructive weapons for the world’s worst regime — a regime that brays “Death to America” as its motto; that has killed thousands of Americans since 1979; that remains the world’s leading state sponsor of jihadist terrorism; that pledges to wipe our ally Israel off the map; and that just three weeks ago, in the midst of negotiations with Obama, conducted a drill in which its armed forces fired ballistic missiles at a replica U.S. aircraft carrier.

This week, 47 perspicuous Republican senators suspected that the subject of congressional power just might have gotten short shrift in Team Obama’s negotiations with the mullahs. So they penned a letter on the subject to the regime in Tehran. The effort was led by Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), who, after Harvard Law School, passed up community organizing for the life of a Bronze Star–awarded combat commander. As one might imagine, Cotton and Obama don’t see this Iran thing quite the same way.

There followed, as night does day, risible howls from top Democrats and their media that these 47 patriots were “traitors” for undermining the president’s empowerment of our enemies. Evidently, writing the letter was not as noble as, say, Ted Kennedy’s canoodling with the Soviets, Nancy Pelosi’s dalliance with Assad, the Democratic party’s Bush-deranged jihad against the war in Iraq, or Senator Barack Obama’s own back-channel outreach to Iran during the 2008 campaign. Gone, like a deleted e-mail, were the good old days when dissent was patriotic.

Yet, as John Yoo observes, the Cotton letter was more akin to mailing Ayatollah Khamenei a copy of the Constitution. The senators explained that our Constitution requires congressional assent for international agreements to be legally binding. Thus, any “executive agreement” on nukes that they manage to strike with the appeaser-in-chief is unenforceable and likely to be revoked when he leaves office in 22 months.

For Obama and other global-governance grandees, this is quaint thinking, elevating outmoded notions like national interest over “sustainable” international “stability” — like the way Hitler stabilized the Sudetenland. These “international community” devotees see the Tea Party as the rogue and the mullahs as rational actors.

So, you see, lasting peace — like they have, for example, in Ukraine — is achieved when the world’s sole superpower exhibits endless restraint and forfeits some sovereignty to the United Nations Security Council, where the enlightened altruists from Moscow, Beijing, and Brussels will figure out what’s best for Senator Cotton’s constituents in Arkansas. This will set a luminous example of refinement that Iran will find irresistible when it grows up ten years from now — the time when Obama, who came to office promising the mullahs would not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons, would have Iran stamped with the international community seal of approval as a nuclear-weapons state.

Down here on Planet Earth, though, most Americans think this is a bad idea. That, along with an injection of grit from the Arkansas freshman, emboldened the normally supine Senate GOP caucus to read Tehran in on the constitutional fact that the president is powerless to bind the United States unless the people’s representatives cement the arrangement.

Obama, naturally, reacted with his trusty weapon against opposition, demagoguery: hilariously suggesting that while the Alinskyite-in-chief had our country’s best interests at heart, the American war hero and his 46 allies were in league with Iran’s “hardliners.” (Yes, having found Muslim Brotherhood secularists, al-Qaeda moderates, and Hezbollah moderates, rest assured that Obama is courting only the evolved ayatollahs.) When that went about as you’d expect, the administration shifted to a strategy with which it is equally comfortable, lying.

Obama’s minions claimed that, of course, the president understands that any agreement he makes with Iran would merely be his “political commitment,” not “legally binding” on the nation. It’s just that Obama figures it would be nice to have the Security Council “endorse” the deal in a resolution because, well, that would “encourage its full implementation.” Uh-huh.

Inconveniently, the administration’s negotiating counterpart is the chattiest of academics, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Afflicted by the Western-educated Islamist’s incorrigible need to prove he’s the smartest kid in the class — especially a class full of American politicians — Zarif let the cat out of the bag. The senators, he smarmed, “may not fully understand . . . international law.”

According to Zarif, the deal under negotiation “will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the U.S., but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.” He hoped it would “enrich the knowledge” of the 47 senators to learn that “according to international law, Congress may not modify the terms of the agreement.” To do so would be “a material breach of U.S. obligations,” rendering America a global outlaw.

This, mind you, from the lead representative of a terrorist regime that is currently, and brazenly, in violation of Security Council resolutions that prohibit its enrichment of uranium.

Clearly, Obama and the mullahs figure they can run the following stunt: We do not need another treaty approved by Congress because the United States has already ratified the U.N. charter and thus agreed to honor Security Council resolutions. We do not need new statutes because the Congress, in enacting Iran-sanctions legislation, explicitly gave the president the power to waive those sanctions. All we need is to have the Security Council issue a resolution that codifies Congress’s existing sanctions laws with Obama’s waiver. Other countries involved in the negotiations — including Germany, Russia, and China, which have increasingly lucrative trade with Iran — will then very publicly rely on the completed deal. The U.N. and its army of transnational-progressive bureaucrats and lawyers will deduce from this reliance a level of global consensus that incorporates the agreement into the hocus-pocus corpus of customary law. Maybe they’ll even get Justice Ginsburg to cite it glowingly in a Supreme Court ruling. Voila, we have a binding agreement — without any congressional input — that the United States is powerless to alter under international law.

Well, it makes for good theater . . . because that is what international law is. It is a game more of lawyers than of thrones. In essence, it is politics masquerading as a system governed by rules rather than power, as if hanging a sign that says “law” on that system makes it so.

At most, international law creates understandings between and among states. Those understandings, however, are only relevant as diplomatic debating points. When, in defiance of international law, Obama decides to overthrow the Qaddafi regime, Clinton decides to bomb Kosovo, or the ayatollahs decide to enrich uranium, the debating points end up not counting for much.

Even when international understandings are validly created by treaty (which requires approval by two-thirds of the Senate), they are not “self-executing,” as the legal lexicon puts it — meaning they are not judicially enforceable and carry no domestic weight. Whether bilateral or multilateral, treaties do not supersede existing federal law unless implemented by new congressional statutes. And they are powerless to amend the Constitution.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed these principles in its 2008 Medellin decision (a case I described here, leading to a ruling Ed Whelan outlined here). The justices held that the president cannot usurp the constitutional authority of other government components under the guise of his power to conduct foreign affairs. Moreover, even a properly ratified treaty can be converted into domestic law only by congressional lawmaking, not by unilateral presidential action.

Obama, therefore, has no power to impose an international agreement by fiat — he has to come to Congress. He can make whatever deal he wants to make with Iran, but the Constitution still gives Congress exclusive authority over foreign commerce. Lawmakers can enact sanctions legislation that does not permit a presidential waiver. Obama would not sign it, but the next president will — especially if the Republicans raise it into a major 2016 campaign issue.

Will the Security Council howl? Sure . . . but so what? It has been said that Senator Cotton should have CC’d the Obama administration on his letter since it, too, seems unfamiliar with the Constitution’s division of authority. A less useless exercise might have been to CC the five other countries involved in the talks (the remaining Security Council members, plus Germany). Even better, as I argued earlier this week, would be a sense-of-the-Senate resolution: Any nation that relies on an executive agreement that is not approved by the United States Congress under the procedures outlined in the Constitution does so at its peril because this agreement is likely to lapse as early as January 20, 2017. International law is a game that two can play, and there is no point in allowing Germany, Russia, and China to pretend that they relied in good faith on Obama’s word being America’s word.

It is otherworldly to find an American administration conspiring against the Constitution and the Congress in cahoots with a terror-sponsoring enemy regime, with which we do not even have formal diplomatic relations, in order to pave the enemy’s way to nuclear weapons, of all things. Nevertheless, Republicans and all Americans who want to preserve our constitutional order, must stop telling themselves that we have hit a bottom beneath which Obama will not go. This week, 47 senators seemed ready, finally, to fight back. It’s a start.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, international law, Iran, Iran scam, Nonbinding agreements, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, United Nations
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Column One: Israel’s next 22 months

March 15, 2015

Column One: Israel’s next 22 months, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, March 12, 2015

(The article is about more than the elections. The disconnect between Israel and the Obama administration seems likely to continue to worsen regardless of who wins, unless Israel falls completely into line with Obama’s views. — DM)

Given the stakes, the choice of Israeli voters next Tuesday is an easy one.

An Israeli flag is seen in the background as a man casts his ballot at a polling in a West Bank Jewish settlement, north of RamallahAn Israeli flag is seen in the background as a man casts his ballot for the parliamentary election at a polling in the West Bank settlement of Ofra. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The next 22 months until President Barack Obama leaves office promise to be the most challenging period in the history of US-Israel relations.

Now unfettered by electoral concerns, over the past week Obama exposed his ill-intentions toward Israel in two different ways.

First, the Justice Department leaked its intention to indict Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez on corruption charges. Menendez is the ranking Democratic member, and the former chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is also the most outspoken Democratic critic of Obama’s policy of appeasing the Iranian regime.

As former US federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote this week at PJMedia, “It is perfectly reasonable to believe that Menendez may be guilty of corruption offenses and that his political opposition on Iran is factoring into the administration’s decision to charge him. Put it another way, if Menendez were running interference for Obama on the Iran deal, rather than trying to scupper it, I believe he would not be charged.”

The Menendez prosecution tells us that Obama wishes to leave office after having vastly diminished support for Israel among Democrats. And he will not hesitate to use strong-arm tactics against his fellow Democrats to achieve his goal.

We already experienced Obama’s efforts in this sphere in the lead-up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the joint houses of Congress on March 3 with his campaign to pressure Democratic lawmakers to boycott Netanyahu’s address.

Now, with his move against Menendez, Obama made clear that support for Israel – even in the form of opposition to the nuclear armament of Iran – will be personally and politically costly for Democrats.

The long-term implications of Obama’s moves to transform US support for Israel into a partisan issue cannot by wished away. It is possible that his successor as the head of the Democratic Party will hold a more sympathetic view of Israel. But it is also possible that the architecture of Democratic fund-raising and grassroots support that Obama has been building for the past six years will survive his presidency and that as a consequence, Democrats will have incentives to oppose Israel.

The reason Obama is so keen to transform Israel into a partisan issue was made clear by the second move he made last week.

Last Thursday, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice announced that the NSC’s Middle East Coordinator Phil Gordon was stepping down and being replaced by serial Israel-basher Robert Malley.

Malley, who served as an NSC junior staffer during the Clinton administration, rose to prominence in late 2000 when, following the failed Camp David peace summit in July 2000 and the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war, Malley co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times blaming Israel and then-prime minister Ehud Barak for the failure of the negotiations.

What was most remarkable at the time about Malley’s positions was that they completely contradicted Bill Clinton’s expressed views. Clinton placed the blame for the failure of the talks squarely on then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s shoulders.

Not only did Arafat reject Barak’s unprecedented offer of Palestinian statehood and sovereignty over all of Gaza, most of Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount, he refused to make a counter-offer. And then two months later, he opened the Palestinian terror war.

As Jonathan Tobin explained in Commentary this week, through his writings and public statements, Malley has legitimized Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Malley thinks it is perfectly reasonable that the Palestinians refuse to concede their demand for free immigration of millions of foreign Arabs to the Jewish state in the framework of their concocted “right of return,” even though the clear goal of that demand is to destroy Israel. As Tobin noted, Malley believes that Palestinian terrorism against Israel is “understandable if not necessarily commendable.”

During Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, then-senator Obama listed Malley as a member of his foreign policy team. When pro-Israel groups criticized his appointment, Obama fired Malley.

But after his 2012 reelection, no longer fearing the ramifications of embracing an openly anti-Israel adviser, one who had documented contacts with Hamas terrorists and has expressed support for recognizing the terror group, Obama appointed Malley to serve as his senior adviser for Iraq-Iran-Syria and the Gulf states. Still facing the 2014 congressional elections, Obama pledged that Malley would have no involvement in issues related to Israel and the Palestinians. But then last week, he appointed him to direct the NSC’s policy in relation to the entire Middle East, including Israel.

The deeper significance of Malley’s appointment is that it demonstrates that Obama’s goal in his remaining time in office is to realign US Middle East policy away from Israel. With his Middle East policy led by a man who thinks the Palestinian goal of destroying Israel is legitimate, Obama can be expected to expand his practice of placing all the blame for the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians solely on Israel’s shoulders.

Malley’s appointment indicates that there is nothing Israel can do to stem the tsunami of American pressure it is about to suffer. Electing a left-wing government to replace Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will make no difference.

Just as Malley was willing to blame Barak – a leader who went to Camp David as the head of a minority coalition, whose positions on territorial withdrawals were rejected by a wide majority of Israelis – for the absence of peace, so we can assume that he, and his boss, will blame Israel for the absence of peace over the next 22 months, regardless of who stands at the head of the next government.

In this vein we can expect the administration to expand the anti-Israel positions it has already taken.

The US position paper regarding Israeli-Palestinian negotiation that was leaked this past week to Yediot Aharonot made clear the direction Obama wishes to go. That document called for Israel to withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, with minor revisions.

In the coming 22 months we can expect the US to use more and more coercive measures to force Israel to capitulate to its position.

The day the administration-sponsored talks began in July 2013, the EU announced it was barring its member nations from having ties with Israeli entities that operate beyond the 1949 armistice lines unless those operations involve assisting the Palestinians in their anti-Israel activities. The notion that the EU initiated an economic war against Israel the day the talks began without coordinating the move with the Obama administration is, of course, absurd.

We can expect the US to make expanded use of European economic warfare against Israel in the coming years, and to continue to give a backwind to the anti-Semitic BDS movement by escalating its libelous rhetoric conflating Israel with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

US-Israel intelligence and defense ties will also be on the chopping block.

While Obama and his advisers consistently boast that defense and intelligence ties between Israel and the US have grown during his presidency, over the past several years, those ties have suffered blow after blow. During the war with Hamas last summer, acting on direct orders from the White House, the Pentagon instituted a partial – unofficial – embargo on weapons to Israel.

As for intelligence ties, over the past month, the administration announced repeatedly that it is ending its intelligence sharing with Israel on Iran.

We also learned that the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is being fingered as the source of the leak regarding the Stuxnet computer virus that Israel and the US reportedly developed jointly to cripple Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

In other words, since taking office, Obama has used the US’s intelligence ties with Israel to harm Israel’s national security.*

He has also used diplomacy to harm Israel. Last summer, Obama sought a diplomatic settlement of Hamas’s war with Israel that would have granted Hamas all of its war goals, including its demand for open borders and access to the international financial system.

Now of course, he is running roughshod over his bipartisan opposition, and the opposition of Israel and the Sunni Arab states, in the hopes of concluding a nuclear deal with Iran that will pave the way for the ayatollahs to develop nuclear weapons and expand their hegemonic control over the Middle East.

Amid of this, and facing 22 months of ever more hostility as Obama pursues his goal of ending the US-Israel alliance, Israelis are called on to elect a new government.

This week the consortium of former security brass that has banded together to elect a leftist government led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni accused Netanyahu of destroying Israel’s relations with the US. The implication was that a government led by Herzog and Livni will restore Israel’s ties to America.

Yet as Obama has made clear both throughout his tenure in office, and, over the past week through Malley’s appointment and Menendez’s indictment, Obama holds sole responsibility for the deterioration of our ties with our primary ally. And as his actions have also made clear, Herzog and Livni at the helm will receive no respite in US pressure. Their willingness to make concessions to the Palestinians that Netanyahu refuses to make will merely cause Obama to move the goalposts further down the field. Given his goal of abandoning the US alliance with Israel, no concession that Israel will deliver will suffice.

And so we need to ask ourselves, which leader will do a better job of limiting the danger and waiting Obama out while maintaining sufficient overall US support for Israel to rebuild the alliance after Obama has left the White House.

The answer, it seems, is self-evident.

The Left’s campaign to blame Netanyahu for Obama’s hostility will make it all but impossible for a Herzog-Livni government to withstand US pressure that they say will disappear the moment Netanyahu leaves office.

In contrast, as the US position paper leaked to Yediot indicated, Netanyahu has demonstrated great skill in parrying US pressure. He agreed to hold negotiations based on a US position that he rejected and went along with the talks for nine months until the Palestinians ended them. In so doing, he achieved a nine-month respite in open US pressure while exposing Palestinian radicalism and opposition to peaceful coexistence.

On the Iranian front, Netanyahu’s courageous speech before Congress last week energized Obama’s opponents to take action and forced Obama onto the defensive for the first time while expanding popular support for Israel.

It is clear that things will only get more difficult in the months ahead. But given the stakes, the choice of Israeli voters next Tuesday is an easy one.

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* Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that Hillary Clinton was reportedly involved in leaking sensitive information related to joint Israel-US operations to the media.

Categories: Elections in Israel, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Islamism, Israel, Leftists, Middle East, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Peace process, U.S. Congress
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Iran’s advances create alarm in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf

March 14, 2015

Iran’s advances create alarm in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, the Guardian,  March 13, 2015

Arabs believe Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana’a are in effect under Iranian control – and power may shift further if US sanctions are eased.

c0ac3569-93da-4ae8-8b51-29dc6991ee13-620x372 Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, visiting Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran this year. Photograph: Presidential official handout/EPA

Iran’s great advantage, suggests Emile Hokayem, an analyst, is its commitment and competence, in Syria and beyond. “The expertise, experience and strategic patience it deployed in support of the Syrian regime to a great extent facilitated Assad’s recovery from serious setbacks in 2012. In contrast, the war in Syria has exposed not only the political and operational limitations of the Gulf states, but also the rivalries among them.”

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The commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been working overtime recently, flaunting their achievements across the Middle East and flexing muscles as international negotiations over the country’s nuclear programme enter their critical and perhaps final phase.

On Wednesday it was the turn of Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC’s most senior officer. “The Islamic revolution is advancing with good speed, its example being the ever-increasing export of the revolution,” he declared. “Not only Palestine and Lebanon acknowledge the influential role of the Islamic Republic but so do the people of Iraq and Syria. They appreciate the nation of Iran.”

Last month a similarly boastful message was delivered by General Qassem Suleimani, who leads the IRGC’s elite Quds force — and who is regularly photographed leading the fightback of Iraqi Shia miltias against the Sunni jihadis of the Islamic State (Isis) as well as against western and Arab-backed rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad in southern Syria. “Imperialists and Zionists have admitted defeat at the hands of the Islamic Republic and the resistance movement,” Suleimani said.

Iran’s advances are fuelling alarm in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, where Tehran has been a strategic rival since the days of the Shah, and which now, it is said with dismay, in effect controls four Arab capitals – Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut and in the last month Sana’a in Yemen – which is uncomfortably close to home.

Iran’s regional position has certainly improved. Its high-profile role fighting Isis in Iraq, Assad’s retention of control in Syria with the help of its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebel takeover in Yemen have all been deeply discomfiting for the Saudis. Anti-government protests in Shia-majority Bahrain are also often blamed on Tehran — though that ignores the domestic roots of the unrest.

In Riyadh King Salman has dropped his preoccupation with the Muslim Brotherhood in favour of building a united Sunni Arab front to confront the Iranians, diplomats say, though translating that strategy into action is another matter. The message from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is that whatever the outcome of the nuclear talks, Iran is bent on expanding its power and influence. “The Iranians have scored major victories but only where there are Shia minorities,” a senior Gulf official told the Guardian. “Our concern is that the nuclear issue will become a tool of their foreign policy.”

Arab alarm is shared by Israel. Binyamin Netanyahu used identical arguments in his recent speech to the US Congress, timed to influence next week’s nuclear endgame in Geneva. “The Saudis will be incredibly worried that we are getting close to a point where the Iranians will be players because of the nuclear issue and the way the Americans have effectively ended up on the same side as the Iranians in Iraq,” said one veteran Saudi-watcher. “But the noise they are making is in inverse proportion to their ability to do anything about it.”

Arab governments are not reassured by the promises of John Kerry, the US secretary of state, that Washington is not seeking a “grand bargain” with Tehran that will allow it to “destabilise” the Middle East, bolstered by the easing of economic sanctions. Saud Al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, warned of Tehran’s “hegemonic” ambitions as the IRGC supported the military operation to retake the Iraqi town of Tikrit from Isis. In Gulf capitals Hassan Rouhani, the emollient Iranian president, is seen as less important than the hardline supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It is hard to disentangle propaganda from reality. But independent analysts argue that Iran is inflating its gains for both foreign and domestic consumption. “If you listen to Suleimani there is a degree of exaggeration,” argues Ali Ansari of St Andrews University. “It’s rhetorical reassurance. He is saying to Iranians: ‘We are powerful and and everyone is worried about this’ – partly to make the point that they are not really under pressure. People outside can see what Iran’s strengths and weaknesses are. But there is this belief that you need to negotiate from a position of strength and that if you are weak you will be trampled on.”

Iran-watcher Hossein Rassam also detects a domestic calculation in the IRGC statements. “Critics of Rouhani’s policy of rapprochement with the international community inside Iran can turn to the supreme leader and say there wasn’t really much need for that softer tone because now we have more bargaining chips in our hands. Iran is the only power in the region which can actually fight Isis and the west needs us for that.”

Meir Litvak, an Israeli expert on Iran, sees both genuine belief and posturing in Tehran’s stance. “The Iranians believe they have been able to save the Assad regime from total collapse and there is at least stalemate in Syria,” he said. “That means they have been able to maintain the link with Hezbollah and maybe open a second front by proxy against Israel on the Golan Heights. The Houthi rebellion in Yemen was initially a genuinely domestic affair but the Iranian regime saw it as an opportunity. And it has become a bonus for it – even if they are not that active inYemen. But if the Saudis are scared that’s a plus for the Iranians.”

Arab diplomatic sources say they expect to see an IRGC and Hezbollah presence in Yemen, helped by a new agreement on regular flights between Tehran and Sana’a.

Iran’s role in Bahrain, where the Shia majority remains locked in confrontation with the Saudi-backed Sunni monarchy, is more about scoring propaganda points than material support – despite claims in Manama about Iran’s sinister role.

Still, in the heartlands of Iranian influence, Iraq and Syria, there have been significant costs as well as benefits, including the deaths of two senior IRGC commanders. Continuing sanctions and low oil prices – seen in Tehran as a deliberate strategy by the Saudis – have also made it harder to shell out billions of dollars to subsidise the Assad regime.

Iran’s great advantage, suggests Emile Hokayem, an analyst, is its commitment and competence, in Syria and beyond. “The expertise, experience and strategic patience it deployed in support of the Syrian regime to a great extent facilitated Assad’s recovery from serious setbacks in 2012. In contrast, the war in Syria has exposed not only the political and operational limitations of the Gulf states, but also the rivalries among them.”

Categories: Caliphate, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Gulf states, International Community, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iraq, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, King Salman, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Saudi Arabia, Shiite crescent, Syria
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It’s Not Just Islam, It’s the Tribal Mentality

March 12, 2015

It’s Not Just Islam, It’s the Tribal Mentality, Front Page Magazine, , March 12, 2015

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Islam in part is the “theologizing” of the tribal mentality. Islam’s important innovation was to redefine the “tribe” as the whole umma of believers, creating in effect a “super tribe” that transcends mere blood as the bonding agent. But the tribal warrior ethos persists–– in the doctrine of jihad, tribal atrocities in contemporary terror and its gruesome videos, the privileging of men in polygamy, honor killings, and social restrictions on women, the disdain for the infidel “other” in the Koranic belief that Muslims are the “best of nations,” the betrayal of alliances in the religious sanction of lying to infidels (taqiyya), and the obsession with “honor” that today we find in violent Muslim reactions to “blasphemy” against Mohammed or the Koran.

Ignoring the tribal mentality is as dangerous for our foreign policy as downplaying Islamic doctrine.

The Obama administration’s serial appeasement of Iran––currently the “strongest tribe” spreading its influence throughout the region–– has damaged our prestige among allies like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, who are already shopping around for a more reliable and forceful partner. If we want to destroy the jihadists, check Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and protect our interests, we must again become the “strongest tribe.”

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The “nothing to do with Islam” mantra took a hit recently in one of the premier organs of liberal received wisdom, The Atlantic. Many have greeted as a revelation Graeme Wood’s article on the Islamic doctrines behind ISIS’s atrocities. Regular readers of FrontPage and Jihad Watch will not be as impressed. For years they have understood the link between jihadism and Islam. In 1994 Andy McCarthy made this connection when he prosecuted the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing the previous year, a connection that the FBI ignored or discounted at the time––a failure, by the way, that has become a pernicious tradition for those charged with protecting our nation’s security and interests. For everyone else who has been paying attention to the rise of modern jihadism, Wood’s article is a dog bites man story.

One can hope that perhaps now, with the truth revealed by one of the Acela corridor’s oracles, the jihad deniers will wise up, though I wouldn’t bet on it. Unexamined opinions comprise the bulk of the progressive mind, and are notoriously resistant to empirical evidence and sound argument. But the current mess in the Middle East results from more than just Islam and its traditional belligerence, supremacist pretensions, and illiberal religious laws and doctrines. These characteristics reflect variations on the mentality of the tribe, one antithetical to modernity and the principles of liberal democracy, and still powerful in the Middle East, the region once described as “tribes with flags.”

For all the differences among tribal peoples, the components of this mentality are consistent, from the ancient Gauls and Germans Caesar conquered and the Vikings terrorizing much of Europe, to the American Indians the U.S. Cavalry fought and the jihadist gangs rampaging in the Middle East.

First, there is little notion of a common humanity that transcends ethnicity or culture. Universal principles are scarce, and personal identity is found solely in the collective customs and traditions of the tribe. Outsiders are to be distrusted, plundered, or conquered when possible. Loyalty is not to principle, but to blood. Most tribal peoples consider their tribe the acme of humanity, the only genuine humans. Hence their word for “human” is usually identical to the name of their tribe. They are literally ethnocentric.

Second, violence, particularly against outsiders, is an acceptable instrument for resolving conflict and asserting tribal superiority. Not just the violence of war, but also the cruel torture and slaughter of outsiders, including women and children, are legitimate for serving the interests of the tribe. Indeed, what we call terrorism was a tactic of tribal warfare to prevent a full-scale war by so terrorizing enemies that they would give up without a fight, a phenomenon common in the various Indian wars of American history. Hence the scary face-paint, tattoos, war cries, bizarre hairstyles, tortures like scalping, mutilation of enemies, or slaughter of their women and children, all of which are meant to frighten and demoralize the enemy. The same intent explains the blustering threats, braggadocio, and insults typical of tribal warfare and diplomacy. These practices can be documented in tribal societies from the Iroquois to the ancient Gauls.

Next, loyalty in tribal societies counts only for those within the tribe. Alliances with other tribes or peoples are ad hoc and contingent on the immediate interests of the tribe. They can be abandoned or betrayed if circumstances or perceptions change. Moreover, respect for others beyond the tribe is based solely on their capacity to inflict violence on their enemies. The “strongest tribe,” a status based on its effectiveness and success in conflict, will attract allies, who will abandon the hegemon once it loses that perception of its strength. Thus during Caesar’s wars in Gaul various Gallic and Germanic tribes would ally with the Romans when they appeared dominant, and betray them in an instant if they thought them weak. Likewise during the U.S. Cavalry’s wars against the Plains Indians, many tribes victimized by the Sioux or Apache or Cheyenne would ally with the Americans if they seemed to be winning, then switch sides the moment they seemed weak.

Finally, tribal societies are centered on the male warrior and his honor. Forget the Women’s Studies fantasies of matriarchal tribal societies. Tribal cultures privilege males, for men fight, and the survival and honor of the tribe depends on martial valor. Women bear children and work, as the skeletons of pre-contact American Indian remains demonstrate. Female bones show much more damage from hard physical labor than do male. This doesn’t mean that women had no status within the tribe, or did not enjoy somewhat more equality than women in more sophisticated civilizations. But warrior males still dominated, and culture in the main centered on men and their prowess in war, which earned honor, what we call prestige, for the whole tribe.

Sound familiar? It should, for Islam in part is the “theologizing” of the tribal mentality. Islam’s important innovation was to redefine the “tribe” as the whole umma of believers, creating in effect a “super tribe” that transcends mere blood as the bonding agent. But the tribal warrior ethos persists–– in the doctrine of jihad, tribal atrocities in contemporary terror and its gruesome videos, the privileging of men in polygamy, honor killings, and social restrictions on women, the disdain for the infidel “other” in the Koranic belief that Muslims are the “best of nations,” the betrayal of alliances in the religious sanction of lying to infidels (taqiyya), and the obsession with “honor” that today we find in violent Muslim reactions to “blasphemy” against Mohammed or the Koran.

Ignoring the tribal mentality is as dangerous for our foreign policy as downplaying Islamic doctrine. The chronic disorder in northern Iraq today is not just about the Sunni-Shi’a divide, or ISIS’s dream of a caliphate. It also reflects the bewildering number of tribes and clans in the region, whose complex alliances and enmities continually shift depending on circumstances and the perceptions of which tribe is the stronger. Our ally today can instantly become our enemy tomorrow. Factions that appear “moderate” today can become jihadist terrorists tomorrow. Our “friends” will tell us what we want to hear today, and then betray their words tomorrow. Most important, anything we do that creates the perception of weakness––especially concessions, or failure to inflict revenge, or acts of mercy––will also damage our prestige as the “strongest tribe” and invite tribes to abandon us.

These tribal practices defined most peoples, including Europeans, before the advent of modernity. They have survived among Middle Eastern Muslims because they were encoded in religious doctrines that promise global power for the tribe of the faithful in this life, and paradise in the next, especially for jihadist warriors. This amalgamation in part explains the spectacular success of Muslim warriors for a 1000 years, a record of martial achievement the memory of which today fuels the resentment and anger of those Muslims who wish to restore that lost honor. It also contributes to the difficulty of many Muslim societies to reconcile with modernity, particularly liberal democracy and its cargo of human rights, confessional tolerance, and equality for women and those of other faiths.

Of course, worldwide millions of Muslims have managed to transcend tribalism and adjust their faith to modernity. But millions more haven’t, and it is they who are fomenting most of the mayhem and murder on every continent except Antarctica. Our tactics and strategies in confronting this threat must indeed be based on a correct understanding of the spiritual imperatives that motivate the jihadists. But they also must take into account the tribal mentalities that respect force and honor the strong.

The Obama administration’s serial appeasement of Iran––currently the “strongest tribe” spreading its influence throughout the region–– has damaged our prestige among allies like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, who are already shopping around for a more reliable and forceful partner. If we want to destroy the jihadists, check Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and protect our interests, we must again become the “strongest tribe.”

Categories: Caliphate, Diplomacy, Egypt, Foreign policy, History, International Community, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Moderate rebels, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Saudi Arabia, Theocracy, Tribal mentality
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Obama’s Surrender to Iran

March 12, 2015

Obama’s Surrender to Iran, Front Page Magazine, , March 12, 2015

obama-iran

Iran, therefore, needs nuclear weapons to protect itself should it fail to derail Obama’s ambitious plans. Should the Pan Arabic (Sunni) Islamic Union become a reality, the Iranian rulers believe that having the capability of ushering in Armageddon will keep the Sunni’s at bay.

At the very least, the Mullahs in Iran rest better knowing, should they fall, that they can take everyone else down with them. Think “mutually-assured destruction.” A sort of “MAD” amongst madmen.

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It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama’s agenda in the Middle East is to help the Islamists regain the land they once controlled but lost in 1924 with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The Arab Spring was not a movement to replace ruthless dictators with democratic governments. It was an Islamic movement to replace secular governments with Islamic ones.

Step by step, this administration is helping to establish the Islamists’ dream of a revived caliphate, or “Pan Arabic Islamic Union” as it has been called by Islamist leaders recently.

There is a mistaken school of thought that believes such an Islamic Union would function like an Arabic European Union, growing their economies and enabling them to take their place among the other nations of the world as equals.

This school neglects to answer the most salient question: How do you contain a movement that recognizes no borders but its own and is compelled by dint of faith to dominate the rest of the world or die in the effort?

Unfortunately, the primary opposition to this plan isn’t coming from the American people. Sadly, much of America is suffering from confusion, ignorance, self-loathing and a dedication to bending over backwards in an attempt to avoid the confrontation that looms ahead.

Rather than marshaling a strong core of support for the hard choices that must be made, our administration is creating a huge chasm between citizens over trivialities and over-amplified slights. We are far weaker for it.

One might ask then, who is opposing the mighty President of the United States? Who dares stand in the way of the Nobel Peace prize winner “Barack Obama?”

The answer will be something of a shock to many.

In no particular order, listed below are those who are arrayed against the designs of our “Dear Leader.”

Putin

Standing most prominently, is Vladimir Putin, the Russian bear. Putin has designs on the former Soviet satellite nations and he needs a strong economy and the leverage that an oil monopoly over the European market provides to fuel his aspirations.

His Ukraine adventure is proving more troublesome than originally thought, and Obama’s push to topple Assad in Syria threatens Putin’s access to a warm water port for Russia’s oil exports to Europe.

The Russian oligarchs are growing restive under the thumb of Putin, seeing his dreams of Sovietus revivivus as bad for business and potentially catastrophic. Putin’s leash is shortening, and his tenure is by no means a sure thing.

While Putin remains in power, he will oppose Obama’s Ottoman revival. He has no choice.

Old Guard and Monarchies of the Middle East

Next are the old guard and monarchies of the Middle East. We like to call them “dictators” even though in reality, while they are all Sunni Muslims, they are more concerned with maintaining their own wealth and power than in recreating an Islamic caliphate.

Among these were Gaddafi, Mubarak and the others deposed in the Arab Spring, but also numbered in this groups is the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan and both Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

All are in danger of being ejected from this game. But just like Putin, they will not go bloodlessly.

Islamic Republic

The final player is also the strongest: Iran.

Iran, a Shiite nation, is a natural enemy to any Sunni Islamic caliphate system. The Iranian rulers know from Islamic history (the same history we completely ignore here in the West) that any Sunni caliphate will soon swallow and erase the Shi’a, destroying all opponents to their well-established ideals of Islamic religious and political structure.

Iran, therefore, needs nuclear weapons to protect itself should it fail to derail Obama’s ambitious plans. Should the Pan Arabic (Sunni) Islamic Union become a reality, the Iranian rulers believe that having the capability of ushering in Armageddon will keep the Sunni’s at bay.

At the very least, the Mullahs in Iran rest better knowing, should they fall, that they can take everyone else down with them. Think “mutually-assured destruction.” A sort of “MAD” amongst madmen.

Don’t let this apocalyptic scenario, however, lead you to think that Iran is going quietly into oblivion. On the contrary, it has tirelessly worked to thwart Obama’s plans.

Iran’s use of terror and terror proxies is on the upswing. It will distract and misdirect, strike and cajole, but it will not permit a Sunni caliphate to appear on its border without a nuclear capability of its own to deter Sunni adventurism.

Obama’s setbacks in Syria and Benghazi have forced him to negotiate with the Iranians. He wants to assure them that they have nothing to fear from a caliphate, while simultaneously keeping the American people from recognizing the monumentally stupid policy objective he is pursuing.

To this end, he tells us he has gotten Iran to agree to postpone its nuclear work for ten years, under the ridiculously naive idea that the dynamics of the Middle East will have changed. Many believe Obama is in fact a Muslim. In reality, that really doesn’t matter.

His administration believes that all conflict can be framed in Marxist terms. Empower those who have little and they will join the community with smiles and slaps on the back. The administration fundamentally misunderstands the problem and is applying a solution akin to gasoline on a grease fire.

Economics are unimportant to the Islamists. Power is their currency and they spend all they have to purchase the world for Allah. The establishment of an Islamic caliphate will not calm the Arab street, it will invigorate it to greater conquests, as Islam demands.

Of course, in the eyes of the neo-progressives in the White House, to speak truthfully about this “Islamophobia.”

To Obama, a nuclear Iran is an acceptable trade-off for a revived caliphate, To Israel, however, both Iran and a caliphate are threats to their very existence.

Iran with a nuclear weapon has no reason not to make good on its long-standing promise to “wipe Israel from the face of the earth.” A reconstituted caliphate modeled after the former Ottoman Empire has no room for Israel, indeed, on Iran’s maps, Israel doesn’t exist at all.

America is negotiating nuclear policy with a terrorist state, and geopolitical hegemony with an ideology/religion that knows no borders but its own.

In 2013, President Obama told us we can all take a deep breath, he was able to wring an invaluable concession out of the Iranians. He breathlessly announced that Iran had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.

It appeared that we had been brought back from the brink by the president’s keen ability to negotiate.   Notwithstanding the obvious (and wholly inappropriate) grandstanding by the POTUS, there are a few other issues that need to be addressed in relation to this irrelevant fatwa.

Most Americans aren’t aware that the foundation of Iran’s nuclear program was laid on March 5th, 1957 by the United States, under an Eisenhower program called “Atoms for Peace.”  Iran established the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) in 1967, which was a 5 megawatt nuclear research reactor, fueled by enriched uranium.

In 1968, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ratifying it in 1970, making Iran’s nuclear program subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verification and accountability.

Following the 1979 Revolution, nearly all international nuclear cooperation with Iran was cut off.  With little hope of regaining international cooperation, Iran elected to continue the program on their own, although they thought it best to save face and attempt to “shame” America (and by extension its advanced nuclear technology) by condemning all things nuclear.

It was for this reason and this reason alone, that the fatwa was issued. It had nothing to do with any humanitarian interests held deeply in the hearts of Iranian leaders; they are certainly more than amenable to any method that allows them to more efficiently eliminate their enemies, most especially Israel.

The anti-nuclear fatwa, is fully revealed to be a sham five years later, when we see the destruction of a reputedly “non-existent” Iranian nuclear program by Iraqi forces.

All of this is still occurring under the reign of the same Ayatollah that issued the nuclear fatwa a brief five years previous. Clearly, the Iranians had continued their nuclear program, despite the fatwa.

The next time we saw any reference to the 1979 “nuclear fatwa” was in 2003.  The IAEA issued a report, condemning the Iranian nuclear program, accusing it of once again, trying to weaponize the technology.

Still, Iran didn’t budge.  It wasn’t until the U.S. threatened to get involved militarily (the full might and power of the U.S. military was on display right next door in Iraq under the leadership of President Bush) that the Iranians finally caved.

What did this concession look like?  Well, as you might have guessed, Iran simply reaffirmed the old stand-by fatwa from 1979, condemning nuclear weapons and promising to play nice.

So, for the record, we have clear evidence that the Iranians consider their anti-nuclear fatwa to be toilet paper, so Obama’s “concession” is more enabling than disarming. Iran had cast the ‘79 fatwa out again in 2013, hoping we’ll bite on it one more time. Obama readily obliged.

President Obama appears willing to do whatever it takes to build his legacy on reestablishing the Islamic state after an 80 year absence. He also appears willing to endanger both the United States and Israel to get it done.

European colonization didn’t create terrorists; Islam and Mohammed birthed terrorism in order to spread a brutal and unforgiving ideology.

Absent European intervention, Muslims might yet be centuries further behind than they already are. Islam is a crippling force. Science has never been particularly important to the Islamists.

European contact brought Muslim countries out of the Stone Age; the same stone age to which the Islamic jihad intends to return us all.

Categories: Arab nations, Caliphate, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, History, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian navy, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Rouhani, Shia, Sunni, Theocracy
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Analysis: Iran is no partner in the fight against the Islamic State

March 11, 2015

Analysis: Iran is no partner in the fight against the Islamic State, Long War Journal,  and , March 11, 2015

B_vsofcXEAAtDRvQassem Soleimani (center) with his bodyguards near the frontlines of Tikrit.

Iran benefits from the threat of an Islamic State, and if the US continues its courtship of Tehran, it may find the Islamic State replaced by an Islamic Republic.

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Testifying on Capitol Hill on March 3, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey characterized the joint attempts of the Iraqi military, Iraqi Shia militias, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) at taking back control of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, from the Islamic State, as “a positive thing.” “Frankly,” General Dempsey said, “it will only be a problem if it results in sectarianism.”

General Dempsey’s caveat is an interesting one, since there is every reason to believe that Shia control of Tikrit will result in further sectarianism. While the US administration says in its most recent National Security Strategy that it desires to “degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL [Islamic State]” in an attempt to “support Iraq … free itself from sectarian conflict and the scourge of extremists,” Tehran is actively perpetuating the sectarian crisis in Iraq.

The threat of the Islamic State, coupled with American “strategic patience,” not only makes the Iraqi Shia more dependent on Tehran and legitimizes Iran’s military presence in Iraq, it also provides the regime in Tehran with another bargaining chip in nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 Group.

In the past, the Iraqi Shia have demonstrated little interest in reducing themselves to puppets of Tehran. During the war with Iraq from 1980-1988, Iraqi nationalism trumped sectarian identity: the Shia constituted the rank and file of the Iraqi military, and Shia leaders in Iraq kept their distance from the regime in Tehran. After the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Iraq became a sanctuary to Iranian clerics critical of the regime in Tehran, including Hossein Khomeini, grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic.

But Iraq did not remain a refuge for long. The civil war in Iraq, followed by the rise of Islamic State, forced moderate Iraqi Shia, who otherwise would have pursued a line independent of Iran, to become dependencies of Tehran. After being rebuffed by the US following the Islamic State’s takeover of Mosul in 2014, General Qassem Atta, head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, asked Tehran for help and received assistance within 48 hours. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi continues to press Washington for more support in his fight against the Islamic State and uses US hesitancy to justify reliance on Iran, which according to Vice President Iyad Allawi,only increases Iran’s influence in Iraq and could lead to dismantlement of the Iraqi state.

The Obama administration may desire to help secure the survival of the Iraqi state, but the small contingent of US advisers in Iraq is relying on a heavily Iranian-influenced Iraqi sectarian intelligence and security apparatus. The Iraqi security forces are predominantly Shia, and in addition, Shia militias and “advisers” from the IRGC Quds Force are now fighting as legitimate Iraqi forces. 

This creates an environment in which targeting operations developed by Iranian forces and the militias have primacy over those developed by the US, leading to the possibility that  Washington could be portrayed by Islamic State as complicit in the indiscriminate targeting of Sunnis. Such operations will be perceived the same way by the very Sunnis we need to fight Islamic State, thus undermining the US strategy to “support Iraq … free itself from sectarian conflict and the scourge of extremists.”

Any US reliance on Iranian support in the fight against the Islamic State is also likely to strengthen Tehran’s bargaining position in the nuclear negotiations.

Although both US and Iranian negotiators maintain that nothing but the nuclear issue is being discussed, this of course is fiction. On Sept. 22, Fars News, quoting an anonymous American source, reported that Secretary of State John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, discussed the nuclear issue as well as the fight against the Islamic State. And Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary, has also connected both issues. Clearly, Tehran’s cooperation with Washington in the fight against the Islamic State comes at a price, which Washington must pay at the negotiating table in Geneva.

Iran has Washington where it wants it. Iran wants a favorable deal, and the Obama administration is signaling that such a deal is forthcoming. US “strategic patience” is allowing Iran to increase its influence and presence in Iraq and Syria. Assad is waiting out the Americans and the international community, and Shia militias are now viewed as legitimate forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. But most importantly, US “strategic patience” signals to Iran an unwillingness to jeopardize the talks by linking them to Iran’s role in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. 

Iran benefits from the threat of an Islamic State, and if the US continues its courtship of Tehran, it may find the Islamic State replaced by an Islamic Republic.

Categories: Caliphate, Combat troops, Department of Defense, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iraq, Iraq war, Iraqi military, Islamic State, Islamism, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Shia, Sunni, Theocracy
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Policy Ban Reversed – Iranian Students Study Nuke Science In U.S. – Fox & Friends

March 11, 2015

Policy Ban Reversed – Iranian Students Study Nuke Science In U.S. – Fox & Friends via You Tube, March 11, 2015

 

Categories: Colleges in U.S., Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Nukes, Obama, State Department, U.S. Congress
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