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Column One: The Marshall Islands’ cautionary tale

May 1, 2015

Column One: The Marshall Islands’ cautionary tale, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, April 30, 2015

Iranian navy shipIranian navy ship.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

There is a thread that runs between Obama’s policy toward Iran and his policy toward Israel.

On Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forcibly commandeered the Maersk Tigris as navigated its way through the Straits of Hormuz. Iran controls the strategic waterway through which 40 percent of seaborne oil and a quarter of seaborne gas transits to global markets.

The Maersk Tigris is flagged to the Marshall Islands. The South Pacific archipelago gained its independence from the US in 1986 after signing a treaty conceding its right to self-defense in exchange for US protection. According to the treaty, the US has “full authority and responsibility for security and defense of the Marshall Islands.”

Given the US’s formal, binding obligation to the Marshall Islands, the Iranian seizure of the ship was in effect an act of war against America.

In comments to Bloomberg hours after the ship was seized, Junior Aini, chargé d’affairs at the Marshall Islands Embassy in Washington, indicated that his government’s only recourse is to rely on the US to free its ship.

Immediately after the incident began, the US Navy deployed a destroyer to the area. But that didn’t seem to make much of an impression on the Iranians. More significant than the naval movement was the fact that the Obama administration failed to condemn their unlawful action.

If the administration continues to stand by in the face of Iran’s aggression, the strategic implications will radiate far beyond the US’s bilateral ties with the Marshall Islands. If the US allows Iran to get away with unlawfully seizing a Marshall Islands flagged ship it is treaty bound to protect, it will reinforce the growing assessment of its Middle Eastern allies that its security guarantees are worthless.

As the Israel Project’s Omri Ceren put it in an email briefing to journalists, “the US would be using security assurances not to shield allies from Iran but to shield Iran from allies.”

But President Barack Obama apparently won’t allow a bit of Iranian naval piracy to rain on his parade. This week Obama indicated that he feels very good about where his policy on Iran now stands. And he has every reason to be satisfied.

With each day that passes, the chance diminishes that his nuclear deal with the mullahs will be scuppered.

On the one hand, the Iranians are signaling that they are willing to sign a deal with the Great Satan. And this makes sense. For them the deal has no downside.

First there’s the money. Last week the State Department indicated that it won’t rule out paying Iran a $50 billion “signing bonus.”

The $50b. would be an advance on Iranian funds that have been frozen in Western banks under the terms of the sanctions regime that would be lifted in the event a deal is concluded.

Iran can do a lot with $50b.

Iran is spending $3b. a month to finance its war in Syria. With $50b. in their pockets the ayatollahs can fight for another year and a half without selling a barrel of oil.

According to a report earlier this week on Channel 10, during Syrian Defense Minister General Fahd al-Freij’s visit to Tehran this week, he was instructed to enable Hezbollah to open a front against Israel on the Golan Heights. Iran’s “signing bonus” would pay for Iran’s new war against Israel.

As for their nuclear weapons program, even Obama admitted that when his deal expires in 10 years, Iran will have the capacity to build nuclear weapons at will.

Iran can get around the ideological issue of signing with its theological foe by focusing its hatred on the US Congress, something Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did effortlessly at a press conference in New York on Wednesday.

At home as well, Obama no longer faces serious opposition to his Iran policy. The Iranian Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the bill now being debated on the Senate floor, ensures that Congress will have no ability to stand in the way of the deal. In contrast to the provisions of the US Constitution that require a two-third Senate majority to approve an international treaty, the Senate bill requires a two-third majority of senators to block the implementation of Obama’s nuclear deal with the greatest state sponsor of terrorism.

Obama has successfully bullied centrist Democrat senators into abandoning their concern for US national security and supporting his deal.

They in turn have convinced centrist Republicans – and AIPAC – to push forward the legislation and so turn Congress into partner in Obama’s nuclear gambit.

Attempts by Republican senators, including presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, to attach amendments to the bill that would require Congress to either treat the deal as an international treaty, or at the very least require a simple majority to reject it, have been strenuously opposed not only by the Democrats, but by the Republican leadership as well.

Obama’s confidence that his deal will go through has freed him up to mark the next target of his foreign policy in what he recently referred to as the “fourth quarter” of his presidency: Israel.

According to a report in Foreign Policy, the administration is now seeking to delay anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council – including a French draft resolution that would require Israel to surrender all of Judea and Samaria and northern, southern and eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians – until after the deal with Iran is concluded at the end of June. According to the report, the administration doesn’t want to upset pro-Israel Democrats while it still needs them to approve the deal with Iran.

But Obama has no problem with marking the target.

And so, on Monday, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman did just that.

In an address before Reform Jews, Sherman issued a direct threat against Israel.

In her words, “If the new Israeli government is seen to be stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution, that will make our job in the international arena much tougher… it will be harder for us to prevent internationalizing the conflict.”

In an apparent attempt to soften the harsh impression Sherman’s statement made on the Israeli public, on Wednesday US Ambassador Dan Shapiro gave an interview to Army Radio.

Although his American-accented Hebrew is always a crowd pleaser, Shapiro’s statements were simply a more diplomatic restatement of Sherman’s threat.

As he put it, “We are entering a period without negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinians] and this leads us to two important challenges.

One – how do we make progress toward the two-states for two-peoples solution, and two – negotiations have always been critical to preventing the delegitimization of Israel.”

In other words, Shapiro signaled that the Obama administration expects Israel to make significant concessions to the Palestinians in return of nothing, in the absence of negotiations.

And if we fail to make such unreciprocated concessions, we will have no legitimacy and the US will have no choice but to act against Israel at the UN.

That is, by Shapiro’s and Sherman’s telling, Israel’s unwillingness to bow to Palestinian and US demands for concessions to the Palestinians is what has caused and what feeds the international campaign to delegitimize its right to exist.

For anyone who entertains the thought that Shapiro and Sherman are correct to blame Israel for the movement to delegitimize it, this week we received new proof of its falsity.

This week, the leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement condemned Israel not for failing to make concessions to the Palestinians. This week they condemned the Jewish state for helping Nepal earthquake victims.

Ever since the Israeli humanitarian aid mission set off for Nepal earlier this week, leading figures in the BDS movement have been working overtime to attribute ill and even demonic intentions to their mission.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted on his Twitter account, “Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade!” Max Blumenthal, a Jewish anti-Semite who has risen to prominence in the BDS campaign, tweeted, “For a country responsible for so many man-made catastrophes, natural disasters can’t come often enough.”

Ali Abumiah, the editor of Electronic Intifada, intoned that Israel was racist to evacuate newborn infants born to surrogate mothers in Nepal and leave the surrogates behind. He also tweeted, “Propaganda operation goes into high gear to exploit Nepal earthquake to improve Israel’s blood-soaked image.”

These assaults, which attribute malign, exploitative designs to Israel’s humanitarian relief efforts, make clear that there is no connection between Israel’s actions and hostility toward Israel.

The purpose of the BDS movement is not to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.

Its purpose is to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and delegitimize support for Israel’s right to exist.

If Israel is evil for sending hundreds of soldiers and relief workers to Nepal to rescue earthquake victims, clearly Israel will be attacked as evil for making concessions to the Palestinians that the Palestinians and the Obama administration will insist are insufficient.

Shapiro’s claim that negotiations between Israel and the PLO, or Israeli unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, protect Israel from its Western detractors is totally unfounded.

There is a thread that runs between Obama’s policy toward Iran and his policy toward Israel.

That common threat is mendacity. Obama’s actual goals in both have little to do with his stated ones.

Obama claims that he wishes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But as we see from his willingness to allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state while running wild in the Straits of Hormuz, committing mass slaughter in Syria, building an empire that includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and threatening its Arab neighbors and Israel, the purpose of the administration’s negotiations with Iran is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The purpose of the negotiations is to build an American-Iranian alliance on Iran’s terms.

So, too, Obama says his goal is to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

But his pressure and hostility toward Israel does nothing to achieve this goal. The goal of a policy of acting with hostility toward Israel is not to promote peace. It is to distance the US from Israel and align America’s Israel policy with Europe’s preternaturally hostile treatment of the Jewish state.

Three days after a ship sailing under their flag was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, citizens of the Marshall Islands discovered that their decision to place their security in America’s hands is no longer the safe bet they thought it was 29 years ago.

Anyone who entertains the belief that Israel will gain diplomatic acceptance or even a respite from American pressure if it makes concessions to the Palestinians is similarly making a high risk gamble.

Categories: Foreign policy, Freedom of the seas, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian navy, Iranian nukes, Israel, Marshall Islands, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Palestinian Authority, Peace process, Sanctions, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
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How does sanctions-ridden Iran find a multibillion war chest to fund 6 armies fighting in 4 Mid East wars?

April 24, 2015

How does sanctions-ridden Iran find a multibillion war chest to fund 6 armies fighting in 4 Mid East wars? DEBKAfile, April 24, 2015

(The sanctions on Iran have been of decreasing significance since the initial “framework” of 2013 went into effect. — DM)

According to figures reaching DEBKAfile in March, Iran is spending a vast fortune – up to an estimated $6-8 billion per year – to keep six armed forces fighting in four Middle East war campaigns for expanding its sphere of influence.  Month after month, Tehran forks out close to half a billion dollars – and sometimes more – to keep those conflicts on the boil. How Iran manages to keep this war chest flowing so abundantly from an economy crippled by international sanctions has never been explained.

Syria
As the Syrian war enters its fifth year, Iranian Revolutionary Guards are found to be running it from four command and control centers, our military and intelligence sources report:

1. In Damascus, the IRGC operates as a part of the Syrian General Staff, with two imported pro-Iranian militias at its independent disposal. This command center has three tasks: To oversee the Syrian general staff and monitor its operational planning; to guard President Bashar Assad’s regime and his family; defend key locations such as the military airport and Shiite shrines, and keep the highways to Lebanon open.

2.  In the Aleppo region of the north, IRGC officers were engaged in drawing up plans for a general offensive to rout rebel forces from positions they have captured in the city. Tehran attaches prime importance to a peak effort for the recapture of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. The IRGC command has transferred large-scale Hizballah forces from Lebanon to this arena, along with Afghan and Pakistani Shiite militias. Thousands of these combatants underwent training at specialist IRGC bases. Our military sources disclose that those militias recently took so many casualties that Iranian officers decided to hold off the Aleppo offensive.

3.  In the Qalamoun Mts., which are situated athwart the Syrian-Lebanese frontier, Tehran has given high priority to flushing rebel forces, including the Nusra Front and the Islamic State, out of the pockets they have seized on the mountain slopes, so as to clear the mountain roads for the passage of Hizballah units. This offensive has also been delayed.

4.  In South Syria, Iranian officers led a large-scale month-long drive to drive rebel forces out of the area they hold between Deraa and Damascus, in order to position Iranian-led Hizballah and pro-Iranian militia forces face to face with the Israeli army on the Golan. This drive has so far been stalled.

Tehran establishes – and pays for – new Syrian army

Iranian officers have established, trained and equipped a new 70,000-strong fighting force called the Syrian National Defense Force. Its operations, including the soldiers’ wages, are financed from Tehran’s pocket.

Iran runs airlifts day by day to re-supply the Syrian army with weapons systems and ammunition, and the Syrian Air Force with bombs and ordnance for attacks against rebel forces – of late, mostly barrel bombs. Intelligence sources estimate that Iran’s expenditure in the Syrian conflict now hits $200 million per month – around $2.5 billion a year.

Iran bankrolls Hizballah from top to bottom

The 25,000-strong Lebanese Shiite Hizballah operates under the direct command of IRGC officers. All its military equipment comes from Tehran, which also draws up its annual budget. Each month, Iran transfers to Beirut $150-200 million, as well as paying for all the Lebanese militias’ expenses for maintaining an expeditionary force in Syria. Hizballah costs Tehran an approximate $2 billion per annum.

An all-Shiite “people’s national army” for Iraq, re-supplies for Yemen

Iran’s deep military intervention in Iraq includes the creation of an all-Shiite “people’s national army.” It follows the same template as the Syrian National Defense Force and consists of the same number of fighters – 70,000 troops.

Tehran has also invested in barricades to fortify Baghdad against invasion from the north and the west.

The offensive to retake the Sunni town of Tikrit from the Islamic State was led by Iranian officers, and fed constantly with high-quality weapons systems, including missiles and tanks.

All the war materiel required by the Iraqi army and Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State is airlifted to Baghdad, some directly from Iran.

There is no reliable estimate of the Islamic Republic’s current contribution to Iraq’s war budget (estimated at a quarter of a billion dollars per month) because part of the cost is carried by the Iraqi government from oil revenues.

In Yemen, until Saudi Arabia and Egypt imposed an air and sea blockade a month ago, Iran ran supplies by air and sea to the Shiite Zaydi Houthis and their Yemeni army allies whom Tehran championed, sponsored and funded directly. The deployment of US warships in the Gulf of Aden this week put a stop to this traffic. But by then, Iran had sunk an estimated half a billion dollars in a Houthi victory.

Sanctions are no bar to Iran’s ambitions

This arithmetic is testimony to Iran’s mysteriously deep pockets. The sanctions the US, Europe and the United Nations clamped down on Tehran clearly had no effect on its willingness and ability to lay out fabulous sums to promote its ambitions as Middle East top dog.

Categories: Economy, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Middle East, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions
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Progressives at the Poker Table

April 24, 2015

Progressives at the Poker Table, Mishpacha Magazine, Jonathan Rosenblum, via Jewish Media Resources, April 24, 2015

A comparison of the progressive approach to the threat of climate warming and that of a nuclear-armed Iran offers interesting insights into the progressive mind.

Let’s start with climate warming, which according to the best measures, inconveniently stopped about 18 years ago. First, what is the magnitude of the threat? The most alarmist predictions of future catastrophe are based on computer-generated climate models that have been consistently refuted by events of the real world. According to the alarmists, there would be fifty million refugees from global warming by 2010. Never happened.

Those models are based on a variety of assumptions about “feedback mechanisms” generated by increased CO2 in the atmosphere trapping more heat. NASA satellite date from 2000-2011 showed far more heat escaping the earth’s atmosphere than predicted by the computer models, according to study in the peer-reviewed journal Remote Sensing.

Nor is clear to what extent the global warming of the 20th century was generated by anthropogenic forces – i.e., increased CO2 emissions. Many leading climate scientists now think that solar activity — about which we can do nothing — may be a larger contributor to temperature variation than carbon emissions. That would be consistent with the wide fluctuations between warm and cold periods over the last millennium, even prior to the onset of the Industrial Resolution.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization of Nuclear Research, which involves 600 universities and national labs and 8,000 scientists, have shown that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that grow and seed clouds. And clouds trap heat in the atmosphere. The magnitude of cosmic rays emitted by the sun depends on variations in the sun’s magnetic field.

Finally, that which the alarmists consider an unmitigated disaster — higher levels of CO2in the atmosphere may have many beneficial effects. A 2012 statement signed by 16 distinguished scientists from universities like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and the Hebrew University, pointed out that CO2 is “not a pollutant,” but rather a “key component of the biosphere’s life cycle.” Higher concentrations of CO2 spur plant growth.

In sum, the threat, if any, is one for the indeterminate future, of unknown magnitude and causation, and may not even be subject to ameliorative action. Yet climate alarmists propose a Global Green Carbon Treaty of such cost and intrusiveness that Yale’s Walter Russell Mead compares it to the 1928 Kellogg-Brand Pact outlawing war for sheer folly. He describes GGCT as less a treaty and more a constitution for world government regulating all economic production in every country on earth. That constitution would be for a “global welfare state with trillions of dollars ultimately sent by the taxpayers of rich countries to governments (however feckless, inept, corrupt or tyrannical) to poor ones.”

These proposals are put forward seemingly oblivious to the economic cost or loss of liberty involved. In his 2001 book The Skeptical Environmentalist, Danish statistician Bjorn Lonborg calculated that enforcement alone of the Kyoto Treaty would cost $150,000 billion a year, money which could save tens of thousands of lives annually.

The above-mentioned statement of the 16 scientists cited the work of Yale economist William Nordhaus, whos showed that the highest benefit-to-cost ratio would be achieved via a policy of fifty years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. The least developed countries would benefit most by being able to share some of the advantages of material well-being — i.e., health and life expectancy — with the more developed world.

NOW TO THE OTHER SIDE of the comparison. Even President Obama admits that under the unsigned understanding reached at Lausanne, Iran will have zero breakout time to a nuclear weapon thirteen years from now. (Today, he puts the breakout time at three months.)

That fact alone creates a world with as many tripwires leading to war as Europe on the eve of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in August 1914. Only this time the weapons of choice will be nuclear.

The proposed agreement with Iran means the end of nuclear non-proliferation. If the world’s leading rogue state and sponsor of terrorism can have its nuclear weapons program effectively endorsed by the members of the U.N. Security Council, every other nation that was dissuaded in the past by international pressure from expanding its civilian nuclear program to include enrichment to weapons level – e.g., South Korea, Brazil – will reconsider.

The most rapid nuclear proliferation will take place in the world’s most volatile region, the Middle East, in which the millennial hatred of Sunnis and Shiites still burns hot. Saudis have made it clear that they will purchase nuclear weapons off-the-shelf from Pakistan, as per a prior agreement, to counter Iran’s ability to obtain nuclear weapons. Egypt and Turkey will almost certainly follow suit.

An already aggressive Iran would become vastly more so with the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues from the lifting of sanctions and the ability to provide a nuclear umbrella for its regional proxies. As a consequence, the Middle East would become all the more volatile.

The nations most likely to acquire nuclear arms and unstable, which increases the possibility of terrorist groups acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran has long eyed the “holy cities” of Mecca and Medina, and is already stirring up the Shiite population in Saudi Arabia’s eastern, oil-producing provinces and in Yemen on its southern border. Egypt cannot feed its population.

And Iran might find it useful to supply some of its non-state allies, like Hezbollah or Hamas, with dirty nuclear weapons that do not require missiles to deliver. Non-state actors are far harder to deter or hold accountable.

A nuclear Iran should terrify not only Israel, which it has repeatedly threatened to obliterate. Iranian leaders have publicly speculated for years about the grim calculus of a nuclear exchange with Israel: one bomb wipes out Israel; Israeli retaliation still leaves us with tens of millions survivors. Former CIA Director James Woolsey and Peter Fry, a member of the congressional EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) Commission, stress the vulnerability of the United States. The recent “understanding” (the terms of which are unknown and perhaps unknowable given the wide divergence between American and Iranian descriptions of what has been concluded) makes no reference to any limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program, on which it works closely with North Korea.

Iran may soon possess long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States or the capacity to launch a nuclear-armed satellite above the United States. Even one nuclear weapon detonated above the United States could potentially knock out much of the national power grid. The congressional EMP Commission estimated that a nationwide blackout lasting one year from such an EMP attack could result in the deaths of nine out of ten Americans, with ISIS-like gangs ruling the streets.

Nor are traditional doctrines of nuclear deterrence relevant to the Middle East, in general, and Shiite Iran, in particular. Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz ask in their devastating critique of the recent agreement how will traditional doctrines of deterrence based on stable state actors “translate into a region where sponsorship of non-state proxies is common, the state structure is under assault, and death on behalf of jihad is a kind of fulfillment?”

As the dean of Middle East scholars Bernard Lewis has pointed out, for Shiite fanatics awaiting the return of the “hidden Imam,” after a cataclysmic event, the destruction of nuclear war might be an inducement rather than a deterrent.

WHAT DOES PRESIDENT OBAMA offer as the response to this description of a nuclear tinderbox waiting to be lit? Pure fantasy.

He and Secretary of State Kerry have made repeated references to a fatwa of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini against the use of nuclear weapons, which does not exist and certainly is credited by none of Iran’s enemies.

And he speaks hopefully of a newly mellowed Iran after the conclusion of an agreement. What is it about the Supreme Leader’s repeated chants of “Death to America” and insistence that current negotiations have nothing to do with reconciliation that the President can’t hear?

One option that the President has completely excluded is an air campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and cut of the “head of snake,” as Woolsey once described the Revolutionary Guard to me. Obama has repeatedly accused the opponents of the Lausanne understanding as being advocates of war.

Clearly, then, all the tough talk about “all options are on the table,” “a bad deal is worse than no deal [followed by military attack],” “I will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,” had the same truth content as “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

Yet no one doubts that the United States has the capability to destroy Iran’s enrichment infrastructure. (If Russia goes through with the delivery of advanced anti-aircraft batteries, as a consequence of the Lausanne understanding, the task will be complicated.) And there will be consequences that cannot be fully known in advance. Iran has terrorist sleeper cells around the world. But it also has lots of assets, besides its nuclear infrastructure, which would be subject to further attacks if it unleashes those cells.

Whatever the Iranian response, the price to be paid will certainly be less than consigning all humanity to live in a world perpetually poised on the cusp of nuclear war.

SO WHY in the case of global warming are progressives willing to incur unbearable costs to combat a future threat of unknown magnitude and immediacy, and against which their solutions may well prove futile, while with respect to the easily identified and imminent danger of a nuclear-armed Iran, they write off from the start a clear and known remedy?

For progressives the solution of worldwide government, run by the executive decree of “the best and the brightest,” is not a cost too great to be contemplated, but rather the fulfillment of the progressive dream. But they will never countenance military action, even to save millions of lives down the road. Churchill’s dictum, “If you want peace, prepare for war,” remains foreign to them.

Categories: Climate change, EMP attack, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Kerry, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Progressives, Rouhani, Sanctions, Terrorism, Theocracy
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Why is the Iran Framework Deal Classified Secret and Locked Up in the Senate Security Office?

April 21, 2015

Why is the Iran Framework Deal Classified Secret and Locked Up in the Senate Security Office? Center for Security Policy, Fred Fleitz, April 21, 2015

A Senate staff member told me yesterday there is a classified version of the nuclear framework with Iran that members of the Senate are having difficulty assessing because it has been classified secret and is locked up in the Senate security office.  I was told that few Senate staffers are being allowed to read this classified version of the framework.

This revelation raises several serious questions about President Obama’s desperate effort to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

First, this classified version of the framework agreement must be different from the fact sheet on the framework released by the State Department on April 2.  We already know, based on a revelation by the French, that the Obama administration withheld from the fact sheet a controversial provision of the framework on advanced centrifuges.  Were other controversial provisions withheld?  Did Obama officials selectively release parts of the framework to block congressional action against a nuclear deal?

Second, since Iranian officials have denounced the fact sheet as a lie, does the classified version show what was actually agreed to?  Does it show major differences in areas where Obama officials are claiming the United States and Iran are in agreement?

Third, the U.S. government classifies information to prevent disclosure to our adversaries.  Who is the adversary here?  Not Iran, since the classified framework document reflects discussions and agreements with Iranian diplomats.  It is pretty clear that the framework documents have been classified to keep them from the American people, not hostile foreign governments, and to make it as difficult as possible for members of Congress and their staffs to access them.

With Iran rejecting U.S. claims that a final nuclear deal will have strong provisions on verification and lifting sanctions, and a new report that President Obama has offered Iran a $50 billion “signing bonus” for agreeing to a nuclear deal, opposition to the president’s dangerous nuclear diplomacy with Iran is growing on Capitol Hill.  Every member of Congress must review the classified documents on the framework with their staffs to determine the full extent of the Obama administration’s concessions to Iran in the nuclear talks and how to respond if important U.S. concessions have been kept from the American people.

Categories: Diplomacy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress
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Obama says US open to talks with Iran on immediately lifting sanctions

April 17, 2015

Obama says US open to talks with Iran on immediately lifting sanctions, Times of Israel, April 17, 2015

Obama-US-Italy_Horo-e1429295936721-635x357President Barack Obama listened as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi speaks during their news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, April 17, 2015. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Obama also said Friday that a bill introduced by Congress seeking a review and approval of a nuclear deal with Iran would not derail negotiations with Tehran, set to resume next week, and that the proposed legislation was a “reasonable compromise” he planned to sign off on.

The legislation would block Obama from waiving congressional sanctions against Iran for at least 30 days after any final agreement, which would give lawmakers time to weigh in. Obama said he still has concerns that some lawmakers are treading on his unilateral power as president to enter into a political agreement with another country, but the bill has language that makes it clear that lawmakers’ review will be limited to the sanctions imposed by Congress.

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U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday left open the door to “creative negotiations” in response to Iran’s demand that punishing sanctions be immediately lifted as part of a nuclear deal, even though the initial agreement calls for the penalties to be removed over time.

Asked whether he would definitively rule out lifting sanctions at once as part of a final deal aimed at keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, Obama said he didn’t want to get ahead of negotiators in how to work through the potential sticking point. He said his main concern is making sure that if Iran violates an agreement, sanctions can quickly be reinstated — the so-called “snap back” provision.

“How sanctions are lessened, how we snap back sanctions if there’s a violation, there are a lot of different mechanisms and ways to do that,” Obama said. He said part of the job for Secretary of State John Kerry and the representatives of five other nations working to reach a final deal with Iran by June 30 “is to sometimes find formulas that get to our main concerns while allowing the other side to make a presentation to their body politic that is more acceptable.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani insisted last week that they would not sign a deal unless all sanctions are lifted right after an agreement is signed. Obama initially portrayed their comments as a reflection of internal political pressure, while pointing out that the initial framework agreement reached earlier this month allows for sanctions to be phased out once international monitors verify that Tehran is abiding by the limitations.

Obama also said Friday that a bill introduced by Congress seeking a review and approval of a nuclear deal with Iran would not derail negotiations with Tehran, set to resume next week, and that the proposed legislation was a “reasonable compromise” he planned to sign off on.

The legislation would block Obama from waiving congressional sanctions against Iran for at least 30 days after any final agreement, which would give lawmakers time to weigh in. Obama said he still has concerns that some lawmakers are treading on his unilateral power as president to enter into a political agreement with another country, but the bill has language that makes it clear that lawmakers’ review will be limited to the sanctions imposed by Congress.

“That I think at least allows me to interpret the legislation in such a way that it is not sending a signal to future presidents that each and every time they’re negotiating a political agreement, that they have to get a congressional authorization,” Obama said. He said he takes lawmakers who have drafted the legislation at their word that they will not try to derail negotiations.

The president also weighed in on Russia’s announcement earlier this week that it would lift a five-year ban on delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, giving the Islamic republic’s military a strong deterrent against any air attack. The White House initially objected, but Obama said, “I’m frankly surprised that it held this long.”

Russia signed the $800 million contract to sell Iran the S-300 missile system in 2007, but suspended their delivery three years later because of strong objections from the United States and Israel. “Their economy is under strain and this was a substantial sale,” Obama said.

Russia, which also is party to the talks along with China, France, Britain and Germany, said the preliminary nuclear agreement made its 2010 ban on sending missiles to Iran no longer necessary.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Khamenei, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress
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Nuclear Iran’s “Spillover Effects”

April 14, 2015

Nuclear Iran’s “Spillover Effects” Gatestone Institute, Vijeta Uniyal, April 13, 2015

As President Obama tries to sell the world his mysterious nuclear “framework agreement,” India’s defense establishment is just not buying it. The U.S. and Western commentators might be expecting “peace dividends” from Iran, but India cannot afford to harbor such illusions.

The Iranians have already announced that they plan to sell “enriched uranium” in the international marketplace, and will be “hopefully making some money” from it. To whom will they sell?

A nuclear Iran would be able to hold the world hostage by blocking one-third of the world’s oil supply at the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian proxies have also been trying to seize control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the maritime choke point of the Suez Canal.

The only question is whether the West would rather have an adversary such as Iran before it has nuclear weapons or after.

When the West and Iran agreed — or not, depending on whether one believes the U.S. version or Iran’s — on the parameters of a supposed nuclear “framework,” India’s foreign office hailed the agreement as a “significant step.”

India’s foreign office might have joined the international chorus welcoming the deal, but as U.S. President Barack Obama aggressively tries to sell the world his mysterious nuclear “framework,” India’s defense establishment is just not buying it.

India’s defense establishment seems to be having acute qualms about this “framework.”

One day after the P5+1’s mysterious “agreement” with Iran, India began gearing up for a more effective nuclear defense, and unveiled plans to equip the country’s capital, New Delhi, with a comprehensive missile defense shield to avert a nuclear attack.

Once in place, the shield could intercept missiles fired from a range of 5,000 km, roughly double the aerial distance between New Delhi and Tehran.

The first step would be to install the long-range “Swordfish” radars, developed with the help of Israel. They can track missiles from a range of 800 km.

India’s missile interceptor capability is expected to be functional by 2016. India also plans to set up a missile shield for its commercial capital, Mumbai.

1020At left, Indian defense contractors work on an Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile. At right, an Indian AAD missile is test-launched.

On April 4, India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) also reiterated the country’s ability to hit targets well beyond its adjoining region.

India has always been seriously concerned about prospect of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. If Arab and Muslim countries decide to counter the Iranian nuclear threat with nuclear arsenal of their own, India’s hostile neighbor, Pakistan, is likely to want to play a crucial role.

India is not only vulnerable to nuclear threats from Pakistan. Both the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda have also openly declared hostility toward it. India has long been concerned about nuclear capabilities or materiel falling into the hands of Islamists in Pakistan. By now, it is no secret that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons capability, nuclear proliferation in the Middle East will increase exponentially. The Iranians have already announced that they plan to sell “enriched uranium” in the international marketplace and will be “hopefully making some money” from it. To whom will they sell?

President Obama and Western commentators might be expecting “peace dividends” from this “historic reconciliation” and be awaiting all sorts of positive “spillover effects” as a result of lifting sanctions — from changing Iran’s attitude towards Israel to democratizing the Iranian regime — but India cannot afford to harbor such illusions. Islamist terror has claimed more than 30,000 Indian lives in just the last two decades.

Indians are now bracing for the real spillover effects of a nuclear Iran.

Thanks to Washington’s indifference, Iran now controls four Arab capitals — Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut, and now Sana’a, while the U.S. has retreated from three: in Libya, Yemen and Iraq. If Iran can hold the Obama administration hostage without any leverage, a nuclear Iran would be able to hold the whole world hostage by blocking one-third of the world’s oil supply at the Strait of Hormuz — with impunity. Iranian proxies have also been trying to seize control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the maritime choke point of the Suez Canal.

European leaders who failed to show any resoluteness in face of Russian aggression against Ukraine, and even failed to vote against a “framework” that threatens global security, can hardly be expected to stand up to Tehran. The only question is whether the West would rather have an adversary such as Iran before it has nuclear weapons or after.

Once major European powers such as Russia, France and Germany start investing in Iranian infrastructure and entangling themselves with Iran economically, one can forget about rolling back sanctions.

Western leaders can spin the “framework” agreement all they want to cover up their abysmal diplomatic failure, but as Tehran’s centrifuges keep spinning as a result of the deal, the region turns more and more volatile.

Regardless of the diplomatic chorus and the media circus, the defense planers in New Delhi are just not buying this agreement. Other countries that care about the free world would be wise not to buy it, too.

Categories: Diplomacy, Economy, Foreign policy, India, International Community, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Nukes, Obama, Oil, P5+1, Sanctions
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Dr Andrew Bostom on Lisa Benson show 12.5.2015

April 13, 2015

Dr Andrew Bostom on Lisa Benson show 12.5.2015, You Tube, April 13, 2015

(Dr. Bostom relates Islamic doctrine to Iran’s negotiating tactics. Please see also, Lt. Col Ralph Peters: “The Iranians Negotiate, We BEG!” — DM)

Categories: Caliphate, Diplomacy, EMP attack, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamism, Israel, Javad Zarif, Kerry, Khamenei, Netanyahu, North Korea, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions, Shiite, Sunni
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Statement by PM Netanyahu

April 12, 2015

Statement by PM Netanyahu, April 12, 2014

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, Netanyahu, Nukes, P5+1, Sanctions
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Ayatollah Khamenei Outlines Requirements of Final Iran Nuclear Deal

April 9, 2015

Ayatollah Khamenei Outlines Requirements of Final Iran Nuclear Deal, Tasnim News Agency (Iranian), April 9, 2015

(All bold face print is from the original. — DM)

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TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on Thursday defined the main points that a final nuclear deal between Iran and world powers should involve, but refused to adopt a stance on the Lausanne statement that entails no binding commitment.

Addressing a gathering in Tehran on Thursday, Ayatollah Khamenei said he has not taken a position on a statement released by Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) after the most recent round of nuclear talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne, because nothing has been still agreed upon, nor have the parties reached any binding agreement.

“What has happened so far does not guarantee either the principle of an agreement, or the negotiations that lead to an agreement or even the content of an agreement, and it does not even guarantee that these talks would result in a deal, so congratulation has no meaning,” the Leader said.

The comments came after Iran and the six powers on April 2 reached a framework nuclear agreement after more than a week of intensive negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, with both sides committed to push for a final, comprehensive accord until the end of June.

Ayatollah Khamenei then reaffirmed strong support for a deal that respects the Iranian nation’s dignity, and rejected as “untrue” the reports on his opposition to any agreement.

The Leader, however, underlined that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Imam Khamenei then explained that he has only outlined the “general issues, the main guidelines, frameworks and red lines” regarding the nuclear talks and has not specified the details.

“I am not indifferent to the negotiations, but have not interfered in the details of the talks so far, and will not interfere in future either,” the Leader stressed.

The Supreme Leader then pointed to the unreliable nature of the US, an obvious sign of which he said was a biased fact sheet that Washington issued only two hours after the Lausanne statement was declared.

“Drafting such a statement (fact sheet) within two hours is not possible, so they (Americans) had been busy preparing a flawed and wrong statement contrary to the content of the talks at the same time that they were negotiating with us.”

The Leader further called on the country’s negotiators to hold consultations with the critics of the Lausanne statement to better deal with the talks, something known as “rapport” among Iranians.

Imam Khamenei once again made it clear that the talks with the US revolve only around the nuclear issue and nothing else, but at the same time noted that such nuclear negotiations provide an experience to test the possibility of talking on other subjects if Washington puts aside objections.

But, the Leader added, if the US keeps raising objections, Iran’s experience of mistrust of the US will be corroborated.

Commenting on the main points that have to be stipulated in a possible final nuclear deal, Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to the removal of anti-Iran sanctions all at once, adding, “This issue is very important and the sanctions should be completely terminated at the very day of the agreement.”

“If the removal of sanctions is to be conditioned by a new process, the fundamental of negotiations will be nonsense, because the purpose of the talks is lifting of the sanctions,” the Leader said.

The Supreme Leader also categorically rejected foreign access to the country’s “security and defensive” sectors under the pretext of nuclear monitoring.

Imam Khamenei said Iran’s military capabilities must be upheld and strengthened day by day, stressing that Iran’s backing for its “brothers” in the resistance front in different regions should never be diminished.

Moreover, the Leader voiced opposition to any deal that subjects Iran to “unconventional” monitoring and would make it a special case in the world, underlining that monitoring of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program should be conventional, like the other countries.

Iran’s “scientific and technical developments in different dimensions” was another requirement that the Leader emphasized a deal must include.

Ayatollah Khamenei finally said the responsibility lies with the country’s negotiators to fulfill those necessary demands in the talks, calling on them to “find the correct ways of negotiations” by using the view points of the informed and reliable individuals and listening to the critics.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, International Community, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Lies, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Peace in our time, Sanctions, Theocracy
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‘Iran to publish facts document to counter American lies’

April 8, 2015

‘Iran to publish facts document to counter American lies’, Israel Hayom, April 8, 2015

Iran could build bomb today but isn’t doing so because of ayatollah’s religious decree, not because of sanctions, Iranian FM reportedly tells parliament • “We made significant achievements in exchange for unimportant concessions,” says Iranian lawmaker.

142848211618964843a_bIran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (left) with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani | Photo credit: AFP

Iran could build a nuclear bomb today if it wanted and is only refraining from doing so because of a fatwa (religious decree) issued by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not because of international sanctions, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reportedly said on Tuesday during a closed hearing at the Iranian parliament, Majlis.

According to one of the participants, Zarif said the country’s foreign ministry would soon publish a “document of facts” about the nuclear deal with world powers.

“Zarif told us that his office hadn’t intended on releasing such a document, but reversed its decision because of the Americans’ lies,” said Iranian lawmaker Hussain Naqvi al-Hussaini.

Another Iranian parliamentarian, Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imenabadi, said Zarif told the parliament that Iran is not going to permit online cameras for inspection purposes at nuclear facilities. The reason for the decision, allegedly conveyed by Zarif, was because cameras have supposedly been used in the past to help assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.

Also in attendance was Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, who presented the Majlis with the technical aspects of the framework deal. Salehi, who participated in the negotiations in Lausanne, reportedly told his audience that world powers consented to enter negotiations with Iran because they had no other choice.

“We made significant achievements in exchange for unimportant concessions,” said Iranian lawmaker Nozar Shafi.

Meanwhile, Zarif and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have reportedly garnered the support of Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, who demanded immediate sanctions relief in exchange for a deal.

Iran’s supreme leader, Khamenei, did not voice his opposition to the deal, widely interpreted as silent consent. With that, some 200 Iranian hardliners protested in Tehran against the framework deal.

Categories: Diplomacy, Fatwa, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions, Theocracy
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