Ryan Mauro on Fox: Trump Travel Pause Has Some Progressive Features, Clarion Project via YouTube, February 8, 2017
Posted tagged ‘Trump agenda’
Ryan Mauro on Fox: Trump Travel Pause Has Some Progressive Features
February 9, 2017US Sanctions on Iran Must be Enforced by Ukraine
February 9, 2017US Sanctions on Iran Must be Enforced by Ukraine, Iran News Update, February 9, 2017
The lack of U.S. sanctions enforcement under the Obama administration undermined U.S. credibility and deterrence.
Although the current government is requesting more U.S. military assistance and a tougher Western stance in its current struggle against Russia in Eastern Ukraine, it sees no contradiction between its desire for Western support and its partnership with Iran’s sanctioned aviation sector.
************************
In their February 7 article for The Hill, Emanuele Ottolenghi senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Boris Zilberman, deputy director of congressional relations and a Russia analyst, co-contributed an opinion piece on why the US must enforce sanctions on Iran.
According to Ottolenghi and Zilberman, anti-tank missile components, reportedly the AT-4 Spigot, destined for Iran were seized by the Ukrainian State Border Guard on January 19. These weapons were concealed in the cargo hold of a UM Airlines flight from Kiev to Tehran. While Ukraine captured this illicit cargo, Kiev continues to allow Iran to evade a U.N.- implemented sanctioned international arms embargo and Western sanctions.
Iranian carriers like Caspian Airlines and Mahan Air are banned, but close cooperation with Ukrainian airlines, and Kiev’s failure to enforce U.S. sanctions against Iran, let’s them continue to benefit, and should become an important part of the Trump administration’s review of its foreign policy options toward Ukraine.
“The Iranian aviation sector’s reliance on Kiev is not new. Publicly available data from commercial flight trackers show that Dart Airlines is currently leasing aircraft to Iran’s privately owned Kish Air. Dart’s fleet is also frequently chartered for Iran and Lebanon routes by unknown operators. Iran Air Tours, ATA Airlines and Zagros Airlines, among others, also lease aircraft from Ukrainian operators,” write Ottolenghi and Zilberman.
These private companies are not under U.S. sanctions, but Ukraine’s fleet caters to sanctioned entities. One of Air Khors’s aircraft is currently leased to the Iraqi Al-Naser Airlines, which the U.S. Treasury sanctioned in May 2015 when the company fronted for Mahan Air, data shows.
Air Khors leased a Boeing 737 to Naft Airlines, which is being operated by U.S. sanctioned Caspian Airlines.
Treasury has also slapped sanctions on two other Ukrainian airlines for assisting Mahan Air, Bukovyna Airlines, as well as UM Airlines, which was carrying the missile parts seized last week.
Lebanese businessman Rodrigue Merhej, UM airlines chairman, is also under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2013 for their support of Mahan Air. The January 19 flight was a scheduled flight.
Ottolenghi and Silberman say that, “Since last year, there are daily flights between Kiev and Tehran, including a weekly Mahan flight that commenced last March, when Mahan and UM announced an expanded partnership. Their cooperation connects Kiev to Mahan’s Asian destinations through Tehran, giving Ukrainian passengers a convenient connecting hub to Asia.” “They add, It also enables Mahan to officially enter the Ukrainian market.”
This partnership, that Washington has sanctioned since 2013, was announced by Kiev and Tehran, with the inaugural Mahan flight to Kiev welcomed by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and senior member of the Ukrainian parliament and ally of current President Petro Poroshenko, Oleh Barna. Eugene Dykhne, acting head of Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport; the Iranian ambassador to Kiev; and Mahan Air’s managing director for international relations, also attended.
The lack of U.S. sanctions enforcement under the Obama administration undermined U.S. credibility and deterrence.
Although the current government is requesting more U.S. military assistance and a tougher Western stance in its current struggle against Russia in Eastern Ukraine, it sees no contradiction between its desire for Western support and its partnership with Iran’s sanctioned aviation sector.
This past summer, Merhej boasted about the popularity of the Kiev-Tehran route. He said, ”The occupancy is increasing every day. We have about 75 passengers per flight today. Two months ago, it was 55 passengers. I am confident that we will reach 100 passengers by the end of June.”
“What Merhej failed to address is that UM Airlines, via its support of Mahan Airlines, has been involved in moving illicit cargo for the Syrian regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ external arm, the Qods Force. The U.S. Treasury confirmed in 2013 that UM Airlines has trained Mahan Air pilots and engineers, and transferred airplanes to Mahan Air. UM has now been caught transferring weapons as well,” write Ottolenghi and Zilberman.
The seizure of weapons last week shows that UM Airlines has not stopped its illicit activity with Mahan Airlines, and that this activity has increased since the initial designations by Treasury. This is a major red flag.
Was last week’s weapons seizure was just the tip of the iceberg in illicit activity facilitated by UM and Mahan Airlines? Ottolenghi and Zilberman say that since conflict erupted in 2014, Ukraine has become a “supermarket” for the illicit arms trade, one that Iran can easily exploit through its direct air connection to Kiev.
“Authorities in Ukraine should be commended for seizing the weapons shipment, but when Kiev asks the United States for economic and military assistance, the least it can do is prevent sanctioned entities such as UM and Mahan Airlines to operate from its soil,” conclude Ottolenghi and Zilberman.
The Washington Post’s Inadvertent Boost to Steve Bannon
February 8, 2017The Washington Post’s Inadvertent Boost to Steve Bannon, Algemeiner, Ruthie Blum, February 7, 2017
Stephen Bannon. Photo: YouTube screenshot.
In yet another attempt to discredit US President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen (Steve) Bannon, the Washington Post inadvertently did just the opposite.
In a piece on Friday, national reporter Matea Gold revealed that she had obtained a draft of a movie proposal written in 2007 by Bannon – at the time a Hollywood filmmaker – aimed at warning viewers about radical Muslims turning the US into the “Islamic States of America.”
According to Gold, the envisioned three-part documentary, titled “Destroying the Great Satan: The Rise of Islamic Facism [sic] in America,” was to open with a scene showing the flag on the US Capitol building emblazoned with a crescent and star, while chants of “Allahu Akbar” emanate from inside. The purpose of the film, she said, quoting its outline, was to caution not only against jihadists, but against the “enablers among us.”
These unwitting Americans, with the “best intentions,” wrote Bannon, according to Gold, were the media, the Jewish community and government agencies engaged in appeasing Islamism and paving “the road to this unique hell on earth.”
While detailing the document, Gold made sure to remind readers that its author is the same Bannon who helped Trump forge his executive order restricting entry into the US of citizens of certain Muslim-majority countries. This unsubtle juxtaposition was supposed to give credence to the claim, widely circulated prior to and since Trump’s election, that Bannon is both an antisemite and an Islamophobe.
But the stab at a double whammy fell flat on its face. If anything, Gold’s account was cause for optimism about Bannon’s role in the administration that is taking shape in Washington.
Indeed, anybody outside of Israel who grasped 10 years ago that radical Islamism was a force not only to be reckoned with but guarded against in the West is a person who has been paying attention. Despite the national trauma caused by the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, Americans quickly covered themselves in ostrich feathers and put their heads in the proverbial sand, hoping that the war against Al-Qaeda, being fought far from their homestead, would remain something they might catch a glimpse of on the nightly news, but not feel, smell and taste.
Unlike Israelis – virtually all of whom are soldiers even when in civilian clothes – citizens of the United States are blessed with a choice about the extent of their involvement in matters of national security and defense. As a result, many can and do go through life without ever encountering men and women in uniform, let alone march alongside them.
This is a true mark of freedom that should be cherished. But when forces bent on destroying the country and everything it stands for rear their ugly heads, resting on one’s laurels is not an option; nor is having a commander-in-chief in the Oval Office who lives in liberal la-la-land. Yet that is precisely what American voters opted for – twice – in the past eight years. Talk about begging to be lulled into pre-9/11 complacency.
Bannon is by no means the only American who saw the writing on the wall. But he is among the few today with access to the president’s ear. That he realizes the threat posed by both radical Islamists and their Jewish and other “fellow travelers” is a help, not a hindrance, at a time when the greatest state sponsor of global terrorism just received billions of dollars with which to build nuclear weapons.
It is too early to tell whether Team Trump is up to the monumental task at hand, or how much influence Bannon will have on the course of events. But two things bode well: the Washington Post’s expose of his unmade film, and the satire show “Saturday Night Live”’s portrayal of him as the Grim Reaper.
On Watch: Episode 6 – Attorney General Sessions
February 7, 2017Raymond Ibrahim: How Trump Can Help Persecuted Christians and Protect Americans with One Move
February 6, 2017
During a recent interview on CBN, President Trump was asked if he thinks America should prioritize persecuted Christians as refugees. He responded:
Yes. Yes, they’ve been horribly treated. If you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, or at least very, very tough, to get into the United States. If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair — everybody was persecuted, in all fairness — but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them.
Trump’s response is far different from that given by Barrack Hussein Obama back in November 2015. Then, as president, he described the idea of giving preference to Christian refugees as “shameful”: “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” he had added.
While Obama was making such lofty admonishments, his administration was quietly discriminating against Mideast Christians in a myriad of ways — including, as Trump pointed out above, by very obviously favoring Muslim refugees over Christian ones. Indeed, despite the U.S. government’s own acknowledgement that ISIS was committing genocide against Syrian Christians — and not against fellow Sunni Muslims — the Obama administration took in 5,435 Muslims, almost all of whom were Sunni, but only 28 Christians. Considering that Christians are 10 percent of Syria’s population, to be merely on an equal ratio with Muslims entering America, at least 500 Christians should’ve been granted asylum, not 28.
But questions of equal numbers aside, the idea of prioritizing Christian refugees over Muslims (which I argued for back in 2015) is not only more humane; it brings benefits to America as well.
Consider:
Unlike Muslims, Christian minorities are being singled out and persecuted simply because of their despised religious identity. From a humanitarian point of view — and humanitarianism is the reason being cited for accepting millions of refugees — Christians should receive top priority simply because they are the most persecuted group in the Middle East. Even before the Islamic State was formed, Christians were, and continue to be, targeted by Muslims in general — Muslim individuals, Muslim mobs, and Muslim regimes, from Muslim countries of all races (Arab, African, Asian) — and for the same reason: Christians are infidel number one. (See Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians for hundreds of anecdotes before the rise of ISIS as well as the Muslim doctrines that create such hate for Christians.)
Conversely, Muslim refugees — as opposed to the many ISIS and other jihadi sympathizers posing as “refugees” — are not fleeing religious persecution (as mentioned, 99% of Muslim refugees accepted into the U.S. are, like ISIS, Sunnis), but chaos created by the violent and supremacist teachings of their own religion. Hence why when large numbers of Muslims enter Western nations — in Germany, Sweden, France, the UK — tension, crimes, rapes, and terrorism soar.
Indeed, what more proof is needed than the fact that so-called Muslim “refugees” are throwing Christians overboard during their boat voyages across the Mediterranean to Europe? Or that Muslim majority refugee centers in Europe are essentially microcosms of Muslim majority nations: there, Christian minorities continue to be persecuted. One report found that 88% of the 231 Christian refugees interviewed in Germany have suffered religiously motivated persecution in the form of insults, death threats, and sexual assaults. Some were pressured to convert to Islam. “I really didn’t know that after coming to Germany I would be harassed because of my faith in the very same way as back in Iran,” one Christian refugee said.
Is persecuting religious minorities the behavior of people who are in need of refugee status in America? Or is this behavior yet another reminder that it is non-Muslims from the Middle East who are truly in need of sanctuary?
The U.S. should further prioritize Christian refugees because U.S. foreign policies are directly responsible for exacerbating their persecution. Christians did not flee from Bashar Assad’s Syria, or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Their systematic persecution—to the point of genocide — began only after the U.S. interfered in those nations under the pretext of “democracy.” All that these policies did is unleash the jihadi forces that the dictators had long kept suppressed. Now the Islamic State is deeply embedded in precisely all three nations, enslaving, raping, and slaughtering Christians and other minorities.
Surely if U.S. policies were responsible for unleashing the full-blown jihad on Christians, the least humanitarian America can do is prioritize Christians as refugees? In fact, and as Trump pointed out during his CBN interview, it’s the opposite: according to one report, from May 1 to May 23 alone, 499 Syrian refugees were received into the U.S, 99% of them Sunnis. Zero Christians were admitted.
Questions of fairness and humanitarianism aside, there are also benefits in absorbing Mideast Christians refugees instead of Muslims. Christians are easily assimilated in Western societies, due to the shared Christian heritage and outlook, and regularly become productive members of society. Muslims follow a completely different blueprint, Islamic law, or Sharia — which calls for constant hostility (jihad) against all non-Muslims, and advocates any number of distinctly anti-Western practices (misogyny, sex slavery, death for “blasphemers” and “apostates,” etc.). Hence it’s no surprise that many Muslim asylum seekers are anti-Western at heart — or, as a German police union chief once said, Muslim migrants “despise our country and laugh at our justice.”
Mideast Christians also bring trustworthy language and cultural skills. They understand the Middle Eastern — including Islamic — mindset and can help the U.S. understand it. And unlike Muslims, Christians have no “conflicting loyalty” issues: Islamic law forbids Muslims from befriending or aiding “infidels” against fellow Muslims (click here to see some of the treachery this leads to in the U.S. and here to see the treachery Christians have suffered from their longtime Muslim neighbors and “friends”). No such threat exists among Mideast Christians. They, too, render unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s — not to mention they have no loyalty to the Islamic ideologies that made their lives a living hell in the Middle East, the Islamic ideologies that are also responsible for jihadi terror in America. Thus a win-win: the U.S. and Mideast Christians complement each other, if only in that they share the same foe.
All the above reasons — from those that offer humanitarian relief to the true victims of persecution and genocide, to those that offer stability and benefits to the United States — are unassailable in their logic.
President Trump understands this — even if most liberals and lying media don’t.
Trump’s Got a Big Job Reining In Voter Fraud
February 6, 2017Trump’s Got a Big Job Reining In Voter Fraud, American Thinker, Michael Kimmitt, February 6, 2017
President Trump’s assertion that millions of illegal votes were cast in the November election has elicited howls of protest from offended national reporters and pundits who demanded proof. Instead of recoiling, the President doubled down with an executive order to find out just how much voter fraud exists.
It is hard to fathom how anyone, especially those inquiring minds of the Washington press corps, legitimately would be so uninterested in finding the truth. Despite insisting that the President provide evidence of voter fraud, he is being assailed even more vehemently by the Democrat pols, late-night talk show hosts and reporters when he offers to do just that.
A 2014 report based on an investigation conducted by a consortium of 28 universities found that 6.4 percent of the 20 million adult non-citizens in the U.S. had voted in our elections. The study also concluded that, “Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.” That would translate into 1,280,000 illegal votes being recorded, of which an estimated 81 percent, or more than a million, would have gone to Hillary Clinton. But instead of being shocked and dismayed that this level of criminality may be underway, most in the press gloated that Mr. Trump had overstated the voter abuse.
Questionnaires used by the consortium however, revealed a significant number of non-citizens who admitted to voting in our Presidential elections – leading the researchers to conclude this group alone could have cast between a low of 38,000 to a high of 2.8 million illegal votes. We don’t know the extent of the abuse because there has been no attempt to find out, and the liberal press will go to great lengths to keep it that way.
To bolster its case that election fraud is statistically insignificant, the press points to the very few criminal convictions that have been secured by state or federal authorities. But do any of us believe that only those who are ticketed had sped down our highways on a holiday weekend? And state troopers actually make some effort to curtail traffic violations. The Justice Department, however, has been blithely indifferent to preventing possible election fraud.
Obvious but unreported is the fact the Democratic Party pushes an open borders agenda specifically to increase its voter base and rails against “vote suppression” whenever anyone points out that these same illegal immigrants might be participating in and distorting our elections. Fraud long has been an ugly element of American politics, and it has been almost exclusively the dominion of Democrats.
From the reckless corruption of the Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall thugs in New York during the mid-1800s through the heavy-handed precinct politics favored by Mayor Richard J. Daley and his successors in Chicago during much of the 20th century, to the wide-spread graft of today, the Democratic Party has virtually sole claim to the mechanisms of election corruption.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), of which former President Barack Obama has had a close working association and heavy funding for his campaign coffers, has a 40-year rap sheet of widespread voter registration fraud. Untold thousands who went to their just rewards years ago are resurrected on each election day to cast one more ballot for their favorite Democrat pol, while an estimated 2.8 million are registered to vote in more than one state and often do.
In a recent interview, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Claude Arnold described the ease with which illegal immigrants can obtain falsified government documents in California. “In every neighborhood where there is a significant illegal alien population, there are at least several document vendors that provide this service,” Arnold explained. “Typically people buy what we refer to as a three-pack – either a counterfeit resident alien or work authorization card, a counterfeit California drivers license and a counterfeit Social Security card.”
Securing an illicit voter registration card at this point is no problem because the veracity of the documents is seldom confirmed by election officials in the state. “I have worked in six locations across the United States,” Arnold said. “I’ve probably arrested more than 1,000 illegal aliens in my career, and I routinely encounter people in possession of voter registration cards and many admit to having voted.”
It is no coincidence the 18 states plus the District of Columbia that demand no form of identification are those that normally support Democratic Party candidates. California, Illinois, New York, and New Mexico have disproportionately large numbers of immigrants and little effort is made to ensure which are legally entitled to vote. State officials in these jurisdictions actively avoid finding out what is going on.
Officials in these states advance the predictably patronizing notion that members of minority groups are somehow less capable than Caucasians of securing any of the many legitimate forms of identification, and therefore are disproportionately turned away from the polls. Despite the fact that study after study prove this to be untrue and minority voter turnout essentially is unaffected by ID requirements, the left plods on with these foolish assertions.
Mississippi, a state with strict photo ID requirements, now has the nation’s best ratio of black-voter turnout to white-voter turnout, and is one of several Southern states in which voter-registration is higher among blacks than whites. So which state has the greatest racial disparity? It happens to be none other than Massachusetts, which requires not one shred of identification to cast a ballot.
Many nations (Germany, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, France, Belgium, South Africa, etc.) require identification to vote. Americans want the same. A 2012 Pew Research Center poll found 77% of all respondents favored photo IDs. Fox News and Washington Post polls produced similar results. About 65% of African-American and Hispanics citizens also support voter IDs.
Democrat bosses cling desperately to the threadbare canard that any request for photo identification is demeaning and racist. And yet to board a commercial airliner, acquire a business license, purchase a six-pack of beer, open a bank account or cash a check, secure a library card, apply for welfare or other social services, purchase a gun, rent a car and so much more require photo IDs.
Our people have a right to expect that only U.S. citizens of voting age are allow to vote – and just once in each election cycle. Each state should be required to put in place measures to protect the integrity of our elections.
More than half a century after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to strip away Jim Crow laws that corrupted the election process in many states. It is time for the federal government to take similarly decisive steps to require states to certify federal voting standards are uniformly and strictly applied.
European Conservative Parties Are Not ‘Far Right’
February 6, 2017European Conservative Parties Are Not ‘Far Right’, American Thinker, James Lewis, February 6, 2017
I keep reading in the European fakestream media that the new upsurge in conservative democratic parties in Europe all comes down to fascists and paleo-Nazis. They are not – any more than Republicans are fascists and Nazis.
Euro-conservatives sound just like you, me, and Donald Trump. They talk about freedom and democracy. They talk about tolerance for democratic parties but not for totalitarian killers. They talk about taking control of their borders again. Their college campuses have been subverted and turned upside-down, just as ours have. Their police forces often turn against normal people on behalf of murderous barbarians, just as ours are being pushed to do.
But normal people in Europe have finally gathered the courage to call the enemy by name.
Europe’s media constantly smear democratic conservatives as “extreme right” or “fascist.” That is a vicious lie, as you can hear for yourself by listening to video speeches on the web by European conservatives.
If you don’t happen to understand their languages, you can listen to Nigel Farage, who sounds just like Trump.
But notice that the Fakestream in Europe can never allow conservatives to speak, not without smearing them in the same sentence. Trump is a madman according to the media elites in Europe. But then their own democratic populists are also ready to go for a new Hitler, if you listen to the establishment media.
I’ve just listened to one of the heroic figures of the resistance, Geert Wilders, who has twice been arrested and convicted of “hate speech” by the neo-fascist establishment in the Netherlands. Over there, the “mainstream media” have lost all credibility, just like the Washington Post and the New York Times. Over there, normal people are sick and tired – and scared – of the pile of lies they have to listen to every day. They no longer believe a word of it.
Before Trump was elected, European conservatives were forbidden to speak out, accused of Nazism or racism. Today, they are finding their true voices.
Democratic conservatism has gone international – not as a centralized ideology, but as a commonsense revolt by ordinary people for their ordinary freedoms. Patriotism is coming back over there as well, and no, that doesn’t mean a return to the Kaiser’s militarism in Germany, or Napoleonic grandeur in France. It means a return to normalcy.
When Euro-conservatives give speeches, Donald Trump gets tremendous applause. Trump’s victory in the U.S. has given courage to tens of millions of Europeans, who have been afraid to speak out. Some have been jailed, and all have been smeared in the public media. But they are not going to take it anymore.
You’ll never, ever read this in the New York Times. Or in the WaPo. Or in the highly concentrated “news” cartel that controls what most Americans hear.
Marxo-jihadist globalism is always the same, here and there. And just like here, ordinary people are outraged and ready to take to the streets. They are not fascists, and they are certainly not Nazis. They are not totalitarians of any kind at all. They are true democrats with a small d.
Ordinary, healthy patriotism is in. Sensible talk is in. Crazy fascism can be heard coming only from the totalitarian left, just as in our country.
The treacherous establishments in Europe are closely allied to the corrupting forces of jihad and the Soros left. Young, empty-headed kids are being indoctrinated there, just as they are here. Trained ruckus-makers in black masks are taking the side of jihad over there, just as here.
Everyday Europeans are very scared, because their governments no longer protect them from thugs and rapists. Women are afraid to show their blond hair (or any other color hair, for that matter).
The same fascist smear tactics we see in Berkeley today are being used in Europe. And no wonder: The sources of political poison are the same left-jihadist Axis of Evil we see in this country. These are people who have been told by Alinsky types like Obama and Hillary that the American middle class is “the enemy.” And today, when they run the Organs of Propaganda, they are persuading airheads on colleges around the country that their parents and grandparents, normal Americans, are indeed their enemy.
Obama is an expert Alinsky ruckus-maker. The term “community organizer” used to be called “Communist agitator,” when Communists were not afraid to be labeled accurately, and agitation-propaganda is exactly what they do. The anti-Trump riots are organized by neo-Stalinists, who have never given up their quest for total power. They are not subtle about it.
The U.S. media are now completely corrupt, united in their goal of destroying Donald Trump. The Euro-media are exactly the same. But normal people don’t speak in a single voice. They speak in many voices. Democracy is unpredictable, and power cults around the world are starting to finally see it.
The Trump Way of Winning the War
February 4, 2017The Trump Way of Winning the War, Real Clear Politics, Caroline Glick, February 4, 2017
(As to Trump-Putin cooperation against Iran in Syria, please see Trump-Putin safe zones deal ousts Iran from Syria and Russia freezes Syrian, Iranian military movements. — DM)
The PLO is disoriented, panicked and hysterical. Speaking to Newsweek this week, Saeb Erekat, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s chief conduit to Israel and the Americans, complained that since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, no administration official had spoken to them.
“I don’t know any of them [Trump’s advisers]. We have sent them letters, written messages. They don’t even bother to respond to us.”
The Trump administration’s shunning of the PLO is a marked departure from the policies of its predecessor. For former president Barack Obama, together with Iran, the Palestinians were viewed as the key players in the Middle East. Abbas was the first foreign leader Obama called after taking office.
Erekat’s statement reveals something that is generally obscured. Despite its deep support in Europe, the UN and the international Left, without US support, the PLO is irrelevant.
All the achievements the PLO racked up under Obama – topped off with the former president’s facilitation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 against Israel – are suddenly irrelevant. Their impact dissipated the minute Trump took office.
Israel, in contrast, is more relevant than ever.
While Trump occasionally pays lip service to making peace in the Middle East, his real goal is to win the war against jihadist Islam. And he rightly views Israel as a woefully underutilized strategic ally that shares his goal and is well-placed to help him achieve it.
During the electoral campaign, Trump often spoke derisively of Obama’s nuclear pact with Tehran. And he repeatedly promised to eradicate Islamic State. But when asked to explain what he intended to do on these scores, Trump demurred. You don’t expect me to let the enemy know my plan, do you?
Trump’s critics dismissed his statements as empty talk. But since he came into office, each day signals that he does have a plan and that he is implementing it. The plan coming into focus involves a multidimensional campaign that if successful will both neutralize Iran as a strategic threat and obliterate ISIS.
Regarding Iran specifically, Trump’s moves to date involve operations on three levels. First, there is the rhetorical campaign to distinguish the Trump administration from its successor.
Trump launched the campaign on Twitter on Wednesday writing, “Iran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq even after the US has squandered three trillion dollars there.”
Shortly before his post, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Abadi appointed Iranian proxy Qasim al Araji to serve as his interior minister.
At a minimum, Trump’s statement signaled an abandonment of Obama’s policy of cooperating with Iranian forces and Iranian-controlled Iraqi forces in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.
At around the same time Trump released his tweet about Iranian control of Iraq, his National Security Adviser Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn took a knife to Obama’s obsequious stand on Iran during a press briefing at the White House.
While Trump’s statement related to Iran’s growing power in Iraq, Flynn’s remarks were directed against its nonconventional threat and its regional aggression. Both were on display earlier this week.
On Sunday, Iran carried out its 12th ballistic missile test since concluding its nuclear deal with Obama, and its first since Trump took office.
On Monday, Iranian-controlled Houthi forces in Yemen attacked a Saudi ship in the Bab al-Mandab choke point connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Flynn condemned both noting that they threatened the US and its allies and destabilized the Middle East. The missile test, he said, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that anchored the nuclear deal.
Flynn then took a step further. He drew a sharp contrast between the Obama administration’s responses to Tehran’s behavior and the Trump administration’s views of Tehran’s provocative actions.
“The Obama administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions – including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” he noted.
“The Trump administration condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East and place American lives at risk.”
Flynn ended his remarks by threatening Iran directly.
“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he warned.
While Flynn gave no details of what the US intends to do to Iran if it continues its aggressive behavior, the day before he made his statement, the US opened a major, multilateral, British-led naval exercise in the Persian Gulf. US naval forces in the region have been significantly strengthened since January 20 and rules of engagement for US forces in the Persian Gulf have reportedly been relaxed.
Perhaps the most potent aspect of Trump’s emerging strategy for defeating the forces of jihad is the one that hasn’t been discussed but it was signaled, through a proxy, the day after Trump took office.
On January 21, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a remarkable message to the Iranian people on his Facebook page. Netanyahu drew a sharp distinction between the “warm” Iranian people and the “repressive” regime.
Netanyahu opened his remarks by invoking the new administration.
“I plan to speak soon with President Trump about how to counter the threat of the Iranian regime, which calls for Israel’s destruction,” the prime minister explained.
“But it struck me recently that I’ve spoken a lot about the Iranian regime and not enough about the Iranian people, or for that matter, to the Iranian people. So I hope this message reaches every Iranian.”
Netanyahu paid homage to the Green Revolution of 2009 that was brutally repressed by the regime. In his words, “I’ll never forget the images of proud, young students eager for change gunned down in the streets of Tehran in 2009.”
Netanyahu’s statement was doubtlessly coordinated with the new administration. It signaled that destabilizing with the goal of overthrowing the regime in Tehran is a major component of Trump’s strategy.
By the looks of things in Iran, regime opponents are taking heart from the new tone emanating from Washington. Iranian dissidents have asked for a meeting with Trump’s team. And a week and a half before Trump’s inauguration, regime opponents staged a massive anti-regime protest.
Protesters used the public funeral of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to denounce the regime. In 2009, Rafsanjani sided with many of the Green Movement’s positions. His daughter was a leader of the protests.
Among the estimated 2.5 million people who attended the funeral, scores of thousands interrupted the official eulogies to condemn the regime, condemn the war with Syria and condemn the regime’s Russian allies.
This then brings us to Syria, where the war against ISIS and the campaign against Iran are set to converge. To date, Trump has limited his stated goals in Syria to setting up safe zones inside the country where displaced Syrians can live securely. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have agreed to cooperate in these efforts.
Trump is now engaged in a talks with the Kremlin both above and below the radar about the possibility of coordinating their operations in Syria to enable safe zones to be established.
It is fairly clear what the US objective here would be. The US wishes to convince Moscow to effectively end its alliance with the Iranian regime. Trump repeatedly stated that the entire spectrum of US-Russian relations is now in play. Talks between the two governments will encompass Ukraine, US economic sanctions on Russia, nuclear weapons, Russian bases in Syria and Russia’s alliance with Iran and its Hezbollah proxies.
Everything is on the table.
Trump understands that Russia is threatened by Sunni jihadists and that Russia views Iran as a counterweight to ISIS and its counterparts in the Caucasus. A deal between the US and Russia could involve a Russian agreement to end its support for Iran and Hezbollah in exchange for US acceptance of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, cancellation of sanctions and perhaps some form of acquiescence to Russia’s military presence in Syria.
Russia and the US could then collaborate with Arab states with Israeli support to defeat ISIS and end the Syrian refugee crisis.
Combined with actions the Trump administration is already taking in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and its telegraphed aim of backing a popular Iranian insurrection, Trump’s hypothetical deal with Russia would neutralize Iran as a conventional and nonconventional threat.
This then brings us back to Israel – the first target of Iran’s aggression. If Trump’s strategy is successful, then the PLO will not be Israel’s only foe that is rendered irrelevant.
Earlier this week it was reported that in the two-and-a-half years since the last war with Hamas, the Iranian-backed, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliate terrorist group has rebuilt its forces. Today Hamas fields assets and troops that match the capabilities it fielded during Operation Protective Edge.
Hezbollah, with its effective control over Lebanon, including the Lebanese military, is a strategic threat to Israel.
To date, Israel has demurred from targeting Hezbollah and Hamas missile arsenals, but not because it is incapable of destroying them. Israel’s efforts to avoid conflict with its enemies, even at the price of their rearmament, also haven’t stemmed from fear of European or UN condemnation or even from fear of the so-called “CNN-effect.”
Israel has chosen not to defeat its enemies – not to mention the EU-backed NGOs that whitewash them – because the Americans have supported them.
The Clinton administration barred Israel from taking decisive action against either Hezbollah or the Palestinians.
The Bush administration forced Israel to stand down during the war with Hezbollah in 2006.
The Obama administration effectively sided with Hamas against Israel in 2014.
In other words, across three administrations, the Americans made it impossible for Israel to take decisive military action against its enemies.
Under Obama, the US also derailed every Israeli attempt to curb the power of EU-funded subversive organizations operating from inside of Israel.
Trump’s emerging strategy on Iran and ISIS, together with his refusal to operate in accordance with the standard US playbook on the Palestinians, indicates that the US has abandoned this practice. Under Trump, Israel is free to defeat its enemies. Their most powerful deterrent against Israel – the US – is gone.
Israel has long argued that there is no difference between al-Qaida and Hamas or between ISIS and Hezbollah. It has also argued that Iran threatens not only Israel but the world as a whole. Hoping to co-opt the forces of jihad rather than defeat them, successive US administrations have chosen to deny this obvious truth.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump is serious about winning. To do so, he is even willing to take the radical step of accepting Israel as an ally.
The PLO is right to be hysterical.
Judges In Seattle and Boston Reach Opposing Opinions On Trump Executive Order
February 4, 2017Judges In Seattle and Boston Reach Opposing Opinions On Trump Executive Order, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, February 4, 2017
(Professor Turley analyzes the Seattle temporary restraining order against the “Muslim ban” and deems it likely to be reversed in short order. — DM)
The controversy over the Trump immigration executive order has already produced sharply conflicting orders from courts in Washington state and Massachusetts. A judge in Seattle has issued a temporary restraining order nationwide over the executive order while a judge in Boston declined to do so. Such divergent results are not uncommon in such controversies. However, as I have previously explained, I believe that the law favors the Administration despite good-faith arguments advanced by the challengers. Moreover, even if courts strike down a portion of the executive order, it is likely that other portions will be upheld on review. While I have been very critical of the order (and how it was rolled out), I still believe that the weight of binding authority on these trial courts favors President Trump. We should get an answer sooner than expected: the Administration has decided to ask for an emergency order from the Ninth Circuit to block the Seattle court. In the meantime, the airlines have been told to start to allow people on planes to the United States and the Justice Department is apparently not filing the emergency motion tonight. That means that people will start to arrive before the Justice Department files. It could look a bit curious that the Administration is claiming a national security danger in these entries but would wait to file the emergency motion.
District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton in Massachusetts issued his decision on Friday and found that the president had the authority to issue the executive order. Gorton wrote “While this Court is sympathetic to the difficult personal circumstances in which these plaintiffs find themselves, if they choose to leave the country, as nonresident aliens, they have no right to re-enter.”
The order from the Western District of Washington did not contain any legal analysis or explanation. Rather U.S. District Court Senior Judge James L. Robart stated that he would release an opinion at a later date. Nevertheless, the order granting a temporary restraining order was a clear victory for challengers. To prevail, a party seeking “must establish that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits, that [it] is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in [its] favor, and that [a temporary restraining order] is in the public interest.” Winter v. NRDC, 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). On top of that demanding standard, courts tend to be more exacting when an order target the exercise of a core executive function. Adams v. Vance, 570 F.2d 950, 954-55 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (requiring “an extraordinarily strong showing” when an order would “deeply intrude[] into the core concerns of the executive branch.”). Moreover, Judge Robart’s recognition of the right of the state attorney general to bring the case is itself controversial given prior standing rulings.
Ironically, Democratic attorneys general are seeking the ability to sue over precedent established not by President Trump but President Obama. The Obama Administration argued for years that a president had virtually unchecked authority at our borders and specifically that states like Arizona did not have the right to interfere or countermand federal immigration policies. See Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2502 (2012). The case law heavily disfavors a state from bringing a parens patriaeaction on behalf of citizens, let alone non-citizens. Moreover, the complaint by the Washington Attorney General advanced highly speculative claims of injury given (1) the exemption of green card holders, (2) the temporary character of the order; and (3) the loose claims of reduction in tourism and student visas. The complaint states that the order affords the state standing due to its
“separating Washington families, harming thousands of Washington residents, damaging Washington’s economy, hurting Washington-based companies, and undermining Washington’s sovereign interest in remaining a welcoming place for immigrants and refugees.”
Putting aside injury, there remains the question of the likelihood of prevailing given the statutory and case authority favoring executive power in this area. As previously discussed, Section 1182 (f) expressly allows a president to exclude individual aliens or groups of aliens when the Administration determines that entry of such aliens or class of aliens would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” The Ninth Circuit (which covers Seattle and issues cases that are binding on Judge Robart) has held that “that statute specifically grants the President, where it is in the national interest to do so, the extreme power to prevent the entry of any alien or groups of aliens into this country as well as the lesser power to grant entry to such person or persons with any restriction on their entry as he may deem to be appropriate.” Mow Sun Wong v. Campbell, 626 F.2d 739, 744 n.9 (9th Cir. 1980).
Challengers rely on 8 U.S.C. §1152 (a) (1) (A), which states that “no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.” I have previously raised concerns about the sweeping claims made under this amendment which was part of an effort to end the use of numerical quotas that favored certain parts of Europe. On its face, the provision would not impact much of the executive order since it deals only with the issuance of visas and does not on its face apply to refugees or nonimmigrant visas. Moreover, the law was later amended to exclude changes in “procedures” even for those seeking immigrant visas. Section 1152(a)(1)(B) states that the law shall not be “construed to limit the authority of the Secretary of State to determine the procedures for the processing of immigrant visa applications or the locations where such applications will be processed.” That sounds a lot like an order temporarily suspending entries “to determine what additional procedures should be taken to ensure that those approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States” and then “implement such additional procedures.” Executive Order § 5 (a).
If Section 1152 and 1182 present a possible conflict, a court is supposed to adopt that interpretation that avoid the conflict. California ex rel. Sacramento Metro. Air Quality Mgmt. Dist. v. United States, 215 F.3d 1005, 1012 (9th Cir. 2000). Moreover, the degree to which this provision limits the executive power can itself produce a constitutional challenge . . . from the executive branch. I previously discussed cases like United States v. Curtiss-Wright Exp. Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936) and the Court recognition of plenary authority of the executive over foreign relations and our borders. The Court has specifically held that “The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty . . . inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 542 (1950).
Part of the difficulty of the challenger’s reading of future law is that it would prove too much. Specifically, it would mean that past actions by both presidents and Congress would be unlawful. It would suggest that, when a president finds that there is a danger related to entries from a particularly country, the president cannot suspend entries from that country. Yet, that is precisely what has happened in the past. In 1986, President Reagan suspended entry of Cuban nationals as immigrants into the United States, subject to certain exceptions. See Suspension of Cuban Immigration, 1986 WL 796773 (Aug. 22, 1986). In 1996, President Clinton suspended entry of members of the Government of Sudan, officials of that Government, and members of the Sudanese armed forces as immigrants or nonimmigrants into the United States. See Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons Who Are Members or Officials of the Sudanese Government or Armed Forces, 1996 WL 33673860 (Nov. 22, 1996). The Justice Department noted in its brief before Judge Robart that both Congress and President Obama made such nationality based determinations to exclude groups of aliens:
“Congress likewise has expressly drawn distinctions based on nationality. For example, in 2015, Congress amended the INA to exclude certain individuals from a visa waiver program (i.e., the ability to enter the United States as a nonimmigrant without a visa) on the basis of nationality. See Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-113, 129 Stat. 2242, 2990 (2015) (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1187(a)(12)). Congress expressly excluded nationals of Iraq and Syria from the program, see 8 U.S.C. § 1187(a)(12)(A)(ii), and created a process by which the Secretary of Homeland Security could designate additional “Countries or areas of concern,” for exclusion of a country’s nationals. See id. § 1187(a)(12)(D). As of February 2016, the exclusion applied to nationals of Iraq and Syria (pursuant to the statute’s plain text), as well as nationals of Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen (pursuant to Executive Branch designations under the statutory scheme). See Dep’t of Homeland Sec., DHS Announces Further Travel Restrictions for the Visa Waiver Program (Feb. 18, 2016). These seven countries excluded from the visa waiver program are the same seven countries that are covered by Section 3 of the President’s January 27, 2017 Executive Order. See Executive Order § 3(c) (incorporating by reference “countries referred to in section 217 (a) (12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187 (a) (12).”
None of this means that the challenges to the Executive Order are frivolous or that parts of the Executive Order could not be struck down. However, the weight of existing case law favors the Administration in my view. Courts are bound to avoid conflicts were possible in the interpretation of two laws and further interpret laws to avoid conflicts with constitutional powers. Moreover, they have a long-standing commitment to minimize the extent to which they find parts of a law unconstitutional. The result is that the odds still rest with the Administration in preserving all or part of the law, particularly after exercising its discretion to exempt green card holders.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments