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Our World: The Republican fall guys

September 9, 2015

Our World: The Republican fall guys, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, September 8, 2015

Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.

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The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.

ShowImage (11)Kim Jong-un, North Korea leader. (photo credit:KNS / KCNA / AFP)

The Iran nuclear deal is presented as an international agreement between the major powers and Iran. But the fact is that there are really only two parties to the agreement – President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party on the one hand, and the Iranian regime on the other.

Over the past week or so, more and more Democrats have fallen into line behind Obama. At the same time, word is getting out about what Iran is doing now that it has its deal. Together, the actions of both sides have revealed the role the nuclear pact plays in each side’s overall strategies for success.

On the Iranian side, last Wednesday the National Committee of Resistance of Iran revealed that North Korean nuclear experts are in Iran working with the Revolutionary Guards to help the Iranians prevent the UN’s nuclear inspectors from discovering the scope of their nuclear activities.

The NCRI is the same opposition group that in 2003 exposed Iran’s until then secret uranium enrichment installation in Natanz and its heavy water plutonium facility in Arak.

According to the report, the North Koreans “have expertise in ballistic missile and nuclear work areas, particularly in the field of warheads and missile guidance.”

“Over the past two years the North Korean teams have been sharing their experiences and tactics necessary for preventing access to military nuclear sites,” NCRI added.

Although, as The Washington Times reports, NCRI’s finding have yet to be verified, it is unwise to doubt them.

North Korea has been assisting Iran’s nuclear program for nearly 20 years. The US began applying sanctions on North Korea for its ballistic missile proliferation activities in Iran 15 years ago. Iran’s Shahab and Ghadr ballistic missiles are modeled on North Korea’s Nodong missiles.

The Syrian nuclear installation that Israel reportedly destroyed in 2007 was a duplicate of the Yangbyon heavy water reactor in North Korea. The Deir al-Zour reactor was reportedly built by North Korean nuclear personnel and paid for by Tehran.

North Korea’s heavy involvement in Iran’s nuclear weapons program tells us everything we need to know about how Iran views the nuclear deal it signed with the Obama administration and its international partners.

For the past 22 years, the North Koreans have been playing the US and the international community for fools. Ever since February 1993, when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first discovered that North Korea was conducting illicit nuclear activities, Pyongyang has been using its nuclear program to blackmail the US.

The pattern repeats itself with maddening regularity.

First, the US discovers that North Korea is engaging in illicit nuclear activities. Over the years, these activities have gone from illicit development of plutonium-based nuclear bombs to expelling UN inspectors, to testing long-range ballistic missiles, to threatening nuclear war, to testing nuclear bombs and threatening to supply the bomb to terrorist groups.

Second, the US announces it is applying sanctions to North Korean entities.

Third, North Korea responds with more threats.

The sides then agree to sit down and negotiate the scaling back of North Korea’s nuclear activities. In exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to talk, the US provides the hermit slave state with whatever it demands. US concessions run the gamut from sanctions relief, to cash payments, provision of fuel, assistance in developing “peaceful” nuclear sites at which the North Koreans expand their nuclear expertise, removal of North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, the provision of formal US commitments not to use force to block North Korea’s nuclear progress, to more cash payments and sanctions relief.

The North then formally agrees to scale back its nuclear program and everyone is happy.

Until the next time it is caught cheating and proliferating.

And then the cycle starts again.

In each go around, the US expresses surprise at the scope of North Korea’s illicit nuclear and missile activities. In every cycle, US intelligence failed to discover what North Korea was doing until after the missiles and bombs were tested and UN inspectors were thrown out of the country.

Despite North Korean brinksmanship and ballistic missile warhead development, the US prohibits its ally South Korea from developing its own nuclear deterrent or even taking steps in that direction.

For their part, while negotiating with the Americans, the North Koreans have proliferated their nuclear technologies and ballistic missiles to Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Libya.

Given North Korea’s clear strategy of using nuclear blackmail to develop its nuclear arsenal and maintain the regime’s grip on power, you don’t need to be a master spy to understand what the presence of North Korean experts in Teheran tells us about Iran’s strategy for nuclear empowerment.

The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.

Given how well the strategy has worked for the psychotic North Koreans who have no economy, no allies and no proxies, it is clear that Iran, with its gas and oil deposits, imperial aspirations, terrorist proxies and educated population believes that this is the strategy that will launch it to world-power status.

This then brings us to the Democrats.

Depending on their pro-Israel protestations, the Democratic position in support of the deal ranges from optimism to pessimistic minimalism. On the side of the optimists, we have the Obama administration.

Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and their advisors insist that the deal is fantastic. It blocks Iran’s path to the bomb. It opens the possibility of Iran becoming a positive actor on the world stage.

On the other end of the Democratic spectrum are the pessimists like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

As they see it, the deal is horrible. It empowers and enriches Iran and legitimizes its nuclear program.

But still, they claim, the deal keeps Iran’s nuclear ambitions at bay for a few years by forcing Iran to submit to the much touted UN inspections regime.

So it is a good deal and they will vote in favor of it and then vote to sustain a presidential veto of a congressional decision to oppose it.

Obviously, the presence of North Korean nuclear experts in Tehran makes a mockery of the notion that Iran has any intention of exercising good faith with UN inspectors. But that isn’t the point.

The point is that the Democrats have no intention of doing anything to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. They just don’t want to be blamed for Iran becoming a nuclear power. They want the Republicans to shoulder the blame. The purpose of the deal from their perspective to set the Republicans up to be blamed.

Obama and his Democratic followers insist that if Iran doesn’t act in good faith, the US will reimpose sanctions. Worse comes to worst, they insist, the US can just walk away from the deal.

This of course is utter nonsense.

Obama won’t walk away from his signature foreign policy. He will devote his energies in his remaining time in office to covering up for Iran. That is why he is breaking the law he signed and refusing to hand over the side deals regarding the farcical nature of UN inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites to Congress.

Moreover, after insisting that the deal is the best way to prevent a holocaust or that it is the only way a Jewish mother can protect the homeland of her people, Democratic lawmakers are not going to rush to acknowledge that they are lying. Now that they’ve signed onto the deal, they own it.

Of course, the Iranians are another story. While the Democrats will not abandon the deal no matter what, the Iranians signed the deal in order to abandon it the minute it outlives its usefulness. And that works just fine for the Democrats.

The Democrats know that the Iranians will use any step the Republicans take to try to enforce the deal’s verification regime or condition sanctions relief on Iranian abidance by the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear activities as an excuse to walk away from the deal. They also know the Iranians will remain in the deal as long as it is useful to them.

Since the Iranians intend to hide their nuclear activities, the Democrats assume Tehran will stay in until it is financially and militarily ready to escalate its nuclear activities.

The Democrats believe that timetable will extend well beyond the lifespan of the Obama administration.

Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.

You have to give credit to the administration and its Iranian chums. At least they are consistent. They have constructed an agreement that gives them both what they care about most. Iran, as always, wants to dominate the region and develop the means to destroy Israel and its Arab adversaries at will. The administration, as always, wants to blame the Republicans.

Israel and the Arabs understand the game that is being played. It is time for the Republicans to get wise to it.

Categories: Democrats, Denial, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - North Korea axis, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Middle East, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Republicans, U.S. Congress, U.S. politics
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What is to be done? (2)

September 8, 2015

What is to be done? (2), Power Line, Scott Johnson, September 8, 2015

The first resolution the House should consider when it returns [today] should be one stating that Congress has not been provided the material it needs, that the Iran deal has not been properly submitted to Congress, and therefore that the president has no authority to waive or suspend sanctions on Iran.

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Yesterday I noted that the Obama administration has failed to comply with the condition precedent to Congress’s review of the deal with Iran (and the president’s authority to waive sanctions). I asked what is to be done.

I asked, Bill Kristol answered. Bill wears many hats, one of which is Chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel. In this capacity he released the following statement addressing the question yesterday:

The Obama Administration has not complied with the legal requirement that it provide Congress “any additional materials” related to the Iran deal, including “side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.” The Administration has not given Congress a key side agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, one which describes how key questions about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program will be resolved, as well as how the verification regime will work.

Congress should not accept this evasion of the law by the Obama Administration. Congress should insist on the text of this and any other side agreements. Lacking this, Congress can and should take the position that the Iran deal has not been properly submitted to Congress to review, and therefore that the president has no authority to waive or suspend sanctions.

We understand the temptation of leadership to get to a vote on a resolution of disapproval and then to move on to other votes. But the Iran deal isn’t just another legislative issue where some corner-cutting by the Administration is to be accepted with a brief expression of discontent followed by a weary sigh of resignation.

The Iran deal is the most important foreign policy issue this Congress will have before it. Congress should rise to the occasion and insist on its prerogative — and the American people’s prerogative — to see the whole deal. The first resolution the House should consider when it returns [today] should be one stating that Congress has not been provided the material it needs, that the Iran deal has not been properly submitted to Congress, and therefore that the president has no authority to waive or suspend sanctions on Iran.

I think this is the correct direction and congressional leadership should follow it.

Categories: Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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Rep. Gohmert Introducing Resolution to Declare Iran Deal a Treaty

September 7, 2015

Rep. Gohmert Introducing Resolution to Declare Iran Deal a Treaty, Town Hall, Cortney O’Brien, September 7, 2015

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On March 11, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration was “not negotiating a legally binding plan” with Iran and therefore their nuclear agreement did not have to be submitted to Congress for approval. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is ready to challenge that notion by putting forward a resolution that would define the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as a treaty.

The Corker-Cardin bill, a.k.a. the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, was introduced as an accountability tool for the Iranian deal, requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote from Congress. Yet, as more details about the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) have surfaced, Corker and Cardin’s effort has become basically null, Rep. Gohmert is convinced. The Obama administration, he asserts, left Congress in the dark about the specifics of JCPOA. For instance, the Corker-Cardin bill was only meant to rein in nuclear sanctions, but JCPOA allows for a lifting of sanctions on ballistic missiles and international arms embargoes. Congress also had no clue about the side deals allowing Iran to inspect itself at nuclear sites.

In his resolution, Gohmert also exposes Secretary of State Kerry’s hypocrisy regarding his refusing to label the Iran deal a treaty.

Whereas, on June 4, 2015, less than two months before Secretary Kerry testified that it has become “physically impossible” for the Senate to ratify treaties, he stated that the State Department is “preparing the instruments of ratification of [several] important treaties” and that he “want[s] to personally thank the U.S. Congress . . . for their efforts on” the implementing legislation for the nuclear security treaties;

Gohmert is not the only legislator to demand the Iran agreement be defined as a treaty. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the only senator not to vote for the Corker-Cardin act, demanded the clarification be made back in May:

“A nuclear-arms agreement with any adversary—especially the terror-sponsoring, Islamist Iranian regime—should be submitted as a treaty and obtain a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate as required by the Constitution,” he said.

Such a consequential handshake should be accompanied by some oversight from our elected representatives. It’s what Americans want.

Should the resolution pass, Gohmert says the Senate should deliberate on the ratification of the Iran Deal within 30 days hence.

Categories: Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, U.S. politics
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US Congress – rip up Iran deal – pass resolution!

September 7, 2015

US Congress – rip up Iran deal – pass resolution! United West via You Tube, September 7, 2015

(Please see also, What is to be done? — DM)

Categories: Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian nukes, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, P5+1, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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What is to be done?

September 7, 2015

What is to be done? Power Line, Scott Johnson, September 7, 2015

(In this context, the refusal of Obama — a rogue president — to comply with U.S. law jeopardizes our national security. He will probably continue to get away with it until he leaves office. — DM)

President Obama has failed to comply with the conditions of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (the Corker-Cardin bill) that he himself signed into law. By its express terms the law required Obama to transmit to Congress “the agreement. . . . including all related materials and annexes.” He was obligated to do this “not later than five days after reaching the agreement.”

Obama has not done so. The administration has failed or refused to submit the IAEA side deal with Iran regarding the possible military dimensions of Iran’s research at the Parchin military facility to Congress.

Indeed, the administration claim not even to have seen the IAEA side deal. Rather, administration officials claim only to have been briefed by the IAEA on the terms of the side deal. They claim it is cloaked in secrecy that prevents its disclosure. The side deal is nevertheless an integral part of the JCPOA and its disclosure expressly required by the act.

Whether or not the side deal is “confidential” matters not one iota under the terms of the Corker-Cardin bill. It should be noted, however, that the administration appears to have constructed an elaborate pretense regarding the side deal. Fred Fleitz has advanced a highly plausible case that administration officials themselves drafted one or more side deals including this one for the IAEA including the Parchin side deal. He calls the arrangement “a national security fraud.”

Obama’s noncompliance with the act is more than problematic. It precludes (or should) the president’s authority to waive sanctions. It prevents (or should) the JCPOA itself from coming to a vote in Congress. Yet little notice has been taken of any of the serious issues that Obama has created in the service of his Iranian fantasies. As always, Obama acts by the executive equivalent of main force and trusts others to fall into line.

Rep. Mike Pompeo and attorney David Rivkin take note in a brief Washington Post column. They write:

Congress must now confront the grave issues of constitutional law prompted by the president’s failure to comply with his obligations under the act. This is not the first time this administration has disregarded clear statutory requirements, encroaching in the process upon Congress’s legislative and budgetary prerogatives. The fact that this has happened again in the context of a national security agreement vital to the United States and its allies makes the situation all the more serious.

For Congress to vote on the merits of the agreement without the opportunity to review all of its aspects would both effectively sanction the president’s unconstitutional conduct and be a major policy mistake. Instead, both houses should vote to register their view that the president has not complied with his obligations under the act by not providing Congress with a copy of an agreement between the IAEA and Iran, and that, as a result, the president remains unable to lift statutory sanctions against Iran. Then, if the president ignores this legal limit on his authority, Congress can and should take its case to court.

At the least, the congressional leaders should refuse to call up the JCPOA for a vote of approval and “register their view” as Pompeo and Rivkin suggest. Congress should force the issue in other ways within the scope of their powers. I don’t know about the proposed judicial remedy; it seems like weak tea. I don’t have the answer, but Congress should not proceed as though the conditions precedent to a vote of approval and the waiver of sanctions have occurred as required under the Corker-Cardin bill; they have not.

Categories: Democrats, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian nukes, Israel, Obama, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
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US Warns Russia Over Military Buildup in Syria

September 6, 2015

The US warned Russia this weekend that its military building in Syria could lead to an unwanted escalation in the area. By: Hana Levi Julian Published: September 6th, 2015

Source: The Jewish Press » » US Warns Russia Over Military Buildup in Syria

UN troops look at smoke rising from Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

UN troops look at smoke rising from Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Photo Credit: Flash 90

The U.S. warned Russia over the weekend that its military buildup in Syria could further escalate the conflict in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “to discuss Syria, including U.S. concerns about reports suggesting an imminent enhanced Russian military buildup there,” the State Department said in a statement. “The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL Coalition operating in Syria,” the statement continued.

ISIL is the Obama administration acronym for ISIS, or Da’esh. The two men agreed to continue their conversation at the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month.

According to American intelligence reports, Russia has delivered prefab housing for hundreds of people and a portable air traffic station to an airfield near Latakia.

The U.S. government warned that Russian air strikes could interfere with current operations being conducted by the United States-led coalition against Da’esh (ISIS) in Syria.

It is also possible that Russian operations could strike opposition forces the Americans support.

The United States and Russia have very different ideas about how to solve the crisis in Syria; on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for “early elections” in Syria and suggested bringing “healthy” elements of the opposition to a new coalition government.

But Putin, who had first cleared his plan with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, did not specify which opposition elements would be acceptable.

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Khamenei Publishes Book About The Annihilation Of Israel

September 5, 2015

Khamenei Publishes Book About The Annihilation Of Israel

By Missing Peace

Source: Khamenei Publishes Book About The Annihilation Of Israel | Missing Peace | missingpeace.eu | EN

Khamenei during meeting with IRGC veterans

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, just published a book in which he outlines a ‘slow and painful’ strategy to annihilate Israel.

The 416-page book, titled Palestine, was edited by Saeed Solh-Mirzai–but received full approval from Khamenei’s office and is thus Khamenei’s most authoritative document regarding his views on the issue, the Goldstone Institute think tank reported.

The book was published only weeks after six world powers, including the United States, reached a controversial agreement about Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Khamenei’s plan for Israel will promote “the hegemony of Iran” while it will remove “the West’s hegemony” from the Middle East, the Ayatollah claims in the book. How this goal will be reached is described in detail by Khamenei.

“Israel has no right to exist” is the central theme of the book. Khamenei uses three words to describe the destruction of Israel. “One is “nabudi,” which means “annihilation.” The other is “imha,” which means “fading out.” And finally, there is “zaval,” meaning “effacement,” the Gatestone Institute reported.

The annihilation of Israel will not be achieved via conventional warfare, Khamenei argues, but via a never ending string of terror attacks and low-intensity conflict that will make life unbearable for the Israeli Jews.

In the end, they would pack their bags and leave the country for another country in the West–or return to their country of origin–because many Israelis have dual citizenship, the Iranian Supreme Leader thinks. This same way of thinking caused Yasser Arafat to launch the Second Intifada, but Israelis never even contemplated leaving the country during the five years of continuing terror.

Khamenei writes that his strategy for the annihilation of the Jewish State has nothing to do with anti-Semitism but with “well-established Islamic principles.”

The overriding principle is that Israel was established on territory that belongs to the Ummah (Islamic nation) and, therefore, is part of the Dar al-Islam (house of Islam). Such land can never be ceded to non-Muslims and must be brought under Muslim control again.

There are, however, three other reasons Khamenei gave for the mandatory destruction of Israel.

The first is that Israel, which he labels “adou” (enemy) and “doshman” (foe), is the ally of the “Great Satan” (United States) and is conspiring with the U.S. in an “evil scheme” to dominate the heartland of the Ummah.

The second reason is that Israel has become “Kaffir al-Harbi,” a hostile infidel because of the numerous wars it fought against Muslim armies.

The third reason Israel must be destroyed is that it “occupies” Jerusalem, the third holy city in Islam, according to Khamenei, who is honored with the title “The flagbearer of Jihad to liberate Jerusalem” on the cover of the book. He writes that one of his “most cherished wishes” is to pray in Jerusalem one day.

Khamenei is counting on increasing “Israel fatigue” in the international community that makes it more likely that the world will force his version of the one-state solution upon Israel, he thinks.

What is this solution?

The Supreme Leader wants to organize a referendum among at least 8 million Palestinian Arabs and their descendants and only 2.2 million Israeli Jews, those who did not immigrate to Israel.

The United Nations would run the affairs in the new country until the referendum takes place; and after that, Khamenei would be willing to let the Jews continue to live in the new “Palestine” as second-class citizens (Dhimmi’s).

Khamenei also boasts that Iran was behind the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 and the 22-day long war with Hamas in Gaza last year.

In his book, Khamenei denies the Holocaust and writes that he regards it as “a propaganda ploy” or a disputed claim. “If there was such a thing we don’t know why it happened and how,” he claimed.

Amir Taheri, the Iranian journalist who wrote the Gatestone article, added the following:

Khamenei has been in contact with professional Holocaust deniers since the 1990s. In 2000, he invited Swiss Holocaust-denier Jürgen Graf to Tehran and received him in private audiences. French Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy, a Stalinist who converted to Islam, was also feted in Tehran as “Europe’s’ greatest living philosopher.”

It was with Khamenei’s support that former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set up a “Holocaust-research center” led by Muhammad-Ali Ramin, an Iranian functionary with links to German neo-Nazis who also organized annual “End of Israel” seminars.

Despite efforts to disguise his hatred of Israel in Islamic terms, the book makes it clear that Khamenei is more influenced by Western-style anti-Semitism than by classical Islam’s checkered relations with Jews.

His argument about territories becoming “irrevocably Islamic” does not wash, if only because of its inconsistency. He has nothing to say about vast chunks of former Islamic territory, including some that belonged to Iran for millennia, now under Russian rule.

Nor is he ready to embark on Jihad to drive the Chinese out of Xinjiang, a Muslim khanate until the late 1940s.

Israel, which in terms of territory accounts for one per cent of Saudi Arabia, is a very small fry.

Khamenei’s book has been published in Farsi, the language of Iran. An Arab translation is expected soon.

 

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The nuclear chess game begins: Iran plays for sanctions relief before compliance with deal

September 4, 2015

The nuclear chess game begins: Iran plays for sanctions relief before compliance with deal, DEBKAfile, September 4, 2015

Leadership_9.15A long way to go for Iranian approval of nuclear accord

The crowing this week over Barack Obama’s success in gaining congressional support for his Iranian nuclear deal against Binyamin Netanyahu’s defeat was premature. The July 14 Vienna deal between Iran and six world powers was just the first round of the game. Decisive rounds are still to come, before either of the two can be said to have won or lost.

The biggest outstanding hurdle in the path of the accord is Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his silence on where he stands on the deal whether by a yea or a nay.

Without his nod, nothing goes forward in the revolutionary republic. So the nuclear accord is not yet home and dry either in Tehran or even in Washington.

While Obama gathered congressional support in Washington for the accord to pass, Khamenei made three quiet yet deadly remarks:

1. “Sanctions against Tehran must be lifted completely rather than suspended. If the framework of sanctions is to be maintained, then why did we negotiate?”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest answered him: “Iran will only see sanctions relief if it complies with the nuclear deal.”

There lies the rub. For the Obama administration, it is clear that Iran must first comply with the accord before sanctions are eased, whereas Tehran deems the accord moot until sanctions are lifted – regardless of its approval by the US Congress.

Here is the first stalemate, and not the last. DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources foresee long, exhausting rounds ahead that could drag on longer even than the protracted negotiations, which Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif brought to a close in Vienna.

2. Khamenei next took the step of referring the accord to the Majlis (parliament) for approval, pretending that to be legally in force, the accord requires a majority vote by the parliament in Tehran. He put it this way, “I believe… that it is not in the interest of the majlis to be sidelined.”

This step was in fact designed to sideline President Hassan Rouhani, on whom Obama and Kerry counted to get the nuclear deal through, and snatch from him the authority for signing it – or even determining which body had this competence.

It had been the intention of Rouhani and Zarif to put the accord before the 12-member Council of Guardians for their formal endorsement. But Khamenei pulled this rug out from under their feet and kept the decision out of the hands of the accord’s proponents.

3. His next step was to declare with a straight face: “I have no recommendation for the majlis on how to examine it. It is up to the representatives of the nation to decide whether to reject or ratify it.”

This step in the nuclear chess game was meant to show American democracy up in a poor light compared to that of the Revolutionary Republic (sic). While Obama worked hard to bring his influence to bear on Congress he, Khamenei, refrained from leaning on the lawmakers, who were freed to vote fair and square on the deal’s merits.

This of course is a charade. Our Iranian sources point out that the ayatollah exercises dictatorial control over the majlis through his minion, Speaker Ali Larijani. He has absolute trust in the lawmakers never reaching any decision on the nuclear deal, or anything else, without his say-so.

Congressional approval in Washington of the nuclear accord may give President Obama a fine boost but will be an empty gesture for winning endorsement in Tehran. It might even be counter-productive if American lawmakers carry out their intention of hedging the nuclear deal round with stipulations binding Iran to full compliance with the commitments it undertook in Vienna, or also continue to live with existing sanctions or even face new ones.

Netanyahu and the Israeli lobby AIPAC, far from experiencing defeat in their campaign to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, are well fired up for the next round: the fight for sanctions.

Categories: AIPAC, Iran scam, Iranian parliament, Israel, Khamenei, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Theocracy, U.S. Congress
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What the axis of evil owes Obama

September 4, 2015

What the axis of evil owes Obama, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, September 4, 2015

His presidency has been paved not with failures, but with a string of the most successfully orchestrated disasters in history. For this, the “axis of evil” Obama so stringently denies owes him a great debt of gratitude.

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On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama fulfilled a lifelong dream he has spent nearly seven years in office trying to realize.

It is a very different dream from that of Martin Luther King Jr., whom Obama invokes whenever it feeds his own visions of a particular form of grandeur.

This is not to say that rising from modest means to becoming the head of the United States and, by extension, the leader of the free world, is not already about as grand as one can get. But it is America’s greatness — not Obama’s — that enabled him to make it to the White House in the first place.

His ability to pull it off a second time, in spite of a bad economy and the sweeping radicalization of the Middle East, is a measure of how well he had already implemented the methods of his mentor, “Rules for Radicals” author Saul Alinsky, of infiltrating the country’s institutions and destroying them from within.

Indeed, the previously imperfect, but still functional, systems he tackled to chip away at the fabric of society were health, education, welfare and, of course, the family unit. He even set back the very societal strides that allowed for the election of a black president, creating an environment in which race relations took a sharp turn for the worse.

All of this made America ripe for the picking of its enemies.

This is where Obama’s foreign policy comes into play. Like the chisel he took to domestic affairs, Obama strived to strip the United States of its global superpower status. The crowning moment of this endeavor took place in July in Vienna, when the tireless efforts of the U.S.-led P5+1 to persuade the Islamic Republic of Iran to sign an agreement Obama desperately wanted finally paid off.

According to the agreement, Iran will be able to continue to develop and hone its nuclear weapons program, unfettered by the financial constraints of economic sanctions, and increase the flow of funds to its strategically placed terrorist proxies the world over. In exchange, Russia and China, two laughable members of the P5+1, get to do dubious deals with the mullahs in Tehran; Europe, inundated with refugees from Muslim countries, gets phony guarantees about its short-term safety; and Obama gets to tell himself he has finally earned the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded about five minutes into his presidency.

This week, he scored his ultimate coup — over Congress. Faced with a majority of the House and Senate opposing the deal, Obama announced that if it did not pass when put to a vote in September, he would exercise his presidential veto power and force it down the throats of the American people.

The only thing that could have prevented this from happening was a veto-override majority. Alas, one was not to be had. By Wednesday, the fate of the deal was sealed by the Obama camp.

Obama deserves full credit for this and the other disasters he has wreaked.<

Where Iran is concerned, one need only look back in time to the early months of Obama’s first term to grasp what he was up to then, and how it led to where we are today.

On June 12, 2009, a rigged election in Iran reinstated then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi clearly had come out ahead of the incumbent, the latter declared victory and hailed his reign as the “will of the people.”

Millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest the false claims on the part of the regime they had intended to replace with what they believed would be a more democratic one.

During these demonstrations, in the course of which Iranians begged the U.S. to help them, a young woman named Neda was gunned down, and the photo of her bullet-ridden body and haunted eyes became the key symbol of the Iranian people’s wish to be free of the repression the Islamic Revolution of 1979 had imposed on them.

Viewing these events from behind his desk in the Oval Office, Obama was “impartial.” He had entered the White House only five months earlier, pledging to overturn his predecessor’s policies. Among these was George W. Bush’s position on radical Muslim regimes and groups in general, and on Iran specifically.

Claiming that the only way to rid Iran of its nuclear and hegemonic ambitions would be by extending goodwill gestures to its leaders, Obama abandoned the term “axis of evil,” which Bush had coined to define state sponsors of terrorism, Iran being a prime example.

Convinced, as well, that the U.S. had become a pariah among nations for being a capitalist, imperialist bully, Obama set about to show the world that America was in no way superior to other countries and cultures.

His wife, Michelle, shared this dim view of her country. Her response to her husband’s electoral victories in a series of Democratic primaries was to say it was the first time in her adult life that she was proud to be an American.

It was neither ignorance nor oversight, then, which caused Obama to abandon the genuine freedom-seekers in Iran, and try to engage the vicious ayatollahs. It was part of his plan, born of a twisted ideology that America was to blame for the hatred it inspired among despots — so ridiculous a notion that it allows for ignoring the plight of truly terrorized populations, prey to the tyrannical oppression of their leaders.

It is also at the core of his appalling attitude towards Israel. As a traditional ally of the U.S., with shared values, it, too — in Obama’s eyes — is to blame for the enmity it arouses.

It is impossible to get into Obama’s head to determine whether he actually believes the nuclear pact he is signing with the devil is the lesser of all evils.

One thing is clear, however: His presidency has been paved not with failures, but with a string of the most successfully orchestrated disasters in history. For this, the “axis of evil” Obama so stringently denies owes him a great debt of gratitude.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Israel, Obama, Obama - rogue president, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress
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Iran’s supreme leader: No nuclear deal unless sanctions fully lifted

September 4, 2015

Iran’s supreme leader: No nuclear deal unless sanctions fully lifted, Israel Hayom, Erez Linn, Shlomo Cesana, Yoni Hersch, Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff, September 4, 2015

144135927674638061a_bSupreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting with members of Iran’s Experts Assembly in Tehran | Photo credit: AP

If Khamenei decides to make good on his word and demand the lifting of sanctions entirely, it will not be possible to implement the snapback mechanism and reimpose sanctions should Iran violate its obligations under the deal.

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Iran’s supreme leader said Thursday that “there will be no deal” if world powers insist on suspending rather than lifting sanctions as part of a landmark nuclear agreement and said it is up to Iran’s parliament, and not him, to approve or reject it.

His remarks, read aloud by a state TV anchorman, mark the first official comment on the deal since U.S. President Barack Obama secured enough support to prevent the Republican-led Congress from blocking it.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has yet to express a clear opinion on the deal, clinched in July, which would curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for relief from crippling sanctions.

Khamenei said some U.S. officials have spoken of the “suspension” of sanctions, which he said was unacceptable. “If the sanctions are going to be suspended, then we will also fulfil our obligations on the ground at the level of suspension and not in a fundamental way,” he said.

In response, White House press secretary Josh Earnest reiterated the Obama administration’s stance that it would focus on Tehran’s actions and not its words.

Washington has been “crystal clear about the fact that Iran will have to take a variety of serious steps to significantly roll back their nuclear program before any sanction relief is offered,” he said.

However, the snapback plan (reimposing economic sanctions on Iran if it violates the deal), which Iran agreed to as part of the deal, could lose its validation as it is based on the suspension of the sanctions rather than a full removal.

If Khamenei decides to make good on his word and demand the lifting of sanctions entirely, it will not be possible to implement the snapback mechanism and reimpose sanctions should Iran violate its obligations under the deal.

Iran’s supreme leader has traditionally had the final say on all important matters in the country, but on Thursday Khamenei said that Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, known to oppose the agreement, should decide on the deal.

“It is the representatives of the people who should decide. I have no advice regarding the method of review, approval or rejection,” he said.

Either way, according to a Revolutionary Guard senior official, the deal does not detract one bit from the Iranian regime’s rancor toward Israel. “The Islamic revolution will continue to enhance its abilities until it will destroy Israel and liberate Palestine,” he said.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Foreign Ministry officials that most Americans agreed with Israel over dangers posed by Iran. In remarks at a Rosh Hashanah reception at the Foreign Ministry, Netanyahu made no direct mention of President Barack Obama’s victory on Wednesday in securing enough Senate votes to protect the agreement in Congress.

Speaking of a need to preserve Israel’s traditionally close ties with Washington despite what he called “differences of opinion,” Netanyahu told diplomatic staffers: “I must say, however, that the overwhelming majority of the American public sees eye to eye with us on the danger emanating from Iran.”

Israel’s message to ordinary Americans, Netanyahu said, would continue to be that “Iran is the enemy of the United States — it declares that openly — and Israel is a U.S. ally.”

Netanyahu explained that the “ratio of people who oppose the deal to people who support the deal in the U.S. is two to one.”

Ensuring the U.S. public understands that point will have “important ramifications for our security down the line,” Netanyahu said, according to an official statement.

Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold, meanwhile, revealed that Iran was transferring advanced weapons from arms depots in Syria to Hezbollah.

Speaking to Israel Hayom, Gold explained that the Iranians want to provide the Shiite terrorist organization with cruise missiles, Yakhont missiles and S2 land-based strategic missile.

Hezbollah’s activity, backed by Iran, has reached Kuwait and is evident in the Golan Heights, as seen in their attempts to launch another battle front with Israel.”

Gold also touched on Iran’s Parchin nuclear facility, saying that the Iranians had paved the floor of the facility with asphalt. He explained that the purpose of the move was to prevent International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from testing the soil for dangerous substances.

Meanwhile, tensions are running high surrounding the approaching vote in the U.S. Congress. The Wall Street Journal published on Thursday a caustic article, warning the Democratic Party that if the nuclear deal fails, it will be their fault. “Politically, Obama’s victory in Congress makes Democrats hostage to Iran’s behavior. This means that if a nuclear arms race breaks out in the Middle East, democrats are accountable,” the article said.

Categories: Death to Israel, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian parliament, Israel, Khamenei, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Parchin, U.S. Congress
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