Lebanon: Unraveling the Enigma

Politics and War in Lebanon book coverTo paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Lebanon is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Unraveling the Lebanese enigma is the objective of a new book by Dr. Mordechai Nisan, Politics and War in Lebanon. Nisan is an accomplished Israeli political scientist and retired Hebrew University lecturer. His  body of work covers Zionism, Islam, Arab history, minority peoples, Lebanon, U.S. Middle East policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is rare that a book achieves its objective of unraveling the complex nuances of the Lebanon puzzle in both an astute and yet literate manner. Dr. Nisan has views on many issues including why the 80 year old confessional political system persists and has resilience. It has a lot to do with the adoption of the Maronite Christian independence ethos arising from the historic resistance against centuries of Muslim and later Ottoman rule under Islamic Sharia law.

The confessional political system maintains, a Maronite as President, Sunni as Premier and Shiite as Speaker of the Lebanese National Assembly. The Lebanese Parliament has 128 members split equally between Christians and Muslims elected to four year terms in multi-member constituencies, which often produces unexpected alliances. Nisan writes: “the idea of a numerical democracy for Lebanon, as for all typical democratic states, had been, as we know, rejected in favor of political confessionalism by assigning office according to a sectarian key.” Of course the Lebonese paradox was assisted by the fact that it only had one census back in 1932 that reflected a Maronite Christian majority which has since dwindled due to war, emigration and the demographic rise of both Sunni and Shia. Even during the period of the internal wars triggered by Palestinians against the Maronite hegemony that began in 1975, there were episodes where Druze, Shia and Sunni militias protected the precinct of the Maronite patriarch. The confessional political system remains durable despite the inroads made by external enemies like Syria, the Palestinians and internal ones, like Iran’s proxy Hezbollah dominating the country’s southern border and Eastern Bekaa Valley adjoining Syria.

There is also the long standing history of Maronite Christian – Zionist mutual respect that has never been recognized in formal agreements. Yet that figures prominently in understanding  the role of Israel in episodic military operations in Lebanon – dislodging PLO-Fatah terrorist armies, only to have them replaced with Shia Hezbollah forces occupying the Southern security belt that the IDF abandoned in 2000. Now, that Southern border is crenellated with underground fortifications and tunnels, equipped with over 150,000 Iranian-supplied rockets and missiles. That could figure significantly in a new Middle East War arising from a possible nuclear deal with Hezbollah’s creator, Iran. Nisan considers that episode one of Israel’s most abject geo-political failures.

Among the issues addressed in Nisan’s timely and cogent book is the political disintegration triggered by the Palestinian war on the Maronites in 1975. He addresses the Israeli incursion in 1978 and First Israeli Lebanese War in 1982 that ousted Yassir Arafat and Fatah-PLO leaders sending them packing under UN auspices to Tunisia and nine other countries. Nevertheless, he is critical of Israel’s pell mell abandonment of the southern security belt, held by the IDF and the South Lebanese Army (SLA) in alliance with Israel. The evacuation was ordered by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in May 2000. That catastrophe gave rise to the Hezbollah takeover and ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon. There is also the nearly 20 year predatory Syrian occupation of large sections of Lebanon that began in 1976.

Nisan has nothing but contempt for the behavior of the Assad Syrian regime of both father and son in what could only be characterized as the virtual looting of Lebanon’s economic and natural resources. There were Syrian companies grabbing Lebanese tenders, Syrian officials  pocketing tax revenues and running a protection extortion racket with local businesses. The results were a once vibrant economy faltering, with unemployment and poverty soaring. He notes that Syria never recognized an independent Lebanon in 1946. He considers the Syrian occupation the equivalent of the Nazi Anschluss of Austria comparing Lebanese Sunni and Orthodox Christians as the equivalent of pan-Germanic Austrians, because the latter identified strongly with both Syria and being Arab.

Nisan contends that the Israeli justification for the Southern withdrawal in 2000 was faulty. It was based on the following logic:

  1. Israel had to dismantle the SLA to comply with UN Resolution 425 of March 1978 that called for Israel to withdraw its forces from all Lebanese territory.
  2. Hezbollah would overwhelm and murder its Christian and Shiite elements prompted by the memories of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camp massacres.
  3. That if the SLA put up resistance against Hezbollah that it might complicate withdrawal leading to a possible return by Israel to assist its former allies.
  4. Israel sacrificed the SLA as a necessity to assure that Hezbollah not interfere with Israel’s withdrawal from the South.

Nisan believes that the debacle that occurred in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal might have been prevented if:

  1. Israel had bolstered the SLA as an independent force.
  2. Israel might have disarmed both the SLA and Hezbollah.
  3. Israel had called upon Syrian Forces to withdraw simultaneously with the IDF.

He concludes, “In Lebanon, Israel was drained of its political and public energy, had done little strategic planning, and in the end lacked a moral compass.”

Nisan notes the three signal events that occurred in 2000:

  1. In May the Israeli Army withdrew from Southern Lebanon and likewise forced the collapse of its SLA ally there.
  2. In June President Assad of Syria died and was succeeded by his son Bashar.
  3. Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, and a variety of political personalities, both Christian and Muslim, called for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.

In mid-July 2015, a worldwide gathering of Lebanese activists occurred in Washington, DC in the First Convention on the Cedars Revolution. It was the commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the Cedars Revolution. Several sessions were held with Members of Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon. The issues they addressed concerned the preservation of democracy in Lebanon’s confessional political system, military and security matters with the incursion of Syrian forces, reminiscent of original issue that ignited the Cedars Revolution in March 2005. It is indicative of the abiding concerns of the Lebanese and largely Christian diaspora, estimated at upwards of 14 million.

Even during several Arab Israeli conflicts, Lebanon stayed out of the conflicts. After the failure of the 1970 Black September campaign between PLO-Fatah forces and the Kingdom of Jordan, Yassir Arafat and Palestinian resistance leadership were given sanctuary in Lebanon. Less than five years later, Arafat fomented open warfare on Christians in a ferocious and bloody conflict. It was during that period that Lebanese Maronite leaders like Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz) and Pierre Gemayel reached out to Israel whose military covertly provided training and equipment to Christian militia forces. There were hopes of an eventual enduring peace between Lebanon and Israel. That possibility ended with the assassination on September 15, 1982 of Maronite President-Elect and leader of Lebanese Forces Bashir Gemayel of the Phalange Party. He was allegedly on his way to conclude a treaty with Israel in Jerusalem.

Nisan addresses the transformation of Lebanese Shia under Sayyid Fadlaallah from willing confessional participants to Sharia infused support of an Islamic state, reducing the dominant Maronite and other Christians to dhimmi status. Along with that, Fadlaallah denied Israel’s legitimacy and boosted the Palestinian cause against the “Zionist enterprise.” Instead of involving himself in the Lebanon political structure, Fadlaallah sought out the means of supporting jihad, through zakat, Muslim charity. The person who completed the transformation of Lebanon’s Shia was Imam Musa al-Sadr who, in the political chaos of the mid-1970’s, created the Movement for the Disinherited (al Harakat al-Muhrimum) to promote Shiite social equality and political activism and its companion military wing, Amal (“Hope”). Sadr disappeared in 1978 on a flight to Rome under mysterious circumstances. Leadership of Amal fell to successors Hussein al-Husseini, who later became Speaker, and ultimately, lawyer Nabih Berri. Berri sought resistance against the PLO in the 1970’s and 1980’s including laying siege to Palestinian refugee camps. However, the ultimate destination of Lebanon’s Shia community was to Iranian theocratic influence emanating from Shia seminaries in Iraq. The pro-Khomeinist returnees from Najaf provided fertile grounds to build Hezbollah – the party of God, a Qur’anic designation. Nisan notes that the ultimate leadership of Hezbollah was drawn from Southerners like Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah and Abdul Karim Obeid, graduates of the apocalyptic Twelver seminary in Qom, Iran. By 1982, 1,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards were stationed in the Bekaa Valley training young Lebanese Shia fighters in Khomeinist doctrine and providing them with weapons and millions in funding. Syria under the Assad family became a strategic ally during the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980’s allowing Damascus to become a transfer point for Iran to supply its proxy, Hezbollah. Hezbollah became Iran’s global terrorism arm. That is reflected in Iran’s support for Lebanese Shia émigrés in the Latin American tri-border area that provided a base for the 1992 Buenos Aires Israeli Embassy and 1994 Jewish AMIA blasts. The later is still roiling Argentine politics with the recent mysterious death of Argentine Jewish prosecutor Alberto Nisman and accusations of involvement at the highest political levels in both Iran and Argentina.

The Israel invasion of 1982 launched a series of terrorist spectacles by the late Imad Mughniyahin. In Beirut in 1983  he killed over 400 French paratroopers, US Marines and US embassy staff. That was followed by the 1986 TWA flight hijacking and killing of a US Navy diver hostage. Mughniyah, went big time with the Khobar Towers blast in Saudi Arabia in 1995. He had links to the East African US Embassy blasts in 1998 and a major role in training and facilitating the travel via Iran and Germany of the 19 Sunni perpetrators of 9/11. Mughniyah’s leading terrorist role ended in Damascus in February 2008, when his vehicle exploded in what many believe was a Mossad revenge attack.

The big breakthrough for Hezbollah was its campaign of attacks in the South of Lebanon and Israeli border incursions in the late 1980’s to 2000. Nisan notes that Hezbollah undertook 1,030 military operations over the period from 1990 to 1995, escalating to more than 4,928 operations from 1996 to 2000.

Nisan links Hezbollah’s political rise with the adoption of the triumvirate Lebanese Presidency system with the Taif agreement. That enabled Hezbollah to secure seats in the Chamber of Deputies in competition with the Shia Amal party. Its further rise to power was the product of one of its three expressed objectives of a 1985 Open Letter:

  1. Accepting Ayatollah Khomeini as leader of the world’s Muslims.
  2. Wiping out Israel and opposing America.
  3. Forming relations with Christians in Lebanon while calling them to embrace Islam.

Nisan noted the impact of the third objective expanding the 128 member Assembly split 64 Christian/64 Muslim. He wrote, “many Muslim voters were electing Christian deputies in the South, while Christians elected a Shiite in Jbayl and Sunnis were elected by Maronites and Druze in the Shouf.”

By 1999, when the US State Department designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist group, Hezbollah was a mini-state within a state. In May of 2000, the ring of fate was sealed in Southern Lebanon with the Israel evacuation and collapse of the SLA resistance. Under a secret agreement between Hezbollah and the IDF, the former agreed not to attack Israeli forces as they completed their retreat. That action, as Nisan notes, led Yassir Arafat to instigate the so-called Temple Mount Second Intifada triggered by the visit of Israel PM Sharon on September 28, 2000. Sharon was the Defense Minister who undertook the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

At the conclusion of Nisan’s book, he posits three scenarios:

  1. The Iranian Shiite axis could collapse with a short time.
  2. The Arab world could continue its slide into fissured decay while distracted from its historic and national vision.
  3. The Arab-Israeli conflict will likely remain intractably irresolvable according to the tried and tested formulae for peace.

In the midst of Nisan’s speculations he draws attention to the aftermath of the Maronite Patriarch a-Ra’I 2012 visit to Jerusalem. That enraged Hezbollah, but brought commendation from Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Maronite President Sleiman whose term ended in 2014 paid a visit to Jumblatt’s home town of Mukhtara before he stepped down. The message was one of reconciliation within the confessional system that might bring the sectarian groups together and avoid a civil war. With a vacant presidential post and parliamentary elections postponed until 2017, trouble looms for the country caught up in the vicissitudes of the Syrian civil war spilling over its borders, bringing in a flood of refugees. Currently, Lebanon is embroiled in a highly politicized trash crisis involving a protest Group “You Stink” that some believe may cover a possible power grab by the Hezbollah party and Michael Aoun’s Free Patriot Movement. The concern is the crisis might bring down the National Unity Government of Sunni Prime Minister Tammam Salam.Reuters reported both Saudi Arabia and Iran gave their blessing to the present government with a Cabinet composed of Sunni Muslim former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri’s Future movement, Shi’ite Hezbollah and Christians. Nisan wrote about a hopeful sign, “The March 14 camp asked Patriarch Beshara a – Ra’I to suggest names for the presidential post. Maybe somehow two Maronites – patriarch and president would help save the country from oblivion.” The expression in Hebrew is, alevai. Its English meaning, “that should only be.”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. Also see Jerry Gordon’s collection of interviews, The West Speaks.

VIDEO: DEFEAT the Iran Nuke Deal

The Principled Candidate Promotion Project (CCC PAC) has release a new video titled, “No to the Iran Nuke Deal!” The video explains in 1 minute why members of Congress must defeat the Iran nuclear weapons deal.

CCC PAC in an email states, “Our message to Congress will be clear:  if you vote YES on Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal, we will defeat your re-election bid and bring an end to your political career.  Time is of the essence, so please stay tuned as we update you on our efforts to DEFEAT the Iranian nuclear deal.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Donald Trump: Nuclear deal calls for U.S. to defend Iran against Israeli attack

End Looms for Congressional Action on the Iran Nuclear Pact

While the Congress is on summer recess until it reconvenes just after Labor Day, the President, his White House staff and loyal Congressional supporters are engaged in briefings and discussions with 15 undecided Senators and 30 House Members endeavoring to gain their support for the Iran nuclear pact. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was announced in Vienna on July 14, 2015. A week later on July 22nd, the Iran nuclear pact was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council. The President is seeking to buttress the vote count under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015. Congressional rejection of the JCPOA might trigger a Presidential veto.

With each Senate and House Hearing on the Iran nuclear pact, more was revealed about why it might not pass muster. Especially concerning were revelations about the handling of IAEA inspections of suspected military development sites in Iran by Iranian inspectors. These developments have called into question the delivery of a Road Map by the IAEA in October that might release upwards of $100 billion in Iran’s sequestered funds. Critics think the release of those sequestered funds may not be used for shoring up the country’s economy. Instead, they contend it may simply be used to bolster destabilizing activities in the Middle East via Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the Houthi in Yemen.

Several Republican Senators and House Members are drafting legislative proposals for rejection of the Iran nuclear pact or re-setting the 2006 Iran Sanctions Act in 2016. They are proposing possible amendments of the JCPOA, endeavoring to make it a better deal. The President has chosen a partisan path that does not welcome bi-partisan deliberation. There are various  contending options. They encompass resolutions to reject the pact and schedule a vote as a treaty, assuming the President may have the votes to override a veto. As we have discussed in the August edition of the New English Review, there is also possible litigation that might achieve the same end.

Polls taken of Americans by Quinnipiac University show a consistent 2 to 1 edge among respondents urging members of both Congressional Chambers to reject the Iran Nuclear Pact with deep divisions along political lines. The American Jewish opinion, reflected in several polls, is also divided on support for the President’s plan. Polls by the alleged ”pro-Israel, pro-Peace” J Street Group depict more Jews in favor of the President’s position. Further, there have been revelations of campaign contributions to Democrat Senate and Congressional Members by Iranian American Political Action Committees.

Traditional centrist groups like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League have come out opposing the Iran nuclear pact. Secure America Now and AIPAC are actively opposing the Iran nuclear pact. AIPAC established an affiliate, Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, solely devoted to blitzing messages in TV ads and social media. They even provide direct links for constituents to contact their Senators and Congressional Representatives to express their views.

As August was ending, Stop Iran Now! Rallies occurred across the U.S. on Sunday, August 30, 2015 in Boston, Miami and Santa Barbara. More such rallies are planned leading up to a major event in Washington, DC, A March to Save America. It has been long hot summer recess for Members of Congress in their states and districts holding town hall hearings to gauge the pulse of constituents on the President’s nuclear deal with Iran.

President Obama at America University in Washington, August 5, 2015. Source: Reuters

The President’s Address at American University

Prior to going on a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, President Obama gave a partisan major address at American University in Washington, DC on August 5, 2015. President Obama used the venue of American University’s new Center of International Service in our nation’s capital to present a 55 minute speech directed at undecided Democrat Senators and Representatives in Congress.

He suggested that the nuclear pact with Iran was better than the alternative: war. The Wall Street Journal noted the hortatory and accusatory rhetoric of the President Obama’s remarks:

Congressional rejection of this deal leaves any U.S. administration that is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with one option: another war in the Middle East. So let’s not mince words. The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war.

Following the President’s speech, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman, Bob Corker (R-TN) told reporters:

The president is trying to turn this into a partisan issue, but there is bipartisan concern.

He went out of his way lambasting the opposing Republican majorities in Congress as the party of warmongers. He tied them to the legacy of the Bush II Wars in Iraq suggesting the outcome was the morphing of Al Qaeda in Iraq into the Islamic State or ISIL. He said the cost was thousands killed, tens of thousands injured at a price of a trillion dollars. He told American Jews that he had improved the Jewish nation’s qualitative military edge with commitment of billions in conventional military aid. He implied that support would enable Israel to overcome the Islamic Regime’s existential threats of “Death to America, Death to Israel, Death to Jews,” notwithstanding Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s holocaust denial and antisemitism. Obama criticized Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s opposition to the JCPOA for Iran’s nuclear program. He suggested that Netanyahu’s alternative of simply “squeezing” Iran’s theocratic leadership was not a better solution, and might lead to war. On the contrary, Netanyahu has argued that the current Iran nuclear deal actually provides multiple pathways for Iran to achieve nuclear breakout, leading to possible war.

In a post speech dialogue with Washington pundits, the President deepened his partisan criticism of Republican opponents to the Iran nuclear deal. Gerald Seib, who writes a daily Capitol Column for The Wall Street Journal reported the President saying:

There is a particular mindset that was on display in the run-up to the Iraq war that continues to this day. Some of the folks that were involved in that decision either don’t remember what they said or are entirely unapologetic about the results. This mindset views the Middle East as a place where force and intimidation will deliver on the security interests that we have, and that it is not possible for us to at least test the possibility of diplomacy. Those views are prominent now in the Republican Party.

Watch President Obama on this C-Span video of his American University speech, August 5, 2015:

President Obama, Jewish Federation of North America webcast, White House 8-28-15. Screen Capture YouTube.

The President’s Message to Israel and American Jews: “We’ll treat you like family.”

There is a song by the pop group Alabama, “Down Home,” that goes: “Down home, where they know you by name and treat you like family. Down home, a man’s good word and a hand shake are all you need.” The tag line ‘we treat you like family’ has become an overworked turn of phrase by hundreds of national and local advertisers, including used car mega dealer, CarNation.

President Obama picked up on that theme in a 45 minute White House interview Friday August 28, 2015, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of North America (JFNA) and the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (COPMAJO). President Obama on the August 28th webcast said:

The bond between the United States and Israel is not political. It is something that grows out of family ties and bonds that stretch back generations, and shared values and shared commitments and shared beliefs in democracy. And like all families sometimes there are going to be disagreements. And sometimes people get angrier about disagreements in families than with folks that aren’t family.

He held the ties between the US and Israel as “sacrosanct “and hoped that relation would improve after the discussions and presumably the upcoming Congressional vote:

As soon as this part of the debate is over, my hope is that the Israeli government will immediately want to rejoin conversations we started long before on how we can enhance Israeli security in a very troubled neighborhood,

He was hoping to mollify a national webcast audience with a Congressional vote on the Iran nuclear pact looming in Congress. His other key points were that the deal “would cut off Iran from all pathways to a bomb, sparing Israel from an existential threat.” Moreover, that achievement would enable the US to concentrate on preventing Iran from supplying more missiles to Hezbollah. While acknowledging that the mullahs exhibited bad behavior towards the US and Israel, he was less concerned with “taunts.” He was placing reliance on an agreement that had “robust verification and compliance with intrusive inspections.” Inspections that from leaked IAEA confidential protocols with Tehran were alleged by pact critics to be conducted by Iran at military sites, like Parchin. Just prior to the webcast there were reports from the IAEA that nuclear testing may have been conducted at the Parchin military site. That raises questions of whether a Road Map of such prior military developments could be delivered by October to potentially release $100 billion in sanctioned funds to Iran in December. The President suggested that if such cheating was discovered that both US and multilateral sanctions could be “snapped back.” However this seems increasingly difficult given the arbitration commission established by the JCPOA that includes Iran. Further, the rush by European partners in the P5+1 to cash in on development projects in Iran may practically preclude that.

Witness the meeting in Zurich this week with Swiss and Iranian businessmen following the lifting of sanctions by the Swiss government. The Swiss Ambassador to Tehran extolled the virtues of the Islamic Republic of Iran as “a pole of stability in a region.” He spoke in front of a cartoon depicting two doves defecating on the head of Israeli PM Netanyahu. The Swiss Federal Foreign Affairs Department promptly issued “regrets” over the incident. This despite evidence that Tehran, to the contrary, persists in destabilizing behavior.

The President trivialized Iran’s economic importance by saying that Iran is not a “super power.” Despite having a beleaguered economy, the Supreme Leader Khamenei has diverted billions over decades as a state sponsor of terrorism designated by the US State Department since 1999.

He also suggested that the release of more than $100 billion in sanctioned funds would be devoted to restoring an economy whose GDP had plummeted by 20 percent. He took credit for that while Congress had passed sanctions before he begrudgingly signed off on them. He justified the ability to snap back sanctions based on the alleged record of compliance by Tehran over the past two years under the terms of original framework that released modest amounts of funds. He alleged that when Tehran lagged in compliance, there were temporary halts in release of funds until time was afforded to correct issues.

The question and answer portion of the interview with the President focused on questions from viewers including antisemitic rhetoric emerging in the debate over the Iran pact. Other questions from viewers across the country dealt with maintaining the qualitative military edge of Israel and whether reconciliation with Israel could be achieved despite disputatious relations with PM Netanyahu. The President’s response on the debate over the pact allowed him to turn the question back on the Jewish Federation and COPMAJO representatives. He touted the support from New York Jewish Congressman, Jerrold Nadler. Nadler had become the subject of intense protests by local  New York Jewish officials and Holocaust survivors in his Manhattan Brooklyn District. The Times of Israel reported how the President responded:

I would suggest that in terms of the tone of this debate everybody keep in mind that we’re all pro-Israel,” he said. “We have to make sure that we don’t impugn people’s motives.

At the conclusion of the JFNA and COPMAJO interview the President remarked:

I’m hopeful that members of Congress get behind this deal. And I promise you that nobody’s going to have a bigger stake in implementing it effectively than me.

Watch this YouTube video of the JFNA and COPMAJO webcast with President Obama:

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) Ranking Member with Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) Chairman Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Source: AP

Dilemma facing the Democrat Undecideds

The White House JFNA and COPMAJO sponsored interview capped a hectic week for President Obama fresh back from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation. He is preoccupied with trying to shore up support among the remaining 15 undecided Democrat Senators, especially six: Michael  Bennet of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Chris Coons of Delaware, Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, Corey Booker of New Jersey and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon. All of these key undecided Democrats have been assiduously courted by the Senate whip team supporting the President and both pro and opposing local groups in their home states.

According to a Politico report, J Street conducted a poll in Colorado showing that 62 percent of Jewish voters supported the President’s position. Sen. Bennet, up for re-election in 2016, has been inundated with thousands of phone calls from constituents opposing the President’s position.

New Jersey Republican Governor and Presidential hopeful Chris Christie beseeched freshman Senator Booker at a Chabad House news conference at Rutgers University to follow the lead of his fellow New Jersey Democrat colleague in the Senate Bob Menendez and New York Senator Charles Schumer, both of whom have opted to reject the Iran nuclear pact in the upcoming Congressional vote. Christie said:

For Sen. Booker this morning, the people of your state, the people of this country and the people of the world are counting on you to be a strong, direct and powerful moral voice. To look your President in the eye — to look our president in the eye — and say, ‘No, Mr. President. Not this time.’

Blumenthal, a supporter of punishing Iran sanctions has promised his largely liberal base in Connecticut that he will deliberate on his position. He met with Soros-backed MoveOn.org and with local opponents to the Iran nuclear pact. Former Senator Joe Lieberman suggested that, “I hope and pray he opposes the agreement. This is the kind of agreement that Dick Blumenthal never would have negotiated.” Blumenthal is also up for re-election in 2016.

Coons of Delaware, a Democrat member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will announce his decision on September 1, 2015 at the University of Delaware. His colleague in the Delaware delegation, Sen. Tom Carper announced his support for the President’s position. Oakley of Oregon, while a nominal undecided, probably has been marked down by the Senate Democrat whip team as a probable in the President’s vote count.

The big unknown is Maryland Senator Cardin, ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and co-author of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) passed in May. He demonstrated concern over the IAEA side deal and later revelations about Iranian inspections during Committee hearings on the nuclear pact. Normally aligned with the Administration on most issues, perhaps because of the largely Orthodox Jewish presence in Baltimore County and many calls from constituents, he is genuinely conflicted. Cardin is expected to announce a decision prior to the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK)

The Resurrection of the Filibuster Threat

Monday August 24th, President Obama flew out to Las Vegas to appear at a Democratic fundraiser for the successor to Senate Democrat Minority leader, Harry Reid. The following day, Tuesday, August 25th, Reid floated a trail balloon for a possible filibuster that might succeed in delaying or precluding a vote on any Senate Resolution opposing the President’s Iran nuclear deal. CNN Politics reported:

“I felt cautiously optimistic that we would have enough votes to sustain the President’s veto, and that seems pretty clear to me, but we’ll see,” Reid told reporters after an event with President Barack Obama Monday in Nevada, according to a transcript provided by Reid’s staff. “As far as procedurally stopping this bill from moving forward, I hope — I know it’s a long shot — but I hope that it can be done.”

Freshman Republican Senator from Arkansas Tom Cotton immediately issued the following statement:

Harry Reid wants to deny the American people a voice entirely by blocking an up-or-down vote on this terrible deal. He is obstructing because he is scared. He knows that a majority of Americans and Senators oppose this dangerous deal, and that its only chance for survival is if he and the president ram it down the throats of the American people.

CNN Politics suggested that the exchange between Reid and Cotton indicated that the Democrat may have the votes in hand to scupper the vote on the Iran pact:

Overriding a veto would require Republican senators to get 13 Democrats to join them, the threshold for ending a filibuster to hold a vote is lower — 60 votes instead of 67. That Democrats are eying preventing a vote, and not just sustaining a veto, points to increasing confidence that their party members won’t break ranks.

Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for Reid, added Tuesday that, “If Senator Cotton is upset with the 60-vote threshold, we recommend he discuss it with the Republican leadership since they were responsible for bringing the bill to the floor that set up a 60-vote threshold.”

Omri Ceren, Managing Director for Press and Strategy at the Washington, DC –based Israel Project was cited by Seth Lipsky in a New York Post article calling the filibuster tactic by the Senate Democrat minority leader Reid, “a “staggering betrayal” and “stab in the face.” Americans in a leading poll have urged Congress to reject the Iranian deal by a 2 to 1 margin.  Ceren further noted:

The pro-Israel community worked in a bipartisan fashion with Congress to give the president breathing room for negotiations while protecting legislative prerogatives. He thinks the Senate Democrats therefore owe Americans an up-or-down vote.

Republicans Work on Options

Meanwhile, the Republican opposition is working on new legislative options, should either a filibuster or veto override result in approval for the Iran nuclear pact and lifting of $100 billion in sequestered funds to Tehran in December. The target of the legislative initiative is the Iranian Revolutionary Guards whose elite leaders like controversial Quds Force commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani are among more than 800 persons whose travel bans and asset restrictions will be lifted by the JCPOA. Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. John Barraso (R-WY) said in a Wall Street Journal article, “Iran has a long rap sheet, and I want to continue to prosecute Iran for its bad behavior.” Republican Presidential hopeful Florida freshman Senator Marco Rubio is preparing sanctions specifically directed at Iran’s Revolutionary Guard leaders. The creation of new sanctions or the resetting of the 2006 Iran Sanctions Act, due to expire in 2016, might present a quandary for Democrat Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton and others. The proposal addresses the Islamic Regime’s support for terrorism and human rights abuses. Moreover the Obama White House is concerned that any moves to impose these proposals might trigger a reaction by Iran to scuttle the JCPOA backed by the EU3, Russia and China. There already have been comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and others to that effect. Another option is one being promoted by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) resetting the 2006 Iran Sanctions Act which is scheduled to sunset in 2016. Under their proposal, the reset sanctions would have no set term and would bar investments by US firms of more than $20 million in Iran’s key energy sector.

Larry Klayman, Esq.  Freedom Watch.

Litigation to Pursue the Treaty Option

In the August NER, we wrote about the possibility of another means of quashing the Iran nuclear pact, litigation overturning the JCPOA and treating it as a treaty. In the run up to the passage of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, there were amendments by Republican Senators Cotton and Johnson that the pact be considered as a treaty and subjected to a two-thirds vote upon the advice and consent of the Senate. Later in Senate Banking Committee hearings on the Iran pact, Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies suggested that the deal should be amended, eliminating the sunset provisions and the so-called snap back sanctions. As precedent for possible amendment of the JCPOA, he noted more than “250 bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements and treaties from the Cold War Era.” Secretary Kerry in House Foreign Affairs testimony in late July 2015 contended that it was impossible to get a treaty passed by Congress. That was in response to a query by Congressman Reid Ribble (R-WI),” For 228 years the Constitution provided a way out of that mess by allowing treaties to be with the advice and consent of [two-thirds] of U.S. Senators. Why is this [Iran deal] not considered a treaty?”

When we published “How Best to Overturn the Iran Nuclear Pact” in the August 2015 New English Review, we reviewed several options. One proposal suggested by Dr. Robert B. Sklaroff entailed direct litigation by Congress before the Supreme Court under provisions of the US Constitution seeking a ruling treating the Iran nuclear pact as a treaty requiring the advice and consent of the Senate. We wrote:

That proposal entailed independent Congressional litigation on demonstrable Constitutional legal grounds regarding executive overreach. If the Senate was granted standing on direct appeal, based on the B. Altman SCOTUS ruling, it might result in a predisposed SCOTUS rendering a positive ruling thus quashing the Iran nuclear pact. Further, the ruling might unfetter the hands of any successor to President Obama on inauguration day in 2017 to undertake remedial actions. Such actions might reduce the current existential threats to both the US and Israel.

On August 4, 2015, Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch filed a motion in the Palm Beach Florida Federal District court seeking a declaratory judgment overturning the Iran nuclear pact.  Constitution Daily reported:

Almost as soon as the lawsuit landed on the docket of District Judge Kenneth A. Marra, the judge ordered Klayman to offer reasons why the case should remain alive, as a genuine controversy under the Constitution’s Article III. The judge noted that his court would have no choice but to dismiss the case, if Klayman is unable to show that he would personally suffer a legal injury if the review process for the Iran deal went forward, or is unable to convince the judge that how the deal is being handled in Congress is anything other than a “political question.”

Probably the toughest test for Klayman is his attempt to prove that he has “standing” to sue, in the Article III sense of showing a personal harm, because the Supreme Court in recent years has been regularly tightening the restrictions on the right to file lawsuits in federal courts. That trend, though, has not met with universal approval among federal judges.

The difference between the Klayman Freedom Watch filing and the proposal that Sklaroff and lawyer Lee Bender have proposed is that the Senate would have standing to bring such an action under Constitutional law. At issue is would the Senate Majority Leader bring such an action should Congress fail to pass a resolution rejecting the Iran nuclear pact.

Should such litigation succeed in obtaining a Supreme Court ruling approving a treaty vote by the Senate, it would have a major advantage: the ability to examine the underlying negotiation documents. That prospect was the subject of a Wall Street Journal opinion article by Jerome S. Marcus,An Informed Vote on the Iran deal.” Marcus is a talented litigator who brought the Z Street case against the IRS with resulting victories in both the DC Federal District and Circuit Court of Appeals. Marcus in the WSJ opinion article describes his personal experience working as a young attorney with legendary State Department legal adviser, Judge Abraham Sofaer, during the Reagan era on clearance of the Strategic Defense Initiative under the 1972 ABM Treaty. He describes going back to foundational documents in the National Archives during the first 40 years following the adoption of the Constitution. He concluded:

The 1854 edition of Thomas Jefferson’s “Manual of Parliamentary Practice,” published after his death in 1826, concurs on this issue: “It has been the usage for the Executive, when it communicates a treaty to the Senate for their ratification, to communicate also the correspondence of negotiators.” The manual also reports precedents showing that, in cases where such material wasn’t initially sent to the Senate, it was requested by the Senate and, in each instance, provided by the executive branch.

The lesson for today is clear: When a legislative body is deciding whether to approve an international agreement, especially one as important as the recent nuclear agreement with Iran, its members have the right to access the agreement’s negotiating record. Members of Congress should demand that record now, and they should examine it, before they cast their votes next month.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society action alert to thwart “fear and hate campaign”

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) has put out an alert to its followers to tell Congress to ignore the ‘haters’ and do not suspend the refugee resettlement program (presumably a reference to the Babin bill although they never mention his name).

It is no surprise that HIAS is apparently out in front (ahead of the other eight federal refugee contractors) on this, on calling anyone who has legitimate concerns about the cost and scope of our present Refugee Admissions Program ‘haters.’

Remember they were behind the $35,000 report, discussed here by Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily which sought to sic the disreputable Southern Poverty Law Center on us!  We first mentioned the report here in 2014 (LOL! they call us the “resistance.”)

This is what HIAS said in an e-mail to its followers yesterday (emphasis is mine):

Will you send a message to your Member of Congress to ask them to stand up for refugee resettlement in the United States?

Even in the face of one of the worst refugee crises in recent history, there are people in our own country who are spreading fear and hatred. And unfortunately, that rhetoric is reaching policy-makers on both local and national levels.

Since its founding, the United States has been a place of refuge and protection for people who have fled conflict, persecution, and some of the worst violence in the world. With our deep historical and ethical connection to the plight of refugees, the Jewish community is coming together to make sure that our elected officials understand our commitment to the protection of refugees.

We need your help. Send a message to your Member of Congress today so that the voices of compassion and empathy can overpower those of hate.

A similar message was sent out earlier this month from at least one of HIAS local ‘affiliates.’

They direct supporters to their website where a sample text is provided for activists.  This is one bit of that text:

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose any efforts that aim to suspend refugee resettlement in the U.S.

Worried are they?

Give them more to worry about—sign the petition!

By the way, I found it curious that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society re-branded itself a while back and dropped the word ‘Hebrew’ from its name.  Is it because there are only a few Jewish refugees arriving in the US now and they wanted to remain relevant (and get their federal grant $$$) by bringing in large numbers of Muslim refugees?  Here in 2014, Director of Advocacy, Nezer, says HIAS wants 75,000 Syrians admitted over 5 years.  94% of the Syrians arriving so far are Muslim.  Can you say ‘death wish!’

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RELATED VIDEO: On the Muslim migration (hijra) to the United States.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of HIAS Washington Lobbying Office Director Melanie Nezer. She is the author of that report that targets Refugee Resettlement Watch. Nezer is presently the chair of the Refugee Council USA which is the lobbying umbrella group for the resettlement contractors and other open borders groups.

Former UK Defense Chief: Cameron lacked “balls” to head off rise of Islamic State

“Lord Richards reportedly told author Sir Anthony Seldon that the prime minister had in 2012 rejected a ‘coherent military strategy’ to take on the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, which would in his view have seen the Islamic extremists ‘squeezed out of existence.’” It seems fanciful that taking on the Islamic State’s enemy, Assad, would have “squeezed” the Islamic State “out of existence,” but it is manifestly true that David Cameron lacks the courage and vision to take on the jihad threat in general, and is instead following a disastrous policy of appeasement and accommodation of Islamic supremacists that is going to result in nothing less than the ruin of Britain if it isn’t stopped.

“Too often it seems to be more about the Notting Hill liberal agenda rather than statecraft.” No doubt about that.

“David Cameron lacked ‘balls’ to head off the rise of Isis, says former defence chief,” by Frances Perraudin, Guardian, August 30, 2015 01.06 EDT
Last modified on Sunday 30 August 2015:

David Cameron lacked “the balls” to take the military action in Syria that could have prevented the rise of Islamic State, a former head of the armed forces has said.

In a scathing analysis of the UK prime minister’s approach, Gen Lord Richards of Herstmonceux said Cameron’s approach seemed “more about the Notting Hill liberal agenda rather than statecraft”.

Lord Richards reportedly told author Sir Anthony Seldon that the prime minister had in 2012 rejected a “coherent military strategy” to take on the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, which would in his view have seen the Islamic extremists “squeezed out of existence”.

The comments are detailed in Seldon’s biography of Cameron – titled Cameron at 10: the Inside Story 2010-2015 – which is being serialised in the Mail on Sunday.

Lord Richards, who was chief of the defence staff from October 2010 to July 2013, is quoted as saying: “If they had the balls they would have gone through with it … if they’d done what I’d argued, they wouldn’t be where they are with Isis.

“In Ukraine, as in Syria and Libya, there is a clear lack of strategy and statecraft. The problem is the inability to think things through. Too often it seems to be more about the Notting Hill liberal agenda rather than statecraft.”

The House of Commons voted against military action in Syria in 2013 and parliamentary authorisation has so far only been given to UK airstrikes against Isis in neighbouring Iraq.

But Cameron and the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, made clear they were considering extending the military air campaign to Syria in the wake of the Tunisian beach massacre on 26 June, which claimed 30 British victims among the 38 dead….

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Dead Islamic State hacker linked to Garland, TX jihad attack

This is the kind of person that the U.S. intelligentsia was applauding and abetting when it condemned us for standing up for the freedom of speech in Garland.

“U.S. confirms Islamic State computer expert killed in air strike,” Reuters, August 29, 2015:

The U.S. military confirmed on Friday that a British hacker who was one of the Islamic State movement’s top computer experts and active in encouraging people abroad to carry out “lone wolf” attacks was killed in Syria by a U.S. air strike.

Junaid Hussain of Birmingham, England, was killed on Aug. 24 by a U.S. military air strike on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqah, said Air Force Colonel Pat Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command.

Hussain had been involved in “actively recruiting ISIL sympathizers in the west to carry out ‘lone wolf’ style attacks,” Ryder said, using an acronym for the militant group that has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq.

Hussain was responsible for releasing personal information of around 1,300 U.S. military and government employees in recent weeks, and “sought to encourage” attacks against them, U.S. officials said.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hussain had also been linked to the release of the names, addresses and photos of 100 U.S. service members on an Islamic State website in March.

Another official said that Washington had evidence that Hussain was in contact with two men who were shot dead when they tried to attack a “Draw Mohammed” cartoon contest in Garland, Texas in early May.

Islamic State claimed in a radio message after the shooting that the two men were “brothers” connected to the group….

RELATED ARTICLE: Former UK defense chief: Cameron lacked “balls” to head off rise of Islamic State

Gold Star Father Asks the U.S. Congress to Reject the Iran Nuke Deal

arron karen and billy vaughn

Navy SEAL Arron with parents Karen and Billy Vaughn.

Golds Star Father Billy Vaughn tells us why Congress should vote AGAINST the Iran Deal.

Billy and Karen Vaughn are the parents of fallen Navy SEAL, Aaron Carson Vaughn (SEAL Team VI).

On August 6, 2011 Aaron was killed in action in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan when a chopper (call sign Extortion 17) carrying thirty Americans was shot from the sky. The day Aaron’s life ended theirs began again.

Here is a panorama of the August 30th, 2015 Boston Stop Iran Now rally:

panorama of boston stop Iran rally

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The Senate Must Sue Obama to Block the Iran Nuclear Treaty by Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D. and Lee S. Bender, Esq.

When we published “How Best to Overturn the Iran Nuclear Pact” in the August 2015 New English Review, we reviewed several options. One proposal suggested by Dr. Robert B. Skalorff entailed direct litigation by Congress before the Supreme Court under provisions of the US Constitution seeking a ruling  treating   the Iran nuclear pact as a  treaty requiring  advise and consent of the Senate . We  wrote:

That proposal entailed independent Congressional litigation on demonstrable Constitutional legal grounds regarding executive overreach. If the Senate was granted standing on direct appeal, based on the B. Altman SCOTUS ruling, it might result in a predisposed SCOTUS rendering a positive ruling thus quashing the Iran nuclear pact. Further, the ruling might unfetter the hands of any successor to President Obama on inauguration day in 2017 to undertake remedial actions. Such actions might reduce the current existential threats to both the US and Israel.

In furtherance of that original proposal we are publishing  the following article by Dr. Robert A. Sklaroff and Lee S. Bender, Esq. which expands upon the original concept noting support from  Constitutional law experts and applicable case citations.

The Senate Must Sue Obama to Block the Iran TREATY

By Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D. and Lee S. Bender, Esq.

When Congress returns from recess after Labor Day, one of the most pressing issues on the agenda is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as “the Iran deal.” Much has been discovered since the Corker-Cardin-Menendez bill was enacted, including the White House’s and State Department’s deceit which influenced the Senate to abandon its constitutionally-provided role regarding treaties.

Now it might take a lawsuit spearheaded by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to reverse not only the damage to the Constitution but also potential damage to America and our allies as a result of the provisions of the Iran nuclear-deal.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has overwhelming justification to sue President Obama over the JCPOA which constitutes a treaty and thereby must be ratified by a 2/3-vote of those present prior to implementation.

Such a suit could ultimately prompt the Supreme Court to disclaim Obama’s portrayal of this document as an Executive Agreement. It could also sustain the overwhelming will of the American people–according to polling data—to trash this “legacy” effort, for reasons that have been exhaustively detailed.

Blocking implementation of the Iran nuclear-deal would thereby necessitate the legislative branch triggering a confrontation between the judicial and the executive branches.

Two essays {authored by RBS} published in The Hill explored the legalities of this initiative, focused on its “treaty” [July 29] and “rule-of-law” [August 25] components.

In the interim [USA Today, August 5], Professor Alan Dershowitz recognized that a Supreme Court opinion challenged the President’s power to enter into long-term deals with foreign powers without the consent of Congress. He cannot avoid Congressional oversight by simply declaring an important deal with foreign powers to be an executive agreement rather than a treaty [Gibbons v. Ogden]:  “[G]eneral and permanent commercial regulations with foreign powers must be made by treaty, but…the particular and temporary regulations of commerce may be made by an agreement of a state with another, or with a foreign power, by the consent of Congress.”

Two other authors, legal-authority Andrew C. McCarthy [National Review Online, July 17] and accomplished-author Caroline B. Glick [Jerusalem Post, July 21] also claimed the deal is a treaty, but none of these columnists proposed a remedy that would force a clash with this out-of-control Obama Administration. Jerry Gordon has detailed, comprehensively, “How Best to Overturn the Iran Nuclear Pact” [New English Review, August 2015].

The drip-drip-drip of news about details of the deal as well as “secret” side arrangements that has emerged this summer congeals into two major rationales for such litigation, addressing both specifics and lack of transparency. Specifically, multiple side-deals between Iran and the IAEA satirize the concept of “anytime, anywhere surveillance” but, perhaps more important, Obama and his cabinet-members “inexplicably” failed to reveal this information to Congress as secrets.  Moreover, the Administration also misled Congress and the American public about the nature of the deal and the resulting preservation of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and right to continue advanced research that will provide it with a bomb when the pact expires in a mere decade to 15 years.

The “legislative intent” of the Corker-Cardin Bill (Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015) was focused exclusively on Iran’s nuclear program, contrasting with the final pact the Administration concluded that was expanded to allow lifting of conventional-weapon sanctions. Iran sought—and was granted—this specific concession at the very end of the negotiations.  This was outside what the Administration had originally advised Congress about the parameters of this deal, focused on nuclear-weapons capability and not conventional weapons (or ICBMs). Thus, the final version of the Iran nuclear-deal encompassed issues, such as weaponization, that the Administration did not disclose to Congress before it debated and passed the Corker-Cardin Bill.

(Other facets of the negotiation were also misrepresented by the Obama Administration prior to when Kerry inked the deal. For example, although release of American prisoners was not ultimately achieved, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on  January 21, 2015 that the Administration’s negotiators “continue to insist” that Americans held in detention be released.)

This pattern of deception started before the Corker-Cardin Bill was passed in May. It was even maintained by Iran when the Tasmin News agency reported [June 15] “Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani reiterated that negotiations between Tehran and six major world powers solely focus on nuclear topics, dismissing any talk of military subjects in the talks.” And, reflecting the persistence of the deception,  it was manifest one week prior to when the deal was signed [July 14] during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing via testimony from Defense Secretary Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dempsey that the arms embargo, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1929, was not to be lifted [July 7].

Thus, overall, absent the ability to review all relevant data, the Senate (1)—cannot render an informed judgment, consistent with its “advise/consent” role, and (2)—cannot be viewed to be facing a 60-day deadline, for the Corker-Cardin Bill mandates that this “clock” start “ticking” only after the database has been completed.

Refusal to provide copies of side-agreements to Congress continues unabated, as per testimony on August 5 by chief-negotiator Wendy Sherman and IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. We now know why normally-sedate Senator Corker exploded (“We cannot get him to even confirm that we will have physical access inside of Parchin”) because such inspections have been serially outsourced by Obama to the IAEA and then, we learned more recently, by the IAEA to Iran.

The “toughest inspections-regime in history” forces America (and the world) to allow Iran to provide proof that Iran is not making nukes in Iran.

Perhaps more ominous is the dismissive posture adopted by Secretary of State Kerry [July 28] when confronted by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. The innocent hypothetical was unambiguous:  Would he “follow the law” governing existing congressional sanctions if Congress voted to override a veto? The elitist reply challenged rule-of-law:  “I can’t begin to answer that at this point without consulting with the President and determining what the circumstances are.”

Could BHO go rogue?

The ability of the Supreme Court to exercise “judicial review” is rooted in the Supremacy Clause, was affirmed in 1803 [Marbury v. Madison], and has never been tested again to this day.

But, because the Supreme Court does not command any enforcement-military, the remedy for potential lawlessness is unclear. Indeed, this concern would extend to any nullification effort by the President related to the prospect that the Supreme Court would declare the Iran-Nuclear Deal to be a “treaty” rather than the “executive agreement” the President has potentially improperly considered it to be, to skirt congressional oversight and approval.

These concerns were predicted [May 7] and corroborated [July 23] in essays that presage the current crisis [by RBS, both published in The American Thinker]. They were confirmed in an e-mail exchange by noted constitutional scholar, Dr. John C. Eastman [the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University and Founding Director of The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence]:First, because only a ‘treaty’ is the Supreme law of the land, a mere executive agreement could not overturn statutorily-imposed sanctions.” Eastman continued in an e-mail, “And neither, in my view, could a change in the constitutionally-mandated default rule for adopting a treaty.  Second, if that is true, then members of the Senate who, collectively, had the votes to prevent ratification of a treaty would have standing to challenge the process that negated their vote.  That’s the Coleman v. Miller case on all fours.” This 1939 landmark decision ensured that Congress was empowered to specify a deadline by which an external entity was to affirm proposed legislation, such as a Constitutional amendment.

The Ottoman-Islamic defeat at the “Gates of Vienna” in 1683 is on the verge of being reversed by Obama/Kerry and their P5+1 partners, again in Vienna; the irony is that the West is validating Iranian-Islamic supremacism. It seems only the U.S. Senate can rescue (Judeo-Christian) Western Civilization from the Administration’s collaboration and perfidy.

The Senate must definitively impose a limit to the President’s executive lawlessness before a constitutional crisis erupts. Resolution by the courts may be the most effective way to check and to balance the scales that Obama has usurped.

Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D. is a physician-activist and may be contacted at rsklaroff@gmail.com.  Lee S. Bender, Esquire, is an attorney, activist and co-author of the book, “Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-Z.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Iranian national arrested in Hancock County, Mississippi accused of tackling deputy, making terroristic threats

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps

“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” Excellent question. And no answer was forthcoming. Why not? Is it because there could be no possible explanation for this that makes sense in terms of American national security and that of the free world?

“Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps,” by Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon, August 28, 2015:

The Pentagon has not conducted airstrikes against an estimated 60 Islamic State (IS) training camps that are supplying thousands of fighters each month to the terror group, according to defense and intelligence officials.

The camps are spread throughout Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria and are off limits in the U.S.-led international bombing campaign because of concerns about collateral damage, said officials familiar with planning and execution of the yearlong bombing campaign.

Additionally, the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) camps have been so successful that Islamic State leaders are considering expanding the camps to Libya and Yemen. Both states have become largely ungoverned areas in recent years.

The failure to target the training camps with U.S. and allied airstrikes is raising questions among some defense and intelligence officials about the commitment of President Obama and his senior aides to the current anti-IS strategy of degrading and ultimately destroying the terror group.

“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” one official critical of the policy asked.

The camps are regarded by U.S. intelligence analysts as a key element in the terror group’s successes in holding and taking new territory. The main benefit of the training camps is that they are providing a continuous supply of new fighters.

An additional worry of intelligence analysts is that some of the foreign fighters being trained in the camps will eventually return to their home countries in Europe and North America to carry out terror attacks.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the failure to bomb the terror camps and referred questions to the Pentagon.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Roger M. Cabiness declined to say why no training camps have been bombed. “I am not going to be able to go into detail about our targeting process,” he said.

Cabiness said the U.S.-led coalition has “hit ISIL [an alternative abbreviation for the Islamic State] with more than 6,000 airstrikes.”

“The coalition has also taken out thousands of fighting positions, tanks, vehicles, bomb factories, and training camps,” he said. “We have also stuck their leadership, including most recently on Aug. 18 when a U.S. military airstrike removed Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz, the second in command of the terrorist group, from the battlefield.”

Efforts also are being taken to disrupt IS finances and “make it more difficult for the group to attract new foreign fighters,” Cabiness said in an email.

A Central Command spokesman also declined to provide details of what he said were “operational engagements” against IS training camps.

“Once a target is identified as performing a hostile act, or is part of an obvious hostile force, a training camp for example, we prosecute that target in accordance with the coalition rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict,” the spokesman said.

According to the defense and intelligence officials, one reason the training camps have been off limits is that political leaders in the White House and Pentagon fear hitting them will cause collateral damage. Some of the camps are located near civilian facilities and there are concerns that casualties will inspire more jihadists to join the group.

However, military officials have argued that unless the training camps are knocked out, IS will continue to gain ground and recruit and train more fighters for its operations.

Disclosure that the IS training camps are effectively off limits to the bombing campaign comes as intelligence officials in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of the conflict, have alleged that senior U.S. officials skewed intelligence reports indicating the U.S. strategy against IS is not working or has been less effective than officials have claimed in public.

The Islamic State controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has attracted tens of thousands of jihadists in both countries and from abroad. The exact number of fighters is not known but intelligence estimates have indicated the numbers have increased over the past year.

The military campaign, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, appears to be floundering despite a yearlong campaign of airstrikes and military training programs aimed to bolstering Iraqi military forces.

A review of Central Command reports on airstrikes since last year reveals that no attacks were carried out against training camps.

Targets instead included Islamic State vehicles, buildings, tactical units, arms caches, fighting positions, snipers, excavators, mortar and machine gun positions, bunkers, and bomb factories.

The risk-averse nature of the airstrike campaign was highlighted last month by Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff for what the military calls Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

“The coalition continues to use air power responsibly,” Weidley said July 1. “Highly precise deliveries, detailed weaponeering, in-depth target development, collateral damage mitigation, and maximized effects on Daesh, are characteristics of coalition airstrike operation in Iraq and Syria.”

Daesh is another name for the Islamic State.

“The coalition targeting process minimizes collateral damage and maximizes precise effects on Daesh,” Weidley said earlier. “Air crews are making smart decisions and applying tactical patience every day.”

Other coalition spokesman have indicated that targeting has been limited to reaction strikes against operational groups of IS fighters. “When Daesh terrorists expose themselves and their equipment, we will strike them,” Col. Wayne Marotto said May 27.

The military website Long War Journal published a map showing 52 IS training camps and noted that some may no longer be operating because of the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

IS-training-camps

Islamic State training camps in Iraq and Syria. Source: Long War Journal.

According the map, among the locations in Iraq and Syria where IS is operating training camps are Mosul, Raqqah, Nenewa, Kobane, Aleppo, Fallujah, and Baiji.

The group MEMRI obtained a video of an IS training camp in Nenewa Province, Iraq, dated Oct. 1, 2014.

The video shows a desert outpost with tan tents and around 100 fighters who take part in hand-to-hand combat exercises, weapons training, and religious indoctrination….

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Al-Shabaab was behind the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi several years ago. “Kenyan sentenced to 15 years in prison in US terror case,” by Curt Anderson, Associated Press, August 28, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):

MIAMI (AP) — A Kenyan man described by U.S. prosecutors as a fundraiser and recruiter for terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro imposed the maximum possible sentence on 27-year-old Mohamed Said. He pleaded guilty in May to charges of conspiring to support to Africa’s violent al-Shabaab organization and al-Qaida affiliates in Syria and elsewhere.

Said’s attorney, Silvia Pinera-Vazquez, had sought a more lenient eight-year sentence because Said never plotted directly against the U.S. and was solely supporting what she described as foreign “insurgents.”

“There is simply no evidence of direct intent to harm the United States,” she said.

Oh, well, then it’s OK? Not quite:

But Ungaro said terrorist groups he supported have an avowed intent to attack the U.S. and its interests overseas.

“It’s not reasonable to say that his conduct did not touch the United States. It did,” Ungaro said.

Said and co-defendant Gufran Mohammed were arrested in 2013 in Saudi Arabia in a case that evolved from undercover FBI monitoring of Internet chat rooms frequented by Islamic extremists. Mohammed, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from India, is already serving a 15-year prison sentence after pleading guilty.

Said, from Mombasa, Kenya, had never been to the U.S. before his arrest. It was his use of the Internet and communications with undercover FBI operatives and Mohammed — who lived in the Los Angeles area — that enabled the U.S. to charge him with federal terrorism support crimes.

Of the two, Said played the more critical role because of his connections to the leadership of the terrorist groups and knowledge of their inner workings, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Del Toro. The prosecutor noted that al-Shabaab’s most notorious attack was the 2013 assault on a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, that left 67 people dead.

“He was an insider in al-Shabaab,” Del Toro said. “The goal of these organizations is to murder civilians.”…

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Minnesota: Muslim terror suspect gets driver’s license, wants to drive school buses

What could possibly go wrong, you greasy Islamophobe? “Terrorism Suspect Gets Driving License: Can Now Drive Large Trucks, Wants To Drive School Buses Next!,” by Jelani James, HNGN, August 28, 2015:

A terrorism suspect whose name appears on the “No Fly” list has been allegedly given a Class-A commercial driver’s license, which would allow him to drive semi-trucks that he can fill with whatever seemingly legal item he chooses.

Amir Meshal had been attempting to get his Class A license from a South St. Paul Truck Driving School in Minnesota. The $4,000 tuition was paid for through the state workforce program.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety confirmed he earned his license on Aug. 8 after the road test, according to the Canada Free Press.

The Department of Homeland Security has regarded this man as a terrorist threat and has the evidence to back it up, according to Cain TV.

In May 2014, Meshal was allegedly removed from a Bloomington, Minn., mosque after he was suspected of radicalizing younger people who would later travel to Syria. According to a police report, leaders at the mosque said, “We have concerns about Meshal interacting with our youth.”

Meshal was asked to leave a mosque in Eden Prairie, Minn., for similar reasons.

Dating further back, in 2007 Meshal was arrested in Kenya by the FBI after he was believed to have attended a terror training camp in Somalia.

Meshal and the American Civil Liberties Union recently sued the U.S. government for detaining him for three months after he was arrested in Kenya. According to the lawsuit, the FBI had tried to convince him to become an informant.

The two also sued TSA and Homeland Security to have Meshal removed from the “No Fly” list, reported Fox Minnesota affiliate Fox 9. However, Homeland Security responded in a letter saying, “[Meshal] may be a threat to civil aviation or national security,” adding, “It has been determined that you [Amir Meshal] are an individual who represents a threat of engaging in or conducting a violent act of terrorism and who is operationally capable of doing so.”

As if this story didn’t raise enough red flags, a spokesman from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety also revealed that Meshal also wants to drive school buses!…

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Miami: Muslim gets 15 years for conspiring to support jihad mass murderers

Online Petition Demands Local Approval for Mulsim Refugee Resettlement

refugee resettlement of isA petition is circulating at GoPetition that asks you to tell elected officials at all levels of government that decisions, to “plant” third worlders in your towns and cities, rest with the local citizens and the local elected government and not with edicts from Washington.

The petition is here.  And, if you would like to join the national grassroots effort to protect your communities from colonization, go here.

To my knowledge, this is the first time anything like this is being organized on the national level!

Here is a portion of the description of the problem from GoPetition:

The federal Refugee Resettlement (RR) program is operated today by the Global Left, the UN, Islam, and religious frauds. The goal is to Change America by Changing its People.

As a result, we are drowning in refugees who are destroying our Constitutional freedoms, overburdening our welfare system and posing a genuine national security threat.

Will you as an American citizen stand up and fight this national suicide via LEGAL IMMIGRATION?

By signing this petition, you are telling your Governor, Congress and state representatives:

  • I will not tolerate giving my tax dollars to secretly “planted”, unvetted refugees that would otherwise go to aid poor families in my community.
  • I demand you do your job by representing the Will of The People rather than the Resettlement industry that may be funding your campaigns.

Continue here.  If you feel more comfortable, you can be anonymous, but please sign it!

Go here to see who has already signed.  And, check out the very cool interactive map that will hopefully be filled in by thousands of you signing the petition.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Twin Falls, ID: Article tells us why you must demand answers BEFORE refugees begin arriving

Spartanburg residents not happy with “pontificating” from U.S. Asst. Sec. of State

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) ‘welcomes’ refugees to South Carolina (Part I)

Curt Schilling and the Death of Free Speech

Curt Schilling islam tweetHe told the truth. He apologized. It still wasn’t enough. In FrontPage today, I discuss the savaging of Curt Schilling:

“Curt Schilling’s tweet comparing Muslims to Nazis is even worse than it sounds,” howled Max Fisher in Vox – one of the many voices this week screaming for Schilling’s head for transgressing against America’s new and unwritten, but nonetheless frightfully draconian, speech codes.

Fisher professes ignorance of the perp’s illustrious career, semaphoring that he is a good Leftist elitist, ignorant of Schilling’s brutish, bourgeois athletic achievements: “Curt Schilling, whom Wikipedia informs me is a former baseball star and current ESPN commentator, sent a tweet on Tuesday that seems to have emerged straight from the internet nether-void of racist email forwards.”

“Racist”? Schilling tweeted a graphic that read, “It’s said only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?” So where is the “racism”? What race are “extremist Muslims”? What race are Muslims in the aggregate? What race is Islam? Or did Fisher mean that Schilling’s tweet was racist against Germans?

Fisher compounds this muddled thinking by doubling down on the false claim in his headline, that Schilling likened Muslims to Nazis: “The argument here is pretty clear, even if the numbers are pure nonsense, but just so it’s not lost: Schilling is saying that the religion of Islam is akin to Nazi Germany, and that the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are responsible for the actions of a tiny minority of extremists in the same way that Nazi-era Germans were complicit in Nazi crimes.”

Actually, Schilling’s tweet does neither of those things. It likens not the religion of Islam, but “extremist Muslims,” to Nazis, and it doesn’t say a think about all Muslims being responsible for the crimes of Islamic jihadists. And Fisher’s woolly logic is typical of the firestorm that has engulfed Schilling, as he has been removed from ESPN’s coverage of the Little League World Series and is being pilloried everywhere. Schilling himself is repentant and apologetic, but it may do no good: he may be facing more punishment, and is taking a beating in the mainstream media for being “insensitive.”

But what exactly is so offensive about his tweet? Is it that he compared “extremist Muslims” to Nazis? Surely that can’t be it. The Islamic State hasn’t murdered six million Jews, but surely would if it could, and meanwhile its gleeful bloodlust, sex slavery, terrorizing of non-Muslims and all the rest of it make the comparison reasonable.

Or was Schilling “insensitive” for daring to suggest that peaceful Muslims aren’t doing much to rein in their violent coreligionists? Well, let’s see. Last month, Muslims in Ireland held a demonstration against the Islamic State. How many Muslims showed up? Fewer than fifty. And in October 2014 in Houston, a rally against the Islamic State organized by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) drew the grand total of ten people. In August 2013 in Boston, about 25 Muslims rallied against “misperceptions” that Islam was violent. About the same number showed up in June 2013 at a progressive Muslim rally in Toronto to claim that their religion had been “hijacked.”

And back in 2005, a group called the Free Muslims Coalition held what it dubbed a “Free Muslims March Against Terror,” intending to “send a message to the terrorists and extremists that their days are numbered … and to send a message to the people of the Middle East, the Muslim world and all people who seek freedom, democracy and peaceful coexistence that we support them.” In the run-up to the event it got enthusiastic national and international publicity, but it ended up drawing about twenty-five people.

Contrast those paltry showings to the thousands of Muslims who have turned out for rallies against cartoons of Muhammad or against Israel. Here are some headlines from the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre of Muhammad cartoonists in January 2015:

Chechnya: 800,000 Muslims protest Muhammad cartoons; protests also in Iran, Pakistan, Ingushetia, elsewhere

Pakistan: 10,000 Muslims protest against Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammad cartoons

Australia: 1,000 Muslims rally against Charlie Hebdo and the freedom of speech

Kyrgyztsan: 1,000 Muslims rally: “I am not Charlie, I love my Prophet.”

But given a chance to show how Muslims overwhelmingly reject “extremism,” only a handful show up.

So Fisher and the other Leftists gleefully stomping on Schilling’s professional corpse today should explain how exactly he was offensive or insensitive (aside from having been a member of the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks and 2004 Boston Red Sox). ESPN should restore him to active duty immediately, but it is much more likely that they will force him to issue a groveling apology first, or just fire him outright.

The savaging of Curt Schilling is disquieting proof of what I’ve pointed out many times over the years: that anyone and everyone who dares to speak a word against jihad terror will inevitably be mauled in the public square, and charged with “racism,” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia” – despite the fact that everyone, including the leading Muslim groups in the U.S., are supposed to be against jihad terror. Schilling, unprepared for the onslaught, backed down immediately, thereby reinforcing the usefulness of this firestorm as a tactic.

The ultimate goal is to inhibit all criticism of jihad terror, so that the jihad imperative can advance unimpeded. We’re well on the way there.

RELATED ARTICLES:

ESPN Erases Curt Schilling From Baseball History

UK Home Secretary Theresa May pledges government fight against “Islamist extremism” and “neo-Nazi extremism”

France jihadi’s brother: He’s not terrorist, “We are Muslims. We respect people.”

Two Hundred Retired U.S. Generals and Admirals sign letter opposing Iran Nuke Deal

Retired Admirals and Generals are still usually subject to the UCMJ and do not speak their opinions on political matters without some risk. Speaking out against the Commander in Chief could be a big no no. So when you have 200 opposing the C in C, that is significant.

NOTE: Many of the signatories served in the White House, under Democratic administrations as well as Republican. The only thing they appear to have in common is that they consider the Iran nuclear deal a threat to U.S. interests in the region and its own national security.

As Reported By Times of Israel:

Letter signed by former officers and navy admirals says nuclear agreement will enable Tehran to become ‘far more dangerous’

Nearly 200 retired US generals, admirals and former political officials have come out strongly against the Iran nuclear accord, and have called upon Congress to sink the aon the grounds that it will “enable Iran to become far more dangerous.”

Among the signatories are top former career officers from every branch of the US military, as well as officials who have served in the White House, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

“The agreement will enable Iran to become far more dangerous, render the Mideast still more unstable and introduce new threats to American interests as well as our allies,” the letter, which was addressed to Republican and Democratic senators and congressmen, stated.

“What I don’t like about this is the number one leading radical Islamic group in the world is the Iranians,” McInerney

CONTINUE READING:

200 retired US generals lobby Congress to reject Iran deal | The Times of Israel

RELATED ARTICLE: Traitor Senators Took Money from Iran Lobby, Back Iran Nukes

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenWestRepublic.com.

Israel: ‘No Choice’ but Military Option against Iran’s Nuclear Program?

Israel - Iran War Scenarios  12-14(2)In 1964, I sat in a darkened movie theater in Washington, D.C. with a fellow Army Intelligence officer watching Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant dark satire film on how to live with thermonuclear warfare, Dr Strangelove: or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. My colleague and I laughed nervously as we had just finished secret intelligence assignments. That memory was triggered by a recent American Thinker article by veteran nuclear war gaming and arms control expert, John Bosum, “Thinking About the Unthinkable: An Israel-Iran Nuclear War”.  That was a reference to books and articles by nuclear game theorist and Hudson Institute co-founder Herman Kahn and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on limited nuclear warfare.

Scary prospects then, scary prospects now with the world on the verge of concluding a nuclear agreement with the apocalyptic Islamic Republic of Iran virtually assuring it of an arsenal of nuclear weapons in a decade, if not sooner funding in part by the lifting of $150 billion in sanctions. The U.S. says it has the means of striking back at Iran if it is found cheating, a reference to possible military actions. The reality is that the Administration has hollowed out the nation’s military capabilities leaving Israel isolated. The Jewish nation would doubtlessly be reviled by world opinion, should it undertake a strike of its own on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Israeli Limited Nuclear Attack Scenario

There are daunting prospects facing Israel with the looming Congressional vote rejecting the Iran nuclear pact in the face of a likely veto threat by President Obama that may not be overridden. John Bosum, in his American Thinker article vets a possible limited nuclear attack by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities. His credibility stems from his considerable expertise and professional background in nuclear war gaming and arms control.  He posits an attack scenario using conventional air craft equipped with US supplied GBU 28 “bunker busters” followed by tactical nukes or nuclear tipped cruise missiles launched from Israeli Dolphin subs offshore in the Arabian Sea.  That scenario faces the realities of estimated losses by Israel Ministry of Defense planners. They have estimated that such a scenario might result in the loss of 40 percent of air crews-a heavy price to pay for young IAF pilots.  Then there is Bosum’s suggestion that Israel might use a low altitude EMP attack on Iran by a Jericho 2 missile.  Ex-CIA official Chet Nagle suggested that Israel might pursue that during a Capitol Hill EMPact program on the EMP Threat several years ago. There is also the non nuclear option using swarms of Drone- launched CHAMP cruise missiles that could take out specific targets. Examples are computer controllers and major power transformers for underground enrichment and centrifuge R& D facilities as well as command and control networks. Israeli encrypted software managing large swarms of drones may provide a stealth shield against the Russian supplied S300 batteries. In September 2008 the IAF flew simulated missions against Greek S300 systems involving swarms of IAF aircraft that rattled the IRGC military. From that exercise the IAF may have developed electronic means of spoofing these Russian systems version of S-300 air defense systems.

Bosum believes that Israel’s anti-missile umbrella including the Arrow anti-ICBM, David Sling, Iron Beam and Iron Dome systems, might not be able to withstand barrages of Iranian rockets and medium range ballistic missiles. There is evidence from the Tel Aviv University Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) November 2012 Iran attack simulations that a conventional attack might succeed in setting back the Iranian program by three years.  Moreover, the simulations suggest that the anti-missile umbrella may destroy significant numbers of incoming Iranian missiles sparing Israel’s major population centers. From reliable sources we understand that Israel may have successfully conducted tests against North Korean developed Shahab 3 missiles likely candidates for nuclear equipped MIRV warheads.

The real issues for Israel are priorities and staging of a limited nuclear attack scenario on Iran’s nuclear program.  From release of  interview audio tapes  this weekend on Israeli Channel 2  by the authors of a forthcoming memoir of  former Defense Minister Ehud Barak   there were allegations  that  Netanyahu was thwarted  from undertaking possible Iran nuclear attack missions  because of objections from  former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, “cold feet” of Ministers Yuval Steinitz, Minister of Defense Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon  and  looming joint Israel US military exercises in 2012. There were reports that President Obama threatened to invoke the Brzezinski Doctrine with orders to shoot down IAF aircraft attacking Iranian targets.  Problem is Barak’s representations may have been part of a promotional effort to enhance his reputation and legacy.  There were also rumors that current Minister of Defense, Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon may have also revisited the limited Iran nuclear attack option this past year.  He broadly hinted  that “steps” might have to be taken during a May 5, 2015 conference in Tel Aviv hosted by the Israel Law Center, sufficient to bring a reaction from Iran’s UN Ambassador. Ya’alon was cited in a Times of Israel report saying:

“Certain steps” Israel might consider against tyrannical regimes threatening the nation’s security.

Cases in which we feel like we don’t have the answer by surgical operations we might take certain steps that we believe…should be taken in order to defend ourselves.

Of course, we should be sure that we can look at the mirror after the decision, or the operation. Of course, we should be sure that it is a military necessity. We should consider cost and benefit, of course. But, at the end, we might take certain steps.

He was reminded of US president Harry Truman who “was asked how you feel after deciding to launch the nuclear bombs, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, causing at the end the fatalities of 200,000, casualties? And he said, “When I heard from my officers the alternative is a long war with Japan, with potential fatalities of a couple of millions, I thought it is a moral decision.

We are not there yet, Ya’alon then added.

The Hezbollah Attack Scenario

The release in mid-August 2015 of a definitive national strategy document by IDF Chief of State (COS) Gen. Gadi Eizenkot,  criticized failures to combat both Hamas and Hezbollah, raised the risk from non-state fundamentalist Islamic State, but downplayed the Iran threat.   It is not without moment in late August that there was a stream of contradictory declarations from PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon that Iran is behind a series of low intensity and rocket attacks on Northern Israel and the Golan frontier since the beginning of this year. The attacks involved IRGC officers and Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Israeli PM Netanyahu referencing acceptance of the Iran nuclear pact by world powers said, “You rush to embrace Iran, they fire rockets at us. We will harm those who harm us”

From the assessments of retired Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, former National Security Adviser, the immediate objective is the elimination of the near enemy and proxy of Iran, Hezbollah.  Recently Iran unveiled a new solid fuel surface to surface missile, the Fateh 313, that President Rouhani threatened  ballistic missile exercises would demonstrate the ability of longer range missiles to strike both Israel and Saudi Arabia.  The limited range of 310 miles of the Fateh-113 makes the weapon suitable for possible launch from Syria and Lebanon against population centers in Israel. Further, this threat is bolstered by the turmoil in Lebanon behind the unresolved political crisis over the possibility of a power grab by Hezbollah.

An Israeli preemptive attack scenario is at the heart of Jon Schanzer’s article, “The Iran Nuclear Deal Means War between Israel and Hezbollah”.   Schanzer argues that the Iran nuclear deal may trigger a major war against Hezbollah to eliminate the Iranian- supplied rocket and missile inventories and the command and control echelons of Hezbollah.  Schanzer refers to discussions with senior Israeli defense officials who appear committed   to dislodge Hezbollah and destroy the huge inventory of 150,000 rockets and missiles in Lebanon. Israel has both air and naval combat capabilities to achieve this including interdiction of Iranian and Chinese supplied anti-ship missiles. Further, the IDF would not have to rely on those U.S.-supplied GBU-28’s bunker busters.  It has sophisticated weapons like the Rafael SPICE precision guided glide bombs used to foil weapons deliveries from Syria to Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley. It also has its own variant of the Boeing CHAMP cruise missiles capable of non-nuclear EMP effects against command and control nets. Moreover, unlike the inconclusive Second Lebanon War of 2006, the IDF has learned its lessons about unit training, command and control and effective means of taking out anti-air,  anti-tank rockets and  launching precision battlefield missiles, using the Iron Beam, Trophy and Pereh systems.

This sequencing of threat priorities was reflected in a Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition Interview by Sohran Ahmari with former Saudi General and National Security Advisor Anwar Eshki, “The Saudis Reply to Iran’s Rising Danger.”  General Eshki held colloquies with Dr. Dore Gold   director general of the Israel Foreign Ministry. The most notable one was the public forum at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. General Eshki’s conclusion drawn from a Socratic dialogue on the near versus far enemy decision paradigm was: “Israel is thinking first of all to destroy Hezbollah, to solve the problem with Hezbollah. After that they can attack Iran.”

Walla News in Israel reported a senior defense official   saying that Israel may be capable of undertaking an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and defending Israel against a retaliatory strike:

Every year that passes, the IDF improves. We never stand still. The professional level increases. In the coming year we will receive another submarine, F-35 fighter jets and other platforms. Intelligence is improving as well.

Further, Walla reported IDF COS Eizenkot instructing deputy, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan to revise military plans for a possible military strike. But it cautioned that the military option was off the table until there are ‘significant developments’.  That may be for public consumption. Israel has a tradition of saying nothing or opaquely very little when such events occur

Conclusion

The planners in the Ministry of Defense pits in Tel Aviv have multiple threats and must prioritize resources. By necessity Israel must plan for taking out the near enemy, Hezbollah, which would enable them to have a clear path to attack Iran.  Thus, it must be prepared to accomplish both threats.  At issue is whether Israel I PM Netanyahu and the security cabinet have the resolve to accomplish both despite adverse world opinion and likely intervention by the Obama Administration.

When Israeli PM Begin ordered the “raid against the sun’ in 1981 that took out Saddam Hussein’s  Osirak nuclear reactor , it took a decade for former Vice President Dick Cheney to thank Israel when the US led coalition unleashed the First Gulf War.  No such thanks came from the Bush Administration following the IAF’s successful obliteration of the Syrian al-Kibar nuclear bomb factory following the September 2007 raid.  . The Obama Administration has demonstrated its inability or unwillingness to exercise a possible military option should Iran be found cheating under the terms of the JCPOA. It has hollowed out the US military capability under the Congressional Sequester.  We have the smallest navy since WWI and the smallest Army since before WWII. We have less than 26,000 first line aircraft.  Israel has no choice, but to undertake its sovereign right to defend the Jewish nation against such existential threats.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Iranian President Rouhani and Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan with Fateh-313 Sold Fuel Missile, August 22, 2015. Source: Iranian Presidential office/AP.