House Foreign Affairs Committee Archives

A spurious concept designed to inhibit criticism of jihad terror could soon be funded by your tax dollars. My latest in FrontPage:

Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Lightfootland) have determined to take action against “Islamophobia,” and their initiative is gaining traction. The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday approved their bill calling for a State Department “Islamophobia monitor,” and now it will go to the full House for further consideration. The idea that Pelosi’s House would reject such a bill is virtually inconceivable.

This all started back in October, when Omar and Schakowsky introduced the Combating International Islamophobia Act, which would, according to a press release posted on Omar’s website, “require the State Department to create a Special Envoy for monitoring and combating Islamophobia, and include state-sponsored Islamophobic violence and impunity in the Department’s annual human rights reports.”

This would supposedly “help policymakers better understand the interconnected, global problem of anti-Muslim bigotry. It will also establish a comprehensive strategy for establishing U.S. leadership in combatting Islamophobia worldwide.”

The press release said nothing whatsoever about combating jihad terror or about how suspicion of Islam may be created by the all too common spectacle of Muslims committing acts of violence while screaming “Allahu Akbar” and justifying their actions by reference to Islamic texts.

Omar and Schakowsky claimed that “this year, the United States has seen over 500 documented complaints of anti-Muslim hate and bias.” Their link went to another press release, this one from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), claiming that these documented complaints include “hate crimes, harassment, school bullying, discrimination, hate speech, and anti-mosque incidents.”

“Hate speech”: this means that trivial incidents in which someone who is rude to a Muslim gets counted in as a hate crime, inflating the numbers of those crimes and contributing to the false impression that Muslims are victims of widespread discrimination and harassment in America today. With that low a bar, it’s no surprise that the press release at Omar’s site goes on to note that “in March, the United Nations Human Rights Council cited discrimination and hatred towards Muslims has risen to ‘epidemic proportions.”

Omar claimed that “we are seeing a rise in Islamophobia in nearly every corner of the globe. In my home state of Minnesota, vandals spray-painted hate messages and a Nazi swastika on and near the Moorhead Fargo Islamic Center. These types of incidents are all too common for Muslims in the United States and beyond. As part of our commitment to international religious freedom and human rights, we must recognize Islamophobia and do all we can to eradicate it. That’s why I’m proud to partner with Rep. Jan Schakowsky to create a special envoy to put an end to this bigotry.”

Really, that Nazi swastika business is terrible. But let’s try to keep some perspective, shall we? Muslims in Nigeria are subjecting Christians to murderous jihad attacks on a near-daily basis. Muslims in Pakistan persecute Christians and other religious minorities by means of that country’s draconian blasphemy laws, which have seen lives destroyed on rumors and false charges. Compared to that, some spray-painted graffiti just isn’t that big a deal, although certainly the louts who did it should be caught and prosecuted.

Omar doesn’t say anything about Muslims being beaten or murdered, or even denied jobs and preferment, in the United States, because such incidents are vanishingly rare; to establish her victimhood bona fides she has to fall back on graffiti.

Nonetheless, Schakowsky chimes in with a claim that is part accurate and part Leftist victimhood fantasy:

“For over a decade we have seen increasing incidents of violent Islamophobia both in the U.S. and worldwide — from the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma, and Uyghurs in China, to the attacks on Muslim refugees in Canada and New Zealand. It is past time for the U.S. to establish a comprehensive plan for combating this hatred worldwide. I am proud to join my friend and colleague, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, in introducing the Combating International Islamophobia Act. This critical legislation will create a Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Islamophobia to ensure the U.S. dedicates the resources necessary to safeguard human rights and religious and cultural freedom around the world.”

All right. But will this Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Islamophobia note the large number of faked anti-Muslim hate crimes? Will this Envoy make a clear distinction between the two quite different ways the propaganda neologism “Islamophobia” is used? The term “Islamophobia” is an illegitimate conflation of two distinct phenomena: crimes against innocent Muslims, which are never justified, and honest analysis of the motivating ideology of jihad terror, which is always necessary.

Islamic advocacy groups and their leftist allies have been insisting for years that such analysis, too, constituted “Islamophobia.” Omar and Schakowsky speak of Islamophobic violence, but if this Special Envoy is created, he or she will without any doubt crack down on any honest discussion of how Islamic jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and oppression, because for years such discussion has been labeled “Islamophobia” along with real acts of anti-Muslim bigotry.

The Special Envoy would just be another agent in the Left’s escalating war against freedom of speech, silencing opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women, and thereby enabling unarguably sinister forces. Don’t tell me you’re surprised.

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Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Source: AP

Newly designated Deputy Secretary of State, former Deputy National Security Adviser, Antony “Tony” Blinken testified yesterday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee chaired by California Republican Congressman, Edward Royce. Royce and Ranking Democratic Member, Elliot Engel of New York, were trying to determine the status of the Administration’s P5+1 negotiations on an agreement to rein in Iran’s nuclear program. Blinken’s boss, Secretary of State Kerry, with the assistance of Energy Secretary Dr. Ernest Moniz are huddling in Lausanne, Switzerland with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and nuclear program head, Ali Akbar Salehi, to reach a political agreement by a self-imposed deadline of March 31st. Moniz and Salehi share an Alma Mater, MIT, where they both earned doctorates, one in physics and the other in nuclear engineering back in the 1970’s. Moniz was an Assistant professor at MIT, while Salehi was in the nuclear engineering program.

The latest press leak indicates that Iran might be given 40% of nuclear fuel enrichment capacity which translates to 6,000 centrifuges. That may be more than ample, Israeli PM Netanyahu, fresh from his Knesset elections victory on March 17th, contends will enable Iran to become a nuclear threshold state, although there are those who contend it may already have achieve that status. There is debate whether any final Memorandum of Understanding will have a 10 or 25 year sunset term, and whether, Iran’s nuclear program is susceptible to so-called verifiable inspections, given evidence to the contrary compiled by the IAEA inspectors.

It was against this background that Tony Blinken provided testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He roused the skepticism of the house panel with comments that the deal would bar Iran from achieving a nuclear capability in perpetuity. An AFP report on yesterday’s hearing noted this exchange:

The Obama administration insisted before skeptical lawmakers Thursday that any deal with Iran would ensure for “perpetuity” that it could not develop nuclear weapons.

A comprehensive accord would also see “phased, proportionate” relief from tough sanctions that have severely constrained Iran’s economy, but such relief could be swiftly reversed should the Islamic republic violate any final deal, said Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Several members of Congress and other critics have warned that the ongoing negotiations between world powers and Tehran would lead to a deal that would sunset after 10 years.

Once the deal ends, critics fear the Islamic republic could once again freely crank up its nuclear program and develop a bomb.

“That is simply not true,” Blinken told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“To the contrary, Iran would be prohibited from developing a nuclear weapon in perpetuity — and we would have a much greater ability to detect any effort by Iran to do so.”

He said that while some constraints would be lifted after a “significant period,” others would last “indefinitely, including a stringent and intrusive monitoring and inspections regime” by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.

And should Iran violate the agreement and begin a rush to a bomb, a process described as “breakout,” Blinken stressed that restrictions on centrifuges and uranium mills would prevent Iran from completing a nuclear bomb for at least a year.

“That would provide us more than enough time to detect and act on any Iranian transgression,” he said.

Blinken said Iran would be indefinitely barred under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Democrats and Republicans alike scoffed at the suggestion that such NPT restrictions would hold back Iran; with committee Chairman Ed Royce warning that Iranians “have been violating those commitments for years.”

Lawmakers also pointed to the need to include restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program in any nuclear deal, as reinforcement against the country using such a delivery system for an atomic bomb.

“The critical question of the possible military dimension of Iran’s program… would have to be part of any agreement,” Blinken acknowledged.

Blinken’s colleague at State, Deputy Undersecretary Wendy Sherman, who has been actively engaged in the P5+1 negotiations, has some relevant experience in dismissing Blinken’s assertion that the deal under consideration would bar Iranian’ nuclear breakout. Ms. Sherman was part of the Clinton Administration team that put together the executive agreement in 1994 with North Korea that was also supposed to stop the DPRK’s nuclear program by substituting light water reactors. That agreement was subject to a Congressional hearing. By 2006, North Korea successfully evaded IAEA inspections, produced a nuclear fuel stockpile and tested a device resulting in collapse of the agreement. The Bush Administration stopped fuel oil deliveries to the DPRK.

Last time I looked at Blinker’s bio, he had a Columbia Law School degree, not in physics, like Energy Secretary Moniz or Iran negotiator, Salehi, both MIT alumni.

Washington Post columnist, Al Kamen, drew attention to Blinker’s obvious qualification enabling to make his perpetuity comment about a deal to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Blinken was apparently a consultant to the HBO series, “House of Cards”. Kamen revealed:

Sometimes it’s good not to fast-forward through the credits roll. You never know what you’ll find.

So the other evening, when the credits came up for episode nine of this season’s “House of Cards,” this popped up: “Consultant: TONY BLINKEN.”

Whoa! As in the deputy secretary of state and former White House deputy national security adviser? That’s some pretty heavy-duty consulting power. Is Blinken moonlighting for Kevin Spacey?

Well, not exactly.

Blinken, a modest sort, said in an e-mail that “‘consultant’ vastly overstated” his role, which amounted to a “few phone calls” perhaps nine months to a year ago. That would have been when he was working in the White House. The calls came from head series writer Beau Willimon and some other writers for the show who wanted to “test the veracity or not of some foreign policy story lines.”

“At this point, I don’t remember the details or the issues” involved, Blinken said. And, no, he wasn’t paid for the advice. Probably a good thing, because the episode — one of the “Putin segments” — for which he got the credit line involves, even for the “House of Cards,” a wildly implausible shootout in the Jordan River Valley. (We’re not going to say more.)

And, yes, Blinken and wife Evan Ryan, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, are binge-watchers.

Watch this C-Span video clip of Deputy Secretary of State Blinken being questioned at the March 19, 2015 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Iran nuclear negotiations:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The photo shopped featured image is courtesy of the House of Cards TV series.

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Iranian Nuke Deal a House of Cards?