Tag Archive for: Iran Nuclear Deal

Even after Russia invades Ukraine, Biden’s handlers rely on Russia to solidify new Iran nuke deal

“There is absolutely no chance that Russia has U.S. national security interests in mind when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.”

Right. Nor is there any chance that Iran has U.S. national security interests in mind when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, except as a target to destroy. There should be no new nuke deal. But it isn’t at all clear that Biden’s handlers have U.S. national security interests in mind, either.

Nuclear Deal as Putin Invades Ukraine

by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, February 28, 2022:

Even as Moscow invades Ukraine, the Biden administration is relying on Russia to solidify a revamped nuclear agreement with Iran, a deal that senior Republican foreign policy leaders say will be approved in the coming days without any input from Congress.

As Russian forces press further into Ukraine, threatening to spark a world war, the Biden administration is rushing to finalize a Russia-brokered nuclear deal with Iran, Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon.

“Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine is reprehensible, but we can’t lose sight of the next national security crisis as it forms before our eyes: The Biden administration is reportedly rushing to finalize a deal with Iran, brokered by Russia, that it does not want Congress to review, in violation of U.S. law,” McCaul said.

Throughout the conflict, the Biden administration has kept diplomatic channels with Moscow open in the hopes it can push Iran into accepting a deal that will provide the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism with billions of dollars in cash windfalls….

While President Joe Biden has vowed to break relations with Russia as a result of its Ukraine invasion, the reliance on Moscow in Iran talks signals that these promises will not be enforced.

“It’s obvious that Russia should no longer serve as one of the key intermediaries brokering an Iran deal,” said one senior congressional official who works on foreign policy matters. “We need to be isolating Russia not just economically, but also diplomatically. There is absolutely no chance that Russia has U.S. national security interests in mind when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.”…

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Oldest Hatred Now Fulminates and Flourishes at 1600

In February, not two weeks into the, ahem, presidency of Joe Biden, I described in my article, “Joe’s Jews,” the appointments he made of 11 longtime Jew-haters and Israel-loathers to key positions in his cabinet/regime.

A month later, in my article “More about Joe and the Jews,” I described 12 more Jew-haters and Israel-loathers that Joe appointed to key positions in his cabinet/regime.

There have been many other alarmingly similar appointments since then, making it clear to even the most casual observer that the Biden White House has a particularly hostile––even hateful––attitude toward Jews and their ancient homeland Israel, combined with a perverse infatuation with and allegiance to any group or individual intent on destroying the Jewish state.

There is no doubt that Biden’s presence in the Oval Office has been interpreted by these career haters and organized thugs as an unmistakable nod of approval to continue and even expand on the tsunami of anti-Semitism now sweeping the entire globe––from the contamination of most American colleges and universities to brutal physical assaults of Jews in the streets of New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and around the world––a phenomenon writer Victor Rosenthal elaborates upon in chilling detail––to condemnation of Israel by the Irish parliament and other governments to the racist obscenities vomited out routinely by Democrat members of the U.S. Congress.

AND THE BEAT GOES ON

In fact, Joe Biden and his entire coterie/staff/cabinet/appointees of left-wing, blatantly anti-Semitic radicals demonstrate their noxious racism on a daily basis, notwithstanding his boilerplate pronouncements about support for Israel…at the exact same time he embraces, applauds and funds Israel’s mortal enemies. Want proof? Here is the very very short list:

  • Biden appeased and clearly agreed with the growing number of Jew- and Israel-haters in the Democrat Party by sending the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians $167 million dollars––enough to finance the recent war against Israel by Hamas terrorists.

But we really shouldn’t worry. After all, just the other day, Biden told an ABC-TV reporter that Hamas is “just an idea. It’s more of a concept, an a-a-abstract, a, the, you know, the, the, the thing. A sym––a symbol. Hamas is more of the journey, the, the destination. The real Hamas is just the, you know, just the friends we made along the way.”

“So who is launching the rockets then?” asked the interviewer.

“Come on, man!” Biden replied angrily. “Want to arm-wrestle? I took down ole Bucktooth Joe back in my college days. He was one of the best arm-wrestlers east of the Mississippi. And pow! I took him down. Right in the kisser. Let’s go, me and you, right now. Or maybe a push-up contest. You know, the — the thing about the push-ups…”

  • Biden––when it was clear that the aggressors of Hamas were getting trounced by Israel––was sent a letter by no less than 500 of his anti-Israel campaign staffers––begging him to “hold Israel accountable for its actions.” Bad Israel for fighting back!
  • Biden dispatched Michael Ratney to represent the U.S. in Israel––the same guy, according to Joel B. Pollak of Breitbart––whose role in the Obama administration was to interfere in Israel’s 2015 election with the goal of ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Biden, instead of allowing Israel to turn Gaza into a demilitarized zone, initiated the ceasefire that Hamas was begging for and demanded that Israel––not the terrorists!––meet three demands:
    • Desist from evicting the Arabs who have been squatting on Jewish property for decades without paying rent,
    • Appease the fanatically militant Arabs who don’t allow Jews to pray at their most sacred site, the Temple Mount,
    • And stop celebrating Jerusalem Flag day which honors the State of Israel. “Imagine if another country demanded we stop celebrating the Fourth of July or Memorial Day!”
  • Biden, like Obama before him, believes in rewarding terrorists, and so has pledged billions––not millions or even multimillions, but billions!––to rebuild the breeding ground of hatred and terrorism known as Gaza. He has also committed $150 million to––as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley describes it––the systemically corrupt United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that was suspended under the Trump administration.
  • Biden and Kalamity Harris enthusiastically supported Rev. Raphael Warnock when he ran, victoriously, for the U.S. Senate in Georgia last year, knowing full well of his rabid anti-Semitism and hatred of whites, as spelled out here by journalist and blogger Jeff Dunetz.
  • Biden’s nominee for a top State Department position, according to writer Alana Goodman, “played a key role in assembling a book on the nefarious influence of the ‘Israel lobby’ while working for an organization that promoted claims about Jewish media control and dual loyalty to Israel.”
  • Biden chose attorney Kirsten Clarke as the Assistant Attorney General to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, she whose loathing of Jews and whites is extensively documented by the esteemed Daniel Greenfield, as well as by writer/editor David Rosenberg. Clarke has posited that “the human brain was structured in a way that makes black people superior to white people.”
  • Biden, only a year after being elected, delivered Egyptian disinformation to Israel––to the besieged country’s detriment––ahead of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, as described by writer David Israel.
  • Biden, just the other day, ordered U.S. Embassies around the world to fly the Black Lives Matter flag to commemorate George Floyd’s murder “on May 25 and beyond.” You remember BLM––the Marxist terrorist group rampaging across the U.S. for the past year and responsible for about $2 billion in property damage, devastating arson, widespread theft, the injuries of more than 240 police officers and destruction of hundreds of police precincts, upward of 30 murders, and the defacement and vandalizing of synagogues, at which they screamed “F… the Jews and Kill the Police.” That BLM! That Joe Biden!
  • Biden’s House Democrats last week rejected–– unanimously––a Republican effort to provide Israel with emergency security funding for its life-saving Iron Dome system. A couple of days earlier, they stopped legislation that would sanction foreign entities doing business with Hamas. Getting the picture?
  • Biden & Co. fully support the World Health Organization, a toxic arm of the United Nations cesspool, which held a meeting the other day to address the global response to the coronavirus pandemic, and predictably––given their entire history of fanatical anti-Semitism––singled out Israel to condemn for violating the rights of the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, although the charge is objectively untrue and Israel has been at the international forefront of the research and development of anti-Corona vaccines.
  • Biden has brought in Islamic activists––among them Hina Shamsi, who fought on behalf of the Holy Land Foundation, the leaders of which were convicted of providing material support to Hamas—to investigate “extremism” in the U.S. military. In essence, writes Daniel Greenfield, “American military personnel are being put at the mercy of advocates for their worst enemies. To Biden, defending Al Qaeda and Hamas terrorists is the only qualification needed for going after American soldiers.”

OLD WINE, NEW BOTTLE

One thing about Jew-haters and Israel-loathers:  they are remarkably unoriginal. While their reasons for hating Jews may have changed over the centuries, the symptoms of their racism have remained the same:

  • Thinking obsessively about Jews,
  • Fulminating with hatred,
  • Blaming everything wrong in their lives and society on Jews,
  • Joining with other racists to inflict harm,
  • In many cases, devoting their lives to this obsession.

All of it driven by pathological jealousy!

Interestingly, they never seem to wonder why it is that out of eight-billion people in the world––including 2.2-billion Christians, approximately one-billion Protestants, and 1.8-billion Muslims (the majority in 49 countries), they cannot deal with or destroy the 15-million Jews––seven-million in the U.S., seven-million in Israel, and about one million around the world.

It must make them feel immensely stupid or impotent, hence even angrier than their usual fixated state of fury.

But like every liberal, leftist, progressive––whatever they’re calling themselves these days––who thinks that the crashing failures of socialism and communism in world history were a function of bad management and that they will do it better, so the Jew-haters of the world think they will finally get the anti-Semitism thing right and once and for all get rid of the people, and their country, that make them feel so bad and inferior and stupid and impotent every minute of every day and night––including weekends and holidays!

THE FISH STINKS FROM THE HEAD

“The Biden administration has revealed the president’s long-seething hostility toward Israel,” writes former professor of political science Abraham Miller, “going back to his encounter with Israel’s then-prime minister Menachem Begin, in which Biden threatened to cut off aid to Israel.”

As Israelis were crouching in hallways and bomb shelters and Hamas launched death from the skies against them,” Miller writes, “the Biden administration’s representatives in Vienna were negotiating an overture to the disastrous Iran nuclear deal”––Iran being the foremost supplier of arms to Hamas.

Larry Gordon, editor-in-chief of the 5 Towns Jewish Times (Long Island, NY), asks: “Do Jewish Lives Matter?”

“A great deal of the recent debate [about the Hamas-Israel conflict], Gordon writes, revolved around the issue as to whether Israel has the right to defend itself….under what possible circumstances would it be acceptable or okay for Israel not to defend itself?

“Over the last several weeks Jews are being clubbed and beaten at random.” Gordon continues, “but the president so far has not found it within himself––like the Jewish Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer––to stand up and condemn these types of hate crimes. Perhaps they will see themselves as being aligned too much with Jews which may impact on their political standing….what a shameful situation!”

Economist and political commentator Valerie Sobel states that it is “entirely inexplicable how such a large caucus of American Jewry can be so irreparably injured by a presidential tweet on media bias, yet be entirely untouched by the ‘Death to Jews’ chants in the violent, politically underwritten Jew-hatred festivals of their own party and tirelessly anti-Semitic media.

“Impossible to digest how their Jewish offspring, their contaminated social justice warriors, the very grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, are so indoctrinated that they march with Black Lives Matter and the Boycott-Divest-Sanction Jew haters while holding ‘Free Palestine’ signs. And entirely irreconcilable––the supine silence of predominately liberal Jewish Community leaders on the Kristallnacht-style pogroms in L.A., London and New York.

“How can we explain this craven desire to throw ourselves onto the sword in the name of wokeness?” Sobel asks. “Who would applaud this desperation for acceptance into a club of liberal ideals that includes vile Jew-hatred? And why in the world would a political party with such a vast anti-Semitic ledger and clinically Israel-allergic membership be valued at such a premium by Jews themselves?”

Psychiatrist and historian Kenneth Levin also talks about the Congressional enablers of genocidal anti-Semitism. “Hamas is explicit in wanting to kill not only all Israelis but all Jews,” Levin writes….

“The current Administration,” Levin continues, “has stated as one of its essential goals the reassertion of American moral authority in the world…[but] the further, ugly phenomenon of a sizable segment of the Congressional delegation of a major American political party serving as supporters of or apologists for the criminal actions of a genocidal anti-Semitic terrorist group…[is] rather a demonstration of moral bankruptcy.”

Liel Leibovitz, writing in the NY Post , states: “As Jews were being pummeled, punched, spat at, intimidated with explosive devices and singled out for violence and harassment all across America this week, the righteous men and women of the Democratic Party were quick to denounce the twin scourges behind these mini-pogroms: anti-Semitism and—drumroll, please—Islamophobia.

“That’s the thing with morally muddled thinking, “Leibovitz continues. “It’s a simple principle that seems to be completely lost on nearly everyone in today’s Democratic Party. Hopefully, its Jewish voters will wise up before it’s too late.”

Journalist and author John Perazzo, in Israel’s Fake ‘Friend’––an in-depth, comprehensive timeline of Joe Biden’s relentless hostility toward Israel from 1982 to just a few months ago––describes “a long destructive track record of undermining Israeli security.”

“Joe Biden has made a habit of describing himself as a loyal, stalwart friend and ally of Israel,” Perazzo writes….but a careful examination of Biden’s track record reveals his long and extremely troubling history of undermining Israel’s security and public image.”

In his timeline, Perazzo describes eight long years of Biden’s steadfast support of Barack Obama’s deep hostility and sabotage of Israel, which Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon, chairman of Likud’s international outreach branch, said were “catastrophic.”

Writer Andrea Widburg has the last word in Biden’s ignominious role toward Israel: “Biden may say he believes Israel has a right to self-defense,” Widburg writes, “but his actions reveal that his real sympathies lie with the Islamists who seek to destroy Israel and kill every one of her inhabitants. He is an indecent excuse for a human being.”

©Joan Swirsky. All rights reserved.

Iran Overplays Its Hand

It is still unclear what the Biden Administration will do about the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Biden has at times expressed a willingness to rejoin the JCPOA, without any change to the agreement, and at other times, he has suggested that he would join the deal only if it were modified to include limits on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles and its regional aggression, through a network of proxies and allies — from the Houthis in Yemen, to Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, to the Alawite-led army In Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon – to create a “Shi’a crescent” from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. Now Iran, has apparently given Washington a deadline to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal. In so doing, it appears to have overplayed its hand.

The latest report, on the time table that Iran now demands be met by Washington, is here: “Will Iran overplaying its hand force Biden to call its bluff – analysis,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, January 14, 2021:

Israel and Iran have both been maneuvering to influence the incoming Biden administration regarding the nuclear standoff. But only the Islamic Republic has given a deadline.

Iran has said that if sanctions are not dropped by February 21 it would kick out IAEA inspectors, a most dramatic nuclear violation since it would make it impossible for the world to follow the status of its nuclear program, absent clandestine efforts.

Iran has thus given Biden exactly one month to remove the sanctions that the Trump Administration had placed on it; otherwise, Iran will expel the IAEA nuclear inspectors, leaving it able, without that monitoring, to go for broke on its nuclear program.

Along with Tehran’s recent jump-starting the enrichment of its uranium to the 20% level, this could signal to Israel, moderate Sunni states and even the West that the ayatollahs are moving toward a nuclear weapon. Iran also demanded this week the dropping of the 2015 deal’s snapback sanctions mechanism.

Given that Iran has violated many parts of the 2015 deal, one wonders why the Biden Administration thinks that this time will be different, and if the Americans lift the sanctions, Tehran will now adhere scrupulously to the agreement, which it has never done in the past.

Though the incoming Biden administration has signaled that it wants to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal and roll back sanctions, there is no way sanctions can be removed in the administration’s first month in office.

Even if it wanted to roll back the sanctions in only 30 days, there is a complex sanctions machinery that may take longer to remove. Moreover, Joe Biden has made it clear that his first priority is the coronavirus pandemic, followed by addressing other domestic priorities, including the fallout from the rioters’ attacks on the Capitol, racial justice issues, and the environment.

In foreign policy, his first priorities are dealing with China and Russia. Biden will not want to waste significant political capital in the first stage of his presidency looking too weak on Iran, even if his general goal is to rejoin the deal. Moreover, having a Democratic majority in the US Senate does not mean that he will avoid a vote against a quick rejoining of the Iran deal, given that some Democrats oppose rejoining….

In insisting that sanctions be lifted by one month after Biden’s inauguration, the Iranians have made an error: they assume that the Biden Administration regards its relations with Iran as the most important issue, the very first thing, it needs to address. But the Biden Administration is of a different opinion: there are many other matters that it believes must be deal with first. The Administration has clearly spoken about those other priorities; they’ve been published in the press. One begins to wonder: don’t the Iranians read our papers? If so, they would discover that even those in the administration who might most favor lifting the sanctions know that it can’t possibly happen during that first month .It is going to happen only after a long political fight; Biden will not want to use up capital on Iran relations that he might want to save for other battles. Biden has listed his other, much more important priorities during his first months n office. First, there is the conronavirus pandemic, and his stated determination to “vaccinate 100 million Americans in the first 100 days.” That will be a complicated effort, involving both logistics and psychology – convincing millions of anti-vaxxers that the vaccines are safe — that will require a great deal of his administration’s attention. And assuming that initial goal is met, Biden will need to continue the breakneck pace of the vaccination effort, to have another 210 million Americans (20 million will have been vaccinated before January 20) vaccinated before the end of 2021.

Then there are the other issues Biden and Harris have promised to immediately address, including racial justice (one wonders just what that means, in the current heated environment) and police reform. And for the Administration the most important issue, over the long term, is climate change. Biden has said he wants to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. But there are many related undertakings that will occupy his administration in its first months. These include providing tax credits to encourage people to buy electric vehicles, and allocating the billions necessary to build out a national network of roadside recharging stations. It will also include greatly increasing residential and commercial use of solar energy through tax credits, and halting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It will no doubt pain Tehran to realize that the Biden administration has many other matters on its To-Do List before reaching “Iran, Sanctions and Paris Deal.”

Another consideration for the Biden administration is that it cannot be seen to yielding to an ultimatum from Iran (“ lift those sanctions by Feb. 21 or we kick out all the IAEA inspectors at once”); it would make Biden look weak. That’s a perception he cannot afford. The Islamic Republic believes it was successful using brinkmanship to corner the Obama administration into dropping certain issues. It appears that the ayatollahs have seized on the multiple statements by incoming Biden administration officials of their desire to rejoin the deal in order to make additional demands. Of course, it is possible that this could work, and Biden could announce in principle his rejoining of the deal by February 21, with actual sanctions relief applied afterward.

While his domestic agenda – his To-Do List – will keep Biden from dealing with Iran’s demands in the first few months of his administration, the Islamic Republic itself will also need time – three to four months – to fullfil its part of a possible bargain, by undoing all of its violations of the Paris deal, including giving up the stocks of uranium it has enriched, to a level of 20%, well beyond what the JCPOA permits. How long will it take Iran to gather that uranium and ship it out of the country to the IAEA headquarters?

The Iranians have badly misplayed their hand. Above all there is: the coronavirus vaccine rollout, which will be the main focus for many months, followed by attempts to “deal with police reform and “racial justice” measures, and — what is likely for the Bidenites to be the most important task of all — passing  environmental legislation. After the country returns to the Paris Agreement on climate, legislative battles will follow, as the Administration tries to meet its commitments under that agreement to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels and to encourage the transition to renewables. The Administration will push for a massive increase, through tax credits, in the use of electric vehicles, and will also push for a government-funded national network of charging stations along our highways. The government can similarly promote – with subsidies or tax credits—a great increase in the use of residential and commercial solar energy. Only then will the Biden administration turn its attention to what deal with Iran it may be willing to consider, and according to its own timetable, rather than to an Iranian ultimatum. I suspect that Iran will be in for a shock; members of Biden’s national security team have been discussing modifications — concerning ballistic missiles and Iran’s regional aggression — they now want to have included in a Paris Deal 2.0.

What should Iran have done? Had it understood Biden’s fear of appearing weak, it would never have issued an ultimatum. Instead, it could have said, striking a conciliatory note, that it “welcomes a more reasonable administration in Washington, has high hopes of collaborating with Washington and other members of the JCPOA, and is prepared, without delay, to immediately renew its full cooperation with the IAEA’s inspectors, just as soon as American sanctions are lifted.”

That’s all lies, of course: Iran will continue to violate its solemn commitments under the Paris Agreement.. It will continue to enrich uranium to a level beyond what was agreed, will continue to work on the nuclear facilities inside a mountain at Fordo, will continue to mislead inspectors about other nuclear sites it still has not revealed. It’s Iran’s modus operandi; it was only thanks to Mosssad’s seizure of Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018 that the world learned of several nuclear sites that Iran had kept secret from inspectors. Why wouldn’t it continue the same kinds of deceptions it had practiced before?

Not only will the new administration not be willing, nor able, to meet Iran’s February 21 deadline, but this display of attempted bullying by Iran will strengthen the hand of those in the Administration who want the sanctions lifted only after Iran has agreed to a more comprehensive treaty, one that includes, as mentioned above, limits on ballistic missiles, and curbs on Iran’s regional aggression, through Shi’a proxies and allies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Iran will be chagrinned, disabused, angry, when it had been expecting a very different result, but in the end, it will have to give in, if it ever hopes to emerge from its current economic collapse.

COLUMN BY

RELATED ARTICLE: Report: Biden Already in Talks with World’s Largest State Sponsor of Terror Iran over Return to Nuclear Weapons Pact

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Israel has tape of Iranian nuclear scientist saying mullahs ‘want five warheads’

Yet His Fraudulency Joe Biden plans to enable Iran’s nuclear program anew by returning to the Iranian nuclear deal. Find out why that would be a catastrophic move in The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran.

“‘Israel has tape of slain Iran nuke chief talking about building five warheads,’” Times of Israel, December 4, 2020:

Israel intelligence managed to recruit an Iranian official close to the recently assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and recorded the nuclear scientist speaking about his efforts to produce “five warheads” on behalf of the Islamic Republic, according to a Friday report in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

This top-secret recording was played in 2008 by former prime minister Ehud Olmert for then-president George W. Bush during a visit by Bush to Israel and was a key element in convincing the Americans to step up efforts to combat Iran’s nuclear program, the report said….

“I’m going to play you something, but I ask that you not talk about it with anyone, not even with the director of the CIA,” the report quoted Olmert as telling Bush from within the closed-door meeting. Bush reportedly agreed to the request.

Olmert pulled out a recording device, hit play and a man could be heard speaking in Persian.

“The man speaking here is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh,” Olmert reportedly explained. “Fakhrizadeh is the head of the “AMAD” program, Iran’s secret military nuclear project. The one it denies exists at all,” Olmert told Bush according to the report.

The prime minister then revealed that Israeli intelligence services had managed to recruit an Iranian agent close to Fakhrizadeh who had been feeding Jerusalem information on the nuclear scientist for years.

Olmert provided Bush with an English-language transcript of what Fakhrizadeh had said in Persian.

According to the report, Fakhrizadeh could be heard giving details about the development of Iranian nuclear weapons. However, the Yedioth report only quotes selected phrases, without the word nuclear. The scientist complains that the government is not providing him with sufficient funds to carry out his work. On the one hand, Fakhrizadeh says, in an apparent reference to his superiors, “they want five warheads,” but on the other, “they aren’t letting me work.”

Fakhrizadeh then goes on to criticize colleagues in the defense ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the report.

Bush read the recording’s translation and reacted with silence. Yedioth claimed the recording served as a “smoking atomic gun” for Olmert….

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EDITTORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Vows to Surrender to Iran, then Negotiate

“Say it ain’t so, Tehran Joe.”

At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: “I’m groping here.” Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we’re not bent on its destruction. “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Biden declares.

This was after 9/11.

Now, after decades of swimming in Iran Lobby cash, including in this election, Joe’s got a plan. “Surrender first, strategy later.”

President-elect Joe Biden established a sequence for how he plans to deal with Iran, and it starts with reentering the 2015 nuclear deal without conditions.

After reentering the deal, Biden told Friedman, the United States, “in consultation with our allies and partners, we’re going to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile program.”

Bound to work. Is this how Hunter used to negotiate with the Chinese? “I’ll give you everything you want. Then we’ll negotiate how much I get.”

Somehow I don’t think so.

But the media cheers this as normalcy restored and real leadership as the election fraud rolls on. The mullahs are certainly cheering and shouting, “Death to America”.

That’s also the motto of the Biden campaign.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif: Biden ‘more promising’ for the Islamic Republic than Trump

It doesn’t take a genius or “expert” to recognize that Joe Biden would be a better president from the standpoint of the Iranian mullahs. The surprising and embarrassing aspect of this is that so many seem to be ignorant of it or indifferent to it, even as Zarif acknowledges it openly. Biden and the Democrats are a boon for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran is seeking to expand its influence in the West and elsewhere, and will be enabled to do just that by Biden and his team.

“Why Iran sees Biden as the “more promising” candidate in the U.S. election,” by Elizabeth Palmer and Tucker Reals, CBS News, November 2, 2020:

Tehran — Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has indicated to CBS News that the Islamic Republic’s leadership would prefer Joe Biden win the U.S. election. It was a first for a country that has been reluctant to tip its hand.

Zarif first insisted that Iran‘s government has no preference between President Donald Trump or Biden, but pushed to respond, Zarif said that “the statements by the Biden camp have been more promising, but we will have to wait and see.”…

“What is important for us is how the White House behaves after the election, not what promises are there, what slogans are made. The behavior of the U.S. is important. If the U.S. decides to stop its malign behavior against Iran, then it will be a different story no matter who sits in the White House,” the U.S.-educated diplomat said.

U.S.-Iran relations have disintegrated since President Trump’s unilateral move in 2018 to pull out of the nuclear deal reached with Iran under former President Barack Obama. The Trump administration not only withdrew from that agreement but has since hit Iran with a series of harsh economic sanctions — a “maximum pressure” bid to force Iran to renegotiate the nuclear deal.

The Biden camp has signaled that, if he wins, his administration would attempt to renegotiate the deal hashed out when he was vice president, but the Iranian Foreign Minister insisted to us that that is not Tehran’s hope.

“If we wanted to do that [renegotiate], we would have done it with President Trump four years ago,” Zarif told CBS News, adding that “under no circumstances” would Tehran consider renegotiating the terms of a deal which has since been adopted as a United Nations Security Council Resolution….

“We can find a way to reengage, obviously. But reengagement does not mean renegotiation,” he said. “It means the U.S. coming back to the negotiating table.”…

“I know that Vice President Biden understands that that won’t happen [renegotiate the terms of the nuclear deal], and may act differently,” said the Iranian foreign minister. He expressed hope, however, that Mr. Trump, too, “is capable of acting differently.”…

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EDTORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Vows to Return U.S. to Iran Nuclear Deal

The Obama/Biden Iranian nuclear deal was a disaster. All it did was delay Iran’s nuclear program, and even provided for Iran to inspect its own sites under certain circumstances. The Iranian mullahs were screaming “Death to America” even as the nuclear deal was being concluded. The mullahs have been pushing for war with the United States for decades, and the nuclear deal was no departure from this imperative. Get the details about just how bad the nuke deal was in The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran.

And Biden’s presidency, or rather the presidency of the oligarchy that is propping us up, would return us to that deal. Remember that old joke, the one with the punchline, “Coffee break’s over, back on your heads“? That’s what a Biden presidency would be like after four years of Trump.

“Biden says as president he would take US back into nuclear deal if Iranians return to strict compliance,” IntelliNews, September 15, 2020 (thanks to Henry):

Joe Biden has said that he is “ready to walk the path of diplomacy” with Tehran “if Iran takes steps to show it is ready too”.

Outlining the Iran policy he will pursue if he defeats US President Donald Trump in the November presidential election, Democratic candidate Biden in an opinion piece for CNN added: “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.”

“The bottom line is that Iran is closer to a nuclear bomb today than it was when Donald Trump took office. And Trump has no answer for that. Five years ago, even Russia and China stood with our European allies behind an American-led approach to Iran’s nuclear program,” said Biden, attacking Trump for in May 2018 unilaterally pulling the US out of the nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that secured concessions on and scrutiny of the Iranian nuclear development programme in return for the lifting of UN sanctions on Tehran.

Biden said he would “make an unshakable commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon” but that “Trump’s Iran policy is a dangerous failure” and that “there is a smart way to be tough on Iran, and there is Trump’s way”….

RELATED VIDEO: Biden’s Bizarre Defense of Iran Nuclear Deal

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Why Democrats are conspiring with the Russians to discredit President Trump

The Democrats keep yelling “the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.” Why?

There have been many theories about the sudden interest on any and all connections between President Trump and his cabinet with the Russians by Democrats. Among these are: the Russians hacked the election, the Russians stole the election from Hillary Clinton, any contact with any Russian official or surrogate is grounds for dismissal or even impeachment.

Perhaps we should look back at what the Obama administration did to appease, if not become a surrogate for, Russia:

  1. Obama abandoned the missile defense system in Europe shelving deployment of U.S. missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, citing new intelligence that the missile threat from Iran was minimal. Victory: Russia and Iran.
  2. Obama called for a “reset” of Russian/U.S. relations. On 6 March 2009 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red button with the English word “reset” and the Roman alphabet transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet word перегрузка (“peregruzka”.) Victory: Russia and Iran.
  3. Obama tells Russian President Dmitry Medvedev more flexibility after the 2012 election. Obama stated that Vladimir Putin should give him more “space” and that “[a]fter my election I have more flexibility.” Victory: Russia, Iran, Syria
  4. Obama’s “red line” in Syria if Assad used chemical weapons. Red line policy ignored when Assad uses chemical weapons a second time. Victory: Russia and Syria.
  5. Finally, Obama’s deal with Iran on development of nuclear weapons. Victory: Iran, Russia and ISIS.

Democrats consider Obama’s Iran deal his signature foreign policy success. Here are Obama’s remarks on the Iran deal:

Obama’s foreign policy has emboldened Russia as the key force in the Middle East and at the same time given Iran the cover it needs to continue its nuclear program. Iran is now the hegemonic power in the Middle East, with the help of Russia, and is training and exporting radical Islamists to do its bidding globally.

As former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said July 28, 2009, after the latest of six trips to the Gulf in the last 18 months, that “what I hear is, there is greater fear of Iran than there is animus toward Israel.” He added, “So that is almost a predominant sentiment that I’ve noticed throughout most, if not all, of the Gulf states” (Washington Times, July 29, 2009).

pelosi schumer putinThis is the reason that Democrats have tried to tie President Trump’s hands when it comes to Russia.

For if President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are successful in engaging Russia in the fight against ISIS and if President Trump can decouple Russia from Iran then the Obama foreign policy legacy will be gone. The Iran deal will be no more. Iran will be de-fanged and will not be the threat that it currently is to its Gulf state neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

Democrats working with the Russians are doing everything they can to put President Trump into a box when it comes to negotiating with Russia. That is good for Russia, Iran and Syria’s Assad.

Democrats want America to be weak in its foreign policy and weak even before President Trump meets with Russian President Putin.

The Democrats, along with Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio are hurting President Trump’s foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East and with Russia. That is the goal.

That is why the Democrats, and perhaps the “Axis of Evil” Republican Senators McCain, Graham and Rubio, are in effect conspiring with the Russians.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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RELATED PHOTOGRAPHS:

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Iran: ‘Humiliating the United States, with no consequences’

american sailors captured by IranYesterday, when we posted on the IRGC hostage taking of U.S. Navy sailors and their riverine patrol boats to Farsi Island, we wrote of the prior incidents of Iran’s hostage taking in the Persian Gulf.

Shoshana Bryen of the Jewish Policy Center and I commiserated about the seizure of six British Royal Marines in June 2004 by the IRGC naval contingent. The Royal Marines were taken to land, blinded and demanded to apologize for entering Iranian waters. They were then taken out onto the desert and blindfolded while weapons were chambered in a mock execution. They were released three days later in what was billed as a “misunderstanding.”  The Royal Marines were operating in Iraqi waters when seized by Iran.

As noted in a Reuter’s report on today’s seizure of U.S. patrol boats and arrest of U.S. Navy personnel, there was another seizure of British naval and marine personnel by Iranian Revolutionary guards that created a diplomatic crisis in 2007:

In March 2007, Iranian forces seized 15 British servicemen – eight Royal Navy sailors and seven marines – in the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, triggering a diplomatic crisis at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. They were held for 13 days.

Look at Iran’s track record over the last several months since the JCOPA was endorsed by the UN Security Council. Iran fired off two ballistic missile tests in October and November 2015 in violation of UN Res. 1929. Last week, IRGC missile boats hailed the USS Harry Truman giving it and an accompanying destroyer, the USS Bulkley and a nearby French frigate a 23 minute warning before firing rockets in a live fire exercise 1,500 yards away. The Administration has been humiliated time and again by the Ayatollah and will continue to be held in contempt for being weak, even after the, Administration releases $100 billion in sequestered funds in foreign banks, perhaps as early as this week.

Meanwhile the spin at the White House was that the crews of the two patrol boats may be released by daylight to return to their base in Bahrain. Think, also, of those other American hostages held by the Islamic Regime in Tehran, an ex-FBI agent, a former Marine, a Christian Pastor, two American Iranian Businessmen and a convicted Washington Post reporter.

15 hours after the 10 U.S. Navy sailors and their boats were returned, but not before they were put through a humiliating process of being forced to kneel at gun point and ultimately forced to apologize for how the boats found their way into Iranian waters. That awaits a U.S. Navy investigation  into what occurred and possible Iranian violations of the Geneva Convention over treatment of the detained U.S. Sailors and use for propaganda purposes. Both they and their boats returned to the Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain. What the IRGC learned of any technology on board the riverine patrol boats is another matter.

Nonetheless, this was the latest episode of U.S. humiliation by the Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC of President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif and President Obama, bound and determined to close the nuclear deal with Iran by releasing $100 billion of sequestered funds early next week on compliance day to this state sponsor of terrorism.

WATCH this Wall Street Journal video of the detention and apology by a possible U.S. Navy riverine boat commander:

us sailors captured by iran

Photo montage by the UK Daily Mail.

The Jerusalem Post published commentary by  Harold  Rhode, former Islamic and Turkish Affairs expert with the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment,  Tony Badran  and Ali Afoneh of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute  on this latest humiliating episode perpetrated by the IRGC navy, Former Pentagon official to ‘Post’: ‘Iran humiliating US with no consequences.’

See our December 2014 New English Review interview with Dr. Rhode, “China’s Islamist Threat”  and March 2014 interview with Dr. Michael Rubin, The Peril of Engaging Rogue States.

The Jerusalem Post opinion article noted:

Iran’s capture and release of 10 US sailors demonstrated that “moderates” such as President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have no real weight, while the real power continues to be wielded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his hard line allies, such as the Revolutionary Guard, several commentators said Wednesday.

Propaganda videos of the soldiers blindfolded and kneeling released by Iranian media humiliated the world’s superpower and shows that Iran can continue its aggressive behavior with no consequences.

The Obama administration will not allow anything to get in the way of the nuclear deal’s implementation and the lifting of sanctions on Iran, they said.

“Test fire ballistic missiles. Check. Fire missiles near US ships. Check. Torch US ally’s missions. Check. Seize US sailors. Check. Get paid,” tweeted Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Iran’s continued aggressive behavior since the nuclear deal was agreed upon last summer gives it, and other rogue actors, the impression that it can act with a rather free hand.

Such a message must be terrifying to Israel and other US-Arab allies in the region.

Besides the question of whether there was a US apology to Iran, which administration officials deny, it remains unknown whether there was a secret deal or promise that facilitated the release of the sailors.

“Detainment of the US sailors was short, but the IRGC achieved its goal: The IRGC communicated the message to the domestic and the international audience that it calls the shots in Tehran, and humiliated the US,” Ali Alfoneh, an Iran expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington- based think tank, told The Jerusalem Post.

Harold Rhode, a distinguished senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute and a former adviser at the Pentagon, told the Postthat much of the equipment on the US boats was probably previously unavailable to Iran.

“Did Iran take US equipment? Will it share what it learns with North Korea, Russia and China?” “There is no concept of good will in the Middle East,” said the former Pentagon official.

The fact that until to now the US has not reacted on numerous issues – such as Iran’s testing of a ballistic missile in October in violation of a UN Security Council resolution and the firing of rockets near US naval ships – “demonstrates America’s weakness to Middle Easterners,” Rhode said.

“This is another case of America demonstrating that it is an unreliable ally and a harmless enemy,” he added.

“In the Middle East, when people smell weakness, they pounce,” said Rhode.

“Most amazingly from the Iranian point of view,” he continued, “is that they captured these sailors right before Obama’s State of the Union speech, and the president didn’t even mention it.”

“Did the Iranians do that on purpose to further humiliate Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry? From an Iranian cultural point of view, the answer is yes!” exclaimed Rhode.

This is a huge win-win situation for Iran, he continued, as Iran gets US advanced technology, it humiliates America, and it gives the US administration – so desperate to implement the unsigned Iran-US nuclear agreement – the excuse to say that Iran is cooperating with the US as a result of the agreement.

“A grand-slam for Iran, and a huge defeat for the US. Now Iran can continue advancing its ultimate goal of gaining nuclear weapons,” said Rhode.

Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official, told the Post the incident benefited the IRGC and other hardliners.

“They humiliated the United States. They received a groveling apology. They broadcast photos of the captured Americans.”

Rubin recalled a similar incident involving the UK in 2007, and how the photos and footage of the detained sailors made their way into the campaign commercials of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“To credit diplomacy for their release is like giving a slap on the back to an arsonist who started a fire and then wants credit for putting it out,” said Rubin.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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

Exposed: Anti-Israel J Street Cabal behind Rabbis letter supporting Iran Nuclear Deal

Kenneth Bob Ameinu

Kenneth Bob, President of Ameinu and J Street Treasurer.

When we posted yesterday about the Ameinu open letter from 340 “leading American Rabbis” supporting the President’s Iran nuclear pact we noted the progressive socialist alliance anti-Israel background.  Late yesterday, the Zionists of America (ZoA) put out a news release revealing the usual suspects; the interlock with J Street, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), BDS-supporting Jewish Voice for Peace and Rabbis for Human Rights, “ZOA: Majority of 340 Pro-Iran Deal Rabbis are from J St & Other Israel-Hostile Groups.”   While  the ZoA claims that the signatories of the open letter in support of the Iran nuclear pact represent less than 6% of the roughly 5,000 American Rabbis, we note  that there  more than 600 rabbis in the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet. Further, the leaders of the Reform Movement in America are also allied with the J Street Rabbinic group.

The ZoA news release reported:

The majority of the Iran Deal Rabbis come from the Soros-funded J Street. (George Soros is a self-described anti-Zionist billionaire.) Liberal Professor Alan Dershowitz explained that J Street “always seems to be taking positions that are anti-Israel.” J Street U’s new student board president is an anti-Israel Muslim.

Ameinu (which is the group promoting the “340 Rabbis for Iran Deal”) is closely tied to J Street. Ameinu appears to be serving as a front group for J Street here – since J Street has been so discredited. Ameinu National President Kenneth Bob doubles as J Street’s Treasurer. Ameinu Vice President and Executive Committee Chair Judith Gelman is a member of J Street’s Montgomery County, MD steering committee. Ameinu and J Street recently ran together on the same election slate.

Other “340 Iran Deal Rabbis” include a board member of Jewish Voice forPeace (JVP). JVP is featured on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) list of the “Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in America,” and actively promotes anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS).

The Iran Deal Rabbis also include over a dozen significant contributors to the so-called “Rabbis for Human Rights” (RHR). RHR participates in
anti-Israel demonstrations and, along with other anti-Israel groups,launched a website with false testimonies accusing Israel of human rights
violations in Gaza. ZOA members witnessed an RHR Rabbi invent and widely publish false stories to demonize pro-Israel young people at the Israel Day  Parade Concert in New York several years ago.

187 (the majority) of the Iran Deal Rabbis are members of the “J Street Rabbinic Cabinet.”

12 of the Iran Deal Rabbis are members of the “J Street Rabbinic Cabinet Executive Council”

The Iran Deal Rabbis also include 2 (out of 3) of the J Street cabinet’s co-chairs

13 of the Iran Deal Rabbis are significant donors to the falsehood-purveying”Rabbis for Human Rights.”

Iran Deal Rabbi Linda Boltzmann is on the Board of Directors of the anti-Israel BDS group, “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Rabbi Boltzmann is known as a “pioneer lesbian Rabbi.” As a homosexual, she should be the first to condemn Iran’s horrendous human rights record, which includes Iran’s brutal executions of hundreds of innocent individuals for the sole reason that they are gay. Incredibly, she is fostering a deal that will give the Iranian regime hundreds of billions of dollars to continue its brutal oppression of gays and minorities.

Iran Deal Rabbi Arthur Waskom states that the people at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are “people I trust and admire and respect.” CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case (the case against groups that sent funding to Hamas). CAIR is also
among the top groups that ADL has frequently condemned for its anti-Israel activities.

The ZoA also cited the J Street, NIAC connections, that we have noted in previous posts:

J Street has financial and other ties to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an apparent arm of the Iranian regime. Dissident journalist
Hassan Daioleslam revealed that NIAC serves as a lobbying group for Iran, and that NIAC’s president and founder, Trita Parsi, has a long-term close relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. J Street’s financial filings revealed that J Street’s initial funders included NIAC board member Genevieve Lynch. J Street’s first national conference held an Iran panel with NIAC head Trita Parsi and Iran apologist Hillary Mann  Leveret, who insisted that no sanctions be placed on Iran. At the J Street event, Leveret also condemned anyone who did not trust the Iranian regime as “reinforcing stereotypes of Iranian duplicitousness” and asserted that such “stereotypes” of Iran’s Mullahs were “fundamentally racist.” Leverett also compared Iran’s mullahs to Israeli rabbis.

FlyntLeverett_HillaryMannLeverett-300x187

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett were a husband wife national security team during the Bush era.  He originally worked at the CIA and met her while they both worked on the National Security Council Middle and Near East Staff. Flynt broke with the Bush Administration over the Iraq War. While both originally opposed to Iran, they suddenly flipped for the dark side becoming boosters for the theocratic Khomeinist revolutionary dictators in Tehran. Check out her bio at The Race for Iran and Raveling to Iran.com.   Back in January 2010, we posted these comments from Ken Timmerman about this ‘power couple” in a C-Span Washington Journal interview:

When Timmerman was asked about the Leverett Times op Ed by the Washington Journal moderator he told the callers about the ‘real’ Leverett.  Flynt Leverett is an ex-CIA analyst who served in the Bush White House National Security Council as senior director of Middle East affairs. He broke with the Bush Administration over the Iraq war and alleged failure to conduct comprehensive negotiations with Iran. Timmerman dismissed that notion as being the ‘fiction’ of the Swiss ambassador to Tehran. Leverett is now a professor at the Penn State University School of International Affairs and director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative in the American Strategy Program at the Soros-funded New America Foundation.

Timmerman pointed out to the moderator that Leverett had promoted the false impression that Iran was supporting the US in Afghanistan back in 2001 to 2002. Timmerman noted that at that time there was satellite imagery of vehicles and aircraft crossing the Afghan Iranian border extracting al Qaeda foreign fighters and their families and as we now know bin Laden’s  extended family. The moderator went out of her way to note that Flynt Leverett had appeared several times on Washington Journal, as if that gave him some measure of credibility.

This episode illustrates the astounding cupidity of American mainstream media, who long ago lost the requisite due diligence conducting fact checking of the backgrounds of progressive groups that allege they represent the majority views of American Jews. But then the mainstream media appears to have become the megaphone for broadcasting the disinformation of the Administration. American media have abandoned what were traditional editorial standards of investigation into the representations by authors of what effectively is agit-propaganda. Our congratulations to the ZoA for disclosing the anti-Israel cabal of J Street, Ameinu, NIAC bankrolled by George Soros.

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

Progressive Labor Socialist Rabbis Back Obama’s Iran Nuke Deal

The International Business Times (IBT), The Hill  and  the wire services highlighted a letter issued yesterday and signed by American rabbis of Ameinu, the US wing of the extreme leftist Labor Socialist  Alliance, supporting the President’s  Iran Nuclear Deal: “340 Rabbis Sign Letter Calling on Congress to Endorse Nuclear Accord“.  The IBT reported:

Hundreds of American rabbis have signed an open letter to the U.S. Congress in which they endorse the Iran nuclear agreement reached last month in Vienna. The letter urges lawmakers to approve the agreement when it comes up for a congressional vote next month, and seeks to counter voices in the American Jewish community that have been fiercely critical of the tentative accord.

“For the Jewish people, the pursuit of peace is a fundamental religious duty,” the letter reads. “Our tradition implores us to ‘seek peace, and pursue it’.”

The letter was distributed by Ameinu, a progressive North American Jewish organization. It said signatories came “from all streams of Judaism.”

“In light of this agreement, we are deeply concerned with the mistaken impression that the current leadership of the American Jewish community is united in opposition to the agreement,” the letter read. “Despite what has been portrayed, these leaders do not represent the majority of Jewish Americans who support Congress’ approval of this deal.”

Signatories of the letter said they took seriously the regional threat posed by Iran, but said they trusted the agreement would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that the deal’s success would be based on inspections conducted through unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear facilities and not mere trust in Iran’s good will.

“As Jews, we are deeply committed to the welfare of the State of Israel,” the letter reads. “We believe that this deal is our best available option at halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

What is  this progressive Jewish Labor Socialist group, Ameinu?

Ameinu, the group that authored this letter backing the President’s Iran nuclear deal signed by 340 rabbis, is the ‘progressive’ Labor Socialist Zionist Alliance in the US. These are the radicals who supported the faux Geneva Initiative funded by the Swiss Foreign Ministry. 10 years ago they backed the disastrous Gaza withdrawal. They backed the Israeli version of the Occupy Movement They are very committed to a Palestinian peace plan that would cede Judea and Samaria to a corrupt Palestinian Authority. Why they are included in the big tent of the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization is beyond my ken. They are no better than those Satmar chasidic Naturei Karta Jews who live in their own complex in New York, Kiriyat Joel. We would see them at Israel Day Parades in Manhattan and at UN protests cheer leading for a nuclear Iran. They despise anything to do with Israel because Ha Shem has not sent the Messiah, Moschiach, to found a theocratic state.Yet, their Israeli counterparts are unstinting for accepting welfare and family allowances from the secular State of Israel. They were ‘friends’ of the late Yassir Arafat and even traveled to Tehran to make common cause with the holocaust denying Mullahs in exchange for mezumeh in der tish ( money in hand).

It is natural for the liberal press in the U.S. to promote Ameinu and the Neturei Karta as allies of the President, without really explaining what they are, misguided American Jews who consort with  enemies of America and Israel.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The feature image is of Progressive Jews holding a rope of Israeli flags during the 51st annual Celebrate Israel Parade in New York City, May 31, 2015. Source:  Reuters/ Eduardo Munoz.

Obama ally General Barry McCaffrey states ‘Iran deal deeply flawed’

Yesterday, when we posted on the September 9th Washington March to Save America opposing the Iran Nuclear deal, we drew attention to a letter  approving  the deal  signed by 33 former senior military officers, “The Time Has Come for a March in D.C. to Stop the Iran Nuclear Pact.” Alana Goodman has an expose in today’s Washington Free Beacon (WFB) about the White House manipulations behind the scene by a retired Navy rear admiral, now a lawyer with the Venable law firm  in Washington, who authored the letter,  White House Played Role in Iran Deal Letter Signed by Former Flag Officers.” The Obama operative got his comeuppance when he solicited retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey. who opposes the pact. He made the wrong pick.

McCaffrey retired as a four star general who served 32 years in the US Army following graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. At his retirement McCaffrey  “was the most highly decorated serving General, having been awarded three Purple Heart medals for wounds received in his four combat tours – as well as twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest award for valor. He also twice was awarded the Silver Star for valor.”  Before establishing his consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates LLC, McCaffrey was the Cabinet Officer in charge of U.S. Drug Policy.  After leaving government service, McCaffrey was “the Bradley Distinguished Professor of International Security Studies from January 2001 to May 2005; and then as an Adjunct Professor of International Security Studies from May 2005 to December 2010” at West Point. McCaffrey has also been a frequent media commentator on national security issues. Watch this NBC Meet the Press segment in January 2015 and McCaffrey’s comments on the Obama war strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Goodman of WFB wrote:

James “Jamie” Barnett, a retired rear admiral who now works at the law firm Venable, drafted the letter. Barnett reached out to retired senior officers earlier this month, asking them to sign on and touting the White House’s involvement.

“I am working with the White House on a letter for retired General Officers and Flag Officers to sign, supporting the U.S.-Iran accord on nuclear armament,” Barnett wrote in an Aug. 4 email to one potential signatory. “Are you in a position, and of such a mind, to consider such a letter?”

Barnett indicated that those who signed on could attend a meeting or conference call with White House officials, and said organizers wanted to finalize the list of signatures by last Friday.

Barnett told the Free Beacon on Thursday that the letter was his idea and that he did not write it due to a request from the White House. He said he did ask for a meeting with the National Security Council staff for retired admirals and generals who wanted to attend.

He also said Venable, whose roster of past clients includes Russia’s state gas company Gazprom, had no involvement with the letter.

“I thought of it on my own and started talking to my retired flag officer friends, who in turn brought others in,” said Barnett.

General McCaffrey replied:

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey was one of the officers who declined to participate when asked to sign the letter.

“In my view the Iran nuke deal is a deeply flawed agreement,” McCaffrey replied to Barnett in an email last week. “Cannot sign your letter of support by retired senior officers to support the White House position.”

McCaffrey blasted the nuclear agreement, saying it was opposed by America’s Middle Eastern allies, did not provide for adequate inspections, legitimizes Iran, and would encourage a nuclear arms race in the region.

“The option was not war. The option was walling Iran off for another decade—and threatening nuclear retaliation if they attacked their Sunni neighbors [with] nuclear weapons,” wrote McCaffrey.

“This agreement will likely accelerate nuclear proliferation in the region,” he added. “The Sunni Arab states will want a nuclear deterrence to the Persian Shia capability.”

We salute Gen. McCaffrey for his clear-eyed rejection of the Iran nuclear pact. We hope that those wavering Democrats in the Senate and House get McCaffrey’s message from their constituents who oppose the Iran deal in recent polls by 2 to 1. Perhaps they may if a multitude shows up on the back lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building in The March to Save America on Wednesday, September 9, 2015.

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

Kerry: No Sanctions Against Conventional Arms and Missile Technology in Iran Nuclear Deal

Secretary of State Kerry appeared on a Reuters Newsmaker interview today with the apt title of Iran: Moment of Truth. He dropped another bombshell, this time about the lifting of UN sanctions barring Iran’s purchase of conventional arms and missile technology. Kerry indicated there would be snap back of arms sanctions. However, during a recent House Armed Services Committee Hearing, he admitted lifting of financial sanctions would enable deliveries of arms to terror proxies in the Middle East threatening both Americans and Israelis.

Iran demanded and the Administration negotiating team consented to lift bans on Iranian purchases of conventional arms and missile technology adopted under 2010 UN Security Resolution 1929. At the time of the adoption of those UN sanctions both Israel and the US had objected to the sale of the Russian S-300 system to Iran. This comes in the wake of a trip to Moscow on July 24th by Qod’s Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani to expedite the delivery of the advanced Russian S-300 air defense system . Russian’s Putin had lifted the ban in mid- April 2015 following the announcement of the framework for the final Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  The JCPOA was announced in Vienna on July 14th and unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council on July 22nd. This was just prior to Gen. Soleimani’s trip to Moscow to meet both Putin and Russian Defense Minister Shogui. Add to that the announced $10 billion dollar oil barter deal with China for stealth fighter jets and it would appear that once again, Iran has been allowed to breach conventional arms sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov had suggested that expediting lifting these arms sale bans would enable sales would enable Iran and Syria to combat the Islamic State.

Reuters reported these latest revelations by Kerry:

Violations of an arms embargo by Iran or restrictions on its missile program would not force an automatic reinstatement or “snapback” of United Nations sanctions under a landmark nuclear deal, although other options would be available, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday.

“The arms embargo is not tied to snapback,” Kerry said. “It is tied to a separate set of obligations. So they are not in material breach of the nuclear agreement for violating the arms piece of it.”

“There is a specific U.N. resolution outside of this agreement that prohibits them from sending weapons to Hezbollah. There is a separate and specific U.N. resolution that prohibits them from sending weapons to the Shia militia in Iraq,” he said.

Kerry added that similar U.N. restrictions banned arms sales to the Houthis in Yemen, North Korea and other potential recipients of weapons from Iran.

Tehran has consistently violated the U.N. arms embargo and missile sanctions. Since 2010, those breaches have been documented by the U.N. panel of experts on Iran.

Kerry said a new U.N. monitoring mechanism would have to be created to replace the panel of experts, suggesting that much of the monitoring work could be done by the United States and its allies on their own.

“We’re not dependent on the U.N. to do that and I think Israel and others are much happier that we’re not,” he said. “We will depend on our own intel community, on our own military, on our own information, we will work with Israel, and we will work with others.”

Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi made clear last month that Tehran had no intention of complying with the arms embargo and missile sanctions.

“Whenever it’s needed to send arms to our allies in the region, we will do so,” he said. “We are not ashamed of it.”

Watch the Washington Free Beacon YouTube video of Secretary Kerry’s Reuters Newsmaker interview:

Watch this response by Kerry to this issue in this C-Span video clip during a House Hearing Armed Services Committee Hearing:

Syrian made M-302 missiles captured by Israeli Naval Commandos from Klos-C March 2015  Ariel Schalit AP

M-302 missiles captured by Israeli Naval commandos on display in Eilat March 2014Source:  AP/Ariel Schalit.

Notwithstanding and even before the 2010 UN conventional arms sanctions were adopted, Israel has unilaterally intercepted shipments attacked arms deliveries to Iranian proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel is not waiting around for implementation of UN arms control and missile technology sanctions or any Presidential executive orders by the Obama Administration to defend against Iran violations. Israel naval commandos intercepted Iranian shipments of conventional arms and missiles in both the Mediterranean off Gaza and in the Red Sea.  In March 2014 the Klos C  was boarded by Israeli Naval commandos in the Red Sea and brought to the Port of Eilat.  Multiple IAF attacks on missile and other weaponry  prevented deliveries for proxy to Hezbollah in both Syria and Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

In an NER/Iconoclast post yesterday on” Obama’s Dangerous Spin on Iran Nuclear Deal,” this writer suggested the latest conventional arms sanctions by Iran with the connivance of both Russia and China may have jeopardized any military option by the U.S. or Israel. I suggested that this was a breach of both UN travel bans on the Quds Force Commander as well as the UN Resolution 1929 sanctions against purchase of conventional weapons and missile technology precluded by both five and eight year  sunsets under the JCPOA.  It makes any military option harder by orders of magnitude. While both the U.S. and Israel aren’t without resources of their own, Iran’s  breaches of sanctions makes the decision to use American of Israeli military power more complicated.  Kerry’s Reuters Newsmakers interview comments today virtually confirmed that assessment.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in New York August 11, 2015. Source: Reuters/Brendan McDermid.

Obama’s Dangerous Spin on the Iran Nuclear Deal

There was a spirited panel discussion on  the August 9, 2015 Lisa Benson Radio Show for National Security stemming from President Obama’s  remarks on the Iran nuclear deal  during  his interview on CNN’s Farid Zakaria’s Global Public Square (GPS) Sunday morning program.  Panelists Barry Shaw in Israel, Shoshana Bryen of The Jewish Policy of the Washington, D.C. based Jewish Policy Center and this writer. The interview was recorded last Thursday following the President’s speech at American University and contentious meeting with a select group of American Jewish leaders. It was alleged that he told them that “if they left  off criticizing his deal, he would leave off criticizing them. That was a warning to the major American Jewish lobby group , the American Israel Political Action Committee. (AIPAC) and an affiliate, Concerned Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran have funded a multi-million ad campaign opposing the President’s Iran nuclear deal up for a vote in Congress in  Mid-September.

President Obama  also asserted during the interview that the Republican opposition to the Iran nuclear deal was ideological and political and not dissimilar from so-called hardliners in Iran. In response to a question on this from Zakaria he said:

The reason that Mitch McConnell and the rest of the folks in his caucus who oppose this jumped out and opposed it before they even read it, before it was even posted, is reflective of an ideological commitment not to get a deal done. And in that sense they do have a lot in common with hard- liners who are much more satisfied with the status quo. What I said was that there are those who, if they did not read the bill before they announced their opposition, if they are not able to offer plausible reasons why they wouldn’t support the bill or plausible alternatives in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon other than potential military strikes, then that would indicate that they’re not interested in the substance of the issue, they’re interested in the politics of the issue.

Zakaria asked, “Is it appropriate for a foreign head of government ( a reference to Israeli Pm Netanyahu] to inject himself into a debate that is taking place in Washington?“  The President  responded:

You know, I’ll let you ask Prime Minister Netanyahu that question if he gives you an interview. I don’t recall a similar example. Obviously the relationship between the United States and Israel is deep, it is profound, and it’s reflected in my policies because I have said repeatedly and, more importantly, acted on the basic notion that our commitment to Israel security is sacrosanct. It’s something that I take very seriously, which is why we provided more assistance, more military cooperation, more intelligence cooperation to Israel than any previous administration.

But as I said in the speech yesterday, on the substance, the prime minister is wrong on this. And I think that I can show that the basic assumptions that he’s made are incorrect. If in fact my argument is right that this is the best way for Iran not to get a nuclear weapon, then that’s not just good for the United States, that is very good for Israel. In fact, historically this has been the argument that has driven Prime Minister Netanyahu and achieved consensus throughout Israel.

So the question has to be, is there in fact a better path to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon than this one? And I’ve repeatedly asked both Prime Minister Netanyahu and others to present me a reasonable, realistic plan that would achieve exactly what this deal achieves, and I have yet to get a response. So, as I said yesterday, I completely understand why both he and the broad Israeli public would be suspicious, cautious about entering into any deal with Iran.

Notwithstanding the President remarks in the CNN Zakaria interview, New York Democratic Senator Charles E. Schumer and Bronx New York House Member, Elliott Engel, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Relations Committee and several other leading Democrat members of both the New York and California delegations have also opted to oppose the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action announced in Vienna on July 14th and unanimously endorsed by the UN Security on July 22nd.  Congress will reconvene after Labor Day for more Hearings and a vote to either approve or reject the Iranian nuclear deal. President Obama has threatened veto it if a majority of both the Houses of Congress vote to reject it.

Watch these CNN Video clips of President Obama interview with Farid Zakaria on August 9, 2015

On Israeli PM Netanyahu

On Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei

On his American University Speech

LBS Soundcloud August 9 correctedThe following were important takeaways from  the August 9th Lisa Benson Radio Show:

Israel’s History of Unilateral Actions against Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs despite US Objections.

Barry Shaw speaking from Israel drew attention to Israeli attacks on the Osirak reactor in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1981 and Syria’s al-Kibar reactor in September 2007. He noted that Israeli PM Menachem Begin suggested that  his order for the so-called Raid on the Sun in Iraqi would set a precedent for future similar actions by his successors.  Shaw noted the objections by the Reagan Administration and even US media  characterizations of Israel’s actions  as state sponsored terrorism . However a decade later in the 1990’s Dick Cheney , then Secretary of Defense expressed  the thanks of the US  for Israel’s action in 1981 during the Gulf War in 1991.  Following, the 2007 Syria reactor raid, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Israel for not exhausting diplomatic efforts. Shaw noted that following the raid Syria let in the IAEA to inspect the reclaimed site of the former Al-Kibar nuclear bomb factory Shaw also reflected the views of a  significant majority of Israelis backing PM Netanyahu’s intervention criticizing the Iran nuclear pact.

The Dangers of Obama’s Withdrawal of US Assets in the Region.

Shoshana Bryen drew attention to the dangers of withdrawal of US military assets in the Persian Gulf abetting the hegemonic objectives of Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei  and the Islamic Regime IRGC. As of the fall, the US will have no carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf for the first time in decades. She went to note  the President postulated that Saudi Arabia and Iran might find themselves coming closer on certain issues. If the Gulf States see their future with Iran, rather than with the US, we will not have a base in the Persian Gulf. The US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and US facilities in Kuwait and Oman may not be able to use those facilities to attack Iran if, in fact, their governments see Iran as the key power for the future.

Military Option  may have been  taken Off the Table with Iran Weapons Purchases from Russia and China.

This  writer  drew attention to the Moscow trip of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani to meet with Russian President Putin and Defense Minister Shogui to speed up deliveries of the S-300 air defense system and the $10 billion oil barter deal with China for delivery of stealth fighters.  He suggested that this was a breach of both UN travel bans on the Quds Force Commander as well as the UN resolution 1929 sanctions against purchase of conventional  weapons and missile technology precluded on both five and eight sunsets under the JCPOA.  It makes any military option harder by orders of magnitude. While both the US and Israel  aren’t without resources of our own, Iran breaches  of  sanctions  makes the decision to use American military power more complicated.

Iran North Korea Nuclear and ICBM Development Cooperation may already have developed a bomb

Host  Lisa Benson drew attention to a recent American Thinker article co-authored by Bryen and her husband,  Stephen, “Does Iran Already Have Nuclear Weapons?”  The Bryens suggest that Iran may already have developed a nuclear weapon in cooperation with North Korea.  This writer interviewed analyst Ilana Freedman regarding the same issue in a March 2014  NER article, “Has Iran Developed Nuclear Weapons in North Korea ?”   The Bryens postulate that Iran may already have a small nuclear bomb that might be used  as a threat in the region to provide a nuclear cover for hegemonic objectives. The motivation on the part of the North Korean, who earn hard currency through illicit transactions is receipt of funds from Iran, a member of the same original A.Q. Khan network that provided techno logy for the North Korean bomb making and Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Plan B –Restoring Military Funding in support of National Security Objectives in the Middle East and NATO Allies in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States Threatened by Putin’s Russia

Notwithstanding , a possible veto of a Congressional  resolution rejecting the Iran nuclear deal, Bryen and Gordon suggested that the Congress has to stop the hollowing out of our military capabilities under sequestration. That should be addressed in September when National Defense Act Appropriation bills come up for approval in both chambers.  Bryen noted Plan B is precisely to end sequestration – which has to happen for American national security reasons including Iran and beyond Iran. The size of the Army has to increase (it is projected to decrease by another 40,000) and the drain of mid-level officers (Captains, Majors and LT Colonels) has to stop. Our Navy has to begin to restore ship building. She noted the fleet size is he smallest since WWI.

Poland and the Baltic States have requested a stronger NATO presence out of fear that Russia will do to them what it did to Ukraine. Ukraine was NOT a member of NATO, so there were mixed ideas about what to do, but Poland and the Baltic States are. If Russia thinks it can intimidate or even occupy parts of those states, simply because it sees the US as a waning power, NATO will be finished. With that, the remnants of American influence will be finished. We have to put troops in those places and do exercises in those places and we should reconsider installing the radars that President Obama declined to place in Poland and the Czech Republic when he first took office.

Listen to the Soundcloud of the August 9, 2015 Lisa Benson Radio Show

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

Israeli Sanhedrin (Assembly) Issues Summons Calling Obama for Trial on ‘criminal offenses’

Flash! Breaking Israel News (BINreports that the reconstituted Sanhedrin in Israel has issued a summons calling President Obama for trial on charges of “criminal offenses” against the Jewish people resulting from the announced Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action, unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council, Monday, July 20th, 2015 and announced by the P5+1 in Vienna on July 14th.

The Sanhedrin trial has been scheduled for September 9, 2015, four days prior to the onset of the Jewish High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah. This is also the 60th day under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 for a possible vote by the U.S. Congress on the Iran nuclear pact.

BIN cites the charges brought against President Obama:

According to a letter obtained exclusively by Breaking Israel News that was sent to the president, the Sanhedrin calls out Obama for “deliberately promoting genocide for the Jewish people.” The judges of the Sanhedrin call on the president to “immediately announce that you are repealing and suspending the agreement.”

The Sanhedrin, which has been active in Israel for over a decade, recently made news when it announced that it would be putting Pope Francis on trial in absentia for his recognition of a “State of Palestine”.

“We are here for matters great and small, those that pertain to Israel, and those that pertain to other nations as well,” said Rabbi Dov Stein, secretary of the Sanhedrin, to Breaking Israel News. “It is part of the process of Geula (redemption) and of the Nation of Israel coming back to the Land of Israel, reestablishing the Sanhedrin and restoring the nation as it once was, ‘For out of Zion shall the Torah go out, and the world of God from Jerusalem.’”

The original Hebrew letter, with its English translation, sent to the U.S. leader by the Sanhedrin can be read below.


16/07/2015

To His Honor:
President of the United States
Mr. Barack Hussein Obama
Secretary of State John Kerry
The White House, Washington DC
Permanent Members of the UN Security Council

Summons to Trial:

A Demand for the Immediate Cancellation of the Nuclear Deal with Iran

Unfortunately, despite international experience in negotiating with totalitarian countries with aggressive imperialist aspirations and abilities throughout history, and especially in the 20th century, you have failed to prevent the agreement with destructive consequences that are inevitable for Israel, the Jewish people, all people of the region, to the United States, and to the West.

On the contrary, the evidence of progress in negotiations toward a desired and expected outcome increase every day. Empowering Iran to the level where it would constitute a complete and immediate threat would thrust the entire region into a state of instability including extreme weapons of mass destruction.

These actions range from criminal offenses to malicious intent and gross negligence.

Despite your claims and the contentions of the United States Secretary of State that the agreement is for the benefit of peace, the very negotiations with a country that for at least 30 years has declared that their aim is to destroy Israel and for that it needs nuclear weapons, as well as their expressed desire to attack ‘the Great Satan, USA’ are cause for concern to suspect that there is serious impairment to the reasonable discretion of any moral / responsible leader who refuses to negotiate with a country that declares their goal is to destroy a UN member state, or genocide of any kind.

The current agreement has released many of the leaders of incitement from responsibility for their words and action, and this with the full knowledge and consent of the United States and its allies.

Obama sanhedrin letter-page-001
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.