Tag Archive for: Iran

Kerry: Iran vow to defy U.S. “very disturbing”

/in , , , /by

It begins to dawn even upon the Secretary of State that he may not quite have achieved peace in our time. But he has already given away the store.

“Kerry says Iran vow to defy U.S. is ‘very disturbing,’Reuters, July 21, 2015:

DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday vowing to defy American policies in the region despite a deal with world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program was “very disturbing”.

“I don’t know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that that’s his policy,” he said in the interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television, parts of which the network quoted on Tuesday.

“But I do know that often comments are made publicly and things can evolve that are different. If it is the policy, it’s very disturbing, it’s very troubling,” he added.

Ayatollah Khamenei told supporters on Saturday that U.S. policies in the region were “180 degrees” opposed to Iran’s, at a speech in a Tehran mosque punctuated by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

“Even after this deal our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change,” Khamenei said….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Obama/Kerry Released Iranian Nuclear ‘Scientist’ But Left Jailed Americans Behind

Authorities seek to revoke citizenship of Oregon imam who aided jihadis

D.C.: Muslim accused of fundraising and recruiting for jihad terror group

President Obama’s Three “I” Failures: Israel, Iran, Islamic State

/in , , , , /by

Today’s show illustrates how President Obama’s three “I” failures have dramatically compromised the national security of every American in just 6 short years that he has been in office.

Obama and his Administration have been abject failures with these three “I’s,” Israel, Iran, Islamic State.

Combined, these failures of policy, negotiation and war-fighting have so compromised the stature of the United States globally, that our enemies no longer fear us and our friends no longer trust us.

Tune in as this is my first day back from a special assignment and we find out what I has been up to!

Ex-U.S. Embassy Hostage and Friend of Gov. Scott Walker Influenced Rejection of Obama’s Iran Nuclear Pact

/in , , /by

Yesterday, on The Lisa Benson Show, I gave as an example of hope about defeating the Obama Iran nuclear executive order, the Sunday talk show comment by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who threw his hat in the ring last Monday when he declared for the Republican nomination race for President. Asked on Walker: I’d toss Iran deal on Day 1 Sunday talk show about his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, today up for a vote at the UN Security Council, said he would toss it on his first day in office, if elected President. Further, he said,

“It’s a bad deal for us, it’s a bad deal for Israel, it’s a bad deal for the world,“It’s not just the starting gun, it will accelerate the nuclear arms race,” he added. “And it is empowering Iran to do what they’re going to do.”

Last Monday during his announcement he referenced Kevin Hermening in the audience. Hermening was one of the 52 U.S. Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution. Hermening, a Marine guard at the time of the Embassy takeover, spent 43 days in solitary confinement. Hermening now 56 years old had befriended Walker back in the 1990s. It is through that relationship Governor Walker became well acquainted with the brutality and untrustworthiness of the Islamic regime. That relationship with Hermening enabled him to to size up the Iran nuclear deal , touted by President Obama and Democratic allies, was bad for the U.S., Israel and other allies in the Middle East. The Embassy hostages had pressed claims for compensation in federal court despite the opposition from our State Department and won. However those claims have never been honored by Tehran.

The least the Obama Administration could do is retain a portion of sanctioned funds in U.S. possession to pay the claims of the 1979 Embassy Hostages like Hermening, Gov. Walker’s friend.

image
Walker: I’d toss Iran deal on Day 1

“It will accelerate the nuclear arms race,” he said.
Preview by Yahoo

The AP reported on Governor Walker’s long relationship with Kevin Herminger,  Walker’s Iran view shaped by friendship with ex-US hostage

image
Walker’s Iran view shaped by friendship with ex-US hosta…

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has a reason for aggressively opposing the nuclear deal with Iran — and it’s personal.
Preview by Yahoo

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has a reason for aggressively opposing the nuclear deal with Iran — and it’s personal.

Neither his foreign policy adviser nor a member of his inner circle has shaped the Republican presidential candidate’s position. Walker’s deep distrust for Iran instead comes from his long friendship with one of the Americans held hostage for 444 days more than three decades ago.

Kevin Hermening was a 20-year-old Marine sergeant stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 when militant Iran students overran the building and captured him and 51 others. Thirty-five years after his release, Hermening has become the face of Walker’s foreign policy, as the two-term governor works to build credibility on a high-stakes issue heading into the 2016 presidential contest.

[…]

As foreign policy emerges as a leading issue in the 2016 election, Walker plans to keep featuring Hermening in the campaign — a role Hermening gladly accepts.

“I don’t think the governor needed to be in the cell with me in order to understand that that’s not how you treat people, and that you shouldn’t reward people with that behavior,” Hermening said, as he described opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran in an interview with The Associated Press.

He said months of coverage of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have stirred up emotions for him and his fellow captives, and he criticized the deal as too soft on Iran and lacking much-needed reimbursement for the 52 hostages and their families.

Politics brought Walker and Hermening together a quarter century ago.

It was either 1990 or 1991 —Hermening can’t remember which year — when a fresh-out-of-college Walker helped his unsuccessful campaign for a seat in Wisconsin’s state assembly. Their roles soon reversed. As Walker began his political ascent, Hermening stayed involved in local party politics while running a financial planning firm.

Though he calls the governor a friend, the pair only see each other once a year — if that — at party functions.

Those 444 days Hermening was held captive are still deeply personal to the 56-year-old from Wausau, Wisconsin. He’s upbeat now about even the worst parts of the experience. Even the 43 days he spent in solitary confinement “paled in comparison” to the experiences of some of the other hostages, still wrestling with their memories of their time in captivity, he said. At least one took his own life.

Before Walker’s national rise, Hermening most often shared his tale of captivity with church groups and high school history classes.

His audience may grow dramatically. Walker’s staff is still working out the details of Hermening’s involvement in the campaign, including whether he’ll be paid. But he is expected to be regularly featured.

Regardless of his role, Hermening’s story has clearly impressed Walker.

Conclusion

It is from such personal relationships that Gov. Walker has became  aware of how dangerous the Iran nuclear deal is America, Israel and the world. That likley influenced his recognition of combating the threat of radical Islamic extremism as an important policy issue  in the 2016 Election race, should he get the nod to become his party’s standard bearer. That threat was all too real to Governor Walker and all Americans by the dastardly Islamic terror attack that took the lives of five valiant Marines and a Navy petty officer at a Chattanooga Naval/Marine Recruiting Center by a 24 year old ISIS-inspired Naturalized Palestinian American citizen, gunned down by a Police SWAT team.

image
Walker’s Iran view shaped by friendship with ex-US hosta…ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has a reason for aggressively opposing the nuclear deal with Iran — and it’s personal.
Preview by Yahoo

Damn It Feels Good to be a Liberal

/in , , , /by

liberal logic 101It’s usually pretty easy to be a liberal these days. Most of their policy prescriptions and legislative proposals require nothing more than a quick talking point, with no further analysis or questions answered regarding the long-term effects of such proposals. If a liberal policymaker wants to take more money from hard working Americans via higher taxes, he or she simply throws out the “pay your fair share” talking point and doesn’t ever worry about explaining to hard-working Americans what their “fair share” is. If a liberal policymaker wants to steal away control of your health care decisions, he or she simply throws out the “health care is a right” talking point without ever explaining how declaring things as “rights” confers numerous obligations on others, all enforceable using the force of government.

Bumper sticker talking points, such as the infamous “war on women,” are clever scams drawn up by liberals to ensure that they are easily remembered, but rarely thought through.

Liberals live and die by the talking point because their ideology must fit on a bumper sticker. Bumper sticker talking points, such as the infamous “war on women,” are clever scams drawn up by liberals to ensure that they are easily remembered, but rarely thought through. It’s pretty easy to be a liberal when you can declare your intentions to be noble and positive, print an easy-to-remember bumper sticker, get massive pieces of damaging legislation passed, and then run away from the negative fallout from your terrible ideas once the consequences become evident.

This strategy has worked for liberals for decades, but this week it hit a massive speed bump with a tsunami of bad news hitting Americans. The horrific murder of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant, who was deported an astounding five times, harbored in a sanctuary city, is really a tough one for the liberal intelligentsia to explain away.

It’s tough to be a liberal policymaker this week when being one involves explaining to your constituents how their hard earned money should support the income, healthcare, education, and housing requirements for a group of people who simply do not care about our immigration laws or procedures. When some, albeit a small, but not insignificant number, of those same people murder innocent American citizens, it’s tough to whip out the quickie talking point or hand out that bumper sticker to bail you out of the trouble your ideology has caused.

It’s tough to be a liberal this week and to have to look Americans in the face and explain away the revolting, explosive, and potentially illegal, human organ trafficking activities of Planned Parenthood caught on videotape.

Second, the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran is beginning to look like the biggest foreign policy calamity in recent American history. Good luck being a liberal policymaker this week trying to tell Americans “don’t worry, the Iranians are only a decade or so away from deploying a nuclear weapon.” Try fitting that one on a bumper sticker as the hegemonic mullahs immediately jump in front of the cameras to declare “death to America.” Also, it’s tough to stick to the ridiculously oversimplified, and frequently utilized, “world peace” mantra or the “Bush did it” talking point, as liberal policymakers try to explain to Americans how the Iranian deal provides no clear, unobstructed path to inspections of Iranian military facilities. Only those willingly, or wishfully, ignorant believe that an Iranian military facility is an unlikely place for illicit nuclear activity with a regime noted for deception and international agitation.

Finally, it’s tough to be a liberal this week and to have to look Americans in the face and explain away the revolting, explosive, and potentially illegal, human organ trafficking activities of Planned Parenthood caught on videotape. That handy old “it’s all about choice” bumper sticker talking point is tough to explain away when your support of “choice” also involves innocent American taxpayers being forced to finance the operations of a deranged outfit which traffics in the body parts of aborted babies and discusses it over a hearty Caesar salad. It’s time to immediately defund this abomination of an organization without delay and investigate those responsible for this atrocity.

It’s easy to be liberal; conservatives have been lamenting this for years. We have had to be the adults in the room and explain the marginal tax rate ramifications on productivity and growth while the liberals get to scream, “pay your fair share.” This has led to a messaging battlefield asymmetry, which is hard to overcome.

I hate it that these tragedies occurred, and that many will continue to suffer due to these liberal policies but, if we want to prevent further derelictions of duty, it’s up to us to demand answers now and make liberal policymakers leave their protected messaging comfort zones and answer to the American people for their mistakes.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The featured image is by Charles Krupa | AP Photo.

Iran: A Bad Deal

/in , , , /by

Over the years that the P5+1 negotiations with Iran were going on, the US government often attempted to quell the concerns of its citizens by claiming that it recognised that no deal was better than a bad deal. This week they went back on that logic, signing up to a bad deal.

Britain, of course, is equally culpable. The UK government has also signed up to the Vienna agreement. But it is America’s signature and the current US administration’s push to make a deal – any deal – that was the driving force behind this agreement and the US administration which must take responsibility for this terrible deal.

It is a remarkable fact that it was the American government which was the one pushing this deal from the outset. In fact throughout the negotiations it was clear – and clear to the Iranian partners to the negotiations – that America seemed to want a deal more than Iran did. This is striking not least because when Iran came to the negotiating table, it did so from a position of weakness. The American-led sanctions against Iran were hurting the regime. On the streets, the Iranian people were beginning to become bolder in their opposition to the regime which had caused such sanctions to be imposed upon them. But throughout the negotiations it has not been Iran which has looked like the country desperate to make the deal. The country that looked desperate to make the deal was the United States.

How else can one explain the inclusion in the final agreement signed this week of details which were not on the table at the outset? This deal does not only give the Iranians what they wanted in regards to the lifting of sanctions which were hurting their economy. It also lifts the long-imposed sanctions on Iran buying and selling conventional arms. There are, of course, very good reasons for those sanctions. The Iranian government is noteworthy for the use to which it puts conventional weaponry. For it does not only use such weapons to bolster its terrorist proxies including Hezbollah; it uses them on its populations at home whenever they dare to express significant dissatisfaction with the way in which they are ruled.

And the agreement signed this week does not only lift sanctions which affect the Iranian people. They lift sanctions – including on Iran’s acquisitions of missile technology – which have the capacity to affect everybody. There is a presumption – erroneous but prevalent – that Iranian aggression is principally a problem for Israel and that this problem is in some ways containable. Let us ignore for a moment what Iran might be aiming to do with the $150 billion cash bonanza it will be acquiring straight away. Let us pretend that none of it will go to any of its terror proxies. Why then is Iran seeking inter-continental ballistic missile technology? It does not need such missiles to reach Israel.

The US administration is currently spinning that without this deal there would be no way of holding Iran back from developing a nuclear bomb. This is wholly incorrect. What this deal does is legitimise an illegitimate regime, giving it almost everything it wants and trusting that regime will never go back on its word in relation to what it wants next. There is no question that this isn’t a good deal for Iran. But it is a terrible deal for the rest of the world.

mendozahjs

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK 

This week, I would like to highlight the work of our university campus programme, Student Rights, in analysing the hostile reaction of some students opposed to the UK government’s anti-radicalisation Prevent programme in its new report:  Preventing Prevent? Challenges to Counter-Radicalisation Policy On Campus.

That there remains a problem of extremism on campuses is obvious. Student Rights logged 132 extremist events in 2012, 145 in 2013, and 123 in 2014. The speakers featured suggested that there was a Western war against Islam, supported individuals convicted of terrorism offences, expressed intolerance of non-believers and/or minorities, and espoused religious law as a method of socio-political governance. The report also highlights how a number of those convicted of terrorist offences have passed through Britain’s higher education institutions.

Despite this evidence, student activists have claimed Prevent is a racist policy, that lecturers spy on students, that vulnerable people will be stigmatised, and that the expression of controversial ideas will be suppressed unless the programme is opposed.

Part of the reason for this widespread disdain is the malign influence exercised by the narrative of extremist groups targeted by the policy, with over 40 student union leaders signing an open letter attacking Prevent organised by the pro-terrorist group CAGE on 11 July for example.

But part stems from the ignorance of students about the reasons Prevent is required and what the programme’s goals are. This reflects a failure of government and university authorities in articulating these adequately.

The way forward is therefore clear. In order to generate better buy-in for its policies in this area, government needs to be loud and proud about the need for them and that civil society actors who seek to challenge extremist influence on our campuses are supported.

However, government needs partners on campus to assist with message articulation and it is here that campus authorities must do more. University administrations and even student unions have responsibilities for the health and welfare of those of their charges vulnerable to radicalisation. They need to be reminded of these with carrots – or sticks if necessary – and encouraged to play their part in ensuring that our campuses remain places of enlightenment and exploration, rather than of ignorance and fear.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society

Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

VIDEO: An Israeli Analysis of the Iran Nuke Deal

/in , , , /by

We are joined by the editor in chief of Israeli Homeland Security, Arie Egozi and Jerusalem Post journalist, Dr. Martin Sherman.

We discuss the implications of the Iranian nuclear deal in regard to Israel, and they are not good. How Iran’s financial windfall will allow Hezbollah to get more and better weaponry to attack Israel from the north, to funding HAMAS terrorism in south.

Why would America put its’ only true ally in the Middle-East in such danger? Why would America negotiate a deal perceived as weak by many in the left-wing media? Are John Kerry & Barry from Hawaii TRAITORS to the country they are charged with defending?

Join us for the analysis and opinions of two Israeli military and political insiders!

VIDEO: Nuke Deal Threatens Israel’s Existence

/in , /by

The incomparable Dr. Andrew Bostom joins us today. He gives his analysis of the horrific P5+1 nuclear “deal” with Iran, with a little history on traditional Shia anti-Semitism.

We discuss the worthlessness of the verification process, Iran’s continued capabilities, what this means to the world and Israel specifically. Where else do you get to see one of the world’s foremost authorities on Islamic anti-Semitism speak candidly for 45 minutes?

Join us!

U.S. will Help Iran Stop Israeli Threats to its Nuclear Program

/in , , /by

“The United States and other world powers will help to teach Iran how to thwart and detect threats to its nuclear program” — and where could those threats come from except from Israel and possibly the Saudis?

This agreement is an unfolding disaster, and it is almost certainly going to get even worse once it is fully implemented.

“U.S. Will Teach Iran to Thwart Nuke Threats,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, July 14, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The United States and other world powers will help to teach Iran how to thwart and detect threats to its nuclear program, according to the parameters of a deal reached Tuesday to rein in Iran’s contested nuclear program.

Under the terms of a deal that provides Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, Iran and global powers will cooperate to help teach Iran how to manage its nuclear infrastructure, which will largely remain in tact under the deal.

Senior Iranian officials, including the country’s president, celebrated the deal as a victory for the country. Iran’s state controlled media quoted President Hassan Rouhani as saying that the deal will “remove all sanctions while maintaining [Tehran’s] nuclear program and nuclear progress.”

In what is being viewed as a new development, European countries and potentially the United States agreed to “cooperate with Iran on the implementation of nuclear security guidelines and best practices,” according to a copy of the agreement furnished by both the Russians and Iranians.

This will include “training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems,” according to the text.

Additional “training and workshops” would work to “strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems,” the text states.

The language was viewed as disturbing by analysts and experts who said such cooperation could help protect Iran against efforts by the Israelis or other countries to sabotage the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in the future.

“The United States and its partners have just become the international protectors of the Iranian nuclear program. Instead of rolling back the Iranian nuclear program, we’re now legally obligated to help the Iranians build it up and protect it,” said one Western source present in Vienna and who is apprised of the details of the deal.

In addition to teaching Iran how to protect its nuclear infrastructure, world powers pledge in the agreement to help Iran construct next-generation centrifuges—the machines that enrich uranium—at its once-secret nuclear site in Fordow, where Iran has been suspected of housing a weapons program.

Fordow is an underground and fortified military site that is largely immune from air strikes by those seeking to eradicate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

While Iran will not be permitted to enrich nuclear material with these centrifuges, the know-how gained from operating these advanced centrifuges could help it advance clandestine nuclear weapons work, experts say.

The Obama administration had once vowed that Iran would have to fully dismantle its centrifuge program. However, this demand was walked back as the Iranians demanded greater concessions over the past months.

“Now the international community will be actively sponsoring the development of Iranian nuclear technology,” Omri Ceren, an analyst from the Israel Project (TIP), wrote in an email to reporters. “And since the work will be overseen by a great power, it will be off-limits to the kind of sabotage that has kept the Iranian nuclear program in check until now.”

Meanwhile, Iranian President Rouhani celebrated the deal in a speech that detailed how the country received everything it was looking for from the United States.

This includes the full rollback on sanctions on Iran’s financial, energy, and banking sectors, as well as others, and the suspension of international resolutions banning the sale of arms to Tehran.

Iran will also move forward with work on its advanced centrifuges and also “continue its nuclear research and development,” according to Rouhani’s comments. “All our goals materialized under the deal,” Rouhani said, according to Fars….

Rouhani went on to say that Iran “will scrutinize implementation of the agreement” to ensure that the United States and other world powers uphold their end of the bargain.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Iran Deal, Explained

Netanyahu: “Can you imagine giving a drug dealer 24 days’ notice before you inspect the premises?”

Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” holds knife to tourist’s neck at Rome’s Colosseum

With Odds ‘Rigged’ Against Them, Skeptical U.S. Lawmakers Hope Americans Turn Against Iran Deal

Netanyahu: “Can you imagine giving a drug dealer 24 days’ notice before you inspect the premises?”

/in , , /by

“We think this is not only a threat to us. We think this is a threat to you as well.” Indeed.

“Benjamin Netanyahu to Lester Holt: Iran Nuclear Deal Poses Threat to U.S., Israel,” by Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News, July 15, 2015:

The landmark Iran nuclear deal poses a threat to both Israel and the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told NBC News’ Lester Holt on Wednesday.

“We think this is not only a threat to us. We think this is a threat to you as well,” Netanyahu said, a day after Iran and six world powers, including the U.S., reached the historic agreement. “Iran has killed more Americans than anyone other than al Qaeda.”

“They’re going to get hundreds of billions of dollars to fuel their terror and military machine,” he added.

The pact between Iran and world powers ends a decade-long dispute, and grants Tehran some relief from tough economic sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. President Obama said the accord ensures that “every pathway to a nuclear weapon” has been cut off.

But Netanyahu said Wednesday that he and Obama have a “real disagreement.”

“Iran is different. It’s a zealot country,” he said. “It’s killed a lot of Americans. It’s killing everybody in sight in the Middle East.”

Netanyahu contends Iran — long suspected of harboring enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon — cannot be trusted with any sort of nuclear program.

“I think Iran has two paths to the bomb: One if they keep the deal, the other if they cheat on the deal,” he said.

According to the terms of the agreement, United Nations inspectors will be able to check any suspicious facility in Iran within a period of up to 24 days.

“Can you imagine giving a drug dealer 24 days’ notice before you inspect the premises?” Netanyahu said. “That’s a lot of time to flush a lot of meth down the toilet.”

Israel, a strong U.S. ally, has been vocally opposed to any deal. In March, Netanyahu delivered an address to Congress blasting the negotiations as a way to empower Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there is still time to avert them,” he warned. “For 2,000 years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenseless, voiceless.”…

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Iran Deal, Explained

Netanyahu: “Iran has two paths to the bomb: One if they keep the deal, the other if they cheat on the deal”

France say jihad terror plot against military bases foiled earlier this week

U.S. will help Iran stop Israeli threats to its nuclear program

Obamadeal: Iran to gain $100 billion

/in , , /by

That can finance a great deal of genocidal hatred.

“Historic nuclear deal: Iran set to gain $100 billion,” Reuters, July 14, 2015:

VIENNA: Iran would get access to more than $100 billion in frozen assets when the Iran nuclear agreement is implemented, which depends on when Tehran has curbed its nuclear program and the UN nuclear watchdog has certified this, US officials said on Tuesday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement of the deal, said that UN Security Council sanctions could be reimposed on Iran within 65 days in the event of Iranian noncompliance with the deal.

The accord includes a provision under which Iran can be required to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with access to suspected nuclear sites, including military sites, or with other means to address their concerns, within 24 days if a majority of a panel overseeing the deal insists….

If Iran refused to comply, one US official said that the major powers could then move to “snapback” or reinstate UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, a process that itself can take place within 65 days.

That’s one thing we can be sure will never happen.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Iran’s Supremo posts photo of himself trampling Israeli flag

Netanyahu: Iran nuclear agreement a “bad mistake of historic proportions”

A Day that will Live in Infamy: Iran Celebrates Getting Nuclear Bomb

/in , /by

The P5+1 and the Iranians have agreed to a deal that ensures Iran has nuclear weapons capabilities and lifts economic sanctions on the terror supporting Islamic regime. President Obama stood in front of the camera this morning and lied to the entire world. Click here to read the full transcript of his statement on the Iranian nuclear deal.

One truth in Obama’s statement is, “Iran currently has a stockpile that can produce up to 10 nuclear weapons.”

Benjamin Netanyahu stood in front of a camera and warned the entire free world of the consequences of this toothless deal.

In the terror enclave known as Boston, the son of a police captain was arrested and charged with terrorist activity.

An finally, and most disturbing of all, the Islamic State blows up a baby while training it’s members the fine art of booby-trapping!

Join us, sit back and get aggravated!

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Here’s the Truth About 6 of Obama’s Iran Deal Claims

23 Tweets Responding to the Iran Nuclear Deal

What 2016ers Say About Obama’s Nuke Deal With Iran

Best Arguments for an Iran Deal? No, not really!

/in , /by

Bret Stephens in his Global View column in today’s Wall Street Journal presents prolepsis arguments as to why the P5+1 deal with a nuclear Iran is a dangerous folly perpetrated by Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama on America, Israel and the World. It is a preview of the arguments that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry and their spokespersons will use to seal this deal in Press Conferences in Vienna and on Capitol Hill in Washington later this morning when the President meets with Democratic members of Congress.

Congress, under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, will now have  the daunting task of reviewing the 100 page agreement that emerged from feckless deliberations in Vienna.  That  despite the blandishments to be offered by President Obama to fellow Democrats on Capital Hill today  will likely be a very bad deal with the apocalyptic Mahdist regime in Tehran.  An Islamo fascist regime and state sponsor of terrorism  seeking the destruction of Israel , America and faltering Middle East allies.

Read Stephens’ cogent rebuttal of the misguided hopes and  faulty logic of what passed for diplomatic appeasement of Iran successfully retaining the capability to be come a nuclear threshold state under the terms of this final Joint Plan of Action.

The Wall Street Journal

The Best Arguments for an Iran Deal

The heroic assumptions, and false premises, of our diplomacy.

By BRET STEPHENS

In formal rhetoric, prolepsis means the anticipation of possible objections to an argument for the sake of answering them. So let’s be proleptic about the Iranian nuclear deal, whose apologists are already trotting out excuses for this historic diplomatic debacle.

The heroic case.Sure, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is an irascible and violent revolutionary bent on imposing a dark ideology on his people and his neighborhood. Much the same could be said of Mao Zedong when Henry Kissinger paid him a visit in 1971—a diplomatic gamble that paid spectacular dividends as China became a de facto U.S. ally in the Cold War and opened up to the world under Deng Xiaoping.

But the hope that Iran is the new China fails a few tests. Mao faced an overwhelming external threat from the Soviet Union. Iran faces no such threat and is winning most of its foreign proxy wars. Beijing ratcheted down tensions with Washington with friendly table-tennis matches. Tehran ratchets them up by locking up American citizens and seizing cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Deng Xiaoping believed that to get rich is glorious. Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, a supposed reformer, spent last Friday marching prominently in the regime’s yearly “Death to America, Death to Israel” parade.

If there is evidence of an Iranian trend toward moderation it behooves proponents of a deal to show it.

The transactional case. OK, so Iran hasn’t really moderated its belligerent behavior, much less its antediluvian worldview. And a deal won’t mean we won’t still have to oppose Iran on other battlefields, whether it’s Yemen or Syria or Gaza. But that doesn’t matter, because a nuclear deal is nothing more than a calculated swap. Iran puts its nuclear ambitions into cold storage for a decade. In exchange, it comes in from the cold economically and diplomatically. Within circumscribed parameters, everyone can be a winner.

But a transaction requires some degree of trust. Since we can’t trust Iran we need an airtight system of monitoring and verification. Will the nuclear deal provide that? John Kerry will swear that it will, but as recently as January Czech officials blocked a covert $61 million purchase by Iran of “dual-use” nuclear technologies. A month before that, the U.S. found evidence that Iran had gone on an illicit “shopping spree” for its plutonium plant in Arak. That’s what we know. What do we not know?

Also, how does a nuclear deal not wind up being Iran’s ultimate hostage in dictating terms for America’s broader Mideast policy? Will the administration risk its precious nuclear deal if Iran threatens to break it every time the two countries are at loggerheads over regional crises in Yemen or Syria? The North Koreans already mastered the art of selling their nuclear compliance for one concession after another—and they still got the bomb.

The defeatist case. All right: So the Iran deal is full of holes. Maybe it won’t work. Got any better ideas? Sanctions weren’t about to stop a determined regime, and we couldn’t have enforced them for much longer. Nobody wants to go to war to stop an Iranian bomb, not the American public and not even the Israelis. And conservatives, of all people, should know that foreign policy often amounts to a choice between evils. The best case for a nuclear deal is that it is the lesser evil.

Then again, serious sanctions were only imposed on Iran in November 2011. They cut the country’s oil exports by half, shut off its banking system from the rest of the world, sent the rial into free fall and caused the inflation rate to soar to 60%. By October 2013 Iran was six months away from a severe balance-of-payments crisis, according to estimates by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. And that was only the first turn of the economic screw: Iran’s permitted oil exports could have been cut further; additional sanctions could have been imposed on the “charitable” foundations controlled by Iran’s political, military and clerical elite. Instead of turning the screw, Mr. Obama relieved the pressure the next month by signing on to the interim agreement now in force.

It’s true that nobody wants war. But a deal that gives Iran the right to enrich unlimited quantities of uranium after a decade or so would leave a future president no option other than war to stop Iran from building dozens of bombs. And a deal that does nothing to stop Iran’s development of ballistic missiles would allow them to put one of those bombs atop one of those missiles.

Good luck. Americans are a lucky people—lucky in our geography, our founders and the immigrants we attract to our shores. So lucky that Bismarck supposedly once said “there is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.”

Maybe we’ll get lucky again. Maybe Iran will change for the better after Mr. Khamenei passes from the scene. Maybe international monitors will succeed with Iran where they failed with North Korea. Maybe John Kerry is the world’s best negotiator, and this deal was the best we could do.

Or maybe we won’t be lucky. Maybe there’s no special providence for nations drunk on hope, led by fools.

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

Iran: Playing With Diplomacy

/in , , /by

As the latest deadline in the international negotiations with Iran expires today, millions of Iranians are on the streets. They are not marching because of the talks, nor are they marching because it is the last Friday of Ramadan. They are marching because this latest ‘final’ day of negotiations is also ‘Al-Quds Day’ and thus an annual opportunity – inaugurated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini – to take to the streets and chant ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel.’

Back in Geneva, America’s negotiating team are presumably immune to the import of such occasions. A couple of weeks ago, when the Iranian Parliament decried the idea of international access to Iranian military and nuclear sites, the Parliamentary session ended with representatives on the floor chanting ‘Death to America’. In many ways this goes to the heart of the fallacy that is happening in Geneva. Because the American administration seems to see the Iranian regime as an entity that is open to change; one that desires normalisation not as a short-term tactic but as a long-term wish. When this US administration looks to Tehran it does not see an illegitimate regime which survives on a diet of anti-Western hatred, but a plausible negotiating partner. Whatever it is that President Obama and Secretary Kerry think they see in the unsmiling faces of the Ayatollahs is something which is hard to see in Iran on this day of all days.

On Wednesday this week, The Henry Jackson Society held a panel event with experts on Iran – including Emanuele Ottolenghi – who considered this latest round of talks. One issue which arose was the question of the endless extensions to the Geneva talks. On and off, the P5+1 have been at this process for several years now. And yet every time there appears to be the presumption that, as the Iranians run down the talk’s deadlines again and again, a couple more days will solve it. Is it really likely, after years, that the problems will be solvable given another 48 hours? Or is it more likely that the Iranians are stalling?

This past week it appeared for a moment that the latest Iranian gambit was to demand a lifting of the UN arms embargo on Iran. In reality, this was probably no more than an attempt by the Iranians to split the European and the Americans from the Russians and Chinese. As the representatives of the international community go through another final round of talks, and attempts to schedule in the next final round as well, is there not another possibility here? Is it not in fact possible that the Iranians are in a position akin to that of Yasser Arafat at Camp David?

On that occasion it did not matter how long the Americans and Israelis kept at the negotiations for. It did not even matter that in the end the Israelis put more on the table than at any time before. What mattered was that Arafat never intended to sign a deal – not just not the deal in front of him, but any deal. It is the hope of the American representatives in Geneva that the Iranians desperately want a deal. But the deals they are considering keep offering them more and more and yet, they still don’t take them. Is it not possible that the millions of people marching through Iran today, rather than the negotiators in Geneva, are the ones who are really speaking on behalf of the regime?

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK 

mendozahjsLike a slow motion train wreck, the Eurozone crisis sparked by Greece’s parlous position continues to command attention across the continent. Although in an extraordinary turnaround from the position unfolding earlier in the week – when the Greek people rejected an austerity deal designed to secure a third tranche of bailout funds – it now appears that their irresponsible leaders have reversed position and submitted a package to Greece’s creditors that is even tougher than that previously rejected, and which does not mention debt relief at this juncture.

In this column last week, I suggested that Greece’s Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, was largely to blame for the situation of Greece careering towards Grexit through a series of political missteps. I think this view has been vindicated by a new development that has evidently pleased Eurozone leaders and the financial markets judging by their immediate positive reaction.

Having won his snap referendum by stoking up Greek nationalism and the sense of defiance that has been the hallmark of Greek resistance to overwhelming odds against them in the past, it remains to be seen how Tspiras is going to be able to sell one of the more remarkable political climbdowns of recent years to his people. He has evidently decided that the costs of a likely Grexit resulting from the seductive siren song of “an end to austerity and business as usual” are too high to bear. But having encouraged Greeks to support this idea, he will now have to convince them that there is no alternative to a negotiated deal.

While the beginning of the end – it does of course remain to be seen how any deal agreed will be implemented – of this saga should be welcomed, this has hardly been the EU’s, or Liberal Democracy’s, finest hour. The Eurozone has been exposed once again as a political project masquerading as an economic one, with no sense of how it will resolve this contradiction.  And Liberal Democracy’s ideals have been shaken by the Greek Prime Minister’s abuse of a direct democratic referendum process that says more about his personal political needs than those of the nation, and which will now be reversed without the Greek people having any say in the final outcome. Let us hope Europeans can learn from this shambles or else many more tears will follow from where Greek ones have already been shed.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society

Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Iranian girls show their hands, marked with the words “Down with USA,” at a demonstration in Tehran.

Dr. Peter Pry: On Iran’s Nuclear and Electro-Magnetic-Pulse (EMP) Weapons

/in , , /by

One of the world’s top experts on nuclear weaponry and Electro-Magnetic-Pulse (EMP) weapons is our in-studio guest as we discuss a variety of critical issues including President Obama’s failure to negotiate successfully with Iran.

Dr. Peter Pry, a former CIA analyst details many complex issues in a very simple manner so that non-experts can understand the importance of prohibiting Iran from getting nuclear weapons. BUT, Dr. Pry is of the intellectual school which believes Iran, like North Korea, already has nuclear weapons and is simply “playing” the West to increase their nuclear capability!

Sooner or later, whether by man or nature, an EMP will hit the United States and many of us will die.

Sound crazy, it is, but even more crazy, it’s TRUE!

Obama: “Ideologies are not defeated with guns”

/in , , , /by

1. Yes, they are. Cf. National Socialism.

2. The United States is not trying to defeat the Islamic State, or the global jihad in general, with “a more attractive and more compelling vision.” Instead, we supervised the installations of constitutions that enshrined Sharia as the highest law of the land in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Imposing Sharia is the goal of all jihad groups, including the Islamic State. The United States has never stood in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anywhere else, for the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, equality of rights for women, etc. — all of which are denied in Sharia. In other words, we didn’t counter their ideas with a more attractive and compelling vision. We didn’t counter them at all, and still aren’t doing so, because to do so would be considered “Islamophobic.”

And how is he going to counter their ideology when he won’t even acknowledge what it is?

3. “Our efforts to counter violent extremism must not target any one community because of their faith or background.” If he is referring to attacks on innocent Muslims, of course, no innocent Muslims should suffer any harm or injustice. He seems to be saying more than that. The idea that it is wrong to fight Islamic jihad by paying attention to Muslim communities more than Baptist or Jewish or Hindu or Amish communities is absurd. Islamic jihad is committed by Muslims. Obama won’t even call it Islamic jihad or admit that it is a specifically Muslim phenomenon, and insofar as he diverts any resources to tracking “right-wing extremism” on the basis of bogus studies, he makes us all less safe.

“Obama’s War Speech: ‘Ideologies Are Not Defeated With Guns,’” by Charlie Spiering, Breitbart, July 6, 2015:

At the Pentagon, President Obama delivered an update on his war against Islamic State terrorism, saying that the operation would take time to defeat the terrorist organization.

“This will not be quick, this is a long-term campaign,” he asserted, describing ISIS as “nimble” and infiltrated with civilians across the Middle East.

Obama did not announce any major shifts in his strategy, but reminded reporters that the fight was “not simply a military effort.”

“Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas, a more attractive and more compelling vision,” he said.

Obama warned Americans of the increasing threat of individual acts of terror by lone wolf terrorists, but warned against targeting the region of Islam.

“Our efforts to counter violent extremism must not target any one community because of their faith or background – including patriotic Muslim Americans who are keeping our country safe,” he said.

But he admitted that ISIL was targeting Muslims.

“We also have to acknowledge that ISIL has been particularly effective at reaching out to and recruiting vulnerable people around the world including here in the United States and they are targeting Muslim communities around the world,” he said.

When asked by reporters if he was considering the use of American ground troops to defeat ISIS, he insisted that it was not under consideration.

“If we try to do everything ourselves all across the Middle East, all across North Africa, we’ll be playing ‘Whack-a-mole’ and there will be a whole lot of unintended consequences that ultimately will make us less secure,” he said.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Syria: Obama-backed rebels persecute Christians, force them from their homes

UK: Man carries Islamic State flag by Big Ben & Houses of Parliament, police refuse to arrest him