Tag Archive for: Iran

A Professional’s Guide to Honor Killing in Islam

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Phoenix police arrested Muhammad Abdullahiand charged him with kidnapping, beating, and raping his teenage Muslim bride. Abdullahi will be appearing in court this Wednesday, April 29.  Four days ago, the Houston DA expanded murder charges in the death of Galerah Bagerzadeh, an Iranian woman, charging both the wife and daughter of Ali Irsan. Irsan was already charged with the murder of Bagerzadeh as well as the murder of his son-in-law, Coty Beavers.

These cases share a common motive. In both cases, a woman violated sharia, and sharia gave a Muslim man a right to use violence.

Major media have clouded the Phoenix case because they do not grasp that in Islam a woman can be married without her knowledge or consent. The Houston case will also baffle the media because one of the victims was not related to the killer and the other was the husband of the woman who violated sharia. Neither of the victims were Muslim.

The fact remains, the parents who dragged their teenage daughter crying and screaming to Abdullahi’s apartment, Abdullahi himself, and multiple murderer Ali Irsan were all justified by sharia.

As Robert Spencer notes: “Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that ‘retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.’ However, ‘not subject to retaliation’ is ‘a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.’ (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders.

Ghasem Daniel Akbari

Ghasem “Daniel” Akbari

Islamic scholar Daniel Akbari explains the motivation and justification in his book: HONOR KILLING: A Professional’s Guide to Sexual Relations and Ghayra Violence from the Islamic Sources.

He’s like Al Qaeda’s inspiration, Sayd Qutub, or the Muslim Brotherhood’s Yusef al-Qaradawi, but this Islamic scholar is on America’s side to stop terrorism and honor killing.

Ghasem “Daniel” Akbari – practiced law in Iran until his mid-thirties. He graduated from Tehran University School of Law in Qom, Iran and is admitted to practice before Iran’s Supreme Court. The Iranian Bar Association certified him a “Number One Attorney,” meaning he’s qualified to handle solo representation in death penalty cases. Mr. Akbari worked with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi’s Defenders of Human Rights, and holds a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Texas State University, and a Graduate Certificate in Homeland Security from the Bush School of Government and Public Service. He’s handled hundreds of cases involving Islamic Criminal and Family Law. Few, if any, Islamic scholars in the West have his training, experience, and qualifications.

Daniel just published a book with an American lawyer revealing – for the first time ever – that honor killing comes from three components of Islamic law:

  1. The sharia rules for women’s dress and sexual conduct,
  2. Ghayra, the Muslims male’s control over women, and
  3. Amr bil ma’ruf, a sharia doctrine that allows Muslims to use violence – even deadly force – against other Muslims.

The book is HONOR KILLING: A Professional’s Guide to Sexual Relations and Ghayra Violence from the Islamic Sources.

Honor killing is the most extreme form of ghayra violence. The U.N. says honor killing claims thousands of victims every year, but millions of Muslim women suffer from other forms of ghayra violence, like having their clothes and property destroyed, threats and intimidation, beatings, home imprisonment, and acid attacks. Even Female Genital Mutilation arises from ghayra.

Most disturbing is the fact every Muslim woman murdered in an honor killing in the U.S. and Canada would be alive today if someone in her life had understood ghayra violence.

Daniel Akbari explains it so Americans can understand.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of the hand of Nasira Fazli a Canadian victim of honor killing who suffered so many stab wounds that from her waist up, “there was no body.”

Malik Obama: “My Brother is a Fraud and a Con”

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You will not believe what President Obama’s brother, Malik, says about him in a video we play at the end of our show. Our buddy filmmaker Joel Gilbert author of “Dreams from my Real Father” was able to get a Skype interview with Malik, in Kenya and conduct a fascinating in-depth discussion that reveals how the Obama Family REALLY feels about their no-longer-favorite son, Barack.

In fact, Malik now believes that his brother is a fraud, liar and con-man. Folks, this is devastating factual information that ought to impact every America who has any trust in President Obama.

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Dr. Mordechai Kedar – A Warning To America, Israel and the West [Video]

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mordechai_kedar

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The United West is proud to bring you another installment of our Israel Trip Series featuring Israeli Scholar and National Security subject matter expert, Dr. Mordechai Kedar. The title of Dr. Kedar’s presentation is “A Warning To America – National Security And Understanding The Muslim Mind.”

Dr. Kedar combines his 25 years in various IDF Intelligence Units, fluency in Arabic dialects, and a stellar academic career at Bar Elon University into a National Security Briefing you must watch from beginning to end.

“We in the West often delude ourselves into believing that all cultures have exactly the same goals (peace, prosperity, freedom) and exactly the same values (human life, honesty, human rights). And although all of these goals and values are undoubtedly part of every human culture, not all cultures value them to the same degree that we do in the West.”

In this briefing Dr. Kedar will present a compelling look into understanding the Middle Eastern mind, culture, religion, and how the Muslim world sees Western culture. Only by understanding how the Muslim world sees us will we be able to properly defend our culture from The Global Jihad Movement.

In this briefing Dr. Kedar covers these topics:

  1. The Family unit and population demographics are a National Security issue.
  2. 14:43 Understanding Islamic immigration to the West and why the export or Hijra is vastly important but misunderstood by Americans and Europeans. How this works into the framework of the Greater Middle East.
  3. 45:40 Understanding the two types of threats emanating from the great Middle East and Persia.
  4. 1:03:00 The Big Picture. The West’s Geo-Strategic picture with Iran.
  5. What the Israeli message to Iran will have to be.
  6. 1:11:00 How the Iranian mind thinks and processes information using their own imagery. The Shia Iranians do not think like us politically. Dr. Kedar takes Iranian political propaganda and deconstructs what it means from their perspective. What we think is irrelevant in dealing with the Iranians.

After you watch and absorb what Dr. Kedar is telling you about the Iranian mind you will be angry at how the current U.S. administration is dealing with our Iranian adversaries geo politically and even more urgently with the Iranian Nuclear program.

This lecture should be mandatory watching for President Obama, John Kerry, and everyone at the U.S. State Department.

To follow Dr. Kedar’s body of work go to: http://mordechaikedar.com/

Go to www.TheUnitedWest.org and listen to our daily simulcast AM radio show – Enemies Of The State.

Special thanks to Dr. Bob – 00Z – CVC

Israel – Sanity in an Insane Middle East

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Is there any serious thinking person who still believes that Islam is a “religion of peace?”

If there is, they cannot be watching any news reports anywhere. Islam, in particular a pure doctrinal Islam as practiced by the Islamic State, is reaping global death and destruction in the perfect model of their leader, Mohammed. As a result, the Middle East is on fire and the fire is just starting. Today, I and The United West team begin a week-long presentation of their recent national security mission in Israel and how that tiny nation is a civilized oasis in the midst of Islamic incivility.

Moreover, against this chaos, Iran through a New York Times editorial is positioning themselves as the world leader in establishing Middle East peace against the warmongering America and Israel.

WOW, watch our show for a wild ride!

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Soviet Fascism in the 21st Century: The Hidden Truth of Global Destruction 

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Russia’s recent strategy worldwide is extremely alarming, showing Russia’s real aggressive face: Russian Government breaches the security of the White House and our State Department, it harasses NATO in the skies, and continues killing people in Ukraine. I have been warning America about Russian ideology for the last twenty years. Alas, all my writings about Stalin’s Doctrine of Soviet Fascism have been blocked by the White House. This is the reason why none of the Republican candidates to the Presidency in 2016 is addressing the threat of Russian ideology. Yet nothing can stop me from warning you as the harm done to us by Russia has brought America to a threshold of a point of no returns. Moreover, the Democrat Party and its left extremism have learned, embraced, and exploited Stalin’s strategy, tactics, and modus operandi in its fight against the Republicans. This is the time for the Republicans to go on the offensive and save America the Beautiful. Hence the awareness of Stalinism is a Must.

Stalin’s rules: Divide and Conquer

The motto of Divide and Conquer came from the ancient world and has been used many times and mostly successful. You saw it in the1950s –Stalin’s war against Korea and as a result Korea was divided. Then Vietnam, Afghanistan and so on–the wars against Western civilization were going on in the 20th century. Yet. as the history illustrates the motto has not always been successful. The victory of Benjamin Netanyahu is a stunning victory of Western civilization in the Middle East in March 2015. Israeli’s media called the election fateful or prophetic to Israel. They were right. The election was also no less a stunning defeat of our enemies, if you know who they are. For the last twenty years, I have been writing about the war against Western civilization waged, handled, and coordinated by our enemies– the Soviets, then Russia for many decades. Isn’t it strange that the American administration and the Democratic Party provided the leftists in Israel with money for the buses to transport the Arab electorate to vote. This exact fact makes Netanyahu’s victory in the 21st century equal to that of President Reagan’s victory over the Evil Empire in the 20th century. Reagan’s foreign policy “we win, they lose” is the litmus test, which produced an incredible result in 2015.

Don’t be shocked by my comparison, it has its logic. Both cases have defeated the same ideology–Stalin’s Doctrine of Divide and Conquer. Have you heard the term carousel (roundabout) used in the election to the Russian parliament Duma in2007? Do you know what it means? Hearing this word in Russian, I did not understand its application at first. The events that followed had given me the meaning of the word. The United Russia party together with the Kremlin administration had organized the youth movement’s groups providing them with a caravan of buses. I watched them on Russian TV. Young people, singing with enthusiasm occupied the buses and moved along the streets to the voting precincts one after another. The voting ballots were waiting for them and they all voted for United Russia Party. Then they left for other voting places where they voted again and again for United Russia. Reportedly, in several cities printing houses reported that 109 percent voted for United Russia. Do not be surprised. Welcome to the country of Soviet Fascism run by Stalin’s Soviet mafia! Look at the famous Reagan’s creed “we win they lose”–Western civilization won, Obama lost in the Middle East. This is the crux of the matter–the Republican idea has defeated Stalinist Doctrine the way Reagan’s victory over the Evil Empire–”we win, they lose.”

Middle East Yesterday and Today

Of course, there are some differences in the mechanism of application: in Russia everybody was aware of the organized buses, in Israel, it was an American covert, underground operation by a group of Democrats from Chicago that costs the Americans taxpayers $350.000. This is a typical Stalinist performance with blaming Netanyahu for the Palestinian issue. The war by America against Israel had begun. Both cases are analogous–Divide and Conquer. Yet, Obama’s war against Israel is also a conjunction with Stalin’s anti-Semitism. I won’t be surprise if the next American accusation of Israel will be espionage, also a Stalin’s obsession. Moreover, there is another caveat of Russian connection. As you know, recruited in 1957 Arafat is dead, but we have Arafat number 2–Mahmout Abbas; the connection with the Kremlin stays the same. He is literally a student of Moscow with Soviet “academic credentials”; his dissertation had denied the Holocaust. Look at Arafat’s corrupt people surrounding Abbas: the same corrupt structure plus Hamas and Hezbollah under Russia’s supervision, ready to wipe off Israel from the world map. Iran (another Russian proxy) is also there and can become our legal ally soon.

The troublesome events in the Middle East force me to return to the history of the region. Go back to the period 1960-1990 and recall the Soviet activities and actions in the region, particularly in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Iran. It was a time of overwhelming recruitment, infiltration, and radical indoctrination by the Soviet ideology. Stalin’s idea to use the hands of Islam in his war against the West has a long life. Research the time of birth of Hamas and Hezbollah and the Democratic Republic of Yemen building communism in the 1970s then put all the information together vis-a-vis with their connection to contemporary Russia–they are all a product of the same ideology–Soviet Fascism. Don’t be surprised that all terrorists groups, regardless of their names have the same behavior, modus operandi, and agenda. Reading Stalin’s bio, written by me, you will find the explanation for the idea. Stalin was brought up by the Muslim culture and had been an organizer of the Marxists groups in the Islamic part of the Russian Empire–the initial connection of Communism and Terrorism. Stalin had dealt with Sunnis and Shiites and managed to use both skilfully. He worked also in Iran and knew Middle East and Iran pretty well. His political Doctrine and the human capacity for evil have been inherited and used subsequently without any deviations by all Russian leaders who followed him, including Putin.

We, the former citizens of the Socialist countries were growing up in Stalin’s era of hate and bigotry, studying together with the people from Middle East and Africa in the Soviet universities and other educational facilities. The foreign students also got the special training, similar to that received by Arafat in the 1950-1960s. Arafat is dead, yet we have Mahmout Abbas; the connection with the Kremlin stays the same.  Arafat’s corrupt people surrounding Abbas: the same corrupt structure. Look at Yemen, the war started by the Soviet stooges building a communist state in the 1970s never ended there. I expect a more sophisticated global game by Putin with no substantive changes on those places.The only difference is a master-puppet: If it was the Russian supervision and coordination, in the 1950-90s now it is Iran’s–the Russian proxy. The rest is the same–Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestinians (Hezbollah and Hamas) under Iran’s supervision, continue threatening to destroy Israel. We have today what the Chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov ( a devoted Stalin’s disciple) had promised to create in the 1970s. According to Andropov:” The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch. Terrorism and violence against Israel and her master, American Zionism, would flow naturally from the Muslims’ religious fervor.” Russian Footsteps, by Ion Mihai Pacepa, National Review Online, August 24, 2008.)

I have been writing about the future of the Middle East in two Chapters 7 and 8. giving the detailed activities and revealing illustration of Soviet Fascism in the 20 century, in my book What is Happening to America? Xlibris, 2012. The 20th century was Russia’s concealed and planned preparation for the Middle East in the 21st century.. Today the Middle East is on a fire and we are witnessing a multi-Russian aggression on the land, sea, and space, putting fear and pressure on the West. The Middle East is only one front of Russian aggression–Ukraine and Europe are the major task for Putin presently. The Middle East, under Iran’s supervision will play a role by diverting attention from the aggression in Ukraine–a typical Stalin’s double-game with the tricks and propaganda threat. “What’s been going on in Ukraine represents a monumental turning point in the balance of world geopolitical/military power. Why? Well, it’s simply this: Ukraine will very likely go down in history as the country where America, the supposed sole superpower in the world, was checkmated and met its match at the hands of the other superpower in the world – Russia.” April 12, 2015 | Authors: Michael Payne | Nation of Change | Op-Ed.This paragraph has some truth in it. I hope you grasp the predicament in the world–Iran is a player, but not the major player, Russia is. Today America is fully invested in the Middle East being challenged by the Stalinist Doctrine.

Who is to blame for the Escalation of Violence in the World.

Unfortunately, American politicians and media downgrade the importance of ideology. It is an elephant in the room and a tremendous force in contemporary politics, which is not being addressed. For twenty years I have been writing about Soviet Fascism and now I would like to add one crucial aspect of Nationalism–Chauvinism. Chauvinism in politics has been identified very clearly, it is an Ideology — “excessive or prejudiced loyalty or support for one’s own cause, group, or gender” Encyclopedia. Have you ever compared German National-Socialism and Soviet Stalinism?They are identical in cause and means to achieve the objectives. I suspect, you would argue that Stalin did not have gas chambers for Jews. Wrong! He had applied even more barbaric methods to Jews and Christians–66-80 million of innocent people were annihilated. His death in March 1953 had saved the Jews from genocide equal to that of Chechen, Crimean Tatars, and other groups of different nationalities. As you can see Nationalism and Chauvinism are the features common to both Fascist states. Please read my books and articles for a discussion on the subject of Soviet Fascism.

I have dedicated three books and dozens of articles to the subject. Yet, today we discuss Terrorism more than Ideology; that is the reason why I return to the subject of ideology. Moreover, we are not identifying and naming the enemy, therefore we are confused in the beginning with let alone to identify the Ideology. Stalinism is the foundation of contemporary terrorism–Soviet Fascism has animated Islamic terrorist movement. Hence knowledge of the ideology is a primary task to fight the enemy. Do not forget Stalin’s North Korea with nuclear missiles. As I was writing these words, I am hearing news on the radio that Russia was lifting the ban and shipping a contemporary developed defense-missiles system–S-300 to Iran. Now Russia’s real face described by me in my books, articles, and in this column, vividly exposes Stalin’s agenda of One World Government under the Kremlin auspices and WWIII. Putin is and has always been a devoted disciple of Stalin and Andropov: therefore knowledge of Stalin’s Ideology is a Must today.

The motto Divide and Conquer Stalin learned from Machiavelli and applied it also to already existing divisions. Historically the Muslim world was divided by a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites for centuries. Stalin was dealing with both very skillfully for many years. Putin continues the policy of using both, depending on the location. Look at Yemen today: Shiites, supported by Iran have freed members of Al-Qaeda from a prison and together are fighting Sunnis, supported by Saudi Arabia. And Obama together with Putin are making Iran a strong leader in the Middle East. Doesn’t it make my idea, expressed in this and other articles more and more legitimate? I’ll give you another event to think about. Do you remember who had committed the attacks on 9/11? There were 14 students from Saudi Arabia known to us as the perpetrators of 9/11. Don’t you think that another violent force behind the 9/11 had purposely orchestrated and coordinated the event to spoil relationship between America and Saudi Arabia? Consider the events at Yemen today and the correlation of forces: the answer is there.

Destruction of the Land and Humanity

You have already being informed by me about criminal methods of Stalinism: recruitment, infiltration, drugs, and assassinations. We also discussed the harms inflicted by the Agents of Influence inside and outside our country. To confirm the existential threat upcoming from Russia, let me give you another story, a story of Turkey and its leader. The geographic location of Turkey makes the country a strategical target for Russian objectives. And this story proves it. Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan 2003-2014, became the President of the country in 2014.Turkey had a very good relation with Israel in the beginning of the 21st century. However, the relation has changed dramatically somewhere in 2009-2015–Turkey had become an enemy of Israel, joining Hamas and the Palestinian cause.

Knowing the Russian methods, agenda, and a proclivity to mold a Soviet style charlatan-leaders around the world to engeneere the cadres for fifth column,I started researching the events happening in Turkey. I found out something that attract my attention. During a three year period 2002-2005,Turkey had suffered ten earthquakes. I went to the official statistics and got the dates:January 22,2002, January 27,2003, May 1,2003, March 1,2004, March 25,2004, July 1, 2004, July 30,2004,August 11,2004, January 25,2005, October 20,2005. For those who doesn’t understand the significance of the tragic events in Turkey and drastic changes in its foreign policy, I’d like to add that I have already discussed in my books the Russian ability to create and orchestrate earthquakes. The information will also identify the perpetrator of “climate change” mystery.

I hope you can grasp now my ideas of who is to blame for the escalation of violence in the world. Please, also watch the Democratic Party and especially Obama himself, minimizing the threat of ISIS and other terrorist groups and working in cahoots with Putin to make a major sponsor of International Terrorism Iran a legitimate member of the world community. To confirm the truth of my ideas, of this series and in all my books, please listen to the American Admiral talking about changes the course of History: “ The Obama administration has a strategy: it’s anti-American, anti-Western, it’s pro-Islamic, pro-Iranian, and pro-Muslim Brotherhood.” Former NAVY CINCPAC, Admiral “Ace” James Lyons, speaking February 11, 2015 in Washington D.C.

To save the American Republic and win WW III, awareness and knowledge about the enemy is imperative.

To be continued www.simonapipko1.com.

VIDEO: The Iran Nuclear Negotiations — Critical Issues

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The United West presents a Special National Security Event, live from the Heritage Foundation – The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5 plus 1 have entered a crucial phase ahead of the March 30 deadline for a framework agreement.

A distinguished panel of experts examines some of the key issues involved in the negotiations and assess some of the pitfalls that must be avoided if an acceptable agreement is to be reached by the June 30th deadline for a final agreement.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of the Center for Security Policy.

Can the U.S. Defend Itself against North Korean and Iranian Nuclear ICBMs?

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This weekend, Israel National News-Arutz Sheva published a thought provoking article reflecting a sea change in U.S. Anti-Missile Defense against North Korean and Iranian ICBM developments, “U.S. Admits N. Korea, Maybe Iran, Can Now Target it with EMP-Nukes.”

The center piece of the INN article was an April 7, 2015 briefing by U.S. Admiral Bill Gortney, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) the anti-missile command charged with the responsibility of protecting the nation against the ICBM threat. Admiral Gortney confirmed what my colleague Ilana Freedman and this writer, the Heritage Foundation and the U.S.-Korea Institute of the John Hopkins University, School for Advanced International Studies, maintained that North Korea and Iran have mastered the miniaturization of nuclear warheads and may be on the verge of operational ICBMs capable of hitting U.S. military targets in the Western Pacific and within a few years targets across the U.S., perhaps in a devastating EMP attack.

As long ago as August 2011, we discussed this in an NER article, “The Iranian Missile Threat.” In 2012, we participated in an awareness webinar sponsored by the Congressionally chartered EMP Commission that featured nuclear and intelligence experts. In 2013, we broached the question of whether Iranian missiles positioned in missile sites being prepared in the Paraguana Peninsula of ally Venezuela could reach Florida by 2015. In both March 2014 and in April 2015, this writer and Ilana Freedman raised the matter of North Korean and Iranian cooperative development and test of nuclear weapons including the development of MIRV warheads for ICBVMs.

At issue is whether Admiral Gortney’s briefing was the long awaiting admission by the Pentagon that this ICBM threat from rogue regimes North Korea and Iran is both real and compelling. However, the questions still remains, that with the effects of sequestration and the hollowing out of the anti-missile program whether this country is truly prepared to counter it.

Admiral Gortney’s Disturbing Revelations

The INN disclosed these warnings from Admiral Gortney:

That the Pentagon now believes North Korea has mastered the ability to miniaturize its nuclear bombs so they can be fitted onto their latest mobile KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are capable of reaching the continental United States.

At the news conference, Adm. Gortney flatly stated, Pyongyang has “the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland [the continental United States].” He expressed confidence that the U.S. could knock down such a missile if launched by North Korea or its ally, Iran.

He also admitted, however, that it is “very difficult” for the U.S. to counter the threat, because its intelligence is unable to follow the mobile ICBMs and give an efficient warning before they are launched.

The INN report drew attention to the KN-08 ICBM development and whether we can intercept it:

The KN-08 is a road-capable, highly mobile ICBM, which can be hidden anywhere throughout the North Korea and could be fired on a short-countdown virtually undetectable by American intelligence. As Adm. Gortney further explained about the North’s KN-08 ICBM, “It’s the relocatable [highly-mobile, can go anywhere – ML] target set that really impedes our ability to find, fix, and finish the [KN-08] threat. And as the [KN-08] targets move around and if we don’t have a persistent stare [i.e., the ability to monitor its location at all times – ML] and persistent [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] that we do not have over North Korea at this time, that relocatable nature makes it very difficult for us to be able to counter it.”

Despite Adm. Gortney’s concerns, he still believes that if a KN-08 was fired at the U.S. homeland, in the Admiral’s words – “Should one get airborne and come at us [the U.S. homeland], I’m confident we would be able to knock it down.”

Even if this is true, it is not clear if the U.S. ballistic defense could knock down an incoming North Korean ICBM in time, if the nuke is intended as an EMP weapon, which explodes soon after re-entering the atmosphere.

Watch Admiral Gortney’s Pentagon briefing:

The Heritage Foundation Raised Concern about U.S. South Korean Intelligence Assessments

In June 2014, the Washington, D.C. conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation issued a report raising concern about whether U.S. and South Korean intelligence assessments about North Korean nuclear tipped ICBM developments, “Allies Should Confront Imminent North Korean Nuclear Threat.” The author of the Heritage report, Bruce Klingner is “Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. Klingner’s analysis and writing about North Korea, South Korea, Japan and related issues are informed by his 20 years working at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.” Klingner’s analysis found:

  • Experts predominantly assess that North Korea has developed several nuclear devices, but not yet mastered the ability to miniaturize a warhead or deliver it via missile. U.S. and South Korean policymakers presume they still have several years to constrain North Korea’s nuclear threat.
  • Yet available unclassified evidence indicates North Korea has likely already achieved warhead miniaturization, the ability to place nuclear weapons on its medium-range missiles, and a preliminary ability to reach the continental United States with a missile.
  • The United States and its allies face a greater threat today than is widely construed.
  • North Korea now claims that it can strike the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has declared it will never negotiate away its nuclear arsenal.
  • Washington and Seoul need to augment missile defenses to better protect against Pyongyang’s more credible and deadly nuclear arsenal.

Against these findings, Klingner offered the following recommendations to protect the U.S. against this threat:

  • Fund its defense commitment to Asia. While the Obama Administration has been stalwart in its rhetoric pledging an “Asia Pivot,” it has not provided the military budget necessary to honor fully American commitments to security in the Pacific. Massive defense budget cuts are already affecting U.S. capabilities in the region, increasing risk to allies, U.S. security and economic interests, and the safety of U.S. service personnel and American citizens living and working in the region.
  • Improve U.S. homeland ballistic missile defense. The U.S. should accelerate deployment of additional ground-based midcourse defense interceptors in Alaska and California to prevent an emerging gap between North Korean ballistic missile capabilities and U.S. defenses.
  • Accelerate development of advanced versions of the SM-3 interceptor for Aegis-capable ships, including restarting the SM-3 Block IIB program, which would give the Aegis system the ability to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.
  • Restart the boost-phase ballistic missile defense programs. During the boost phase, a missile is at its slowest, has not yet deployed decoys, and is therefore most vulnerable and easily intercepted. The Obama Administration cancelled all such programs in its first term, including the Airborne Laser and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor.
  • Restart the multiple kill vehicle program for ground-based interceptors to increase the probability of interception by only one interceptor, rather than requiring the launch of multiple interceptors.
  • Improve and modernize U.S. space-based sensors, including the Space Tracking and Surveillance System. This is a critical capability for detecting missile launches and tracking their trajectory.

icbm ner

The U.S.-Korea Institute of the John Hopkins SAIS Projections of North Korea ICBM Threat

At approximately the same time as Admiral Gortney’s briefing in early April 2015, the JHU SAIS Korea – U.S. Institute released a definitive study on the Nuclear tipped North Korean Missile Threat, the latest assessment of the North Korea’s Nuclear Futures. Among its findings were:

North Korea’s current delivery systems consist of about 1,000 ballistic missiles and a small number of light bombers able to reach most targets in South Korea and Japan. This force is comparatively more advanced than most countries at a similar early stage in the development of their nuclear arsenals since ballistic missiles have played an important role in Pyongyang’s conventional military strategy for many years. As a result, the current force is more than able to accommodate any future growth in the North’s nuclear weapons arsenal, including a worst-case projection of 100 nuclear weapons by 2020.

The North’s regionally-focused delivery systems include: 1) the Nodong medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), a mobile liquid-fueled missile with a range of 1,200-1,500 km and accurate enough to attack cities, ports and military bases; 2) a large stockpile of Scud ballistic missiles—also mobile and liquid-fueled—that could carry a nuclear payload 300-600 km; 3) the mobile, solid-fuel KN-02 Toksa short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), based on the old Soviet SS-21 SRBM that was able to carry nuclear, chemical and conventional warheads; and 4) up to 60 Il-28 light bombers built on a 1950s Soviet design.

The SAIS Korea Institute report identified current North Korean developments:

  • The development of new road-mobile missiles with greater ranges—the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)—that signal an intention to withstand preemption, provide more significant retaliatory options and to target American bases in Guam and the continental United States;
  • An effort to develop short-range, sea-based, land-attack missiles that increase survivability, expand the threat to theater targets and complicate defense planning since mobile platforms can launch their weapons from any direction;
  • The development of a larger space launch vehicle than the existing Unha SLV—along with the upgrading of the Sohae Satellite Launching Station to launch a new system—as part of what may be an effort to deploy longer-range ballistic missiles; and
  • The development of solid-fuel rocket technology through enhancing the range of the KN-02 SRBM, which could yield greater mobility and survivability for future longer range solid-fuel missiles.

The JHU SAIS Korea-U.S. Institute report concluded:

The dangers posed by North Korea’s continuing effort to develop new nuclear delivery systems are clearly real, although more uncertain than nuclear weapons estimates, given the various technological hurdles Pyongyang will have to overcome in the future. Nevertheless, even if North Korea was severely limited in its ability to further develop a direct threat to the United States beyond probably a handful of ICBMs based on old Soviet technology, its existing inventory of approximately 1,000 missiles has sufficient reliability and range to cover most important targets in Northeast Asia. Moreover, the number of systems likely exceeds even the worst-case estimate for North Korea’s nuclear inventory in this study—that the North could field 100 nuclear weapons by 2020. In short, North Korea has already achieved a level of delivery system development that will allow it to establish itself as a small nuclear power.

Conclusions

These reports by the Heritage Foundation and the JHU SAIS Korea when coupled by U.S. Northern Command chief Admiral Gortney’s Pentagon briefing should raise questions by Congress in their quest this week to review and mark up the Senate Corker-Menendez legislation before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It is about the absence of and ability to obtain verification of Iran’s previous military developments whether in illicit clandestine locations in the Islamic Republic or the DPRK. Developments that we suggested in this writer’s and Ms. Freedman’s latest report lie beyond the capabilities of the UN IAEA, US CIA and DIA. Israel’s Operation Orchard in September 2007 demonstrated their invasive technical and HUMINT prowess in both identifying and taking out a North Korea plutonium reactor on the banks of the Euphrates River. Doing that in either or both North Korea and Iran would be a daunting task for Admiral Gortney’s Northern Command. Perhaps this is a matter for immediate attention for the Senate Armed Services Committee and its Chairman  Sen. John McCain.

Watch this YouTube video of a March 26, 2015 presentation by Senator McCain at the Washington, D.C. – based Center for Strategic and International Studies on Military Priorities to determine if Defense against the North Korean-Iranian nuclear missile threat was addressed:

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

Denouement on P5+1 Iran Nuclear Deal?

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Yesterday, President Putin was up to his usual antics lifting the 2010 moratorium on sale of the Russian S-300 advanced air defense system.  This was exquisitely timed to  consternate  the  efforts  of President Obama and  Secretary of State Kerry in the midst of trying to sell Congress  today on the merits of  the inchoate  P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran. In diplo-speak the most the White House and State Department could say in response was that Putin’s action was “unhelpful”.   State Department spokesperson Marie Harf in response to questions raised in yesterday‘s Daily Press Briefing said:

“We think given Iran’s destabilizing actions in the region, in places like Yemen or Syria or Lebanon that this isn’t the time to be selling these kind of systems to them.” But she added: “We don’t think this will have an impact on unity in terms of inside the negotiating room.”

For Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu it was evidence that Russia, as we wrote in January may have signed on to the Axis of Resistance . At the time on January 20th, smiling Russian and Iranian Defense Ministers met in Tehran, shook hands and publicly announced that the moratorium was passé. The $800 million paid by Iran for the S-300 air defense system   would finally be honored and the new toys delivered to protect Iran‘s nuclear and military development centers from an air assault by Israel.  We wrote:

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu signed an “cooperation” agreement with Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan in Tehran.  Both countries are the targets of Western and US Sanctions. Both countries are afflicted with erosion of oil and energy revenues.  Both countries are seeking to blunt opposing US interests in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  That is reflected in a comment of Iranian State television by Dehghan reported by AFP, that Iran and Russia had a “shared analysis of US global strategy, its interference in regional and international affairs and the need to cooperate in the struggle against the interference of foreign forces in the region.”  There is also the matter of weapon systems deals with proceeds which might bolster Russia’s depleting foreign currency reserves, while combating America’s ally in the Middle East, Israel.

Iranian Defense Minister   Dehghan in light of Putin lifting the moratorium on the S-300 sale said: “Extra-regional threats and the spread of terrorism by (insurgent) groups have increased the need to further expand cooperation.”  Note this Wall Street Journal comment about who directly benefits in Russia from the sale of the Antey S-300 System to Iran:

Rostec Corporation Chief Executive Officer Sergei Chemezov said in February that Iran was still considering Russia’s offer to supply Antey-2500 missile systems, with a range of about 200 kilometers (125 miles), according to Russian state news agency TASS. Rostec didn’t immediately respond to questions about the status of the offer on Monday.

Mr. Chemezov, who became friends with Mr. Putin when the two worked for the KGB in the 1980s, is among those sanctioned by the U.S. over the crisis in Ukraine.

That was a prelude to yesterday’s announcement from the Kremlin. Putin purposefully chose yesterday to rattle the West Wing, Foggy Bottom and Jerusalem by proving that  sanctions, whether UN, EU or Congressional are next to useless when it comes to dealing with rogue regimes. The only thing these masters of disinformation and mischief understand is the willingness to back up words with commitment to us military power.  Something lacking in the backbone of the P5+1 cabal lusting after exchanges with the Mahdist Mullahs in Tehran with visions of billion dollar and Euro development deals dancing in their minds.   Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), unlike the Metternichean Munchkins in the West Wing said it best in today’s Wall Street Journal:

“Before a final nuclear deal is even reached, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has started to demolish international sanctions and ignore the U.N. arms embargo,” said Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), who sponsored legislation that seeks to impose new sanctions on Iran if a final deal isn’t reached by June 30.

Notice the assist that Foreign Minister Lavrov provided as rational for his boss’ latest chess move:

“At this stage, we believe the need for this kind of embargo, and a separate voluntary Russian embargo, has completely disappeared,” Mr. Lavrov said Monday, citing the recent progress in nuclear talks. He called the missile system “exclusively of a defensive nature” and said it “doesn’t threaten the security of any governments in the region, including, of course, Israel.”

Not trusting these fine words from Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said:

“It’s proof that the economic momentum that will come for Iran after lifting sanctions will be exploited for an arms buildup and not for the welfare of the people of Iran,” Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

That must have garnered more respect from Secretary Kerry poised to brief House and Senate members this week on the nuclear deal with no content announced in Lausanne 12 days ago.  Kerry had the cupidity to praise Russia for its constructive stand, a reference to a Foreign Ministry announcement allegedly saying that the State Department Fact Sheet on the parameters for a final agreement to be reached by June 30th was “accurate”.  Note what Josh Earnest , White House Press Spokesperson said; “That underscores the kind of unity around the specific agreement that we believe has been critical to our success.” President Obama hedged his bets this weekend reiterating “the possibility of backsliding” before the June 30 deadline.

 Something that both Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei and Foreign Minister Zarif suggested was simply “spin.”  Then, last Thursday, Khamenei demanded that all sanctions be lifted upon signing of an agreement with the P5+1 and hands off our national security and military developments.  Not to worry, said President Obama, Khamenei was simply grandstanding before his hard liners on their version of National Nuclear Development Day celebrations following their perceived victory on April 2nd in Switzerland.  The deal with no content was still on despite the tough slog to create definitive terms by the deadline of June 30th.  That the Congress shouldn’t interfere with what he deemed the “best bet” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear device to complement its rising hegemony in the troubled Levant.  He was like the Looney Tunes cartoons character Yosemite Sam suggesting to both Congress and Israel to “back off”. You will get your chance to learn about the final deal if and when it occurs.   Not exactly confidence building steps.

President Obama stoked the disquiet over the P5+1 deal with remarks in both his New York Times and NPR interviews suggesting that Iran would be prevented from achieving nuclear breakout in the remaining months of his second and final term in office and that 10 to 15 years out, all bets were off about Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons.  President Obama always point to IAEA’s track record to conduct “robust intrusive” inspections.  Weapons and the means of delivering them that some believe may have been covertly developed in cooperation with the DPRK.  North Korea  was beyond the ability of the IAEA to verify military  nuclear development s  as evidenced by  the  failure of  a more worthy framework developed by the Clinton Administration that  North Korea breached and was sanctioned by the Un repeatedly while relentlessly  developing and testing nuclear weapons and the ICBMs  to deliver them. Thereby putting the lie to President Obama’s assertion that “if Iran cheats, the world will know”.  Rogue regimes, whether in Moscow, Pyongyang, or Tehran are your basic sociopaths. They believe that agreements are simply black dots on white paper, meaningless. Or as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

The Administration is rolling its big guns in briefings to both the House and Senate. Besides Kerry, Energy and Treasury Secretaries, Ernest Moniz and Jack Lew will be sent to the Hill to make the case for the P5+1 deal to proceed. Notwithstanding  that Congress is poised for legislative action this week in a possible denouement with the White House.   Embattled  Democrat  New Jersey U.S. Senator  Bob Menendez , targeted with corruption charges by  the Obama Justice Department, suggested he wasn’t “backing  off” from  his  co-sponsorship with  Republican colleague, Tennessee  Senator Bob Corker , chair of  the Senate Foreign  Relations committee,  of  Iran nuclear deal review legislation. A vote is scheduled this week that may determine whether the bill is veto-proof, given a threat from President Obama. It appears from a Politico report today that Corker and the Democrats may have reached a compromise enabling passage by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday of the pending legislation.  Given the emerging Iranian and now Russian defiance of sanctions and previous military developments inspections, the vote may be within striking distance of becoming veto proof on the Senate version of the pending legislation. Evidenced by comments from both House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) that the GOP majority could deliver a veto proof vote on the Senate version.

Now, if you have gotten this far in reading this, you might ask whether the sophisticated S-300 system that the Wall Street Journal said was capable of knocking down swarms of cruise and ballistic missiles, attacking aircraft. Aircraft like the aging B-2 Stealth bomber capable of carrying that new and more powerful Massive Ordnance Penetrator that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said the USAF tested in January 2015. Think of what Israel did in 2008, a year following its destruction of a North Korean supplied nuclear reactor and bomb factory on the Euphrates River at al-Kibar in Syria in Operation Orchard.  As we wrote in our January 2015 Axis of Resistance Iconoclast post:

In June 2008, Israel’s air force undertook massive air training exercises involving more than 100 aircraft in the eastern Mediterranean against Greek S-300 Russian air defense systems. That effort demonstrated the canny effectiveness of swarming attacks against the S-300 and later versions that upset the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards.

That was seven years ago. Perhaps, Israel has followed with keen interest the development of advanced versions of the S-300, the S-400 and might have something in mind to keep Iran’s Defense establishment worried.  Unlike their peers in the Pentagon, Israel doesn’t talk about such matters.

Meanwhile, will Congress act on Iran nuclear deal review legislation setting up a denouement with President Obama over his threat to veto it?  Stay tuned for developments.

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

Senator Rand Paul Full Interview With Glenn Beck

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From the April 10, 2015 edition of “The Glenn Beck Radio Program”: Glenn Beck puts Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul on the hot seat, asking several tough questions- including how we would handle being blamed for terrorist attacks after cutting NSA domestic spying capabilities.

Tad MacKie notes, “Regardless of what you may think about Glenn beck, this is a very good interview as it allows Rand Paul to expand on his statements and give some very direct, straight-up answers. Also, please note that he corrected Glenn on one point about U.S. boots in the Middle East (just in case you think he does it only to women). BUT, you’ll also notice that Beck didn’t try to over-talk the correction.”

Rand Paul on immigration:

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of NBC News – Meet The Press.

Iran’s Cheating Heart

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Country and Western Icon, Hank Williams wrote a ballad back in the 1950’s, “Your  Cheatin’ Heart”.  Perhaps there is a new version in the international arena, “Iran’s Cheating Heart”.  Iran’s track record of evading inspections by the IAEA under prior Additional Protocols has been, shall we say, less than fulsome. Add to that the Islamic Regime’s non compliance with requests by the IAEA for information on so-called previous military developments (PMD). Especially the barring of inspections at the military explosives test site of Parchin, where there appears to have been concealment  of  tests of nuclear triggers. We raise this because President Obama in his announcement of  the framework for a final agreement to be negotiated by June 30th had talked about “robust intrusive inspections.”  Moreover, he said, “ If Iran cheats, the world will know about it”. Further,  Secretary Kerry when asked during an NPR interview on April 8th about Iran’s PMD said that would be part of the negotiations.

Yesterday, Ayatollah Khamenei in his first public statement on the P5+1 Political Framework  stirred up a hornet’s nest of  controversy about major differences between the State Department Fact Sheet and Iran’s “understanding”.  Khamenei  said that all sanctions would be lifted  immediately upon signing of a definitive agreement, adding that PMD was off the table.  The Wall Street Journal  (WSJ) in its report on these latest disagreements over the political framework announced April 2nd drew attention to what Khamenei said:

It must absolutely not be allowed for them to infiltrate into the country’s defense and security domain under the pretext of inspections. Military officials must not allow strangers into this private domain under the pretext of supervision and inspection, or stop the defensive development of the country.

The WSJ noted this myopic comment of the eponymous senior administration  official:

We see the Iranians working to build support for the deal back home, which is a positive signal of their intent to complete the final agreement.

The Wall Street Journal cited  the usually clear-eyed Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), chief Congressional critic of the P5+1 framework, saying:

As each new day reveals a new disagreement, it’s increasingly clear that Iran, in fact, failed to reach agreement with the United States and its partners on a political framework.

michael-makovsky-Michael Makovsky, executive director of the Jewish Institute  for National  Security Affairs  (JINSA) in  the current  edition of The Weekly Standard dissected the reality of those ‘robust intrusive inspections’ under Additional Protocols between Iran and  the IAEA in an article, “Iran’s Cheating: Can’t Trust, Can’t Verify”. First off, Makovsky notes there is “no Additional  Protocol”:

There is a model Additional Protocol that the IAEA uses as a basis for negotiating a specific agreement with each individual country tailored to its situation. Indeed, this provision opens the door to yet another round of haggling with Iran, making it impossible to know what exact measures Iran will end up being bound by.

But we do know, and this is the second concern, that no Additional Protocol contains the sort of “anytime, anywhere” inspections that UNSCOM provided for and that experts agree is necessary to police Iran’s program. What an Additional Protocol would likely contain, according to the framework agreement, is an expansion of the number of facilities subject to inspections—to include Iran’s uranium mines and centrifuge factories—and stricter requirements for advance notice of any nuclear facilities Iran plans to construct.

On why  the Military test site at Parchin is important:

If Iran decides to sprint for a nuke, however, it won’t do so in a uranium mine; it will do it at one of its enrichment plants, most likely a clandestine plant, potentially hidden on a military base. It is precisely such sites that the IAEA has been trying, unsuccessfully, to get access to for years. Of particular concern has been the Parchin military complex, where the IAEA suspects Iran tested high-explosives for a nuclear weapon. Yet inspectors have never been allowed to set foot on the site, watching instead as satellite imagery showed Iran demolishing the suspected site and paving it over to conceal any evidence of its cheating.

Then there is  Iran’s track record on ‘implementing “ Additional Protocols:

Third, there is the ambiguity of the term “implement.” Iran has previously “implemented” an Additional Protocol. In 2003, about the same time it was cheating on its agreement with the Europeans, Iranian leaders signed an Additional Protocol with the IAEA. Indeed, for the next two years they actually observed it. But in early 2006, Iran announced that it would no longer abide by the Additional Protocol and curtailed inspectors’ access. They could well try to pull the same stunt again. And according to a “fact sheet” released by the Iranian foreign ministry, Iran believes it has only committed “to implement the Additional Protocol on a voluntary and temporary basis for the sake of transparency and confidence building.”

Not only our intelligence but even Israel’s is deficient when it comes to  detecting Iran’s  covert  nuclear program:

U.S. intelligence services have a dismal track record of detecting clandestine nuclear efforts and predicting breakout—in North Korea, Pakistan, and India, for example. Israeli security officials have admitted in private that they too have significant gaps in their knowledge about Iran’s facilities. This is not an indictment of American or Israeli intelligence capabilities; it is simply very challenging to detect covert nuclear activities. Permitting Iran to keep its vast nuclear infrastructure largely intact, as the JCPOA does, only compounds the challenges the United States and the world will have in detecting Iranian cheating.

If Iran has been engaged in cooperative nuclear weapons development with North Korea, as we have written, that compounds the difficulty of detecting covert sites for storage of fissile material and research on nuclear warheads for those  ICBMs it is developing.

Makovsky concludes:

An intrusive inspections and verification regime is the sine qua non of any arms agreement, especially with a congenital cheater like the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unfortunately, the JCPOA fails on this crucial issue, by not demanding complete information about the extent of Iran’s past nuclear weapons research and eschewing “anytime, anywhere” inspections of all facilities. In other words, it is currently worth no more than the paper it might have been written on.

There’s an old Southern phrase in the U.S. that appears apt in the current controversy over what was intended in the P5+1 Political Framework  for a nuclear agreement  with Iran:  “this dog won’t hunt”.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is courtesy of Breitbart.

The Iran Framework Disagreement and 50/50 chance of U.S. China War

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Last week we anticipated that no deal would be better than a bad deal. But this week it seems hard to know exactly what deal has been agreed. Each of the parties in the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capability seems to have a different interpretation of what the much-heralded framework deal contains or means. But what is clear is that the framework is not only bad, but sloppy.

As HJS’s new briefing out this week makes clear, there is not even any single agreed upon framework proposal in the deal. Indeed, as our briefing outlines, the joint Iranian-EU statement made on 2 April had a number of differences to the one made by President Obama on the same day. Indeed the French fact-sheet on the framework contradicts the U.S. version, with the U.S. one appearing more stringent and implying sanctions relief would be staged – a claim that is, in turn, denied by Iran.

There seems to be an ongoing dispute over what has been agreed in regard to inspections. There is an ongoing lack of clarity on what this all now means for regional proliferation (in particular now that every other country will want to get their own nuclear assurance). And there is a deeply disconcerting anomaly about the number of centrifuges Iran needs. The framework deal seems to allow Iran to have 6,000 centrifuges, when it is generally agreed that the country would require no more than 2,000, if this were truly about the country’s search for nuclear technology limited solely for civilian use.

In all of its negotiations, Iran appears to have played a steady and consistent hand. But this is in stark contrast to the shifting moves by the P5+1. Only eighteen months ago President Obama agreed that the Fordow facility, its heavy water reactor and advanced centrifuges, were not necessary for the development of a civilian nuclear capability. Under the framework that seems to have been agreed in Switzerland, all of these capabilities remain in place.

So why the anomalies and why the uncertainties? Because it seems at present that the P5+1 agreement in Lausanne is aimed more at instilling confidence back home in the West than it is about coming to the best deal to prevent Iranian enrichment and development beyond civilian levels. There has been a steadily rising opposition to this deal from the general public in the U.S. and at the highest levels of experienced policy-makers, bolstered this week by the intervention of Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. The administration in Washington appears to be trying to placate this position while also trying to placate the Iranians. If there is a reason why the framework so far seems such a fudge it is because these two positions cannot be reconciled.

But neither can they both be danced around for long. The end aim of this process should not be to buy off critics of the Obama administration in Washington, but rather to prevent Iran from ever acquiring weapons grade nuclear capability. From the reaction to the agreement so far it seems that the Obama administration has achieved the impressive feat of failing in both these objectives.

Dr Alan MendozaFROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

There is a 50:50 chance of a war between the USA and China in the next 15 years. Not my words, but those of Professor Christopher Coker, the world’s leading international relations academic and a visiting speaker at HJS this week.

It would be fair to say that despite its size and growing importance on the world stage, China is a subject under-discussed in the UK. There are very few Sinologists located here, and political and media opinion on the subject tend to be dominated by the economic relationship – with the odd nod to human rights concerns when our leaders think they can get away with pointing out China’s many abuses without incurring its wrath in the form of trade restrictions in return. This is a pattern witnessed across Europe, where the relationship with China has become completely unbalanced in China’s favour, and our leaders are wary of speaking the truth for fear of offending a vital trading partner.

But as Professor Coker reminded us, ‘in times of peace, prepare for war’. China is the only real global challenger to the U.S., and therefore to our own liberal democratic and economic system, but it sees the international system today as made in America. This does not fit with the vision of a nation which was the world’s dominant power before 1820 and sees itself as returning to that trajectory.

Nothing is predetermined of course, and there are doves as well as hawks within the Chinese leadership. But the latter will have been emboldened and even inspired by Russia’s example of remaking the international system in its neighbourhood. Given the many tinderbox situations in East and South East Asia which have China as one of the potential protagonists, is it so far-fetched to assume that China will not at least try to probe the U.S. commitment of security guarantees for many of its neighbours in a bid to start supplanting U.S. influence in its own backyard?

As we have seen over the past few years, our leaders are often fixated by short-term threats rather than the ones just over the horizon. Coker’s analysis reminds us of the importance of vigilance in international affairs. And it deserves to be taken seriously.

Dr. Alan Mendoza
Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society

Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

Iran military endorses a nuclear EMP attack on the U.S.

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Iranian Military Documents endorsed an HEMP attack scenario on the U.S. What you are about to read sounds like science fiction; it is not. It is a 21st century weapon we must deal with. This article has not been written to frighten anyone; but we should all be frightened because it would be worse than a million ‘Pearl Harbor’ attacks.

AFP reports:

The U.S. military command that scans North America’s skies for enemy missiles and aircraft plans to move its communications gear to a Cold War-era mountain bunker, officers said. The shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to safeguard the command’s sensitive sensors and servers from a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said.

The Pentagon last week announced a $700 million contract with Raytheon Corporation to oversee the work for North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command.

Admiral William Gortney, head of NORAD and Northern Command, said that “because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain’s built, it’s EMP-hardened.”

Read more.

33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age is a one-hour documentary produced by The Heritage Foundation that tells the story of the very real threat foreign enemies pose to every one of us. The truth is brutal – no matter where on Earth a missile is launched from it would take 33 Minutes or less to hit the U.S. target it was programmed to destroy. Watch the trailer to “33 Minutes” produced by the Heritage Foundation:

33 minutes logoIf the U.S. doesn’t destroy Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons civilization as we know it may be destroyed for hundreds of years. This is a frightening scenario but it can and may very well happen. Here’s why.

If Iran were to explode a high altitude nuclear bomb above the U.S., an HEMP (high altitude electro magnetic pulse) would be set off and it is estimated up to 90 percent of the U.S. population would end up dying. This is not science fiction; it is a fact. Iran’s military documents describe such a scenario.

What is nuclear HEMP? A nuclear device set off at high altitude would set off an electromagnetic pulse that would substantially damage or destroy the entire or most of America’s electric grid. The U.S. would be without electric for a year or more. This means we would have no electric, water service, sewer service, refrigeration, heat, communication, hospital service or anything else that requires electricity to operate. What would follow is starvation, chaos and anarchy on a level never before experienced by mankind.

The issue of a nuclear EMP attack was raised in the final hours of this week’s elections in Israel when U.S. authority Peter Vincent Pry penned a column for Arutz Sheva warning of Iran’s threat to free nations wrote:

“Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.”

A knowledgeable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places.

Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who is leading an effort to protect the U.S. electric grid from an EMP attack, has recently made similar claims based on the document translated by military authorities.

Once sneered at by critics, recent moves by Iran and North Korea have given credibility to the potential EMP threat from an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S.

Pry has suggested ways for Iran to deliver a nuclear attack: by ship launched off the East Coast, a missile or via satellite.

Either way the result could be destruction of all or part of the U.S. electric grid, robbing the public of power, computers, water and communications for potentially a year.

Iran armed with nuclear missiles poses an unprecedented threat to global civilization.

One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.

Iranian military documents describe such a scenario–including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.

Thus, Iran with a small number of nuclear missiles can by EMP attack threaten the existence of modernity and be the death knell for Western principles of international law, humanism and freedom. For the first time in history, a failed state like Iran could destroy the most successful societies on Earth and convert an evolving benign world order into world chaos”. (end quote)

It is reported that Israel has protected much of its electric grid and if attacked by an HEMP it could restore electric within a few days. It has also set up a variety of defenses as well. If Israel can do it, why can’t we.

To protect America there are two things that should be a top security issue that Congress must address without delay.

First Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons or become a threshold nuclear State. Second Congress must quickly pass legislation and funding to ‘harden’ America’s electric grid against an HEMP attack. A nuclear attack can kill thousands; but and HEMP attack could kill millions. Bob Heller

Read more.

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Only Fools Trust Obama or the Iranians

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Only fools express any trust in Obama these days or the Iranians who have made him look the fool when no one in their neighborhood or the world trusts a thing they say or do.

After more than six years of listening to President Obama’s unremitting lies, when he says of the latest “accord” with Iran, “It’s a good deal” and standing in the Rose Garden declares that the U.S. and Iran have reached “an historic understanding” the only history being made his own ignominy and idiocy.

It would be historic if anyone could extend either President Obama or the Iranians any trust. Indeed, since the U.S. created its first atomic bombs to end World War II, one nation after another has secured their own nuclear weapons, starting with the then-Soviet Union who built theirs with plans stolen from us!

We have been down this road before. On April 1st Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger offered an abridged look at the quarter-century of negotiations with North Korea which agreed to all manner of terms, signed all kinds of agreements, and joined various international organizations to assure everyone of their peaceful intent. He warned that “No agreement is going to stop Iran. Agreements, and a lot of talk, did not stop North Korea.”

“Iran,” said Henninger, “knows it has nuclear negotiators’ immunity: No matter how or when Iran debauches any agreement, the West, abjectly, will request—what else?—more talks. Iran’s nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs will go forward as North Korea’s obviously did, no matter what.”

All the back-and-forth between the White House and Congress about the “accord” is essentially meaningless. It is mostly a debate about the treaty-making powers the Constitution extends to the executive branch and, at the same time, limits with legislative “advice and consent” of the Senate. For now the Senate can only wait for whatever is decided by June 30, but it is unlikely Obama will send it the text of the agreement.

To influence the outcome, Congress talks of the sanctions it has imposed on Iran and says it will impose again, but Obama has no legal authority to lift those sanctions, only Congress does.

AA - Javad

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif

The same day the President made the announcement, Javad Zarif, the Iranian counterpart to Secretary of State John Kerry made his own announcement. The U.S. and Iran, he said, had agreed in principle to let Iran continue running major portions of its nuclear program. “None of those measures”, intended to slow Iran’s progress, “include closing any of our facilities. We will continue enriching; we will continue research and development.”

This is the result of 18 months of “negotiations” with Iran. In the same way the U.S. caved to North Korea since the 1990s, it has caved to Iran and it has done so with the blessing of the European Union and the other members of the P-5+1, France, Great Britain, Russia, China, and Germany.

For good measure, to show how wonderfully warm the relations between Iran and the U.S. are, within hours after Obama’s announcement, Foreign Minister Zarif accused the U.S. of lying about the details of the tentative framework—“the historic understanding”—saying that the U.S. had promised the immediate termination of sanctions.

The notion that we would know if Iran was continuing its nuclear program because the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be inspecting its facilities is about as credible as similar inspections in North Korea when, in 2002, it cut the IAEA seals on its nuclear factories and withdrew from the non-Proliferation treaty, starting a nuclear reactor. It has pursued its nuclear weapons and missile programs ever since.

In the same fashion as the Soviet Union, China, and Israel, we didn’t know that either Pakistan or India had acquired nuclear capability until after they tested theirs. That’s how we will know when Iran has nuclear weapons. It already has intercontinental missiles with which to deliver them.

As quoted in an April 3 article by Mark Dubowitz, executive director, and Annie Fixler, policy analyst, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, they cite an unnamed “senior State Department official” as saying “The truth is, you can dwell on Yemen, or you can recognize that we’re one agreement away from a game-changing, legacy-setting nuclear accord on Iran that tackles what everyone agrees is the biggest threat to the region.”

Unless one believes in unicorns and other fantasies, this latest “accord” and what we are being told about it by the President and the State Department is not a great achievement. It is doomed to failure because Iran has had no intention of doing anything other than getting economic and other sanctions removed. Time is on their side as they work to develop their own nuclear weapons.

When Iran tests its first nuclear weapon, Obama should return his Nobel Peace Prize.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

RELATED ARTICLE: Iran Contradicts U.S., Plans to Use Advanced Centrifuges Immediately

Obama rejects Netanyahu’s call for Iran to recognize Israel

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President Obama will not even raise the issue let alone make it a condition of the nuclear talks that Iran must stop threatening the destruction of Israel. Obama chooses to ignore the fact that through its proxies in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and by sinking a mock-up of a U.S. carrier Iran continues its aggression without pause during the nuclear talks. Obama is entitled to his own opinion but not the facts which he chooses to disregard.

At the same time Obama claims giving Iran a path to nuclear weapons is the best way to protect Israel and the U.S. Obama’s reasoning is so flawed that it is impossible to make sense of what he says.

Obama knows it is only a question of time before Iran has nuclear weapons. In effect he inadvertently acknowledged that his main interest was to negotiate a deal that would keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons while he was still president, when he told Thomas Friedman in an interview “I have been very clear that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on my watch”. Obama knows that once Obama removes U.S. and UN sanctions there is nothing to stop Iran from developing their nuclear weapons whenever they wish.

He also said he doesn’t trust Iran but that the U.S. is powerful enough to protect itself (meaning) if Iran obtains nuclear weapons. Obama has never addressed the issue how will the U.S. deal with Iran when it has nuclear weapons.

So the ultimate question is—Should the U.S. and Israel take military action against Iran’s nuclear sites now or wait until Iran has used or can reciprocate with nuclear weapons?

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Obama Rejects Netanyahu’s Call for Iran to Recognize Israel – Kendall Breitman

“The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won’t sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms. And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgment,” President Obama said in an interview with NPR on Monday.

“We want Iran not to have nuclear weapons precisely because we can’t bank on the nature of the regime changing….If suddenly Iran transformed itself to Germany or Sweden or France, then there would be a different set of conversations about their nuclear infrastructure.”  (Politico)

Israel Suggests Ways to Make Iran Nuclear Deal “More Reasonable” – Isabel Kershner

Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of intelligence and strategic affairs, on Monday presented a list of desired modifications for the final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, due to be concluded by June 30, that he said would make it “more reasonable” and close dangerous loopholes.

The Israeli list includes: An end to all research and development activity on advanced centrifuges in Iran. A significant reduction in the number of centrifuges that can quickly become operational if Iran breaks the agreement and decides to build a bomb. The closing of the underground Fordo facility as an enrichment site, even if enrichment activities are suspended there. Iranian compliance in revealing its past activities with possible military dimensions. A commitment to ship its stockpile of enriched uranium out of Iran. And the ability for inspectors charged with verifying the agreement to go “anywhere, anytime” in Iran.

Steinitz said that the suggestion that there was no alternative to the framework agreed in Lausanne, or that Israel had not put forward an alternative, “is wrong.” “The alternative is not necessarily to declare war on Iran. It is to increase pressure on Iran and stand firm and make Iran make serious concessions and have a much better deal.”
Regarding Obama’s statement that America would back Israel in the face of any Iranian aggression, Steinitz said, “We do appreciate it.” But he added that an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would be an existential threat to Israel. “Nobody can tell us that backing and assistance are enough to neutralize such a threat,” he said. (New York Times)

See also Ten Questions on the Nuclear Deal with Iran – Israel Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz (Times of Israel)

Verifying Iran Nuclear Deal Not Possible, Experts Say – Bill Gertz

Despite promises by President Obama that Iranian cheating on a new treaty will be detected, “the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will not be effectively verifiable,” said Paula DeSutter, assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance, and implementation from 2002 to 2009. Arms control experts challenged the administration’s assertions that a final deal can be verified, based on Iran’s past cheating and the failure of similar arms verification procedures.

U.S. intelligence agencies, which will be called on to verify the agreement, have a spotty record for estimating foreign arms programs. A 2007 National Intelligence Estimate falsely concluded that Iran halted work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The IAEA, in a 2011 report, contradicted the estimate by stating that Iran continued nuclear arms work past 2003, including work on computer modeling used in building nuclear warheads.

DeSutter said the transparency measures announced at best could detect quantitative excesses at known locations, but not secret illegal activities, like those that Iran carried out on a large scale in violation of its obligations under the NPT.

David S. Sullivan, a former CIA arms verification specialist, said past cheating by Iran was confirmed as recently as July 2014. “Why are we negotiating for a new agreement, when existing Iranian NPT violations remain in effect, ongoing, and unresolved, suggesting that Iran is unlikely to comply with any new agreement?” Sullivan said. “The negotiations started as an attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, but now they have legitimized it.”  (Washington Free Beacon)

Obama’s Foreign Policy Financing Iran’s Terrorist Activities

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Aside from the fact that the deal with Iran will leave it in a position to have nuclear weapons within a period of 3 to 12 months at their choice, how can anyone consider lifting sanctions on a country that is engaging in numerous wars and terrorist activities through their proxies in Israel, Syria Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen?

Iran is at war with Israel via proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran says the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable. Israel is a U.S. ally and Obama aside from giving Iran a path for nuclear weapons is about to lift sanctions on Iran which will allow it to increase its income and upgrade its terrorist activities against Israel and other U.S. allies and throughout the Middle East.

So far Obama has left out an essential element of any deal with Iran. Any final agreement must include Iran’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist. If this is not included in order to survive Israel of necessity must take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran “Is Intensifying Efforts to Support Hamas in Gaza” – Con Coughlin

Iran has sent Hamas tens of millions of dollars to help it rebuild the network of tunnels in Gaza destroyed by Israel’s invasion last summer, intelligence sources have told the Sunday Telegraph. It is also funding new missile supplies to replenish stocks used to bombard residential neighborhoods in Israel during the war. Iran has sponsored Hamas’ military operations for years. (Sunday Telegraph-UK)

Netanyahu: Any Final Agreement Must Include Iranian Recognition of Israel’s Right to Exist (Prime Minister’s Office)

Responding to the Iran nuclear framework agreement announced Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Friday after a meeting of the Israeli cabinet:

  • The cabinet is united in strongly opposing the proposed deal. This deal would pose a grave danger to the region and to the world and would threaten the very survival of the State of Israel.
  • The deal would not shut down a single nuclear facility in Iran, would not destroy a single centrifuge in Iran and will not stop R&D on Iran’s advanced centrifuges. On the contrary, the deal would legitimize Iran’s illegal nuclear program. It would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure.
  • The deal would lift sanctions almost immediately and this at the very time that Iran is stepping up its aggression and terror in the region. The deal would greatly bolster Iran’s economy. It would thereby give Iran tremendous means to propel its aggression and terrorism throughout the Middle East.
  • Some say that the only alternative to this bad deal is war. That’s not true. There is a third alternative – standing firm, increasing the pressure on Iran until a good deal is achieved.
  • Iran is a regime that openly calls for Israel’s destruction and openly and actively works towards that end. Israel will not accept an agreement which allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons, period.
  • In addition, Israel demands that any final agreement with Iran will include a clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Defense Minister Ya’alon: Iran Deal Will Increase Iran’s Appetite

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Sunday called the framework agreement “a huge achievement for Iran and a historic mistake for the West.” “Iran is a terrorist monster that funds, trains and arms organizations and entities to wreak havoc among the pro-Western regimes in the Middle East and around the world, and it has no intention of stopping this.” He added that the agreement would set the stage for Iran to “increase its appetite to spread disarray.” (Jerusalem Post)

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