Tag Archive for: Iran

Even Democrats won’t back Obama’s Iran nuclear deal

Everyone knows he is handing the Iranians a license to nuke Tel Aviv. Even some Democrats know. “Democrats won’t back Iran nuclear deal in blow to White House as enough break with Obama to to put veto-proof legislation in the works to stop an agreement,” by Francesca Chambers, Daily Mail, March 16, 2015:

Democratic senators remain irritated with their GOP colleagues who last week sent a letter to Iranian leaders undercutting President Barack Obama, but they will still back bipartisan legislation that would give Congress final say over a nuclear deal.

Enough members of the president’s party have signaled support for that bill and another that would impose new sanctions on Iran if it doesn’t make an agreement with negotiators that the White House would be powerless to stop the measures from going into effect once passed.

The Obama administration and its international partners now have until March 24 to set up the framework for a deal.

After that, a dozen Democratic senators, including Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, have said they will join with the GOP majority to pass bills inserting themselves into the process.

One would levy additional sanctions on Iran after June 30 if it doesn’t agree to the final terms of a deal, though monthly waivers would be allowed should more time be requested. The other would give the Senate the power to reject within 60 days any pact the executive branch makes with Iran.

Democrats who spoke with Politico voiced their displeasure with the 47 GOP senators who wrote a letter to Iran notifying the country’s leaders that any contract it makes with the Obama administration would be nullified when a new president takes office in January 2017, whereas most members of the upper chamber would be in office for years to come.

But that hasn’t changed their position on the core issue, they’ve said.

‘The letter’s incredibly unfortunate and inappropriate,’ Heitkamp said.’That doesn’t diminish my support for the legislation that we introduced.’

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters similarly said the missive was ‘simply unacceptable’ and ‘brought hyperpartisanship to an issue that we need to maintain our bipartisanship in.’

He added: ‘That doesn’t change my support for that bill. … I stay firm.’

Blumenthal last week called Republicans’ actions ‘unconscionable’ and bemoaned them for disrespecting the president.

At the time, he said the bipartisan coalition of senators willing to buck the White House was ‘in tatters.’ Blumenthal told CNN that he was determined to ‘stitch it back together,’ though.

A week later it appeared that the group was holding strong and that Senate Foreign Relations Bob Corker, one of just seven Republican senators who did not sign the ‘open letter,’ was correct in predicting last Thursday that the whole thing would blow over.

‘Let a couple days go by. We think there’s going to be really ignited momentum,’ Corker had told Politico. Nobody’s dropping out. We’ve had reaffirmed commitment.’

Meanwhile, Republicans who did sign the letter triumphantly declared on the Sunday news shows that they had no ‘regrets’ about sending Tehran the strongly worded message.

‘I stand by the letter,’ National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rodger Wicker said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

‘I think it’s interesting that we’ve had so much talk about process, just like we’ve had talk about process with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech, rather than dealing with the substance,’ the Mississippi Republican asserted, referring to House Republican leadership’s end run around the White House earlier this year when it invited Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN he thinks it was ‘fair’ for Republicans to explain that Congress will be involved in the process one way or another.

‘I don’t think it was a mistake,’ he said of the message to Tehran.

‘The administration would like to have a distraction, but the point is the subject of the matter,’ the GOP leader said.

‘Apparently, the Obama administration is on the cusp of entering into a very bad deal with one of the worst regimes in the world.’…

RELATED ARTICLES:

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How & Why Islam Wages War Against ‘Idolatry’

Is The Islamic State Islamic? Of Course It Is!

Islamic State quotes Qur’an in vow to blow up White House, conquer Rome and Spain

Do we strike now or wait until Iran has nuclear weapons and face a nuclear catastrophe?

Today we can stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation, or we can wait and suffer an unimaginable nuclear catastrophe.

Four nuclear sites are key to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Isfahan, Arak, Natanz and Qom. Isfahan and Arak are above ground and can be destroyed by air or sea launched missiles. Natanz is under an earth berm and reinforced concrete and Qom is built inside a mountain. The U.S. currently has ordinance that can penetrate these two facilities. with its Massive Ordinance Penetrators ( MOP’s). Iran has other nuclear weapons facilities as well but they a much less important.

Sanctions have had little effect on stopping Iran’s march toward nuclear weapons. It is increasingly apparent that the only way to stop Iran’s march toward developing nuclear weapons are targeted air strikes against these four sites. This may also stop Iran’s goal for a Persian Shiite Caliphate and terrorist activities that will surely result in an all out war between Shiites and the Sunni majority.

If the U.S. strikes Iran’s four major nuclear sites it will bear no relationship to the extended wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. No U.S. ground troops will be involved. The destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities likely will take only several days. If the U.S. fails to take action it is likely Israel will. However Israel’s ability to eliminate the threat is probably limited to Iran’s two above ground nuclear facilities. It may set Iran’s nuclear weapons program back a couple of years. However only the U.S. can set it back for many years or permanently.

If Israel takes preemptive action the U.S. will nevertheless be drawn into the fray. Iran knows Obama will not initiate military action, however Iran’s recent naval action attacking a mockup of a U.S. aircraft carrier is a warning to the U.S., if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities Iran will attack U.S. ships in the area.This was the purpose of Iran’s recent naval exercise sinking a mockup U.S. aircraft carrier. Under these circumstances the U.S. should take preemptive action and not wait to be attacked.

The U.S. can prevent nuclear proliferation and ultimately a nuclear catastrophe if it destroys the four key facilities from the air before Iran has nuclear weapons.  Without nuclear weapons Iran has limited options to strike America or Europe. Other nations who would like nuclear weapons are waiting to see what the U.S. does.

In 1939 the world was in a similar place. Hitler’s Nazi Germany could have been stopped before it  invaded Czechoslovakia which allowed Nazi Germany to build a massive war machine. England and France could have easily stopped Germany at that time. They failed to do so and over 60 million people died. We are in the same position now with Iran as England and France were then. We can only hope  U.S. leadership doesn’t repeat the 1939 mistakes. If the U.S. fails to take preemptive action soon a nuclear catastrophe in the future is inevitable.

Read this interesting analysis by Joshua Muravchik:

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating.

This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the administration’s position also contains a glaring contradiction. National security adviser Susan Rice declared at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference before Netanyahu’s speech that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” So if Iran will accept only a “bad deal,” what is President Obama’s alternative? War?

Obama’s stance implies that we have no choice but to accept Iran’s best offer — whatever is, to use Rice’s term, “achievable” — because the alternative is unthinkable.

But should it be? What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? That, in fact, is probably the reality. Ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime, legitimating its rule and inspiring its leaders and their supporters. In this sense, it is akin to communist, fascist and Nazi regimes that set out to transform the world. Iran aims to carry its Islamic revolution across the Middle East and beyond. A nuclear arsenal, even if it is only brandished, would vastly enhance Iran’s power to achieve that goal.

Such visionary regimes do not trade power for a mess of foreign goods. Materialism is not their priority: They often sacrifice prosperity to adhere to ideology. Of course, they need some wealth to underwrite their power, but only a limited amount. North Korea has remained dirt poor practicing its ideology of juche, or self-reliance, but it still found the resources to build nuclear weapons.

Sanctions may have induced Iran to enter negotiations, but they have not persuaded it to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons. Nor would the stiffer sanctions that Netanyahu advocates bring a different result. Sanctions could succeed if they caused the regime to fall; the end of communism in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and of apartheid in South Africa, led to the abandonment of nuclear weapons in those states. But since 2009, there have been few signs of rebellion in Tehran.

Otherwise, only military actions — by Israel against Iraq and Syria, and through the specter of U.S. force against Libya — have halted nuclear programs. Sanctions have never stopped a nuclear drive anywhere.

Does this mean that our only option is war? Yes, although an air campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would entail less need for boots on the ground than the war Obama is waging against the Islamic State, which poses far smaller a threat than Iran does.

Wouldn’t an attack cause ordinary Iranians to rally behind the regime? Perhaps, but military losses have also served to undermine regimes, including the Greek and Argentine juntas, the Russian czar and the Russian communists.

Wouldn’t destroying much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure merely delay its progress? Perhaps, but we can strike as often as necessary. Of course, Iran would try to conceal and defend the elements of its nuclear program, so we might have to find new ways to discover and attack them. Surely the United States could best Iran in such a technological race.

Much the same may be said in reply to objections that airstrikes might not reach all the important facilities and that Iran would then proceed unconstrained by inspections and agreements. The United States would have to make clear that it will hit wherever and whenever necessary to stop Iran’s program. Objections that Iran might conceal its program so brilliantly that it could progress undetected all the way to a bomb apply equally to any negotiated deal with Iran.

And finally, wouldn’t Iran retaliate by using its own forces or proxies to attack Americans — as it has done in Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia — with new ferocity? Probably. We could attempt to deter this by warning that we would respond by targeting other military and infrastructure facilities.

Nonetheless, we might absorb some strikes. Wrenchingly, that might be the price of averting the heavier losses that we and others would suffer in the larger Middle Eastern conflagration that is the likely outcome of Iran’s drive to the bomb. Were Iran, which is already embroiled in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, further emboldened by becoming a “nuclear threshold state,” it would probably overreach, kindling bigger wars — with Israel, Arab states or both. The United States would probably be drawn in, just as we have been in many other wars from which we had hoped to remain aloof.

Yes, there are risks to military action. But Iran’s nuclear program and vaunting ambitions have made the world a more dangerous place. Its achievement of a bomb would magnify that danger manyfold. Alas, sanctions and deals will not prevent this.

RELATED ARTICLE: An End to Iran’s Containment? – Editorial (Washington Post)

PODCAST: Obama’s Policies in the Middle East Destablizing World Security

I recently did a talk radio interview with former U.S. Federal Judge Joe Miller, USMA ‘89, the host of the Joe Miller Show. As a former counter terrorist intelligence operative who was on the DOD Task Force after 9/11 which reported to the Assistant Secretary of the Army, I served in nine counter-terrorist operations, was recruited as an Arabic linguist by Special Warfare Group ONE in order to deploy with SEAL Team ONE, was an armed Federal Law Enforcement Officer in DHS, and was assigned as an Intelligent Analyst in the FBI after graduating from the FBI Academy in Quantico.

Listen to my interview on the Joe Miller Show:

I voiced my concern that for the past 6 years, the Obama administration’s policies in the Middle East have been destructive for the stability of the region. The Obama administration’s foreign policy has shifted support from the United States’ 60 year traditional alliance with friendly Sunni countries (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates) to Iran, the world’s number one major sponsor of terrorism with Shite ruling class. Iran regularly declares that it is enemy of the “Great Satan”, the United States, who has been killing and maiming thousands of members of the US Armed Forces for 36 years.

The Obama administration’s absence of a foreign policy in the Middle East has resulted in Iran filling the void by taking control of Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon with Afghanistan and Bahrain in their gun sights.

The Obama administration’s policies toward Iran has been facilitating Iran’s development of nuclear weapons for the last two years. The foreign policy of the Obama administration continues to embrace the terrorist state of Iran, while continuing to reject military aide for friendly Sunnis countries in the Middle East (the request for urgent military aide for Jordan, Egypt, Kurdistan, and the Assyrian Militia have been denied).

If the Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations permits Iran to continue the development of nuclear weapons and eventually obtain nuclear weapons, that agreement will result in a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and might set the stage for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities, which might result in the outbreak of World War III.

Life long Opponent of Israel appointed as Obama’s Senior Assistant

Robert Malley has been a controversial policy insider and opponent of Israel in both the Clinton and Obama Administrations. Malley faulted Israel for the collapse of the 2000 Peace negotiations with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak at Camp David stoking the late Yassir Arafat to opt for the Second Intifada.

Last Friday, the White House announced his new position as Senior Assistant to  the President  coordinating policies of North Africa, the Middle East and Iran nuclear negotiations. He replaces Phillip Gordon (no relation). He was recently involved in meetings with Rice and Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen in the run up to Israeli PM Netanyahu’s address to the Joint Meeting of Congress on March 3rd.

Look upon Malley’s promotion as a bad omen for worsening relations with Israel unless Netanyahu is not  elected for a third term on March 17th.  He was brought back to the Obama National Security Council in 2013 as a deputy to Gordon who had the MENA portfolio. There had been adverse criticism of his role as foreign policy adviser to President Obama in the 2008 Presidential campaign on Israel issues. He was accused of having held discussions with Iran proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. In the interim before his return to the NSC, he had an equivalent post at the International Crisis Group. His parents, while both Jewish, were leftists who supported pro-Arab anti-Israel activities in both Egypt and Algeria.

The Times of Israel (TOI) reported last weekend on this latest move by the Administration to isolate Israel under the current Netanyahu government, White House names Israel critic to top Mideast post:

The White House named Robert Malley, a U.S. negotiator at the 2000 Camp David talks, to lead the Middle East desk at the National Security Council. Malley, whose appointment was announced on Friday afternoon, since last year has handled the Iraq-Iran-Syria-Gulf States desk. In replacing Philip Gordon, who has been Middle East coordinator since 2013, he assumes responsibility for Israel and the Palestinians as well as North Africa and the Persian Gulf.

He also assumes a more senior title, moving from senior director to special assistant. Malley already deals with Israel, and has attended meetings on the Iran-nuclear issue between his boss, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and her Israeli counterpart, Yossi Cohen.

We wrote about Malley’s foreign policy advisor background in a March 2014 Iconoclast post, Saudi-led Gulf Squabble Spells Trouble for Obama?

National Security Advisor Malley was a former Middle East foreign policy aide to President Clinton during the failed 2000 Camp David Israel-Palestinian negotiations between former Israeli PM Ehud Barak and the late Yassir Arafat. Malley had accused Israel of nixing the agreement, when it was evident that Arafat had purposely sabotaged it. Malley went on to become head of the Middle East and North African program of the International Crisis Group and later advised then Senator Obama and was part of the President’s transition team. He holds views that may further complicate Administration Middle East policies. Malley propounded speaking with terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as well as the Muslim Brotherhood. Malley, was appointed in 2013 to the National Security Council. He had the portfolio for Israel-Palestinian peace talks and the Iran nuclear P5+1 diplomatic initiative.

In  October 2009, we noted his family background and Soros connections in a post Robert Malley and Benny Morris debate One State/Two State Solution at Skidmore College:

Malley is Jewish on both sides. His father was a Mizrahi from Syria who became an Egyptian journalist and was alleged to be an Egyptian Communist party member who fled to France, where young Malley was raised. Malley’s mother was a US Jewish leftist who worked for the Algerian FLN UN delegation. Check out his bio here.  He is a former Middle East adviser to President Clinton on the Camp David 2000 debacle. He alleged that Israel was at fault, rather than the late Yassir Arafat head of the Fatah-PLO, in the failure to achieve a peace accord during the abortive Camp David discussions. That opinion was not shared by former President Clinton and Amb. Dennis Ross, formerly on the Obama NSC staff.  Malley was a mainstay at the International Crisis Group (ICG) supported by George Soros who sits on the ICG board. Malley has been a prominent proponent of ‘engagement’ with Iran proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He was a controversial informal foreign policy advisor during the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign.

Watch this brief You Tube video of Malley in an excerpt from a 2009 documentary discussing outreach to  Hamas:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Robert Malley newly appointed White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region. Image source: YouTube.

President Obama — Please explain how you will prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East?

President Obama, please explain to me how you will prevent a nuclear arms race among the various Muslim countries in the Middle East and elsewhere as your nuclear agreement with Iran will surely cause it?

Hopefully you and your close advisers understand that Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East including Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are already preparing their own nuclear programs as depicted in the below graphic. What do you think will happen if Iran has a “clear path to the bomb”?

TTH1747G1CC

For a larger view click on the image.

A “Good Deal” Needs to Bolt the Door on the Iranians Getting a Nuclear Weapon – Ronen Bergman interviews Gen. David Petraeus (Ynet News)

  • “To accept that Iran’s nuclear ambitions over the years have been exclusively peaceful would require a willing suspension of disbelief….The International Atomic Energy Agency has extensively documented the so-called ‘possible military dimensions’ of the Iranian program, which clearly indicate that – at least until a few years ago – the Iranians were conducting activities whose only rational explanation is that they wanted a nuclear weapons capability.”
  • “History suggests, however, that countries that get to that [nuclear] threshold do not stay there. And regardless, based on everything we know and see about the Iranian government, we cannot allow them to be on the brink of having a nuclear weapon.”
  • “To my mind, a ‘good deal’ needs to bolt the door on the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon. In this respect, certainly large swaths of the program need to be dismantled or at least altered. I don’t know that this requires an end to enrichment, but certainly it would seem to me that there need to be substantial limitations on how much enriched material Iran can possess and the percentage to which they can enrich, as well as restrictions on the research, development, and deployment of new, more sophisticated models of centrifuges.”
  • “An extremely robust inspections program is also necessary – going beyond the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, the inspections regime is, in my mind, the most critical component of a deal.”Gen. (ret.) David Petraeus served as commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, and head of the CIA.

Why Did Ayatollah Khamenei Come to the Table? – Ben Cohen interviews Michael Ledeen

Ladeen: It’s conventional wisdom that Iran came to the negotiating table because of sanctions. I’m not sure that’s correct. It may well be that Iran came to the negotiating table because President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif convinced the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, that if they went to the table, they would get everything they wanted from President Obama. Because, they said, America’s will has been broken, and the Americans are prepared to make endless concessions just to keep talking.

I’m not convinced that there’s going to be a deal with Iran. Khamenei doesn’t want to deal with U.S., he wants to destroy us. He says that every week – sometimes every day. So why should he make a deal when he’s getting everything from us now without a deal?

You have the moderate Arab countries who are, all of a sudden, talking to Israel, working out joint plans and contingencies with Israel. What can they do? If Iran is going nuclear – and there’s not a leader in the Middle East who doesn’t believe that Iran is going nuclear – then they have to defend themselves. And if America isn’t available, who is?

Dr. Michael Ledeen, a former consultant to the U.S. National Security Council, Department of State, and Department of Defense, is a Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (Fathom-BICOM)

From Russia with Love: A Nuclear Suppository for Obama

The ballistic missile with Obama’s name on it, paraded in the streets of Moscow last Monday, was only an imitation – but the sentiment was genuine.

Looking like a gigantic allegorical suppository for the American president, the green twelve-foot rocket emblazoned with the hammer and sickle over a red star brought up Cold War memories of real intercontinental missiles the Soviet government would parade in Red Square as a vague threat to its enemies. There was no vagueness this time: in large print letters, the message on the rocket said, “To be delivered to Obama in person.”

Russian missile for Obama from Rashkin

The occasion was the Day of the Defenders of the Motherland – a big annual celebration of the creation of the Red Army in 1918 by Leon Trotsky. To be sure, Trotsky’s name had not been attached to this holiday ever since his removal from power and assassination by Stalin. Additionally, the country has since changed its name, borders, ideology, the system of government, and renamed the very holiday in question.

Still, the holiday spirit runs strong, along with patriotic rallies, propaganda posters, and nationally televised bombastic military-themed concerts puffed up by a full roster of Kremlin-approved celebrities.

It’s also dubbed Men’s Day, as all Russian men and boys receive greetings and gifts from women and girls – a rather manipulative hetero-normative reminder that all male citizens belong in the army.

unnamed (18)In a way, this mirrors Women’s Day on March 8th – another originally communist holiday that comes twelve days later, when women and girls receive greetings and gifts from men and boys, as men volunteer to help around the house and do women’s work in the kitchen – which may also be seen as a hetero-normative reminder of a woman’s place on all other days of the year.

This year Ukraine officially canceled the celebration of Russia’s military holiday, belatedly joining other ex-Soviet republics that had suffered the wrath of the Red Army. In contrast, Vladimir Putin’s government has boosted the celebration even further, making February 23rd an official day off and using it to crank up the already excessive Russian patriotism.

With full support of the government-controlled media, national chauvinism is now spilling over the state borders, as gangs of armed “patriots” flock to eastern Ukraine, eager to show the uppity ukrops their place in Pax Russiana. Jingoism dominates Russia’s online forums and social media, as well as the streets and city squares, with rallies that support Putin, military adventurism, and Pax Russiana, while at the same time trashing everything non-Russian, especially America and Gayrope (a new Russian slur deriving from “gay” + “Europe.”) The stunt with the Obama-targeted missile is merely a small piece in the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle called Russia.

According to the Levada Center, a Moscow-based independent polling organization, America is seen negatively today by 74% of the Russian population (60% also have a negative view of Europe), and 69% believe the United States is a hostile nation. At the same time, after the break-up of the USSR in the early 1990s, only 10% of Russians viewed the U.S. negatively. What happened?

The Levada Center has registered four waves of anti-American and anti-Western sentiment in Russia – in 1999 (the war in Serbia), in 2003 (the war in Iraq), in 2008 (the war in Georgia), and in 2014 (the war in Ukraine), with today’s wave being the strongest in the last 20 years. Sociologists also believe that Russia’s public opinion is shaped largely by the government-run media, with more than one half of the respondents admitting they couldn’t form opinions independently.

Russian most popular politicians

It would be fair to say that every such wave of anti-Americanism in Russia (and to some extent around the world) has been orchestrated and paid for by the Kremlin’s powerful propaganda machine, which deploys two parallel narratives – one for the foreigners and one for domestic use. The domestic narrative is always a variation of the same formula: “Once again, the Motherland is under attack from American imperialism. The West has always hated Russia. Out of sheer hatred they want to humiliate us and push Russia out of its traditional spheres of influence. To survive, our nation must unite around a strong leader and his party.” The leader is, of course, Vladimir Putin; the party is United Russia.

During the first wave of post-Soviet xenophobia and anti-Americanism in December of 1999, Putin conveniently upgraded his position from Russian prime minister to Russian president. It is hardly a coincidence that now, during the fourth and strongest anti-American wave, Putin’s approval rating has risen to an astronomical 86%. The survey was taken on February 23rd, the same day the Russia-to-Obama rocket was spotted in the streets of Moscow.

Russian missile for Obama from Rashkin

A sign at a pro-Putin rally in Moscow showing America and Europe as two rats biting at Ukraine, and Russia as a cute red squirrel. The caption says, “Time for rodent control?”

This only means that about the same number of Russians also share a paranoid obsession with Ukraine, honestly believing that Vladimir Putin is fighting an epic and noble battle against the American aggression launched by the CIA through its Ukrainian proxies.

A similar narrative existed during Russia’s invasion into Georgia in 2008, when the Russian media referred to the Georgian president Saakashvili as America’s puppet.

In the days of the Maidan protests in Kiev last year, a number of protesters had been taken away and beaten by national security, which at the time was largely run by Russia’s FSB. Between the beatings, the interrogators demanded a “volunteer confession” that the protests had been organized by American agents and paid for in dollars. No such “confessions” had been obtained.

From the start of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Russian media cooperated with the Russian intelligence in trying to find evidence of American presence in the war zone. All they have found was a broken foreign-made rifle, a damaged Hummer vehicle, and a two-second video footage of a British anti-land-mine activist in Mariupol, whom the Russian media described as an American cutthroat mercenary.

In the absence of facts, fakes will do. The government media, with the assistance of an army of paid online activists have launched a slew of rumors, conspiracy theories, and internet fakes – for example, presenting footage from Iraq as coming from Ukraine, or publishing wild-eyed “eyewitness accounts,” the latest of which included an apocalyptic story of drunken American Negroes dancing on top of Ukrainian tanks while pointing guns at terrified civilians. A separatist warlord once posted a “humorous” story online about how one dark night he saw an “American Negro” jumping out of a burning Ukrainian tank and immediately taking off his clothes, hoping that his black skin would help him to blend with the night.

Barack Obama receives a similar race-baiting treatment, with many online cartoons and posters mocking his race and portraying him as a monkey. On Obama’s birthday last year some “patriotic” Muscovites unveiled a large street banner picturing the U.S. President as “three wise monkeys.” Later that evening, the wall of the U.S. embassy in Moscow became a screen for a crude animated laser show picturing Obama eating a banana.

anti-Obama sign in Moscow

In this context, a missile for Obama in the middle of a patriotic rally hardly raised any eyebrows. A bigger problem is the fact that this agitprop rocket was conceived and signed by a Valery Rashkin (pronounced as “Rushkin”), a notoriously belligerent member of the Russian parliament and the leader of the Moscow branch of the Communist Party. The picture shows him proudly pumping his fist in front of his art project. Putin’s policies to restore the USSR obviously make this communist leader a happy camper.

A week earlier Rashkin fell under a new round of EU sanctions for promoting war in Ukraine, along with nineteen individuals and nine organizations whose assets held in EU countries have now been frozen, accompanied by an EU-wide travel ban. In total, Brussels has already sanctioned 151 individuals and 37 companies in Russia and eastern Ukraine.

Russian missile for Obama from RashkinThe new blacklist caused an overwrought reaction in the Duma, which quickly became the subject of ridicule in social media. The indignant head of the education commission Nikonov (United Russia) took the floor to defend his communist colleague by saying, “If they (in Europe) are all Charlie, then we are all… Rashkin!”

The following day, the Russian-speaking Internet was filled with “Je suis Rashkin” Internet memes, Tweets, and spoofs.

Rashkin himself responded to the sanctions by saying that in WWII his father entered Berlin without any sanctions and he was hoping that history would sort it out like it did in 1945. Standing next to his rocket, the leader of Moscow communists explained his stunt as follows: “Someone today is conspiring against my Motherland. I am the son of my father, I wanted to send a present. This present doesn’t abide by any sanctions either. It will fly wherever the Motherland wishes it to fly.”

A crowd of communists, several thousand strong, carried red flags, portraits of Soviet leaders, and the Obama-designated rocket through Moscow streets to Revolution Square, where they held a planned rally with Rashkin as a speaker. “The United States is causing destruction, violence, and bloodshed all over the world. We must stop these rapists and murderers, we must fight to defend the sovereignty of our great nation,” said the member of the Russian parliament and head of the commission on ethnic policies.

The next speaker was Gennady Zyuganov, head of Russia’s Communist Party, claiming that the West doesn’t want Russia to be strong and powerful and that they only “need our resources, our talent, and our land. That is why they have imposed their sanctions and continue to choke us any way they can. That is why they have unleashed the bloody war in Ukraine, directed by the CIA, unscrupulous diplomats, outright Nazis, Banderites, and corrupt oligarchs.”

Leader of Russia’s communists Gennady Zyuganov is not only a long-serving member of the Russian parliament (since 1993), but he is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (since 1996). Additionally, in 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012 he was a candidate in Russian presidential elections and came in second every time. Zyuganov and Rashkin exemplify the pre-approved pool of candidates in Putin’s Russia circa 2015.

Rashkin - Red Army hat

To be fair, the Kremlin’s political technologists are hard at work trying to misrepresent the reality of Russia’s pool of candidates by manufacturing and promoting political opposition which it can control, while marginalizing the independents. As a result, the only “viable” opposition leaders in Russia are the Soviet-style communist Zyuganov (4% of the vote) and the psychotic nationalist Zhirinovsky (5% of the vote). Both are grotesque scarecrows; compared to them Putin looks like a knight in shining armor to most Russians and appears a lesser of two evils in the eyes of the West.

After the fall of the USSR Russia had a real chance to develop a civil society, modernize its economy, and join the family of Western nations as an equal. Instead, as many independent Russian analysts believe, Vladimir Putin has squandered that chance, choosing to control the population by cultivating fear and hostility towards the outside world as a means to shift the blame for Russia’s continued problems and to divert attention from his and his circle’s abuse of power.

Russian most popular politicians

If a president’s goal is to become a national hero but he can’t do it by improving his country, Plan B is to create the appearance of heroics by means of media manipulations and byzantine political technologies. The latter worked for Putin: according to a survey conducted early February by Public Opinion Foundation, 72% of Russians would have voted for Putin today, with only 5% distrusting their president. The annexation of the Crimea only added to his popularity. Analysts believe the current crisis may actually be a boon for Putin, as the average Russian is likely thinking, “If he could pull off getting us the Crimea, he’ll find a way out of this crisis as well.”

On the international arena, Plan B means dragging the rest of the world down to his level by sabotaging other economies and stirring political turmoil abroad, making Russia look stable and prosperous in comparison.

Russian Aryan mythologyBy choosing Plan B, Putin has pushed the Russian society thousands of years back, into the age of mythology with its hierarchy of gods, heroes, and monsters. In compliance with the state-approved zeitgeist, Russia’s cultural elites are filling the post-communist void in their souls with ancient Slavic mythology and “Aryan” pseudoscience, submerging into the depths of imaginary history, resurrecting forgotten words, notions, and meanings, and defining Russia as the Third Rome.

In other words, they are doing pretty much everything the cultural elites in Hitler’s Germany did when they tried to resurrect the pre-Christian Aryan mythology and lifestyle, defining themselves as the Third Empire, better known to us as the Third Reich.

The parallels in cultural attitudes are striking – and yet, in the mythological hierarchy of today’s “Third Rome,” the Third Reich was populated by monsters. According to the same mythology, the monsters have now reappeared in Ukraine, and Pax Russiana is once again standing up to the noble task of stomping them out. As a bonus, this view allows the participants to re-enact the mythologized heroics of the Great Patriotic War, better known to us as WWII. The circus pleases the plebs, and lowering vodka prices also helps.

A decade of mind-boggling oil revenues may have made Putin look like an invincible superhero, but easy petrodollars have also bloated his ego and made him detached from reality. The rest of the nation simply jumped on the presidential bandwagon. Now that the oil prices have dropped by half, Russia is back to square one: a poor and paranoid outcast, with crumbling currency, junk credit rating, and residual delusions of grandeur.

Superhero Putin is now asking his citizens to “sit tight for a couple of years, it’ll get better,” while his sidekick, prime minister Medvedev, threatens the world with a terrible “boom” and “ka-pow.” The sidekick’s sidekick, deputy prime minister Shuvalov, follows suit by declaring that for Putin’s sake Russians will be happy to eat less and live in the dark.

Quite fittingly, Putin has begun to exchange regular friendly messages with Kim Jong Un. North Korea’s dictator is expected to visit Moscow on May 9th to attend the Victory Day military parade in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. Both must be looking forward to comparing notes on how to maintain a long and productive career as an international outcast. The Russian media is already producing stories claiming that life in North Korea is not as bad as Western imperialists would want us to believe. Whether Russia is ready for the Ten Principles of Juche remains to be seen, but latest opinion polls indicate that Russia’s positive view of the authoritarian China has grown as high as 77%.

According to a running joke among his critics, Putin has turned Russia into a Burkina Faso with nuclear rockets. And if you’re a member of the Russian parliament, you can even have a personal rocket, or at least a cargo-cult imitation thereof, or perhaps a rocket-shaped voodoo doll, on which you can write the name of your true enemy: Barack Obama.

Russian most popular politicians

EDITORS NOTE: This column was first published in FrontPage Magazine, now with added illustrations. The featured photo is courtesy of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – KPRF.ru

President Obama please explain this to me

Vladimir Putin has Russian separatists, with the assistance of Russian forces, take over parts of the Ukraine and you impose sanctions on Russia.

Iran supports the massacre of over 200,000 Syrians, provides weapons to its proxy Hezbollah who kill Syrians which ultimately results in the creation of Islamic State.

Iran supports its proxies in Yemen which results in the overthrow of the government of Yemen which was friendly to the U.S. and helped fight al Qaeda.

Iran sends its highest ranking general and most brutal Shiite military forces into Iraq without consulting the U.S. to the alarm of the Pentagon to fight ISIS, which is a prelude to taking over the government of Iraq in order to place Iraq into Iran’s orbit.

Iran is responsible for the death of more than a thousand U.S. soldiers.

Iran supplies rockets to Hamas and Hezbollah which are used against Israel and Iran threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the earth whose population cries death to America and death to Israel and according to the U.S. State Department Iran is the leading State sponsor of terrorism and recently performed a mock attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier.

So can you explain to me why you placed sanctions against Russia but reduced Iranian sanctions; transferred several billion dollars to Iran and you intend to give Iran a path to acquire nuclear weapons?

Even if Iran was not developing nuclear weapons severe sanctions against Iran would be appropriate because it is a leading sponsor of Radical Islamic terrorism and seeks subjugate its neighbors.

One of the most vexing questions no one seems to be asking Obama is; why is it so important for him to make a deal with Iran (a leading sponsor of terrorism) which will lead to Iran’s nuclear weapons breakout and unrestrained nuclear weapons down the road even if Iran doesn’t cheat;– and why is he willing to make a deal that will lead to a nuclear arms race in the region? Based on reports from U.N. nuclear regulatory inspectors we now know that Iran refuses to give them access in violation of Iran’s agreement to do so, to sites where the nuclear weapons program is undoubtedly underway.

This combined with his admission to Julie Pace of the AP that he (Obama) doesn’t trust Iran, makes his position unbelievably confusing and beyond comprehension.

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Rock Iran’s Casbah!

We wrap up a historic week of education (or is that edutainment) on the serious issue of Iran’s quest for thermonuclear destructive capability. Creatively, Tom and his team analyze the use of rock & roll music to protest the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In particular, our focus is the well-known song by the British Punk group, The Clash, entitled: “Rock the Casbah.”

Not only does this early 80’s protest piece make some amazing points but this song clearly underscores the undeniable Clash of Civilizations between Islam and the West. With us as a special quest is spokesperson for the Defenders of Liberty Motorcycle Club, the “Wall.”

Do not miss this very informative and entertaining wrap up to a very important week!

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VIDEO U.S. – Iran Talks: The Real Story in five minutes

I received this important non-partisan video from a friend. If you listen to one thing on the issue of Iran, this video by Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska is it. This video was posted two weeks before Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress on March 3rd.

Please–please share it.

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For God and Country, and Iran: Shiite militias with American blood on their hands are leading the charge to drive the Islamic State out of Tikrit. But are they doing more harm than good? Foreign Policy Magazine

Netanyahu’s Profile in Courage

Regardless of your “political affiliation,” you must admit Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu made a firm case as to why President Obama and the United States has no business entering into negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran — then again, perhaps Iran is not Islamic.

Is there any debate that Iran is the number one state sponsor of Islamic terrorism? Is there any debate that Iran has extended its hegemonic designs in the Middle East — controlling four capitol cities, Baghdad, Sanaa, Damascus, and Beirut? Is there any debate that it is Iran leading an offensive operation to retake the city of Tikrit in Iraq? And this comes after what is now a massive embarrassment for the Obama administration and our USCENTCOM to have divulged that America working with the Iraqis will have to push back its plans to take Mosul to later in the year.

Is there any doubt that Iran has shown no change in its militant Islamic behavior and rhetoric? Iran is still the same country that overran our embassy and held Americans hostage — when a previous American president displayed weakness and paralysis.

This is the same Iran that worked through Hezbollah to slaughter nearly 250 Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers in Beirut. Iran continues to hold an American Pastor — Saeed Abedini — and we want to negotiate?

But according to our president — there was “nothing new” — and I must agree Mr. President, there is nothing new about Iran and its belligerence. As well, there is nothing new about President Obama who sadly — along with many members of the Democrat party — acted like a petulant child, angry because someone didn’t give in to him. For someone to tell the Prime Minister of Israel to go home showed a complete lack of regard, respect, and displayed unadulterated disdain.

Why? Why is the truth was so frustrating?

The supposed “deal” with Iran only lasts for ten years; afterwards, Iran is free to pursue its nuclear intentions — and if any of you don’t believe Iran has those designs, you’re as naïve as Sir Neville Chamberlain or his modern reincarnation, Barack Obama.

Or perhaps Obama isn’t naïve after all?

There is a contest in the Islamic world for the new hegemony. The traditional state that has filled that role has been Saudi Arabia where the most holy sites in Islam reside — Mecca and Medina. The challenger is the last Islamic empire, the Ottoman, Turkey, where President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has rejected the original secular Muslim state vision of Kemal Ataturk.

But the new kid on the block is not Sunni, but Shia: Iran. And as Prime Minister Netanyahu stated, “we can focus on ISIS and beating them, but if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, we will have won a battle but lost a war.” And it seems the Obama administration is more than happy to sit back and allow the Iranian Republican Guard and Shiite militias to fight ISIS.

You ask me why should you care?

Because in the end, as Netanyahu stated, “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.” Shall we sit back and disregard our own security but more so abandon Israel and its survival?

And consider the growing anti-Semitism in Europe that is forcing Jewish communities to disappear. Who of you will look into the eyes of Elie Wiesel and not understand the meaning of the words, “Never again?” This is not about a little skirmish with no ramifications for the future of liberty and freedom – it is a seminal battle for the soul of Western civilization. That’s neither over the top, nor fear mongering hyperbole. It is the hard truth.

Yes, I hear the detractors: we are war weary and we don’t want to fight; this is just an example of foreign entanglements and President George Washington in his farewell speech warned against this. Something tells me General George Washington would not allow militant Islam — Sunni or Shiite — to thrive.

Do I have a strategy? Sure.

  1. First of all it is insanity to have vetoed the Keystone XL Pipeline. We should be developing our energy resources enabling us to keep prices minimal in order to spur on economic growth. Then we should be exporting excess energy resources so that Europe does not have to depend upon Iranian sources.
  2. Reinstitute the crippling economic sanctions against the Islamic regime — it was working, so why would Obama let up on the gas? In the military we had a saying, “Why do you kick a man when he’s down? Because he’s close to your foot.” We should have kept kicking Iran, not offering them a hand helping them up — they have a knife ready.
  3. We should form an alliance with Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and the Kurdish Regional Government to defeat militant Islamic terrorism in the region. Arm the Kurds and promise them what they truly deserve and have always wanted — a sovereign homeland. A homeland that extends from northern Iran to Iraq to Syria. Enable them to be a bulwark against Iran, Turkey and Syria, while pressuring Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yes, this is an opportunity for leadership to reshape the Middle East into strong allies that can assist in defeating the jihadists.
  4. And we need to fully support our best ally, Israel, and support their play against the array of Islamic terrorist groups who wish their destruction.

President Obama is hiding something. There is no other reason why he has issued a veto threat to the Congress for any legislation requiring his approval from the legislative body on his Iranian deal. So it seems the only enemy Barack Obama sees is the American Congress — I forgot, it is GOP-controlled, but none of this is political, right?

I just want everyone reading this to ask yourselves a question. You saw Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech yesterday. You heard President Barack Obama’s response to his speech (and his State of the Union address).

I ask you which one is a leader who loves his country? Let me give you a hint — in ten years, Iran will be free to become a nuclear power because of a deal that one of those two men wants very badly.

Netanyahu in Washington: An Eleventh-hour Plea for Sanity by Jerry Gordon and Ilana Freedman

On Tuesday, March 3, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu laid out in an address before a joint meeting of Congress, a compelling rebuttal to the President’s case for the phased deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.  He diplomatically paid court to President Obama for supplying both known and secret support for the Jewish nation of Israel.

We didn’t need Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come tell us how big a threat a nuclear enabled Iran will be. Well-informed Americans already know that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons production capability in the hands of an apocalyptic regime , will fan the flames of war in the Middle East and put the entire world at risk.

This is a regime whose rulers are sowing seeds of chaos in preparation for the coming of their messiah, the Twelfth Imam.

Netanyahu’s message to a packed house in a Joint Meeting of Congress was clear, concise, and spelled out starkly the issues and the choices we face.

Watch this C-span Video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s  address before the Joint Meeting of Congress on March 3, 2015:

An affronted delegation.   Visually absent from the joint meeting were 50 Democrat members of both Chambers, who chose to demonstrate their partisan loyalty to their party and the President. At issue was misplaced sense that the President had been slighted, represented by Netanyahu’s presence before the Joint Meeting  of Congress, because the visit was organized by House Speaker John Boehner without consultation with Obama. That no representative of the Obama administration was present as well showed how petulant partisan politicians, even at the highest levels, can be when faced with what they perceive as slights, real or imagined.

By avoiding the Prime Minister’s speech, they also missed the more than 40 rounds of standing ovations that punctuated his remarks.  More importantly they  failed to observe minimum protocols of courtesy due to a visiting head of state. In this case, when the object of their anger is the head of state of one of America’s closest allies, their lack of courtesy is shameful.

According to reports from reliable sources, the President was “infuriated” by Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. However,  because Netanyahu’s speech was full of praise for Obama and his generous assistance and support of Israel, all Obama could say was that Netanyahu didn’t present anything new or “any viable alternatives”. That became the veritable chorus from his White House spokespersons and in some quarters of the mainstream media. So bitter was the vitriol that one of Netanyahu’s detractors suggested that the Prime Minister’s speech was ‘racist’ because it was critical of America’s first minority President. A group of African American pastors responded by coming out in support of Netanyahu’s speech and went on record in a news conference to disagree with this bizarre comment, promising that they would stand with Israel.

The Prime Minister’s speech was framed in history.  Israel’s Prime Minister came to inform Americans about the seriousness of the threat represented by a nuclear Iran. He began the body of his speech by placing his remarks in an historical context.

He explained to the Congressional audience that the ancient Jewish Festival of Purim would begin the following evening. The holiday commemorates another Persian government, some 2,500 years ago, when Haman, Vizier to the Persian Emperor Xerxes (also known as Ahasuerus) singled out the entire Jewish population for slaughter.  They were saved by Queen Esther and her uncle, Mordechai, and given permission to defend themselves against the massive pogrom that had been planned against them. Netanyahu then drew the parallel between this ancient plot against the Jews of Persia and the current threats against the Jewish State of Israel by the mullahs of Iran, the current government in the modern-day land of ancient Persia.

Bringing history a bit closer to home, Netanyahu made copious references to the Holocaust.  He introduced, for recognition and applause, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel, who sat in the Speaker’s Box as an honored guest of the Prime Minister and his wife, Sara. Wiesel, who is a personal friend of the President, came nevertheless as Netanyahu’s guest. “Although he has deep affection for the President”, in the words of his friend, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “he didn’t feel saying that the Jewish people face danger would be an offensive message.”

These historical connections, creating links between the ancient threat of a Persian viceroy, the more recent catastrophe of the Holocaust, and the current threats of the apocalyptic reign of Shia Mahdists in Tehran, covered two thousand years of history of the Jewish experience. Today’s threat is hardly less significant. Whether from the Ayatollah Khamenei or the alleged moderates in his government, President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, they, like Haman, are determined to wipe Israel, ‘the Zionist Enterprise” off the map of the world. In the words of Hezbollah’s retired Brig. Gen. Walid Sakariya, the nuclear weapons Iran is developing are intended to “create a balance of terror with Israel” and “finish off the Zionist enterprise.”

Netanyahu also reminded his audience that Israel is the bastion for world Jewry under anti-Semitic assault in the West and throughout the Muslim world. He warned that it would, out of necessity, defend itself against both conventional and non-conventional threats by Iran and its proxies:

This is why — this is why, as a Prime Minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel.

Netanyahu also put in historical context Iran’s continuing war against the West. He referenced Tehran’s secret war against America, Israel, and Jews that began with the Islamic Revolution in 1979 with the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran and the hostage crisis that lasted 444 days, a war that still continues.

He spoke of the hundreds if not thousands of American soldiers and diplomats who were killed by Iranian Quds Force and their proxies, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in locations like Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, East Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan.

He spoke of the hundreds if not thousands of Jews who were killed in actions across five continents. Witness as examples the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and 1994 AMIA Jewish Center blasts in Buenos Aires, Argentina and, more recently the bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria by Hezbollah operatives.

Netanyahu aptly pointed out that the Iranian Constitution crafted by these Mahdists said that the purpose of the Islamic Revolution was to export Jihad around the world. Unlike the US, he said, which was founded on the promise of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, Iran’s founding documents promised, “Death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad.”

Netanyahu also warned his Congressional audience and those watching live from around the globe that Iran’s apocalyptic version of militant Islam comes from the source and that their current assault against ISIS should not fool us into adopting the ancient Arab maxim, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.  “When it comes to Iran and ISIS,” he said, “the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”

Iran as the agent of global jihad.     Among the most egregious of Iran’s involvement in attacks against the US, was the connivance with Al Qaeda in facilitating the training of many of the 9/11 perpetrators by the late Hezbollah terrorist mastermind, Imad Maghniyah.  That was revealed in affidavits by  former Iranian intelligence operatives in the Federal Iran 9/11 links case.

More recently, we have the revelations of collusion between the Shia Iran and Sunni Al Qaeda in e-mails from the treasure trove of information captured by US Navy Seal Team Six during the assassination of the late Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan.

Then there is the evidence of Iran’s Quds Force assisting the launch of ISIS in Syria. This is ironic now that the IRGC is leading Iraqi military forces against ISIS in the attack on the late Saddam Hussein’s birthplace of Tikrit, which was captured by ISIS. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is placed in the precarious and unwelcome position of standing by while Iran expands its reach and forwards its agenda.

Open Source Intelligence as the basis for Netanyahu’s warning.   The heart of Netanyahu’s message was conveyed halfway through his speech. It was based, he said, on information available on many public open sources which he invited his audience to “Google”. This was intended to quell any concerns raised by Obama that he would release classified intelligence that could torpedo negotiations with Iran. Many of the details of the ‘deal’ had already been leaked and were in the public domain. So he continued.

“We’ve been told,” he said, “that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well this is a bad deal, a very bad deal.”  Instead, he pointed out, “this deal has two major concessions: one, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program; and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That is why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

So why would anyone make this deal? Netanyahu posited this theory: “Because they hope that Iran will change for the better in the coming years, or they believe that the alternative to this deal is worse?”

Netanyahu used the petard of Ayatollah Khamenei’s own tweets, echoed by Secretary Kerry in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the future chaos wrought by this worse deal. He said, “My long-time friend, John Kerry, Secretary of State, confirmed last week that Iran could legitimately possess that massive centrifuge capacity when the deal expires.”

The State Department immediately accused him of taking Kerry’s Congressional testimony out of context, but here is Kerry’s own testimony, which makes the point abundantly clear:

Iran’s Supreme Leader says that openly. He says, Iran plans to have 190,000 centrifuges, not 6,000 or even the 19,000 that Iran has today, but 10 times that amount — 190,000 centrifuges enriching uranium. With this massive capacity, Iran could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal and this in a matter of weeks, once it makes that decision.

Netanyahu then painted a dystopian vision for the World and the Middle East region, should Iran, already a global sponsor of terrorism, become a nuclear threshold state and open the Pandora’s Box of nuclear proliferation:

Israel’s neighbors — Iran’s neighbors know that Iran will become even more aggressive and sponsor even more terrorism when its economy is unshackled and it’s been given a clear path to the bomb.

And many of these neighbors say they’ll respond by racing to get nuclear weapons of their own. So this deal won’t change Iran for the better; it will only change the Middle East for the worse. A deal that’s supposed to prevent nuclear proliferation would instead spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet.

This deal won’t be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control. And the Middle East would soon be crisscrossed by nuclear tripwires. A region where small skirmishes can trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinderbox.

If anyone thinks — if anyone thinks this deal kicks the can down the road, think again. When we get down that road, we’ll face a much more dangerous Iran, a Middle East littered with nuclear bombs and a countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare.

Netanyahu drew attention to the looming threat of Iran’s missile program and military nuclear developments, excluded from the proposed Memorandum of Understanding  being word smithed in Geneva by Secretary Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif:

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, said again yesterday that Iran still refuses to come clean about its military nuclear program. Iran was also caught — caught twice, not once, twice — operating secret nuclear facilities in Natanz and Qom, facilities that inspectors didn’t even know existed.

And by the way, if Iran’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program is not part of the deal, and so far, Iran refuses to even put it on the negotiating table. Well, Iran could have the means to deliver that nuclear arsenal to the far-reach corners of the earth, including to every part of the United States.

Iran’s Ongoing Progress Despite Negotiations.   To buttress Netanyahu concerns about Iran’s nuclear military applications and ICBM program, we have just heard from reliable sources that the Islamic Republic has achieved a technical breakthrough – the miniaturization of nuclear warheads – through technical support from both China and North Korea so that nuclear warheads will be able to be installed on their slender Shahab missiles.

Less certain is whether experiments with nuclear triggers have succeeded, given several explosions that have occurred at the Lavizan sites near Tehran and at Parchin, the military explosives test center. If this report is separately confirmed it means that Iran would have the ability to load ICBMs with nuclear warheads.

If tests conducted in Caspian Sea by Iran and the purchase of container-launched missiles from Russia are an indication may provide the capability to deploy small yield nuclear detonations off the American coasts. Those could produce an Electronic Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack, possibly disabling our less-than-secure power grid sending the country hurtling back to the pre-industrial age.

Even as the negotiations continue, the media ran a story about how Iran conducted cruise tetst attacks against a mock US aircraft carrier. Less covered but also last week, Iran launched a cruise missile from a submarine in the Persian Gulf. The missile has a range of 150 nautical miles and was designed to destroy a US carrier. So even as they sit at the negotiating table, the Iranians rattle their sabers and clearly demonstrate their animus.

Netanyahu’s Plan.   Contrary to Obama’s comment that there was ‘nothing new’, Netanyahu was clear in firmly stating that the lifting of sanctions and restrictions must be justified by Iranian action in three areas:

  • Stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East;
  • Stop supporting terrorism around the world; and,
  • Stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state.

Netanyahu’s plan was clear. Marco Rubio summed it up nicely:  “Iran can have an economy, or it can have nuclear weapons. But it can’t have both.”

A closing thought from the Bible.  Netanyahu concluded his address by pointing to the frieze of Moses high on the wall opposite from where he stood surrounding the House chamber.  He recited and translated from the Hebrew Moses’ instructions in his final address to the ancient Hebrews about to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land:

Before the people of Israel entered the land of Israel, Moses gave us a message that has steeled our resolve for thousands of years. I leave you with his message today, “Be strong and resolute, neither fear nor dread them.”

My friends, may Israel and America always stand together, strong and resolute. May we neither fear nor dread the challenges ahead. May we face the future with confidence, strength and hope.

A warning to be heeded.  Netanyahu’s message in his address to Congress is not lost on Israelis and the preponderance of Americans, who view Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon as a clear and present damage to the world.  At issue is whether the Administration’s obsession with an agreement with Iran at all cost has blinded them to the consequences of a deal that would allow Iran to become a nuclear power.

This is not the time for peevishness. No insults were intended and none should be interpreted. Netanyahu’s visit and his speech were timely – a last minute call for clarity and resolve against an implacable enemy masquerading as a negotiating partner.

There are many who fervently believe that any negotiations with Iran will lead us dangerously close to a nuclear precipice.  Perhaps,  Netanyahu’s comments before Congress where prescient. Apparently, Iran has rejected  the proposed phased deal placing negotiations in Geneva at an impasse.

Netanyahu’s ultimate message is clear:  Iran’s nuclear clock is rocketing towards midnight. Can we stop it in time or will our own Munich in Geneva lead us into a nuclear doomsday scenario that, once begun, no one will be able to stop?

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Before Joint Meeting of Congress with Speaker John Boehner on left and Senate President Pro-temp Sen. Orrin Hatch on right on March 3, 2015.

Netanyahu Addresses Iran Nuclear Threat at AIPAC — Obama Administration Criticizes

An audience of 16,000 at the AIPAC Washington Policy Conference enthusiastically welcomed Israeli PM Netanyahu’s appearance, today.  Netanyahu’s speech was a prelude to his appearance before a joint Session of Congress tomorrow at 10:45AM EST. It will be televised by Fox-News and C-SPAN.  Fox will have commentary from a panel both prior to and following Netanyahu’s Congressional speech.  The Voice of Israel will broadcast it live via the internet with following commentary.

Some likened today’s remarks as a warm up to the main event on Tuesday, March 3rd. For many of us his AIPAC Conference remarks today were punctuated by his eloquent Churchillian cadences. Other lines echoed Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s 1938 Tish B’Av “Ihr Kommt” (they’re coming) speech to Jews in Poland warning them of their impending destruction during Hitler’s Final Solution, the Holocaust. Other lines were  reminiscent of Churchill’s caustic Parliamentary remarks on the Munich 1938 appeasement by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and  French Premier Eduard Daladier acceding to Hitler’s demand that Czech President Eduard Benes unilaterally cede Sudetenland thus dismembering Czechoslovakia. All while Chamberlain waved that scrap of paper upon arrival at Heston aerodrome saying that he had achieved “peace for our times”. That imagery was captured in Netanyahu’s lavish praise heaped on Czech President Zeman who was on the dais at the AIPAC conference. Netanyahu thanked Zeman for the country’s enduring support for Zionism espoused by Czech Republic founder Thomas Masyrk and the material support the Czechs provided post WWII to Israel during the 1948-1949 War for Independence. That was captured in Netanyahu’s reference in his speech to the Czech rifle he trained with as an IDF Sayeret Matkal member.

Netanyahu paid copious respects to AIPAC officials,  noted “no disrespect to President Obama”, and  pledged fealty to the long enduring bi-partisan US relations with ally Israel.  An Israel, as he pointed out, that shared common Western values of freedom, liberty, civil and human rights for the Jewish nation’s citizens. He noted as one example prominent women jurists on its High Court and as CEOs of Israeli companies.

Screen Shot 2015-03-02 at 10_40_03 AM

Screen shot of  Global Map of Iran Terror used by  PM Netanyahu at 2015 AIPAC. For a larger view click on the map.

He spoke clearly about why he was in Washington:

The purpose of my address to Congress tomorrow is to speak up about a potential deal with Iran that could threaten the survival of Israel. Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Look at that graph. Look at that map. And you see on the wall, it shows Iran training, arming, dispatching terrorists on five continents. Iran envelopes the entire world with its tentacles of terror. This is what Iran is doing now without nuclear weapons. Imagine what Iran would do with nuclear weapons.

And this same Iran vows to annihilate Israel. If it develops nuclear weapons, it would have the means to achieve that goal. We must not let that happen.

And as prime minister of Israel, I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there’s still time to avert them. For 2,000 years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenseless, voiceless. We were utterly powerless against our enemies who swore to destroy us. We suffered relentless persecution and horrific attacks. We could never speak on our own behalf, and we could not defend ourselves.

Well, no more, no more.

The days when the Jewish people are passive in the face of threats to annihilate us, those days are over. Today in our sovereign state of Israel, we defend ourselves. And being able to defend ourselves, we ally with others, most importantly, the United States of America, to defend our common civilization against common threats.

In our part of the world and increasingly, in every part of the world, no one makes alliances with the weak. You seek out those who have strength, those who have resolve, those who have the determination to fight for themselves. That’s how alliances are formed.

Watch this C-span video of Israeli PM Netanyahu’s remarks at the 2015 AIPAC Conference.

U.S. UN Ambassador Power, speaking at AIPAC today, accorded respect for the enduring US-Israel alliance.   She also said that the Administration would stop Iran from achieving a nuclear breakthrough:

            The United States of America will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, Period.

We believe diplomacy is the preferred route to secure our shared aim. But if diplomacy fails, we know the stakes of a nuclear-armed Iran as well as everyone here. We will not let it happen. There will never be a sunset on America’s commitment to Israel’s security. Never.

 However, she tossed a barb at both Netanyahu and House Speaker Boehner for engaging in partisan politics with her remarks:

This partnership should never be politicized, and it cannot and will not be tarnished or broken. Debating the merits of a deal with Iran is legitimate. Politicizing that process is not. The stakes are too high for that.

 For her appearance as an Administration senior official, she received a standing ovation from the 16,000 attendees at the Washington Convention Center site of the Conference.

Watch this C-Span video of US UN Ambassador Power’s remarks at the 2015 AIPAC conference.

More of the same followed from another Administration senior official, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, when she mounted the podium at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to deliver her remarks.  Rice appeared to be toeing the Administration line saying, “sound bites won’t stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”  Rice essentially denied the possibility of ending Iran’s nuclear enrichment saying:

[ getting Iran to] forego its domestic enrichment capacity entirely… as desirable as that would be … is neither realistic nor achievable. The plain fact is no one can make Iran unlearn the scientific and nuclear expertise it already possesses.

She cautioned that it wasn’t a “viable negotiating position” to attempt to block Iran from using its nuclear capacity for domestic energy reasons.

Now I want to be very clear: a bad deal is worse than no deal,

We have Israel’s back come hell or high water.

Given Iran’s support for terrorism, the risk of a nuclear arms race in the region, and the danger to the entire global non-proliferation regime, Iran with a nuclear weapon would not just be a threat to Israel, it’s also an unacceptable threat to the United States of America.

Given Iran’s support for terrorism, the risk of a nuclear arms race in the region, and the danger to the entire global non-proliferation regime, Iran with a nuclear weapon would not just be a threat to Israel, it’s also an unacceptable threat to the United States of America.

We have Israel’s back come hell or high water.

On sanctions, Rice made it abundantly clear why the Administration opposed any new legislation, saying:

We cannot let a totally unachievable ideal stand in the way of a good deal [with Iran]. Sanctions, have never stopped Iran from advancing its [nuclear] program. New sanctions would blow up the talks, divide the international community, and cause the U.S. to be blamed for causing negotiations with Iran to fail.

Not unlike Power, Rice received a standing ovation ironically for policies that she opposes. Note what blog Twitchy reported:

The highlight of her speech was undoubtedly the standing ovation she received for acknowledging the desire for a complete halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. The look on her face while waiting for the cheers to die down so she could add “but” and finish her sentence: priceless.

Watch this You Tube video of the AIPAC audience applauding her and her befuddled expression:

That effectively shot down the faint hopes of many of the 16,000 in the Convention Center.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), co-author of the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015 with new sanctions, stormed up to the podium at AIPAC to rebut Rice.  He said:

Iran needs to understand that there are consequences to an impasse and those consequences are additional consequential sanctions.

As long as I have an ounce of fight left in me… Iran will never have a pathway to a weapon.

It will never threaten Israel or its neighbors, and it will never be in a position to star a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Not on my watch.

Secretary of State Kerry, speaking from Geneva, Switzerland  earlier today in the midst of   discussions with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, voiced  concerns that ‘leaks’ by Israel might jeopardize the phased deal.  Kerry said:

We are concerned by reports that suggest selective details of the ongoing negotiations will be discussed publicly in the coming days. Doing so would make it more difficult to reach the goal that Israel and others say they share in order to get to a good deal. Israel’s security is absolutely at the forefront of all of our minds, but frankly so is the security of all of the other countries in the region. So is our security.

 Kerry made a  brief appearance at the UN Human Rights Commission today in Geneva voicing concerns  about the panel’s  pre-occupation with isolating Israel, saying:

We will oppose any effort by any group or participant in the U.N. system to arbitrarily and regularly delegitimize or isolate, Israel. No country should be free from scrutiny on human rights, but no country should be subjected to unfair or unfounded bias.

President Obama in a Reuters interview several hours after Netanyahu’s speech at AIPAC expressed the view that the current discord would not seriously disrupt relations with Israel. Nevertheless he harshly criticized Netanyahu’s refrain about a bad deal emerging from the bi-lateral diplomatic discussions with Iran. He suggested the emerging 10 year deal with verifications was:

Far more effective in controlling their nuclear program than any military action we could take, any military action Israel could take and far more effective than sanctions will be.

He then took exception to Netanyahu’s criticism of the 2013 interim agreement with Iran:

Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true. It has turned out that in fact, during this period we’ve seen Iran not advance its program. In many ways, it’s rolled back elements of its program.

Watch this video of the Reuters interview with President Obama on March 2, 2015.

The Administration still hasn’t fully understood the import of the Gallup poll of Americans, 84% of whom expressed distrust of Iran, while 77% believed Iran should be denied becoming a nuclear threshold state.  As one audience member said at a presentation in Northwest Florida, Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon was a threat not only to Israel, but America as well.

An expectant Israel and the world awaits Netanyahu’s address before a joint session of Congress tomorrow.

Listen to this Voice of Israel Sound Cloud of Netanyahu’s speech at AIPAC.  The full text of Netanyahu’s AIPAC remarks can be found in this release by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

RELATED ARTICLE: Iran says it rejects Obama’s demand for 10-year nuclear work halt

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu at AIPAC Washington Policy Conference taken on March 2, 2015. Source: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom.

Obama’s Phased Nuclear Deal with Iran: Kicking the bomb down the road?

This column is co-authored with Ilana Freedman who is a veteran intelligence analyst and specialist in counter-terrorism. Ilana is Editor of FreedmanReport.com.

When we posted late Monday night, February 23, 2015, on breaking news about the phased deal resulting from bilateral discussions between U.S. Secretary of State Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, we knew from our sources that more shoes would be likely to drop. Last night we received information from these reliable sources on the extent to which the Administration had strayed from its original mandate. The information was:

  • Secretary of State John Kerry is poised to sign a secret Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the U.S. and Iran that was completed by negotiators on Saturday, February 14.
  • The State Department has received a decision from Eric Holder’s Department of Justice that the MoU does not require approval by the U.S. Senate in the Constitutionally defined process of Advise and Consent for treaties between the United States and other nations, and that therefore Congress will not be consulted.
  • The agreement does not cover the subject of inspections, removing the requirements of having inspections at any of the sites covered by the memorandum.
  • The agreement will allow Iran to have 10,000 enhanced centrifuges that will increase their nuclear program capacity by upwards of 50%.
  • Of the 10,000 centrifuges allotted, all of Iran’s 6,000 existing centrifuges will be converted to the enhanced, next generation versions. The conversion can begin immediately after the agreement is signed. This will enable Iran to achieve a nuclear threshold state in less than two years. The balance of 4,000 centrifuges will, according to our sources, be supplied by Russia.
Alireza Jafarzadeh Deputy Director of Natioal Council of Reskistance of Iran National Press Club  @-24-15 Source AFP

Alireza Jafarzadeh, Deputy Director, Washington Office of NCRI, National Press Club, Feb. 24, 2015.

It is not known whether other Iranian nuclear sites will likewise fall under this inspection exemption, including military test sites like Parchin and the secret parallel Lavizan site, which was disclosed in Washington on Tuesday, February 24th by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in a National Press Club briefing. At the NPC briefing, Alireza Jafarzadeh, Deputy Director of the NCRI’s Washington D.C. office, reported on a secret test site which has been previously identified in reports of the Washington, D.C. based, Institute for Science and International Security.

“Despite the Iranian regime’s claims that all of its enrichment activities are transparent … it has in fact been engaged in research and development with advanced centrifuges at a secret nuclear site called Lavizan-3,” he said.  Jafarzadeh said the site was hidden in a military base in the northeastern suburbs of Tehran.

According to the presentation, the complex was described as a facility 164 feet underground. The Lavizan-3 site was apparently constructed between 2004 and 2008 and has underground labs connected by a tunnel, and lead-lined doors to seal out radiation leaks.  The facility itself is heavily shielded from radiation and insulated against noise and radiation leaks to avoid detection.

“Since 2008, the Iranian regime has secretly engaged in research and uranium enrichment with advanced… centrifuge machines at this site,” Jafarzadeh said.

The NCRI called the existence of the site “a clear violation” of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as UN resolutions and an interim November 2013 deal struck with the P5+1 group, he said.

When asked about the NCRI findings at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the bi-lateral discussions with Iran, Secretary Kerry commented:

That U.S. officials knew of charges related to the site prior to this week, but that “it has not been revealed yet as a nuclear facility.”

“It is a facility that we are well aware of, which is on a list of facilities we have,” the Secretary of State said during a Capitol Hill budget hearing on Wednesday morning. “I’m not going to go into greater detail. . . .But these things are obviously going to have to be resolved as we go forward.”

Rep. Brad Sherman, ranking Democrat on the House Affairs Committee replied to Kerry:

 “The MEK sometimes gives us accurate information.”

“They are the ones that told the world about the Iranian nuclear program,” Mr. Sherman said. “They now say that there’s a secret facility at Lavizan-3.”

A credible independent expert monitoring Iran’s nuclear program raised questions about the NCRI findings.  David Albright of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security commented in a USA Today article, February 27, 2015:

“The basic story raises questions about its authenticity. They may have answers but the questions raise further doubts,” Albright said. “The claims are so controversial that any manipulated evidence casts doubt on the whole story.”

The matter of possible violations of the P5+1 interim agreements, the lack of inspections of military applications facilities like Parchin, the Arak heavy water reactor and the Lavizan-3  site near Tehran underlines the evidence of Iran’s  retention of significant uranium enrichment  centrifuge capabilities under the suggested 10 year phase deal the Administration announced  earlier this week.  It begs the question of why any enrichment capabilities are provided to Iran under the proposed arrangement, given that the principal use of centrifuges is for enrichment of uranium into fissile materials for bomb making.

That was a point made by Dan Diker, executive producer of the Voice of Israel “National Security” program during a Middle East Round Table discussion on 1330am WEBY Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio, “Your Turn” with co-hosts Mike BatesJerry Gordon of the NER and Shoshana Bryen , senior director  of the Washington, D.C. based Jewish Policy Center.

Diker of the VOI noted:

The notion that Iran would be able to enrich any uranium is completely unacceptable.  The civilian nuclear programs around the world hosted by Canada and other western countries have nothing to do with centrifuges.  They are just not part of the nuclear file.  Many countries want to have peaceful civilian nuclear power.  The notion that the Iranians would claim that they need centrifuges to produce peaceful nuclear power is an absurdity.  The fact that the P5+1 have allowed any uranium to be enriched is an extremely dangerous proposition.  That is the message that Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to bring to the American people and by extension to the world community.

As to why President Obama and Secretary Kerry would sanction the phased program, Bryen of the JPC suggested:

“[The President’s] thinking appears to be that ten years from now the Mullahs will have fallen, young Iranian democrats will have taken over, and it will be OK.  The big piece of this that he missed is that the Mullahs only represent one part of the Iranian body politic and that is the religious part. Iran is also Persian and Persians are empire-oriented.  Even if we get rid of the Mullahs, even if we get rid of the religious basis for governance in Iran and we have secular people, secular people in Persia believe in a Persian Empire. If we kick this can down the road ten years and the Mullahs are gone, Obama thinks that will be a good thing. I’m not sure that’s true.”

Listen to the February 24, 21015 1330am WEBY Middle East Round Table discussion on the Iranian nuclear program: Segment 1Segment 2Segment 3Segment 4.

An article based on the 1330am WEBY Round Table program will be published in the March 2015, NER.

The WEBY panel will also be heard on a separate Voice of Israel “National Security” program, Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 1PM Israel Standard Time ( 6:00 AM EST in the U.S.).  A sound cloud of that VOI broadcast will also be available on March 1st.

Iran’s provocative activities during the so-called Great Prophet-9 maneuvers this week raised questions about the untimely demonstrations of force directed at the US Fifth Fleet presence in the Persian Gulf. The first episode was the destruction by Iranian cruise missiles on Wednesday, February 25, 2015 launched at a replica of a U.S. aircraft carrier as a target near the international oil/gas choke point, the Straits of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.  Watch the video, here.

Then on Friday, February 27, 2015, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy announced the successful launch of a cruise missile from a submerged Ghadir midget-submarine with a range of 150 miles. Watch the video, here.   Sepah news service quoted Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, commander of IRGC-N saying:

The new weapon would be critical in any future naval war against the U.S.

“The new weapon will have a very decisive role in adding our naval power in confronting threats,” he was quoted as stating in Sepah News.

Iran’s latest operations in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz raises many questions. Why mount exercises in which a mock US aircraft carrier is destroyed by the Iranian navy? Or launch cruise missiles designed to take out a US naval destroyer just as the US is about to give them everything they want without a shot fired?  It may be a show of arrogance, a finger in the eye of the Obama administration (which it believes to be weak and foolish), or a move beyond the MoU into a new level of saber rattling to show its neighbors the seriousness of its ambitions. Or it might be all three, a typical multi-dimensional Persian chess play by the IRGC.

What the US must learn – and fast – is that this is not an enemy one can toy with. As in most Middle East politics, the weak are despised and the game goes to the powerful. As the secrets of Obama’s secret negotiations are revealed (or leaked), and the truth comes out about our feckless policies of negotiations and appeasement, the outcome is likely to be devastating for the region and the world.  Iran revels in its possible conquest of American might and moves a giant step closer to achieving its nuclear ambitions with America’s assistance – and blessings.

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

The West has Forsaken the non-Nuclear Iran Pledge

Prime Minister Netanyahu is right. The West led by President Obama has forsaken its non-nuclear Iran pledge. It is looking like Obama’s pledge was one more of his ‘red lines’ he never intended to keep. The recent testimony by Secretary of  State Kerry to the Senate that Iran will not be permitted to construct nuclear weapons is a lie.

If it isn’t a lie, then why has the Senate and the American public been kept in the dark about the details; and why is Obama afraid to have Netanyahu speak to the Congress? The answer is Obama has decided to cooperate with Iran’s Ayatollah to give them a path to develop nuclear weapons as long as it doesn’t happen during Obama’s presidency.

The Obama administration is about to unleash double-speak to explain that the Iran’s nuclear weapons program is a peaceful program because they haven’t found any bombs yet. Kerry and Obama must explain why a peaceful program is located in bomb proof caves and at locations that Iran will not allow the U.N. nuclear inspectors to visit; and explain the existence of another secret uranium enrichment site.

The real reason Obama is infuriated with Netanyahu is that Netanyahu is about to expose the truth to Congress and the American public. If this wasn’t the case Obama should welcome pressure from allies so he can extract a better deal from Iran. Instead he is joining with Iran against Israel and U.S. allies to create a path for it to develop nuclear weapons.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Iran Opposition Unveils Secret Tehran Uranium Enrichment Site” – Despite the Iranian regime’s claims that all of its enrichment activities are transparent…it has in fact been engaged in research and development with advanced centrifuges at a secret nuclear site called Lavizan-3,” Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said Tuesday. The site was in a military base in the northeastern suburbs of Tehran and has underground labs connected by a tunnel.

“Since 2008, the Iranian regime has secretly engaged in research and uranium enrichment with advanced…centrifuge machines at this site,” Jafarzadeh said. The NCRI has made several important revelations in the past of the existence of secret nuclear sites in Iran. (AFP)

Iran Practices Military Attacks on Mock U.S. Aircraft Carrier – Ali Akbar Dareini Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched large-scale naval and air defense drills near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday in which dozens of speedboats swarmed a replica of a U.S. aircraft carrier. State TV showed footage of missiles fired from the coast and the fast boats striking the mock U.S. aircraft carrier. Last month the Guard’s navy chief, Adm. Ali Fadavi, said on state TV that his force is capable of sinking American aircraft carriers. (AP-ABC News)

Iran nuclear deal, ISIS threat stimulating Sunni powers to unite – even with Israel – Arab leaders and officials have been meeting frequently in past weeks, likely discussing the threat of Islamic State and the Iranian threat.

As the US and Shi’ite Iran inch closer to a nuclear deal that many Sunnis and Israelis don’t trust and as Islamic State’s reach spreads, Arab leaders are frantically consulting on how to deal with the threats and some may consider a covert alliance with Israel, a former Pentagon Middle East adviser told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Harold Rhode, a senior fellow at the New-York-based Gatestone Institute and a former adviser at the Pentagon, said he saw the possibility of a “temporary tactical alliance with Israel” by Sunni Arab states.

The fatal flaw in the Iran deal: A sunset clause?—Charles Krauthammer – The news from the nuclear talks with Iran was already troubling. Iran was being granted the “right to enrich.” It would be allowed to retain and spin thousands of centrifuges. It could continue construction of the Arak plutonium reactor. Yet so thoroughly was Iran stonewalling International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors that just last Thursday the IAEA reported its concern “about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed . . . development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Bad enough. Then it got worse: News leaked Monday of the elements of a “sunset clause.” President Obama had accepted the Iranian demand that any restrictions on its program be time-limited. After which, the mullahs can crank up their nuclear program at will and produce as much enriched uranium as they want.

Sanctions lifted. Restrictions gone. Nuclear development legitimized. Iran would reenter the international community, as Obama suggested in an interview in December, as “a very successful regional power.” A few years — probably around 10 — of good behavior and Iran would be home free.

The agreement thus would provide a predictable path to an Iranian bomb. Indeed, a flourishing path, with trade resumed, oil pumping and foreign investment pouring into a restored economy.

Obama: America’s First Nuclear Proliferation President

On March 6, 2012 the UK Telegraph reported:

President Obama, speaking at a news conference a day after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said there was a window of opportunity to settle the dispute with Iran over its nuclear programme diplomatically.

We will not we will not countenance Iran getting a nuclear weapon. My policy is not containment. My policy is to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon, because if they get a nuclear weapon that could trigger an arms race in the region, it would undermine our non-proliferation goals, it could potentially fall into the hands of terrorists. And we’ve been in close consultation with all our allies, including Israel, in moving this strategy forward. At this stage, it is my belief that we have a window of opportunity where this can still be resolved diplomatically,” he said.

[Emphasis added]

In November 2013 The Huffington Post reported:

President Barack Obama addressed Iran during a press conference on Thursday [11/13/2013] called to address issues with Obamacare.

“I’ve said before and I will repeat — we do not want Iran having nuclear weapons,” Obama said when asked about Iran by Agence France-Presse’s Stephen Collinson.

[Emphasis added]

The anti-proliferation President has now changed his position on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. He is the first U.S. President to do so.

Germany, France and the U.S. just sold out Ukraine to Putin. Now the P5+1 countries led by President Obama is negotiating a deal with Iran to sellout Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt among others. It is also a sellout of the United States which will one day have the Iranian ‘Sword of Damocles’ over its head as well.

Obama’s deal will assure that Iran will construct nuclear weapons over a period of time. None of the other Arab countries can afford not to build or acquire nuclear weapons once Iran is allowed to develop them. Henry Kissinger pointed this out to the Senate. He said even if Iran never actually follows through to build nuclear weapons the other Arab countries must assume they will and therefore will acquire them as well.

While Obama was assuring the American public, Israel and our Arab allies that the U.S. will not permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons he was secretly negotiating a different deal with Iran; and while Obama assured us he opposed nuclear proliferation he was secretly negotiating a deal to allow proliferation and a nuclear arms race in the most unstable and dagerous region of the world. As painful as it is for me to do so, because it damages the credibility of the U.S. and the office of the president I am compelled to say Obama lied. It is not Obama’s critics who are undermining America and the office of the president, it is Obama who is doing so.

If Obama believes Iran can be contained, how does he expect any future president to contain every Arab and Muslim country that will surely obtain nuclear weapons once Iran is given the path to them? Every Arab country is unstable and sooner of later may be taken over by the likes of ISIS. Just imagine if Syria, Libya or Yemen had nuclear weapons. How do you contain the most Radical elements of Islam? The answer is clear, it can’t be done.

In the video below President Obama in March 2014 voices his concern about “A Nuclear Weapon Going Off In Manhattan”. In January 2015 it was widely reported that Iran has a ballistic missile that can reach Manhattan. Giving Iran a nuclear weapon puts the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States at risk.