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Iranians celebrate anniversary of 1979 takeover of US embassy by burning flags, shouting “Death to America” earlier this month.

The US has often been criticized for supporting unsavory regimes for pragmatic reasons. Chiang Kai-shek and the Shah of Iran, for example, were not paragons of democracy and liberalism, but they were anti-communist. Remember Fulgencio Batista, Castro’s predecessor? And don’t forget that we were for Saddam Hussein before we were against him.

But the Obama Administration has opened a whole new chapter. By supporting the Islamist regimes of Mohammed Morsi and Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the US helps regimes that not only oppress their own population and threaten their neighbors, but make no secret of their hatred and desire to destroy the US itself.

Morsi is gone, thank goodness, but the recent agreement which rescues Iran’s economy and negates six UN Security Council resolutions against its enrichment of uranium is a shocking example of feeding — with nuclear arms — the mouth that wants to bite you.

This is not just about Israel, folks. The German newspaper Die Welt reports that Iran is building missile bases in Venezuela. If true, this means that Iran would have the capability to hit the US with missiles that they already have!

Even a single small nuclear bomb detonated at high altitude could do enormous damage to our national infrastructure as an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon. Such a weapon could be put together in secret in a few weeks — and could even be launched from a cargo ship miles from our shore.

There will not be an accommodation between Western liberalism and radical Islam because the latter wants to supplant the former, both in world leadership and in cultural supremacy. Radical Islam — unlike conservative dictatorships — is essentially expansionist, and we are in its way.

The Obama Administration is mistaken in thinking that it will be possible to  contain or control radical Islamist regimes with nuclear weapons by appealing to common interests like economic development and cooperation in the name of humanity. Just as we are not prepared to give up our commitment to democratic government, equality under law and some form of free enterprise (although we may differ among ourselves about the degree of control government may have over that enterprise), they are committed to the highly undemocratic and anti-equality Islamic shari’a.

Iran has already invested a huge amount in its project to become a nuclear power, and it probably wouldn’t be wrong to say that today its achievement is the first priority among the objectives of the regime. It has become obvious that the present administration simply doesn’t have the will to stop them.

Israel, on the other hand, understands that it will be in mortal danger from a nuclear Iran. Whether it will succeed in stopping Iran is an open question today — but it would be ironic if, at the end of the day, the fate of America should depend on Israel.

Technorati Tags: Iran

News item:

U.S. President Barack Obama phoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, pledging future consultations with the U.S. ally on the deal. The White House announced the call while Obama was aboard Air Force One en route to Seattle for a fund-raising event.

In other news, the President’s plane almost had to make an emergency landing when his pants burst into flames immediately following the call.

Seriously, why would Netanyahu believe any assurances about future behavior after the way Obama deceived him about the contents of the agreement he was about to sign and the secret negotiations leading up to it?

My wife recently had my grandson write an essay about telling the truth. Maybe a similar exercise would be educational for the President?

Why it is Important to Tell the Truth
By Barack H. Obama

It is very important to tell the truth. If you don’t, then nobody will ever believe you or trust you. You will not have friends. For example, I told my friend Bibi that I wouldn’t weaken sanctions on Iran unless it agreed to stop enriching uranium. But meanwhile, I was secretly promising Iran that I would do just that! And then I did it. Now Bibi doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. Can you blame him?

I also told my other friends, the Arabs, that I wouldn’t allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But my deal gives them the time and money to do it. And I even said that the military option is still on the table! Well, that was a whopper! There is no way I will be the one to start a new war in the Middle East, even if that means I have to let Iran be the one to start it. But Bibi and the Arabs figured this out and now they are mad at me.

But I couldn’t help myself. It is really important for me to make it look like my policy of appeasement engagement is a success. I needed something positive after totally screwing up our relationship with Egypt, and then flip-flopping so embarrassingly on Syria. And of course the Republicans haven’t stopped busting my balls about the mess in Benghazi. I had to keep Bibi and the Arabs from spoiling my plan to be a successful peacemaker.

So I’m really, really sorry I got caught lying lied to Bibi and the Arabs. But I got the Nobel Peace Prize in advance for being so good at peace, didn’t I? And now I’m going to show the world how good I am at peace by fixing up Bibi and the Palestinians!

I just hope I don’t get caught again.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Iran

The agreement concluded yesterday between the P5 + 1 and Iran grants Iran two essentials for its nuclear program: time and money. While it calls for Iran to stop or slow various activities, it weakens sanctions without requiring Iran to dismantle any of its facilities. Israeli PM Netanyahu calls it a “historic mistake,” and says that Iran has “taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.” Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s Minister of Intelligence said that it was based on “Iranian deception and [Western] self-delusion.”

Netanyahu has also said that Israel does not consider itself bound by the agreement. Israel was not a party to it (as Czechoslovakia was not a party to the Munich pact), and what he means is that Israel reserves the right to take action if Iran appears to be about to obtain nuclear capability.

This is strong talk, but quite sincere. Israel is not interested in further damaging its relationship with the US, and there is no reason for it to oppose the agreement other than the belief that it will bring Iran closer to achieving its goal. My guess is that the 6-month period of the interim agreement will not elapse without either Iran obtaining weapons capability, or Israel striking its nuclear facilities — despite the near-universal international condemnation this will evoke.

If Israel does hit Iran, many of her traditional enemies — the Sunni Arab bloc — will be pleased as punch. Of course, they won’t express their joy publicly nor will they become more reconciled to Israel’s continued existence, once the head is off the (Iranian) snake.

What is interesting to me is the depth of deception and betrayal of its Israeli ally by the Obama Administration. An AP report describes the process leading up to the deal:

The United States and Iran secretly engaged in a series of high-level, face-to-face talks over the past year, in a high-stakes diplomatic gamble by the Obama administration that paved the way for the historic deal sealed early Sunday in Geneva aimed at slowing Tehran’s nuclear program, The Associated Press has learned.

The discussions were kept hidden even from America’s closest friends, including its negotiating partners and Israel, until two months ago, and that may explain how the nuclear accord appeared to come together so quickly after years of stalemate and fierce hostility between Iran and the West. …

The talks were held in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman and elsewhere with only a tight circle of people in the know, the AP learned. Since March, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden’s top foreign policy adviser, have met at least five times with Iranian officials. …

Two secret meetings were organized immediately after Rouhani took office in August, with the specific goal of advancing the stalled nuclear talks with world powers. Another pair of meetings took place in October. …

As negotiators continued to talk behind the scenes, public speculation swirled over a possible meeting between Obama and Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, which both attended in September in New York. Burns and Sullivan sought to arrange face-to-face talks, but the meeting never happened largely due to Iranian concerns, the officials said. Two days later, though, Obama and Rouhani spoke by phone — the first direct contact between a U.S. and Iranian leader in more than 30 years.

It was only after that Obama-Rouhani phone call that the U.S. began informing allies of the secret talks with Iran, the U.S. officials said.

Obama handled the most sensitive conversation himself, briefing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Sept. 30 meeting at the White House. He informed Netanyahu only about the two summer meetings, not the March talks, in keeping with the White House’s promise only to tell allies about any discussions with Iran that were substantive.

In other words, the Obama Administration negotiated secretly for months with the regime that has called for the destruction of Israel countless times, and whose supreme leader recently called Israel “the rabid dog of the region” and said that Israelis “should not be called humans.” Obama informed his “ally” about it only two months before signing an agreement — an agreement that Israel believes sets the stage for Iran to threaten its existence.

Either the administration thinks the Israelis are wrong about the danger from Iran, or it doesn’t care. Secretary of State Kerry reportedly told members of the Senate Banking Committee to “stop listening to the Israelis on this.” And the White House recently claimed that the alternative to its deal will be a “march to war.” What they don’t say is that the result of appeasement is often also war, just war on worse terms.

I am going with “doesn’t care.” I’ve come to the conclusion that the administration believes that it is impossible to stop Iran — except by military means, which are off the table (despite what they say publicly) — and that it is possible to live with a nuclear Iran in the new ‘friendly’ atmosphere that they believe they have created by appeasing it.

From the start, President Obama and his advisers, almost to a man (or woman), have been unsympathetic to the idea of a Jewish state and to Israel in particular. Israel is, for them, if not an enemy at least an obstacle.

While you can deceive an enemy or obstacle, you can’t betray it. Betrayal is something that happens between friends or partners. And this administration has finally made it 100% clear that there is no such relationship.

Update [24 Nov 2044 PST]

Here is a good, short explanation of what is good and (mostly) bad about the deal.

Update [25 Nov 0844 PST]

And here is an official statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Update [25 Nov 2249 PST]

Finally, here is a longer, 2-part discussion by J. E. Dyer, a retired Naval Intelligence officer.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Obama Administration, Israel

Al Jazeera America ad

A few months ago I viewed with alarm the huge investment made by Qatar in setting up Al Jazeera America:

Presently available in only about 40 million US households — some cable companies, like Time-Warner Cable, decided that it wasn’t in their best interest to support the network that brought us Bin Laden’s taped threats — AJA has fancy studios (including one in the Newseum in DC, not far from the White House), a plush headquarters in New York and 12 US bureaus. It is working to get more cable outlets.

… the 24-hour channel will provide 14 hours of news, with only 6 minutes of commercials per hour (US cable channels have 15 minutes). It plans to do longer, in-depth stories on all kinds of national and international issues. You can bet that it will have a slant significantly different from that of Fox News, or even CNN or MSNBC.

AJA has hired some 800 to 1000 employees (sources vary), including big names like Soledad O’Brien, John Seigenthaler, Ali Velshi, Antonio Mora, Michael Viqueira, Joie Chen, Sheila MacVicar and others. Its president will be former ABC executive Kate O’Brian.

AJA is pushing hard to get into more households, placing ads in print and broadcast media asking potential viewers to contact their cable providers. Even NPR is running them.

But the network owned by the Hamas-supporting Emir of Qatar is, pardon the expression, bombing.

The US offshoot of the Mideast news outfit managed fewer than half of the viewers who tuned in to its predecessor, Al Gore’s Current TV.

Al Jazeera America has averaged just 13,000 viewers a day since its Aug. 20 launch — on par with a public access channel. In the 25 to 54-year-old audience sought by advertisers, it drew 5,000 viewers.

The ratings are so low, they are considered a “scratch” and aren’t reported by Nielsen.

There are blogs with more readers (not this blog, but there are). The Huffington Post had over 8 million unique user accesses yesterday. Fox News has 355,000 daily viewers.

AJA says it is continuing to invest, but Americans seem to have voted with their fingers against the network that served as Bin Laden’s mouthpiece. I’m hoping it won’t take too long for all of those expensive whores journalists they hired to be out on the street where they belong.

As my father used to like to say, “the American people are smarter than they look.”

Technorati Tags: Al Jazeera America