Friday, July 17, 2015
The Iran Deal - Lord, Defend Me from My Friend Obama
Today's Middle East News.~~~~~ Israeli aircraft hit militant targets in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip early yesterday after a rocket from Gaza landed in southern Israel, the Israeli military said. A passerby was lightly hurt in Gaza, according to residents. No damage or injuries were reported in Israel, where warning sirens sounded and the rocket struck open ground near the city of Ashkelon before dawn. Rocket launchings have become an almost weekly occurrence from Gaza recently but no militant group has taken responsibility for the attack. "The repeated rocket fire at Israel...is a deliberate decision to target civilians. No person should live under the threat of terrorism," Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement. ~~~~~ Egypt's ISIS affiliate 'Sinai Province' said yesterday it fired a rocket at an Egyptian naval vessel in the Mediterranean near the coast of Israel and the Gaza Strip. 'Sinai Province' has focused on attacking Egyptian soldiers and police in the Sinai peninsula, killing hundreds since the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Photos put online by the group appear to show a rocket heading toward a ship and setting it on fire at impact. Reuters, which reported the story, could not verify Sinai Province's version of events. The Egyptian military said in a statement that a coast guard launch had exchanged shots with "terrorist elements," causing the vessel to catch fire. It said there was no loss of life. Egypt is battling an increasingly brazen Islamist onslaught in the Sinai and recently engaged in a confrontation that killed 100 militants and 17 Egyptian military. ~~~~~ Russia plans to supply Syria with 200,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) per year via the Crimean port of Kerch, according to two Reuters trading sources involved in the deal. The plans are another sign of cooperation between Russia and Syria, despite western hopes that Russia would stop protecting President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow had been shipping significantly lower volumes of LPG to Syria via Kerch before Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014. The United States and the European Union, which say the seizure of Crimea violates international law, have imposed sanctions on individuals and businesses in Crimea, which include restrictions on use of the Kerch port. Russia is a staunch ally of Syria and exports arms to the al-Assad regime. ~~~~~ With nearly half the length of Syria's border with Turkey now in Kurdish hands, Ankara fears that the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria could raise separatist sentiment among Turkey's own Kurdish population. Turkey accuses Kurdish fighters in Syria of having links to the PKK militant group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey for 30 years. Some Kurds say fear among refugees is being whipped up by Turkey to discredit them. Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, a member of the Turkish parliament from the pro-Kurdish opposition HDP says : “This is a psychological war waged against Kurds. The (Turkish) government said that it doesn’t want the (Kurdish) cantons to be united, and when it happened they are now trying to create negative public opinion because they are angry. They’re playing a dangerous game by igniting nationalistic feelings." ~~~~~ Iraq is closing its main border crossing with Jordan on Thursday for an indefinite period, days after security forces and shiite militias launched an offensive to reclaim the western province of Anbar from ISIS militants. An Iraqi army officer who saw a copy of an Interior Ministry letter sent to his brigade told Reuters that authorities closed the Tureibil crossing to deprive ISIS of funds raised from truck drivers forced to pay a tax on each cargo coming in from Jordan. ISIS claimed responsibility for an April triple suicide bombing at the Tureibil crossing. ISIS controls most of Anbar and large tracts of northern Iraq, captured in a rapid offensive last summer. On Monday, Iraq's shiite-led government announced the start of operations to "liberate Anbar," the province west of Baghdad whose sunni cities and towns along the Euphrates have become ISIS strongholds. Sunnis living in Falluja, which Iraqi government shiite forces are preparing to retake from ISIS, say they are terrified, trapped between ISIS and shiite military, both of whom they fear. ~~~~~ While Saudi security officers were manning one of the security checkpoints on Ha'er Road in Riyadh yesterday, they directed the driver of a suspected car to stop. The driver initiated an explosion which led to his death," the ministry said in a statement. The road runs south from Riyadh to Ha'er prison that holds 1,375 largely militant detainees. The Ekhbariya state TV station, citing unidentified sources, said the 18-year-old driver had killed his uncle that afternoon, and then ran off with his car. The driver tried to bypass the checkpoint, then set off the explosive as security forces tried to surround him. The detention of thousands of Saudi sunni Islamists accused or convicted of militancy over the past decade has angered many conservative sunnis who launched a series of protests from 2011 to 2013. The two Saudis involved in the Kuwait mosque bombing last month participated in those protests, according to Saudi officials. ~~~~~ Today's White House News.~~~~~ Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice said in an interview yesterday : "I also want to make sure people understand that this deal was never about trying to prevent Iran from using proxies in the region, or destabilizing the region. This was always about our principle and primary concern as shared by the government of Israel and their neighbors in the region...that an Iran with a nuclear weapon is an existential threat. We are addressing that threat directly and effectively in this deal. But we understand that Iran has played a very destabilizing role in the region, it continues to foment unrest and to have supported terrorism, so we want to do what we can to bolster the capacity of our allies and partners in the region to resist that." ~~~~~ President Obama at a news conference yesterday to support his Iran deal said : “And my hope is that building on this deal, we can continue to have conversations with Iran that incentivize them to behave differently in the region, to be less aggressive, less hostile, more cooperative, to operate the way we expect nations in the international community to behave. But we’re not counting on it.” ~~~~~ Dear readers, every news story in today's blog has a common thread : Iran-supported proxies - or Russia, Iran's protector - terrorizing sunnis or Israelis. Juxtapose these Iran-backed terrorist acts with the bizarre comment of Susan Rice -- it's laughable that she is called Obama's National Security Advisor -- admitting that the only goal of the US in the Iran negotiations was to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon, although she knew that Iran "has played a very destabilizing role in the region," that it continues to foment unrest and to have supported terrorism, so "we want to do what we can to bolster the capacity of our allies and partners in the region to resist that." This sounds like an ostrich whose head is very deep in the sand, sending a message to traditional Middle East allies : 'don't call us -- Iran terrorism is your problem.' Even worse, President Obama admitted that he sees no prospect of Iran changing its terrorist behavior. Yet, he has agreed to a deal that promises Iranian nuclear weapons development and that frees up more than $100 billion so that Iran can rachet up its terrorist network to destroy sunni Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf Emirates -- and destroy Israel as well -- all the while talking about how the Obama administration will protect Israel from every enemy and preserve the sunni Arab states in the Middle East. In reality, Obama is giving an aggressive regime access to conventional arms, billions of dollars and a nuclear infrastructure that has traumatized and alienated American Middle East allies. But, Americans were also thrown under the bus along with Arabs and Jews. Obama said he deliberately didn't raise the issue of four Americans held as political hostages by Iran for fear it would make Iran think it could get more "concessions from the Americans." Besides, Obama said : “it’s not the job of the President of the United States to solve every problem in the Middle East,” adding that he couldn’t end the Syrian civil war without “buy in” from Russia and Iran. He acknowledged that the nuclear deal might mean more money for Hezbollah, but said, “Is that more important than preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? No.” A Washington Post headline blared out yesterday : "The Obama News Conference Was a Case for American Weakness." We should all pray with Voltaire : "May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies."
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Voltaire also is quoted as having said - “One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.”
ReplyDeleteSo what real thoughts is Obama hiding? Because Obama’s and Susan Rice’s words and all the other minions words of this Obama administration are a cover for something I fear to be much more sinister.
We only need to look back at the lies that were discovered in the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare to have proof positive that the truth of a matter is only how Obama sees it – not the truth. This administration has been one big endless lie. Obama lacks the moral fortitude to stand up and say “This is what I have done, because”. He can’t even field a question from Major Garrett (ABC White House correspondent) at the other days press conference and be truthful about what is written on the sands of Iran.
The Obama administration repeatedly underscored that the negotiations weren’t about Iran’s other activities in the region: They were about the nuclear program. This, I gathered, was intended to reassure, but its effect was the opposite. Any Iran deal depended on “dissociating” the nuclear issue from everything else, but the problem was that everything else mattered a whole lot, and perhaps just as much.
ReplyDeleteAdministrations can, of course, “walk and chew gum at the same time,” but if the Arab Spring underscored anything, it’s that politics are rarely only local. In nearly every major crisis and conflict—whether in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, or Bahrain—external actors with regional ambitions have played an outsized, even decisive role.
It’s difficult to believe in the durability of Egyptian authoritarianism without understanding how Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates view the Muslim Brotherhood as a transnational and not just a local threat. In Iraq, Iran seems like a potential (or actual) partner in the war on ISIS, until you realize that Iran is the determined patron of the Syrian regime, whose brutality has fueled ISIS’s rise to prominence. Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s “Iraq-first” strategy against ISIS seems reasonable, until you realize that America’s opponents treat Iraq and Syria as a combined theater, and that the fact that the United States doesn’t puts it at a profound disadvantage. In short, the belief that the U.S. government can “silo” the Iranian nuclear issue, or even Iran, suggests a detachment from the region’s realities as they’re actually lived.
The disillusionist attitude of Obama is responsible for a very bad treaty with Iran. One that if enacted will be a game breaker for many countries in the Middle east, and war between Israel and Iran.
ReplyDeleteWhen will the United States ever learn that the enemies of our enemy are not our friends – not in the least no matter why they come to us?
DeleteThose that wish to eradicate democracies and freedom from the face of the earth, and return to a life style and radicle religious fanaticism are far from our friends – they are our sworn enemies as Iran has said many times about the United States and Israel.
Obama has once again been “suckered in” by false words and a pat on his back. Is Israel is destroyed, and the United States have daily terrorists attacks as Europe does now, and the use of nuclear is a daily clear and present danger – President Obama’s temporary “legacy”: won’t be worth a footnote in the history books written by some radicle religious fanatic demagogue.
The Obama administration’s decisions to focus on Iran’s nuclear program and, to a lesser extent, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict meant that U.S. officials could, and would, do less of other things, and do them less well. Political capital and bandwidth are finite resources. Policymaking is about deciding what to prioritize, particularly when the president and a small number of close, liked (and wrong) minded advisors are pulled in a endless number of competing directions.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. made far too many concessions without getting enough in return. According to The New York Times, in the final days of talks, a television anchor on a hardline Iranian channel said, “The fact is Obama needs this deal much more than we do.” She went on: “The American president needs a victory, and only a deal with Iran can give him that. They have retreated on several issues and compromised on their own red lines.”
And that is precisely what this Iran nuclear treaty is all about – not the safety of other Middle East nations, not Israel’s safety, certainly not EU safety – it’s only about Obama’s need for a victory lap issue.
He may take his victory lap but it will not be for the most part a victorious one.
As Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday, the deal will be a “hard sell” in Congress. And these opponents won’t be moved by the fact that the vast majority of Iranians seek close relations with the U.S.—just as they closed their eyes to popular wishes in Mr. Obama’s opening to Cuba. Besides, critics just don’t buy the idea that Iran’s ruling clergy and the Revolutionary Guard will surrender internal power to anyone, let alone the pro-Western majority, or modify anti-American and anti-Israeli policies.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama and Secretary Kerry are utopians – and like Neville Chamberlain in 1938 – they are, with the best of intentions, on the way to converting the twenty-first century world into yet another “terrestrial hell.”
The question is: do Republicans understand what they are seeing? And what exactly are they going to do to halt all of this? Answer? No, and nothing, I’m afraid.