Cartoon: Iran’s Nuclear Program

Israel vs. Iran: Iran Positions Israel In Its Cross Hairs

Iran Positions Israel In Its Cross Hairs

IBD: 9 Nov. 2009

Mideast: Iran tests an advanced warhead design as it gets caught shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Syria is reported to give the group operational control over Scud missiles. It’s five minutes to midnight.

Tyranny abhors a vacuum. While the U.S. and the West dither in Hamlet-like fashion over whatever we shall do in places such as Afghanistan and Iran, the Axis of Evil is in full swing in its plans to destroy Israel and threaten Europe and America.

Israel last week seized what it said was the largest arms cache ever intercepted in the region. Israeli navy commandos boarded the Francop, a commercial ship with an Antiguan flag and sailing near Cyprus, presumably on course for Syria or Lebanon.

Israeli defense officials said the arms were destined for Hezbollah — the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group founded, financed and controlled by Tehran — and that documents found onboard showed that they originated in Iran. The officials said the arms cache would have given Hezbollah, which fought a monthlong war against the Jewish state in 2006, enough firepower to sustain a full month of fighting on the scale of that conflict.

Iran is supposed to be forbidden from exporting arms, and two U.N. resolutions call for disbanding and disarming Hezbollah, a group that has effectively neutered the Lebanese democracy in which it now participates with veto power over any action by Beirut.

In Lebanon, these U.N. resolutions also forbid arms depots south of the Litani River as part of the deal that halted the 2006 war. In July a massive explosion in the area revealed the existence of a huge Hezbollah weapons cache in the border area north of Israel. U.N. Res 1701 says the area must be “free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons.”

Clearly Hezbollah and Iran have not obeyed a single U.N. resolution or diplomatic pledge for a single day. In any conflict with Israel, southern Lebanon would be Iran’s second front with the Jewish state. Syria, which was both a supplier of and transit point for arming Hezbollah in 2006, is also busy again.

Arab media in the Persian Gulf have been reporting that Syria, apparently at the request of Iran, has turned over about 300 long-range ballistic missiles to Hezbollah control on Syrian territory. Hezbollah personnel are being trained to operate the Scuds.

Israel launched Operation Orchard in September 2007 to destroy a North Korean built, Iranian-financed nuclear plant at Damascus’ al-Kibar complex in eastern Syria. The Washington Post noted that the timing of the raid was related to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean materials labeled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.

After all this comes previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog that does not bark. As the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper reports, the Iranians have tested a sophisticated nuclear warhead design that lets them pack a nuclear warhead into a smaller package able to fit nicely on the Shahab-3 and other Iranian missiles.

The sophisticated technology, once perfected, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile designed to fulfill Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s pledge to wipe Israel off the map and usher in the age of the 12th Imam.

The very existence of this technology is supposed to be an official secret in the U.S. and Britain.

Known as a two-point implosion device, it’s being developed and tested by the Iranians and is being described by nuclear experts as “breathtaking.” It means, as we have discovered repeatedly, that our estimates of Iranian capabilities and intentions are dead wrong again.

There may soon be no choice but for Israeli pilots to light the fires and kick the tires.

The time for dithering on Iran is over.

MOP + UON Spells Trouble For Iran

IBD: 9 Oct. 2009

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed?

At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.”

U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom’s existence.

Our knowledge of the facility built in a mountainous area may explain why back in 2007 there was tucked inside an Iraq/Afghanistan emergency war funding request some $88 million to rush the development of a 30,000-pound bunker buster called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).

As we reported in August, Defense Department Comptroller Robert Hale sent a formal request to four congressional committees asking permission to shift about $68 million in the Pentagon’s slashed budget to accelerate our bunker buster bomb program by three years so that at least four 30,000-pound bombs could be mounted on B-2 stealth bombers by July 2010.

In his July 8 letter to Congress, Hale said there was “an urgent operational need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high-threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON. “

The request noted that it was endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).

The request has been quietly approved and, last Friday, McDonnell Douglas was awarded a $51.9 million contract to provide “Massive Ordnance Penetrator Integration” on B-2 stealth bombers.

The MOP, developed by Northrop Grumman and Boeing, is designed to destroy deeply buried and reinforced bunkers and tunnels of the type North Korea and Iran have been building for years.

Iran’s Natanz facility, where Tehran is enriching uranium and producing weapons-grade material, is thought to be protected by several yards of concrete and as much as 75 feet of dirt.

Before the Qom facility was disclosed, John Pike of Global Security explained the “urgent operational need” the Pentagon was so reluctant to reveal:

“You’d use it on Natanz,” Pike said. “And you’d use it on a stealth bomber because you want it to be a surprise. And you put it in an emergency request because you want to bomb quickly.”

Certainly the Israelis are feeling a sense of urgency and have been making their own preparations for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Air Force has purchased more than 100 Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition kits. The first LJDAMs were delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 2008.

Retired Lt. Col. Bob McGinnis says this new technology could be used in a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

“It would appear as if Israel is certainly assembling the pieces for a strike, should they decide to do it,” said McGinnis.

The Israeli Navy recently took delivery of two more German-built Dolphin-class submarines, bringing their total to five. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the submarines, called U212s, are capable of launching cruise missiles carrying nuclear weapons.

It could be the bunker buster contract is just a bargaining chip, a message to Iran. It could be that it is a recognition that Israel will attack anyway and might need some help and backing that only we can provide.

Or it could be that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was serious when she said on July 26 on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that “it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons” and that “we’re not going to let that happen.”

The Real ElBaradei Unleashed

IBD: 6 Oct. 2009

Nuclear Proliferation: Watchdogs often bark loudest at those who pose no threat at all, such as the mailman. Mohamed ElBaradei, self-styled “nuclear watchdog,” is now barking at Israel.

The world will soon be seeing and hearing less from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Those seeking to spare Western cities from nuclear terrorism won’t miss the Egyptian career bureaucrat.

As former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton noted in his book, “Surrender Is Not An Option,” ElBaradei “made excuses for Iran,” as it progressed toward building nuclear weapons “the entire time I was in the Bush administration.”

According to Bolton, Nobel Peace Prize-winner ElBaradei “was constantly hunting for ‘moderates’ in Iran’s leadership who did not want to pursue nuclear weapons, a nonexistent group, in our judgment, and more interested in trying to cut a deal than in faithfully reporting what IAEA inspectors were telling him.”

As early as mid-April 2003, as Bolton pointed out, ElBaradei’s IAEA knew that the centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility contained uranium hexafluoride, a compound used to make nuclear weapons fuel.

In less than two months, ElBaradei will be replaced as IAEA director general by Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano. But as he packs up his office, is he giving the world a glimpse of the real motivations behind his softness toward Iran?

The Islamofascist regime in Tehran, with its illegitimately re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly denying the Nazi genocide of the Jews and calling for the destruction of Israel, is one of the last governments on the globe that should be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction.

Yet speaking on Sunday in Tehran, the setting for talks with Iranian officials regarding their atomic program, ElBaradei said, “Israel is the No. 1 threat to the Middle East, given the nuclear arms it possesses.” In a joint press conference with Ali Akbar Salehi, the chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, ElBaradei complained about Israel’s 30-year refusal to allow nuclear inspections.

Of at least equal note, ElBaradei also remarked that President Obama “has done some positive measures for the inspections to happen” on Israel’s nuclear plants.

What are we to take from that? Has the president asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow IAEA inspectors into his country, or is he pressing him to admit that Israel has nuclear weapons? Is the argument that by doing either Israel would be advancing the Mideast peace process?

Contrary to ElBaradei’s outrageous accusation and the president’s increasingly intimidating policy toward the Netanyahu government, the most effective catalyst for Mideast peace has, in fact, been the nuclear arming of Israel.

The routine wars between Israel and Arab states have stopped since Israel reached nuclear capability in 1967. And Egypt’s frequent tit-for-tat threats to build its own nukes, made under both Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, fizzled out once the Jewish state actually possessed the bomb. Indeed, would the Camp David accords between Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin have been possible without a nuclear Israel?

Looking back on the past four decades, the Jewish state’s policy of refusing to confirm or deny its nuclear arsenal is, as the Old Testament proverb goes, a wisdom “more precious than rubies.” The only fully free, Westernized country in the Middle East has been able to let its surrounding enemies know that it will defend itself with the deadliest of force if its existence comes under direct threat.

And yet, despite its regional nuclear monopoly, Israel has refrained from using it on adversaries seeking its destruction.

In return for its restraint, as Netanyahu pointed out in his speech to the U.N. last month, “a democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot” — a reference to the condemnation of his country by another U.N. agency, the Human Rights Council.

The London Times reports that a secret section of the IAEA’s account on Iran warns that Tehran “may already have tested a detonation system small enough to fit into the warhead of a medium-range missile.” Is there much doubt that what ElBaradei really wants is a Muslim member of the nuclear weapons club to offset the Jewish one? As he departs, and not a moment too soon, it’s an outrage to hear the nuclear “watchdog” bark in the wrong direction.

Cartoon: Iran: The Watchdog

http://www1.ibdcd.com/image/toon100609.gif

How Israel Was Disarmed

Our only friend in the world is Israel.  Israel’s only friend has been and is ISRAEL.

PRAY THAT GOD WILL INTERVENE and keep us focsued on our purpose.

BUT!**

“It also appears to reverse a decades-old understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the U.S. would acquiesce in Israel’s nuclear arsenal as long as that arsenal remained undeclared”

D.

How Israel Was Disarmed

News analysis from the near-future. By BRET STEPHENS

Jan. 20, 2010

NEW YORK—When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts last October in Geneva, few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over Tehran’s nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons.

Yet that’s just what the U.N. body did this morning, in a resolution that was as striking for the way member states voted as it was for its substance. All 10 nonpermanent members voted for the resolution, along with permanent members Russia, China and the United Kingdom. France and the United States abstained. By U.N. rules, that means the resolution passes.

The U.S. abstention is sending shock waves through the international community, which has long been accustomed to the U.S. acting as Israel’s de facto protector on the Council. It also appears to reverse a decades-old understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the U.S. would acquiesce in Israel’s nuclear arsenal as long as that arsenal remained undeclared.

The Jewish state is believed to possess as many as 200 weapons.

Tehran reacted positively to the U.S. abstention. “For a long time we have said about Mr. Obama that we see change but no improvement,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. “Now we can say there has been an improvement.”

The resolution calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. It also demands that Israel sign the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection. Two similar, albeit nonbinding, resolutions were approved last September by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

At the time, the U.S. opposed a resolution focused on Israel but abstained from a more general motion calling for regional disarmament. “We are very pleased with the agreed approach reflected here today,” said then-U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Glyn Davies.

Since then, however, relations between the Obama administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, never warm to begin with, have cooled dramatically.

The administration accused Tel Aviv of using “disproportionate force” following a Nov. 13 Israeli aerial attack on an apparent munitions depot in Gaza City, in which more than a dozen young children were killed.

Mr. Netanyahu also provoked the administration’s ire after he was inadvertently caught on an open microphone calling Mr. Obama “worse than Chamberlain.” The comment followed the president’s historic Dec. 21 summit meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva, the first time leaders of the two countries have met since the Carter administration.

But the factors that chiefly seemed to drive the administration’s decision to abstain from this morning’s vote were more strategic than personal. Western negotiators have been pressing Iran to make good on its previous agreement in principle to ship its nuclear fuel to third countries so it could be rendered usable in Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Iranians, in turn, have been adamant that they would not do so unless progress were made on international disarmament.

“The Iranians have a point,” said one senior administration official. “The U.S. can’t forever be the enforcer of a double standard where Israel gets a nuclear free ride but Iran has to abide by every letter in the NPT. President Obama has put the issue of nuclear disarmament at the center of his foreign policy agenda. His credibility is at stake and so is U.S. credibility in the Muslim world. How can we tell Tehran that they’re better off without nukes if we won’t make the same point to our Israeli friends?”

Also factoring into the administration’s thinking are reports that the Israelis are in the final stages of planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Paris last week, has been outspoken in his opposition to such a strike. The Jerusalem Post has reported that Mr. Gates warned Mr. Barak that the U.S. would “actively stand in the way” of any Israeli strike.

“The Israelis need to look at this U.N. vote as a shot across their bow,” said a senior Pentagon official. “If they want to start a shooting war with Iran, we won’t have their backs on the Security Council.”

An Israeli diplomat observed bitterly that Jan. 20 was the 68th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, which historians believe is where Nazi Germany planned the extermination of European Jewry. An administration spokesman said the timing of the vote was “purely coincidental.”

Iran: More Wrist Slaps

More Wrist Slaps

IBD: 29 Sept. 09

Iran: The terribly naive Defense Secretary Robert Gates says “a pretty rich list” of sanctions awaits the soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Islamofascists in Tehran. But everything on his menu, unfortunately, is laughably mild.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the New York Times, told dinner guests in New York City last week that he would “warmly welcome” increased economic sanctions, because all they would do is further enhance Iran’s self-sufficiency.

It is too often forgotten there have always been sanctions against Iran of one kind or another during the 30 years since the Shah departed. The people and government have built up lots of calluses from the slaps on the hand we’ve given them.

Moreover, the official purpose behind the tougher sanctions now being sought, we are told, is to force this regime — which guns down those who protest its sham elections — back to the negotiating table to talk about its nuclear program.

Talk? The only talk we should seek from Mahmoud and his Ayatollah ventriloquists is to hear them cry uncle and abandon their quest for weapons of mass destruction.

Why should conversations rather than concessions be our goal?

Secretary Gates may be delighted about the “variety of options” he sees available to the U.S. and our allies as punitive measures against Iran, as he told CNN over the weekend. A better description would be “puny.”

He spoke of “sanctions on banking, particularly sanctions on equipment and technology for their oil and gas industry.” But the energy measures he mentions would not be concrete without China taking part in such sanctions.

In that context, consider the eerie warning from nuclear weapons experts Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman in their new political history of the atomic bomb, “The Nuclear Express.”

They believe “at least in the 1980s, some factions within the Chinese government thought a nuclear detonation, sometime in the future within the West, could be helpful in restoring China’s global preeminence, so long as such a device was assembled and fired by other hands.”

Real economic warfare is the only kind of “sanctions” that would threaten this regime’s existence and force them to kill their nuke program — like some form of oil export and gasoline import embargo that really had teeth. But Europe and much of the rest of the world apparently has to be shamed into taking such a step.

That might happen if we saw some leadership, from somebody.

Unfortunately, the only figure on the world stage with the nerve to tell the truth about Iran being the greatest threat to the world since Hitler is Benjamin Netanyahu, and most of the free world’s leaders plug their ears to Israeli prime ministers bearing unpleasant, but truthful, messages.

Why did it take the revelation of a secret Iranian nuclear enrichment facility last week to spur consideration of even these mild new measures?

Middle East Muslim nations recognize the threat that too many in the free West fail to appreciate, as illustrated by British intelligence apparently just being told that Saudi Arabia would agree to Israel bombing the newly-revealed Iranian nuclear site.

The sanctions we are proposing — if we can even get them — are a joke. It will be hard to laugh, however, if the free world’s failures lead to the worst happening.

Behind The Thugs’ New Boldness

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

2 Oct. 2009

Last week, three dictators — from Iran, Libya and Venezuela — delivered lunatic hate speeches at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Why do these anti-Semitic dictators feel so free to damn America from downtown New York? Why do their abettors spurn our requests for help? And why do creepy regimes plot to get nukes, and fund terrorists?

Easy. They do not fear, much less listen, to an indebted and energy-hungry America that either needs their cash or oil — or both.

Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi raved for 90 minutes. He railed about everything from the Kennedy assassination to his own jet lag. He trashed the United States and the Jews. Even Gadhafi’s translator collapsed from exhaustion trying to keep up with the stream-of-consciousness insanity.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered his usual madness. Once again, he libeled the Jews. He denied his country’s breakneck efforts at getting the bomb. And he blamed the United States for his own self-inflicted problems.

Shortly afterward, Tehran disclosed it’s been secretly building a second nuclear enrichment facility.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez may have delivered the strangest monologue. He mostly idolized left-wing filmmaker Oliver Stone for making a fawning documentary about revolutionary Venezuela. But somehow Chavez also brought up the Kennedy assassination. And, yes, he also faulted America for his own problems.

Chavez has cut off all relations with Israel. Jews have been increasingly attacked in Venezuela, and reports have spread that Chavez is reaching out to Iran for a nuclear program.

Listening to all this insanity, it’s clear that the problems these dictators pose (and the attitudes they represent) go beyond whether our president is Texan George Bush or post-national Barack Obama. And they cannot be solved alone by loud or soft presidential rhetoric, but only by changing both our behavior and theirs.

Take away oil and the money it garners — Iran, Libya and Venezuela are all larger petroleum exporters — and these strongmen would never receive high-profile television venues at the U.N. Oil props up all three economies, which have largely been wrecked by their own incompetence.

Libyan oil, it seems, helped persuade the British to release the mass-murdering Libyan Lockerbie bomber. Iranian oil money fuels Hezbollah, destabilizing Lebanon. Venezuelan oil money goes to narco-terrorists in Columbia. Oil wealth helps these regimes put down democratic reformers, hunt down dissidents abroad or shut down the media.

All three freely express hatred of Jews, reminding us that there is no longer a downside to flashy anti-Semitism. It used to be right-wing scourges whom we associated with the hatred of a Hitler or the Klan. Today, leftist oil-rich thugs voice slander against tiny Israel to show their revolutionary credentials, even as they find scapegoats for their own colossal failures.

Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Gadhafi are not just regional buffoons, but international dangers. Iran will probably get a few bombs soon. Gadhafi was scheming to obtain one until the Iraq war — and has the money and the anger to try again. Chavez brags he has bought “little rockets” from Russia and now wants his own nuclear program.

America better pay attention. The president is to be congratulated for pressing for more alternative energy and conservation to curb our imports and bring down the global price of oil. But until we reach a new age of noncarbon fuels, we must far better exploit the oil and coal we have.

Recent large finds in Alaska, California, North Dakota and off the Gulf Coast remind us that America has plenty of oil left. Its rapid development would lower our import bill, reduce global prices and take some profits out of these repugnant three regimes.

Our enemies have cash; we don’t. The United States is running a projected $2 trillion annual deficit, while adding to an existing $11 trillion national debt.

That makes it hard to, say, ask rich, cocky Russia for help with Iran. Vladimir Putin’s regime is now the world’s largest oil exporter, flush with money and waiting to regain even more of its former influence when the next energy crisis hits.

China is our largest foreign creditor, financing our growing budget shortfalls at low interest. Both Russia and China understand that most of the world’s renegade regimes hate us more than they do them, and that America is divided at home, broke and hungry for oil.

Bottom line: The United States — even with the world’s largest military — is having a hard time pleading for Russian help, lecturing China to act responsibly, boycotting Iran, or isolating Gadhafi or Chavez.

It wouldn’t if we produced our own energy and got our financial house in order.

Cartoon: Empty Chairs in the White House

Cartoon: Iran (Snake)

IBD: 7 May 2008

Sorry? For What?

IBD      6 Aug 09

Foreign Policy: We’re glad former President Bill Clinton returned from North Korea with two American journalists who had been wrongly imprisoned there. But apologizing sets a very bad diplomatic precedent.

Who wouldn’t be happy seeing the tearful, smiling faces of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the journalists who were nabbed by Kim Jong Il’s security forces while on a reporting mission on the China border?

The secretive state nabbed them five months ago, and a government tribunal sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor. In North Korea, hard labor means hard labor. Had the sentences been carried out, one or both might have died in custody.

Even as we rejoice at their release, supposedly brokered by Clinton, we wonder what it means for the future. We have just rewarded North Korea — once again — for behaving badly. It’s not that country’s fault if we offer only carrots and never any sticks.

Yes, we’re glad for Ling and Lee. But make no mistake: They weren’t prisoners; they were hostages. This weakens the U.S. in any future talks with North Korea over its nuclear weapons.

Even by picking Clinton for this “private, humanitarian mission,” as the Washington Post called it, the U.S. seemed to be sending a not-so-subtle signal to Kim that the U.S. is ready to appease him.

For in addition to being a former commander in chief, Clinton is the husband of the current secretary of state. And his own secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, was the first to visit North Korea.

Far from private, this has White House fingerprints all over it. As the AP noted: “State media said Clinton apologized on behalf of the women and relayed President Barack Obama’s gratitude.”

Groveling, anyone? Kim now knows the current U.S. leader can be blackmailed — if he didn’t know it before. That’s what made President Clinton so appropriate for this mission. It was from Clinton that Kim first learned this lesson.

In 1994, recall, Clinton sent former President Carter — see a pattern? — to North Korea to negotiate that country’s denuclearization. Carter returned with a deal similar in its sycophancy and cynicism to the one Neville Chamberlain brought back from Munich.

In exchange for billions of dollars in food aid and even help for its “peaceful” nuclear power effort, North Korea vowed to behave and decommission its nuclear weapons program.

No sooner had the ink dried than North Korea began cheating. During the Clinton years, the U.S. and the U.N. signed three agreements with North Korea. North Korea broke its word each time.

Commander in chief? Clinton acted like appeaser in chief. We never learned. The deal making continued into the 2000s — culminating in the Six-Party Talks, which concluded in 2007.

Again, Pyongyang broke its word and bought more time with its outrageous behavior. Today it has a burgeoning missile program and nuclear weapons, plus has sold that technology to other rogue states, including Iran. Rather than being conciliatory, the U.S. should have been righteously angry. Instead, U.S. weakness with North Korea is tempting others.

In Iran, just this week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s security forces arrested three young American journalists for an alleged border violation. Coincidence? Probably not. It follows the arrest earlier this year of U.S. journalist Roxana Saberi, who was released in May — just before Iran’s elections.

Clearly, Iran has learned the same valuable lesson as Kim — threaten captured Americans with harsh punishment, use them as pawns, then watch us grovel for the favor of their release.

Unfortunately, this weakness will diminish any leverage we might have in nuclear talks with North Korea or Iran.

That, in turn, ultimately places the U.S., our friend Israel and our European allies in danger. Some deal.

Cartoon: IRAN

Cartoon dated: 10 April 2009 – IBD (M.Ramirez)

Still around for more than 2 more years!

We are waiting for Israel to do our job.

Strike Now At Mullahs’ Economic Pillars

IBD    22 June 09

by Chuck Devore

As we watch the swelling protests in Iran, it’s worth remembering that the aspirations of America are eminently compatible with the aspirations of the average Iranian.

I know a bit about this, as I am privileged to represent one of the largest Iranian-American communities in the country, in Orange County, Calif.

The compatibilities between Iranian hopes and the American dream center on the yearning for individual liberties and the end of clerical autocracy — hopes as compelling to the Iranian democrat today as the Jeffersonian democrat two centuries ago.

The question is whether President Obama will do anything about it.

The basic points of pressure on Iran’s clerical autocrats are simple: the control of petroleum, the need for foreign cash, the reliance upon the instruments of force, and the control of internal communications. All remain the material pillars of the regime.

Its psychological pillars are a bit more complex: Iranian resentment at foreign interference, Shia exceptionalism and a peculiar concept of Islamic juridical rule known as velayat-e faqih.

It is possible for the president to strike at the material pillars of the Iranian theocracy, while sparing the psychological pillars that might turn the mass of Iranians against us.

Though hardly a friendly society by most standards, the few American tourists to visit Iran have generally received a warm welcome. (Indeed, PBS travel-show fixture Rick Steves has been on the lecture circuit about this for a few years now.) The Iranian regime is assuredly America’s long-standing enemy, but the Iranians at large do not harbor a unique hatred for the United States.

What, then, should America do to support Iranians’ hopes for liberty? Any policy response must proceed on twin tracks of empowering the Iranian democracy movement, and striking at the mullahs’ material base.

Empowering the democracy movement in Iran demands sensitivity and creativity on the part of American policymakers. Fortunately, that movement is self-motivated, self-organizing, and technologically savvy — and thus needs no outside assistance in the provision of ideas, energy or enthusiasm.

What it does need are the tools to render itself an effective mass rather than an inchoate mob. Above all, that means channels of communication and intellectual capital.

Enough ink has been spilled on the remarkable role of social media, and especially Twitter, in maintaining momentum for the Iranian protests. Less noticed is the active interest that the State Department has taken in keeping those channels open for the benefit of the protesters.

Earlier this week, State reportedly intervened with Twitter to delay a scheduled service outage till nighttime in Tehran. This is practical and meaningful assistance, and the Obama administration should be doing much more of it.

Striking at the mullahs’ material base is more straightforward. They need legitimacy and foreign trade to sustain an economy that totters along with rising unemployment that approaches 15% — an ominous figure in a country where about 70% of the citizens are under 30.

Iran has the world’s third-largest oil reserves, yet it had to impose fuel rationing on its own citizens in 2007, and its economy is extremely vulnerable to lower oil prices.

It’s no accident that civil unrest in Iran, as in so many countries, erupts when material expectations of a young and comparatively educated citizenry are unmet by a corrupt and inefficient government. Though not a proximate cause, this is surely among the root causes of Iranian discontent now.

With this in mind, crafting a strategy to squeeze the machinery of repression would be an exercise in the sort of multilateral diplomacy in which the Obama administration takes such pride.

Of the major recipients of Iranian oil, the top four are Asian economies and the remainder European nations plus South Africa.

Though it is unrealistic to assume that the United States could persuade all of them to forgo Iranian oil, we don’t have to: Any one of the Asian nations, or a few of the European nations (building upon the European Union’s admirable vigor in condemning repression in Iran), would do tremendous harm to the mullahs’ coffers.

Beyond this, we know from experiences with Zimbabwe and North Korea that targeted sanctions against specific regime figures — for example, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, presently being feted in Russia — are remarkably effective in harming the architects of tyranny while sparing their victims.

So much for what the Obama administration should do. What will it do, and what has it done? Nearly a week into this crisis, the sad answer is: Very little.

Other than the State Department’s reported intervention with Twitter, and a few late and tentative statements from the president himself, America’s moral leadership, in a cause that directly affects us, is remarkably absent.

A president who rose to power on a self-proclaimed wave of hope owes the hopes of an oppressed people more than his silence.

• DeVore is an assemblyman representing California’s 70th district, including Irvine, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. He is also a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Finally Admitting The Obvious

IBD July 16 09

Iran: Western officials are reportedly offering Israel a deal to support a military strike on Iran in exchange for Israeli concessions on a Palestinian state. Even diplomats now realize diplomacy won’t pre-empt nuclear terror.

A report in the Times of London on Thursday indicated that some European governments consider Israeli military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities so inevitable that they want to get what they can from Israel by jumping on the bandwagon ahead of time.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, according to diplomatic sources, offered “concessions on settlement policy, Palestinian land claims and issues with neighboring Arab states, to facilitate a possible strike on Iran.”

A British official said that under such an agreement between Israel and Western nations, an Israeli military operation could become a reality “within the year.”

If this really is the new stance of the same European powers that for years now have believed that fanatics like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei can be persuaded by half-hearted sanctions and offers of economic aid, then it sure has taken long enough for them to see the light.

And even if Israel cannot cut a deal with them on a Palestinian state, the fact that they’re willing to accept military action against Iran is an admission their so-called “tough diplomacy” has been failing all along.

Apparently, a whole series of realities have come crashing down on the wishful thinkers.

For one thing, Israel is making it clear it means business. Two Israeli Saar-class missile ships recently traveled through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea; it also sent a Dolphin-class submarine — almost certainly armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles — to Suez a week and a half ago, which then returned to the Mediterranean.

“Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran,” an Israeli defense official told the Times.

An additional reality is the shattering of the myth that Iran can in any way be seen as a legitimate representative government.

Many in the media often contended that Ahmadinejad was a democratically-elected president. But in fact the field of candidates was severely limited by the unelected Khamenei’s fiat when Ahmadinejad was first elected in 2005, as well as in this year’s voting travesty.

With protesters gunned down on the streets by regime-sponsored thugs after Ahmadinejad’s obvious stolen re-election last month, and all dissent now apparently crushed, the outside world has come to see how monstrous the mullahs’ rule really is.

It’s clear that a regime that will kill its own people to stifle internal opposition will do unimaginably worse things against its perceived external enemies if it attains weapons of mass destruction.

Yet another reality is the fact that other Muslim countries in the Middle East have come to fear Iran’s growing threat so much they actually want their historical enemy, Israel, to deal with it. Egypt, for instance, allowed the Israeli vessels passage and actually cooperated in regular military drills with the Israelis.

After such a long history of distrust, even war, Israel may end up becoming the best friend of Mideast Arab nations. For years now, Arabs have watched the West do little as Tehran’s apocalyptic jihadists threaten to dominate neighboring Muslim governments with the overwhelming power of WMDs.

In the coming weeks, Israel will use U.S. military facilities to hold both anti-ballistic missile and F-16 fighter jet exercises. As an Israeli official remarked, the timing of these very public maneuvers, meant to “showcase Israel’s abilities,” is no coincidence.

That raises the question of U.S. policy.

We’re already explicitly helping Israel in exercises related to a strike on Iran — an assault that may well end up having the support of European powers and Mideast Arab nations. The U.S. will inescapably be seen as the primary facilitator of such an attack.

That being the case, President Obama should now abandon the fanciful rhetoric about talking Iran out of its nuclear ambitions.

We should join those in both Europe and the Arab Middle East who have come to know that this Nazi-like threat to the world cannot be appeased away.

Movie: The Stoning of Soraya M.

NOTE:  Visit http://www.thestoning.com/ – to view the movie official site and theater locations.

Soraya’s Warning to the Mullahs
The Stoning of Soraya M. is more than a movie about a wronged Iranian woman. The film’s timing, writes Steven Emerson, can help a nation rally against its iron-fisted Islamic rulers.

by Steven Emerson
Written for The Daily Beast
July 6, 2009

Director Cyrus Nowrasteh’s new release, The Stoning of Soraya M. written by Cyrus and his wife Elizabeth, is one of the most compelling, stirring, and riveting films I have ever seen. Inspired by French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s international bestseller of the same name, this compelling story sheds light on Islamist mob rule and the horrific honor killings associated with countries that follow Sharia law.

Most importantly, the timing of the film’s release—amid the largest popular Iranian uprising against the Islamo-fascist mullahs since they took over in 1979—makes it one of the most relevant and important of our time. It, quite simply, serves as a brilliant exposition on the fanatics who control Iran and their willingness to kill their own people to maintain religious political power.

This film should be required viewing not only for every American—nay, every citizen of the world—but for every Obama administration official and member of Congress, if they want to understand what is truly going on Iran and the need to firmly, unequivocally, and unambiguously confront the Islamist thugs, whether they be in Tehran, Gaza, or Lebanon.

Indeed, the unwillingness of the president to aggressively confront, let alone condemn, the existence of “radical Islam” or specifically condemn the anti-human-rights fascism of the Sharia (the system of laws based on the Koran)—and which underlies the evil dramatically exposed in this extraordinary film—may yet earn him recognition as the man who has most endangered the security of West.

The Stoning of Soraya M. is one of those rare films in American cinema history that truly has the potential of eliciting popular demands for changes in our foreign policy by the American public, even by the world public; its power is undeniable.

The film is a story of a courageous Islamic woman fighting a losing battle against a radical religious system rigged against women. The simple premise of the film will anger, enrage, and yet ultimately inspire and mobilize anyone who sees it.

Set in a small Iranian village in the mid-1980s, an innocent woman, Soraya, is caught in a scheme by her cruel husband who conspires against her with trumped-up charges of infidelity. He enlists the local mullah and fellow villagers to conduct an all-male tribunal that declares her guilty. Her sentence is death by public stoning, still employed in Iran and other radical Islamic countries.

This is not a singing-dancing-happy-ending stuff of a Hollywood blockbuster, yet it deserves every Academy Award possible. The tale is told with crisp cinematography and includes mesmerizing performances by Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) and Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ).

“At its heart, this movie is a human drama filled with tension, peril, and hope,” Nowrasteh says, “but it is also a true story that I felt strongly had to be told, a story the whole world needs to know.” It’s astonishing true story of Zahra, the fearless aunt of Soraya who happens to spot a war correspondent passing through town to get his car fixed as he heads to the border. Soraya had been executed the day before, and her aunt’s raw outrage gives her the courage to demand that the reporter tape-record her story.

The film is so suspenseful, to the point that the viewer might—for just a moment—hope that Soraya might be able to escape before her sentence can be carried out. There is no escape, however, and at the end, tragically, it comes as no surprise.

It also comes as no surprise that women around the world continue to be targeted for this type of shocking injustice. Gathering reliable statistics for such punishment is challenging, but reports suggest there have been at least 1,000 women stoned to death over the past 15 years in countries such as Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

In 2008, a 13-year-old Somali girl was stoned by 50 men in a football stadium in front of a crowd of 1,000 spectators. According to BBC reports, the mob buried her up to her shoulders while she begged for her life, pleading “don’t kill me, don’t kill me.” Eleven people in Iran, nine of them women, were waiting to be stoned to death for adultery last year, according to Amnesty International. The United Nations estimates that 5,000 women each year become victims of “honor crimes” in which family members kill a woman who has allegedly brought dishonor on them.

Within the last year, two suspected cases have made headlines in the U.S. In Jonesboro, Georgia, last July, Chaudhry Rashid was accused of killing his daughter, Sandeela Kanwal, because she wanted out of an arranged marriage. In February, Aasiyah Hassan was stabbed multiple times and decapitated at an upstate New York television station. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, is believed to have become enraged because she filed for divorce days earlier. His trial is expected to begin in January.

The Stoning of Soraya M. is the first film drama to expose the torture of public stoning in the Muslim world. It is a credit to the Nowrastehs the execution scene itself avoids the graphic gore better suited for torture fetish films. Make no mistake, it’s a tough scene to watch but not just because of the implied violence. There’s an devastating emotional punch in the way the twisted judgment is delivered. Soraya must face her rock-wielding, divorce-seeking husband (who wants to be rid of her in order to marry a 14-year-old girl), other family members and neighbors she has known and cared for all her life.

“No one has ever shown a stoning on film before, so I felt a real responsibility to make it something the audience will never forget,” says Nowrasteh. He followed Sahebjam’s description in the book and willed himself to look at covert footage of a real stoning. “All I can tell you is that compared to what I saw and read, the scene in the movie is far less graphic than it could have been. Most of all, I wanted to capture the whole ritual design of it and how it affects the crowd.”

It is also remarkable that parallel stories of brave individuals speaking out against the tyrannical government in Iran are making headlines at the exact time this film hits theaters. Millions of voters believe the election was a fraud, but Iranian authorities have ordered international journalists to remain in their offices and refused to allow them to report on the events on the streets. Still, even state media reports nearly 20 protesters—and in fact perhaps up to 100—have been killed in the crackdown.

“Yes, the film is gripping drama,” Nowrasteh says, “but more than that it is a form of bearing witness, much like Zahra does in the movie. It becomes a liberating story about the power of breaking a silence and hopefully will encourage others to add their voices.”

After living in Iran as a young boy, the director’s family was exiled. “I’m not in a position to change any governments or laws in other countries, but one thing I can do is to really make people aware that this is happening wherever women are still treated as second-class citizens. It is hard to conceive of this still going on, but my obligation was to getting the truth out there—again, so the world will know. My biggest hope is that people will fall in love with these women and their courage.”

With the release of this film, the world will know. This story will haunt you. When I first saw the screening of the film, I sat, along with other members of the audience, in silence and in shock for at least 10 minutes after the film was over. I cried for the first time in years. I have now seen the film more than a dozen times and each viewing has given me a different experience.

At the same time, each has inspired me to keep fighting the Islamist mobsters and Islamic radicals that govern hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim world and have established deceptive and totalitarian strangleholds over Muslim populations in the west.

If there is only one film that you watch this year, or just one that you watch for the rest of your life, this should be the one. It will profoundly change your life.

Steve Emerson is executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of five books on terrorism. His most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.

Obama: “Appalled and Outraged” By Violence In Iran — Ayatollah Khamenei: Iran Will Not Submit To “Bullying”

United Against Nuclear Iran

24 June 09

AP reported that “Dramatically hardening the U.S. reaction to Iran’s disputed elections and bloody aftermath, President Barack Obama condemned the violence against protesters Tuesday and lent his strongest support yet to their accusations the hardline victory was a fraud. Obama, who has been accused by some Republicans of being too timid in his response to events in Iran, declared himself ‘appalled and outraged’ by the deaths and intimidation in Tehran’s streets – and scoffed at suggestions he was toughening his rhetoric in response to the criticism. He suggested Iran’s leaders will face consequences if they continue ‘the threats, the beatings and imprisonments’ against protesters. But he repeatedly declined to say what actions the U.S. might take, retaining – for now – the option of pursuing diplomatic engagement with Iran’s leaders over its suspected nuclear weapons program.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama)

The New York Times reported that “President Obama hardened his tone toward Iran on Tuesday, condemning the government for its crackdown against election protesters and accusing Iran’s leaders of fabricating charges against the United States…Yet beyond muscular words, Mr. Obama has limited tools for bringing pressure to bear on the Iranian government, which for years has been brushing off international calls for it to curb its nuclear program. After the news conference, administration officials said there was little they could do to influence the outcome of the confrontation between the government and the protesters. And more so now than even a few days ago, they said, the prospects for any dialogue with Iran over its nuclear program appear all but dead for the immediate future, though they held out hope that Iran, assuming it has a stable government, could respond to Mr. Obama’s overtures later in the year.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24webobama.html?hp)

The Washington Post reported that “Iran’s supreme leader told a group of lawmakers Wednesday that ‘neither the system nor the people will submit to bullying’ over the results of the disputed presidential election, which he has given a powerful supervisory body an additional five days to review. ‘Everyone should respect the law. Once lawlessness becomes a norm, things will be complicated and interest of people will be undermined,’ said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority over political and religious life in Iran. ‘We will not step an inch beyond the law: our law, our country’s law, the Islamic Republic’s law.’ Hours later, witnesses said, security forces used clubs and tear gas to disperse demonstrators protesting the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…The Iranian government had stepped up pressure on its opponents Tuesday, setting up a special court to try detained protesters, carrying out new arrests and launching a campaign to publicly vilify those calling for a new vote.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062400156.html?hpid=topnews)

Reuters reported that “The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved a $48.8 billion spending bill for U.S. foreign policy and aid efforts, and tried to apply more pressure on Iran after the violence that followed its disputed election results…Lawmakers adopted an amendment that would prohibit the U.S. Export-Import Bank from extending loans, credits or guarantees to companies that supply Iran with gasoline or help the country’s domestic production. ‘While students are murdered in the streets of Tehran, we should not use taxpayer money to bolster the Iranian economy,’ said Republican Representative Mark Kirk of Illinois.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2336577220090623)

AP reported that “President Barack Obama remains publicly hopeful that Iran will emerge from its political crisis more open to international concerns about its nuclear ambitions, but the administration is preparing on several fronts for a darker outcome…Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that any efforts by Iran to spread its growing nuclear technologies could be met by counterterrorism and interdiction operations…Gates laid out in stark terms what might be in store should Tehran’s cleric-led government refuse to budge in its pursuit of a nuclear program. In remarks Tuesday to the military chiefs of several Persian Gulf states, Gates raised the specter of Iran’s nuclear build-up, which officials fear is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons and could set off a regional arms race.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iNA_rjexLDy25bFct-7osZ28_MtgD990L44G0)

The Washington Post reported that “In the first days after Iran’s disputed election, journalists covered it openly. Then, as government militias cracked down, they were told to stay in their offices. Now, many are being arrested — so far, a Canadian Iranian reporter for Newsweek, a Greek reporter for the Washington Times and several dozen Iranian reporters, including a group arrested en masse at their office. It is unclear why the journalists were arrested or what, if anything, they will be charged with. The detentions could, some experts say, be a scare tactic. Or, as with so much of what is happening in Iran now, they could be the beginning of a new phase in which old rules don’t necessarily apply.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303494.html)

AP reported that “Mir Hossein Mousavi is still nominally the guiding force of the fury over Iran’s disputed election. But there are ample signs his rebel stature is being eroded by his hesitation to shift from campaigner to street agitator as his supporters challenge security forces. The questions over Mousavi’s standing are part of a larger debate over the direction of the unprecedented assault on Iran’s Islamic leadership…’It’s not really about Mousavi anymore,’ said Ali Nader, an Iran specialist at the RAND Corp. ‘The population has expressed its unhappiness with the system. You could argue that Iran has reached the point where the population has said: Enough is enough.’” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5irFQnr5TZ41eoqFJ384_FVgezb4gD990JF202)

AFP reported that “Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign office said on Tuesday it would soon release a full report on “fraud and irregularities” in the June 12 presidential election. A Mousavi campaign committee ‘will soon release a full report of electoral fraud and irregularities to the people,’ a statement posted on Mousavi’s official website Kalemeh.ir said. The statement came after the Guardians Council ruled out annulling the results of the election, which showed Mousavi losing heavily to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i30Wbp3eRT-xz63×2Z0PYg_Ogyhg)

The Financial Times reported that “With the regime leaving no doubt that it will stamp out all forms of dissent, the city has, on the surface at least, looked calmer since Sunday. But no one knows what will come next – more defiant, but smaller protests and sit-ins or other types of civil disobedience. Several residents contacted by the Financial Times described a mounting sense of fear, combined with a collective depression setting in on the capital…’We’re in a state of shock, uncertainty, extreme depression and extreme rage,’ says one young businessman. ‘You can’t kill a few people and expect things to go back to normal.’” (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4ef2c51e-6013-11de-a09b-00144feabdc0.html)

Reuters reported that “European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana condemned on Tuesday violence that followed elections in Iran and said he was concerned about the situation. ‘We have seen violence that we have to condemn,’ he told a news conference after talks with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. ‘We expected that the election process would be something clearly positive for the international community. Unfortunately what we have seen today is something very different.’” (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLN885348)

AFP reported that “US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the situation in Iran in telephone conversations with her French, British and German counterparts, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. The top US diplomat, who withdrew from the upcoming G8 summit in Trieste after breaking her arm, called British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier on Monday, Kelly told reporters at a press conference.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g4z5vSZxrZ8OGI59ZD9P1TFiU7JQ)

Reuters reported that “Britain said on Tuesday it was throwing out two Iranian diplomats in response to Tehran’s expulsion of two British diplomats as relations hit a new low following Iran’s disputed presidential election.” http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Iran/idUSTRE55M5RX20090623)

Edward Luttwak wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal that “At this point, only the short-term future of Iran’s clerical regime remains in doubt. The current protests could be repressed, but the unelected institutions of priestly rule have been fatally undermined. Though each aspect of the Islamic Republic has its own dynamic, this is not a regime that can last many more years…What has undermined the very structure of the Islamic Republic is the fracturing of its ruling elite. It was the unity established by Ayatollah Khomeini that allowed the regime to dominate the Iranian people for almost 30 years. Now that unity has been shattered: The very people who created the institutions of priestly rule are destroying their authority.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124580553688545019.html)

David Ignatius wrote in today’s Washington Post that “On one side you have all the instruments of repression in Iran, gathering their forces for a crackdown. On the other you have unarmed protesters symbolized by the image of Neda Agha Soltan, a martyred woman dying helplessly on the street, whose last words reportedly were: ‘It burned me.’ Who’s going to win? In the short run, the victors may be the thugs who claim to rule in the name of God…But over the coming months and years, my money is on the followers of the martyred Neda. They have exposed the weakness of the clerical regime in a way that Iran’s foreign adversaries — America, Israel, Saudi Arabia — never could.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303318.html)

Roger Cohen wrote in today’s New York Times that “Iran’s 1979 revolution took a full year to gestate. The uprising of 2009 has now ended its first phase. But the volatility ushered in by the June 12 ballot-box putsch of Iran’s New Right is certain to endure over the coming year. The Islamic Republic has been weakened…All the fudge that allowed a modern society to coexist with a theocracy inspired by an imam occulted in the 9th century has been swept away, leaving two Irans at war.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/opinion/24iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=end%20of%20the%20beginning&st=cse)

Saad Eddin Ibrahim wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal that “The hotly contested presidential election in Iran between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still unfolding, with uncertain results. But regardless of the outcome, the events in Iran are symptomatic of a larger change in the political landscape of the Middle East – the revival of a regional freedom movement, which stalled in 2006 after the election of Hamas in Palestine.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124580498089244981.html)

Robert Kaplan wrote in today’s Washington Post that “The Middle East has entered a period of deep flux, to be further amplified by elections in Iraq later this year and the seating of a pro-Western government in Lebanon. Because of its central geographic and demographic position astride the energy-rich Middle East — not to mention the attractive force of Persian culture seeping far into Central Asia — Iran, ironically, has a better chance to dominate the region under dynamic democratic rule than it has ever had under its benighted clerisy. And that could be very good for the United States.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303114.html)

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race.  In short, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is a danger to world peace.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

America The Shameful?

IBD
25 June 09

Leadership: The president’s tardiness in condemning Iran is obviously tied to his wish for an unlikely deal on Tehran’s nuclear program. But does he also believe America has too much to apologize for?

It may have been the most dangerous period in U.S. history. President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy philosophy three-quarters of the way through the American Century was one of American Impotence.

Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, once infamously described it this way: “The world is changing under the influence of forces no government can control.”

Faced with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, Carter told reporters, “Certainly we have no desire or ability to intrude massive forces into Iran or any other country.”

He added that “this is something that we have no intention of ever doing in another country. We’ve tried this once in Vietnam. It didn’t work, as you well know.”

Repeatedly signaling that year that the U.S. had neither the ability nor the will to influence events abroad not only led to our ally the Shah being overthrown by an Islamofascist terror regime whose nuclear ambitions now make it the biggest threat on the face of the globe. It also led before year-end to the Soviets invading Afghanistan.

Carter’s response: an Olympic boycott, a grain embargo and the curtailment of Russian fishing privileges in U.S. waters.

Behind it all was a deep shame for the United States of America. What business did the country that invaded Vietnam, staged a 1953 coup in Iran (saving it from Communist dominance, it should be recalled) and incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki have trying to exert moral authority?

President Barack Obama seems driven by a similar philosophy. Three decades later, with Tehran slaughtering innocent protesters on the streets, his statement to reporters that “the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering with Iran’s affairs” sounds an awful lot like Carter’s tepid response to the Islamist revolution.

Obama quickly added that “we must also bear witness to the courage and the dignity of the Iranian people.” But it insults their courage, as they brave bullets and batons in repeatedly defying the illegitimate “sovereignty of the Islamic Republic” by taking to the streets, for the U.S. not to make a bold effort on their behalf.

Contrast Ronald Reagan’s reaction to the Soviet-backed crackdown in Poland and the massive street protests that resulted in late 1981. Fox News’ Sean Hannity this week showed video from Reagan’s Christmastime statement that year.

“The courageous Polish people … have been betrayed by their own government,” Reagan said, adding that “brute force may intimidate, but it cannot form the basis of an enduring society, and the ailing Polish economy cannot be rebuilt with terror tactics.”

And he issued a warning: “Make no mistake, their crime will cost them dearly in their future dealings with America and free peoples everywhere. I do not make this statement lightly or without serious reflection.”

Reagan made it clear that the series of harsh economic sanctions he was authorizing were “not directed against the Polish people.” He announced that “on Christmas Eve a lighted candle will burn in the White House window as a small but certain beacon of our solidarity with the Polish people.”

And he urged all Americans “to do the same tomorrow night, on Christmas Eve, as a personal statement of your commitment to the steps we’re taking to support the brave people of Poland in their time of troubles.”

That is real presidential leadership that helped lead to the end of tyranny in long-suffering Poland.

Imagine Americans rallying in support of a Muslim people with some similar symbolic gesture at the behest of a president whose father was Muslim, and who bears a Muslim name. America’s moral leadership harnessed in such a way could move mountains in the Middle East.

But Barack Hussein Obama is apparently too busy apologizing for the U.S.A. to consider it.

-our comments-

No sports. No bread. No fishing

Eye on Iran: Ahmadinejad Tells Obama Not to Interfere in Iran — Iran Stepping Up Effort to Quell Election Protest — WH Rescinds Invitation to July 4th Celebrations

unitedagainstnucleariran.com

25 June 09

The Washington Post reported that “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned President Obama on Thursday to ‘avoid interfering’ in Iranian affairs, and his security forces arrested 70 academics overnight after using clubs and tear gas Wednesday to break up demonstrations over the disputed June 12 elections. ‘Do you want to speak with this tone? If that is your stance then what is left to talk about?’ Ahmadinejad said of Obama, who during a news conference Tuesday criticized Iran’s crackdown on protesters who have alleged fraud and demanded that the elections be annulled. Accusing Obama of acting like his predecessor, George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad said: ‘I hope you avoid interfering in Iran’s affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it.’ His remarks were translated by Reuters news service.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062500774.html?hpid=topnews)

The New York Times reported that “Iranian officials stepped up efforts to crush the remaining resistance to a disputed presidential election on Wednesday, as security forces overwhelmed a small group of protesters with brutal beatings, tear gas and gunshots in the air. Intelligence agents shut down an office of a defeated presidential candidate, saying it was a ‘headquarters for a psychological war.’ The nation’s leadership cast anyone refusing to accept the results of the race as an enemy of the state. Analysts suggested that the unyielding response showed that Iran’s leaders, backed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had lost patience and that Iran was now, more than ever, a state guided not by clerics of the revolution but by a powerful military and security apparatus.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html?scp=2&sq=iran&st=cse)

Politico reported that “The White House has rescinded its invitation to Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 festivities hosted at U.S. embassies and consulates overseas, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. No Iranian diplomats RSVP’d, Gibbs said, adding, ‘I don’t think it’s surprising that nobody’s signed up to come, given the events of the past days.’ Nonetheless, he said, ‘those invitations will no longer be extended.’” (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24173.html)

The New York Times reported that “Throughout the Iranian crisis, Mr. Obama has tried to strike a difficult balance. On one hand, he has carefully modulated his response to minimize the chances that the Iranian government will cast the conflict as one driven by meddling from the United States, and to avoid closing off the possibility of talks with Iran over curbing its nuclear program, a signature element of his foreign policy since his election. On the other hand, he has had to avoid appearing tone-deaf to the potential emergence of a democracy movement in Iran and to keep his political opponents from casting him as weak in foreign affairs. The result has been a gradually evolving message that at times has seemed strained, drawing some of the harshest criticism, especially from conservatives, since he took office. White House officials counter that Mr. Obama has struck the best possible course so far, by keeping America’s national security interests paramount while still articulating his belief in the pro-democracy protesters in Iran and his support for them.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/us/politics/25memo.html?ref=us)

Pollster Frank Luntz discussed UANI’s first national ad “Unclenched Fist” last night on Fox.  He said “When the ad goes above a 50 it’s a home run. That ad was in the 70’s. That’s what you never have in politics today. Republicans and democrats never agree on anything. The line is going up. The green line was reacting to obama and then the red line, the republican line gets closer and closer as they talk about the problems in Iran. The American people are sending a message, don’t negotiate with this dictator.” (http://mms.tveyes.com/Transcript.asp?stationid=130&DateTime=06%2F24%2F2009+21%3A24%3A28&mediapreload=14&playclip=false)

The Times reported that “The Iranian regime has appointed one of its most feared prosecutors to interrogate reformists arrested during demonstrations, prompting fears of a brutal crackdown against dissent. Relatives of several detained protesters have confirmed that the interrogation of prisoners is now being headed by Saaed Mortazavi, a figure known in Iran as ‘the butcher of the press’. He gained notoriety for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003…Earlier this year he oversaw the arrest and trial of Roxana Saberi, the American-Iranian journalist sentenced to eight years for spying, and his name has appeared on the arrest warrants of prominent reformists rounded up since the unrest started, such as Saeed Hajarian, a close aide of Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former President. With more than 600 people now having been arrested, including dozens of journalists, many fear the worst.” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6570089.ece)

The New York Times reported that “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has maintained a markedly low profile since Iran’s disputed presidential election erupted into bloody street protests. But analysts said the crackdown now taking place across Iran suggested that Mr. Ahmadinejad had succeeded in creating a pervasive network of important officials in the military, security agencies, and major media outlets, a new elite made especially formidable by support from one important constituent, Iran’s supreme leader himself. Mr. Ahmadinejad has filled crucial ministries and other top posts with close friends and allies who have spread ideological and operational support for him nationwide. These analysts estimate that he has replaced 10,000 government employees to cement his loyalists through the bureaucracies, so that his allies run the organizations responsible for both the contested election returns and the official organs that have endorsed them.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/middleeast/25tehran.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Ahmadinejad%20reaps%20benefits%20of%20stacking%20key%20Iran%20agencies%20with%20his%20allies&st=cse)

The Financial Times reported that “Since the start of Iran’s presidential crisis, the regime has resorted to mass arrests, locking up politicians from the reformist camp and young Iranians who were protesting at what they believe was an election stolen from reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi. Some families have been turning up every day in front of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which deals with security charges, seeking information about their relatives. State media has said 457 people were arrested during protests last Saturday. US-based Human Rights Watch says the security net reached much wider since the protests broke out 11 days ago, with possibly thousands detained nationwide, many denied communication with their families. The crackdown shows no sign of easing. According to local media, 25 members of the staff of a newspaper supporting Mr Moussavi that had been banned in the wake of the election were arrested this week.” (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b0167b2c-611e-11de-aa12-00144feabdc0.html

AP reported that “For years, women’s defiance in Iran came in carefully planned flashes of hair under their head scarves, brightly painted fingernails and trendy clothing that could be glimpsed under bulky coats and cloaks. But these small acts of rebellion against the theocratic government have been quickly eclipsed in the wake of the disputed June 12 presidential elections. In their place came images of Iranian women marching alongside men, of their scuffles with burly militiamen, of the sobering footage of a young woman named Neda, blood pouring from her mouth and nose minutes after her fatal shooting. In a part of the Muslim world where women are often repressed, these images have catapulted Iran’s female demonstrators to the forefront of the country’s opposition movement. It is a role, say Iranian women and experts, that few seem willing to give up, and one that will likely present President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hardline government with even greater challenges in the wake of the recent violence and protests.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkzosTgK3ner6HkyGtGYXjNNo9vQD9918E0G0)

The Guardian reported that “The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world. Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/24/neda-soltan-iran-family-forced-out)

AP reported that “In the latest sign of government attempts to silence dissent, 70 university professors were detained late Wednesday after a meeting with the main opposition figure, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the June 12 vote…Mousavi, who last led a protest rally a week ago, described his growing difficulties for the first time Thursday, in a statement posted in his official Web site, Kalemeh. He said authorities were increasingly isolating and vilifying him in an attempt to get him to withdraw his election challenge. Mousavi said he would not back down. ‘I am not ready to withdraw from demanding the rights of the Iranian people,’ he said, adding that he was determined to prove electoral fraud.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_iran_election)

BBC reported that “Unrest in Iran is expected to dominate discussions between foreign ministers gathering in northern Italy to prepare for a G8 summit. The future of Afghanistan had been the original focus of the talks in Trieste, but Iran’s post-election violence has shifted the attention.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8117956.stm)

The Times reported that “At about 9pm each day Nushin, a young housewife, performs the same curious ritual. She climbs up the stairs to the roof of her Tehran home and begins shouting into the night. ‘Allahu akbar,’ she cries, and sometimes ‘Death to the dictator.’ She is not alone. Across the darkened city, from rooftops and through open windows, thousands of others do the same to form one great chorus of protest – a collective wail of anger against a reviled regime that no amount of riot police and Basiji militia can stop. ‘It sounds like the wailing of wolves,’ said one Tehrani…’It’s the way we reassure ourselves that we are still here and we are still together,’ says Nushin, a woman who has never dared to rebel before.” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6572101.ece)

AFP reported that “Football’s world governing body FIFA wrote to the Iranian football federation on Wednesday to ask for answers over alleged punishments meted out to several of their players for wearing wristbands reflecting their support for opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Six of them wore the green wristbands during the 2010 World Cup qualifier 1-1 draw with South Korea last week, including two of their icons Ali Karimi and skipper Mehdi Mahdavikia. It has been reported, largely by English television station Channel Four News on Tuesday and the left leaning Guardian newspaper on Wednesday that they had been told they would never play for their country again because of their stance.” (http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090624/tsp-iran-fbl-wc2010-fifa-47c0590.html)

Garry Kasparov wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal that “Regardless of what Mr. Obama says, the Iranian leaders will use all the force at their disposal to stay in power. There is no reason to withhold external pressure that can tip the balance inside Tehran. Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is not an ideal democrat. But should he and his supporters win power they will owe their authority to an abruptly empowered Iranian electorate. It is reasonable to expect that the people will hold a Mousavi government accountable for delivering the freedoms that they are now risking their lives to attain. Millions of Iranians are fighting to join the Free World. The least we can do is let the valiant people of Iran know loud and clear that they will be welcomed with open arms.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588821030550761.html)

Mona Eltahawy wrote in today’s Washington Post that “Do you hear the silence from the Arab world over events in Iran?…That silence is the sound of hearts breaking over the dream of political Islam. When the 1979 revolution swept away the U.S.-backed shah and his injustices, Iran held out the tantalizing mirage of rule by Islam, even for countries that were not majority Shiite. Thirty years later, Iranians are protesting not a secular, U.S.-backed dictator but a system run by clerics who claim to uphold democracy as long as its candidates are given the regime’s stamp of approval. What’s happening in Iran is not about the United States or Israel. It’s not about Ahmadinejad or Mir Hossein Mousavi. It’s not even about the poor or the rich in Iran. The demonstrations are about people who feel their will and voice have been disregarded. In Egypt, it’s our secular dictator, in power for almost 28 years, who disregards our will. In Iran, it’s a clerical regime in power for 30 years, hiding behind God.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062403014.html?sid=ST2009062403031)

UANI Advisory Board Member Henry Sokolski wrote in today’s National Review Online that “First, (the U.S. should) press Iran to obey existing U.N. resolutions that require it to suspend its nuclear-fuel-making activities. Even if Iran were to continue to defy these resolutions, such pressure would at least stigmatize its nuclear misbehavior. Second, the U.S. should push for new international rules that would automatically impose sanctions on any state that violated its IAEA or Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) pledges or withdrew from the NPT while still in noncompliance. Similar automatic sanctions should be spelled out for any non-nuclear state that might test a nuclear device. Finally, the U.S. and other like-minded countries need to deprive Iran of any political, economic, military, or diplomatic advantage it might gain by continuing to inch toward nuclear weapons. We can maintain our diplomatic channels with Tehran, but only if we are willing to pressure Iran as we did South Africa, Libya, and the Soviet Union (i.e., with international or multilateral sanctions). Under no circumstances, though, should the U.S. bargain away the consensus – supported by both the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council – that Iran must suspend its nuclear-fuel-making activities. Doing so would only make it easier for Iran (and other countries) to produce nuclear bombs – exactly the opposite of what we should bargain for.” (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWFhNmYyYzRmYmYwZWQ0Y2Q4NGM1OTM2MTQ4MWVkZjE=&w=MA==)

UANI Advisory Board Member Irwin Cotler wrote in yesterday’s Cleveland Indy Media Center that “The incendiary hate language emanating from Ahmadinejad’s Iran – in which Israel is referred to as ‘filthy bacteria’ and a ‘cancerous tumor’ and Jews are characterized as ‘a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians’ – is only the head wind of the gathering storm confronting Israel on its 60th anniversary. Indeed, we are witnessing, and have been for some time, a series of mega-events, political earthquakes that have been impacting not only upon Israel and world Jewry but upon the human condition as a whole.” (http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/06/44302.php)

Hot Dog Diplomacy

IBD  24 June 09

Iran: Apart from rhetoric, the U.S. has yet to take a firm stand against the Iran’s brutal oppression of its own people. For a start, how about rescinding the invitation to Iran’s diplomats to attend our 4th of July celebrations?

President Obama deserves credit for finally toughening his language against the Iranian regime on Tuesday after its brutal crackdown on the millions of average Iranians who took to the streets to protest a stolen election.

“Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history,” Obama said. The entire world, he added, was “appalled and outraged” at Iran’s crushing of dissent.

Ringing words, and true. But he weakened the power of his own rhetoric by invoking, not once but twice, his “respect” for the sovereignty of the “Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Respect? For a government that likely just stole an election, and that routinely flouts international law to develop a nuclear weapon? For the same government that brutally murdered Neda Agha Soltan, whose tragic last moments alive were viewed by millions on YouTube?

Sorry, but Iran’s regime deserves no respect. They’ve been emboldened to go after their own people by what they perceive as U.S. softening toward them.

To show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime we aren’t patsies, we should stop talking and start acting. A good first step: Disinvite Iran’s diplomats from our 4th of July celebrations.

Asking Iran’s diplomats to attend our national day at U.S. embassies around the world was a mistake in the first place. Letting representatives of a terrorist-supporting regime eat halal hot dogs and drink soda as guests of the American people would dishonor our nation — and all those who fought and died to preserve our freedoms.

We see it as the moral equivalent of inviting Hitler’s ambassadors to our Fourth back in 1939. Lest you think that’s an exaggeration, please remember: Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.

Fact is, the fundamentalist mullahs in charge in Iran are paranoid medievalists, untouched by any gentling modern sensibility and entirely out of touch with the drift of human rights and freedom over the last, say, 200 years.

They don’t see the “unclenched fist” that’s been offered to them as what it is: an act of generous goodwill from a far stronger foe. No, they see it as weakness from a leader who really doesn’t understand the depth of their hatred of us and our way of life.

FROM THE LEFT: Obama Is Right Not To Shoot From the Hip

Obama Is Right Not To Shoot From The Hip

By RICHARD COHEN | IBD 23 June 2009 |  my notes is blue

The foreign policy sins of the United States fall into two categories: commission and omission.

The commission ones include the wars in Vietnam (but there we were trapped – as party to SEATO: SOUTH EAST ASIA TREATY ORGANIZATION) and Iraq… and we learn over again that treaties supercede our Constitution.

When will we learn?
Our first President told us quite clearly to avoid entangling alliances.

The sins of omission are less well-known. They include the failure to redeem the hollow promises to various subjugated peoples — the Hungarians of 1956, the Shiites of 1991 — that America would come to their aid.

In Iran, the Obama administration is intent on not adding to this list.

The current policy, much criticized by prominent Republicans, vindicated VINDICATED!? Barack Obama’s boast in his Cairo speech that he is a “student of history.”     We all know that he is NOT a student of history. The student in him knows that the worst thing the United States could do at the moment is provide the supreme leader and the less supreme leaders with the words to paint the opposition as American. Still, if McCain, Graham and others have a valid complaint, it is not with Obama’s words but with his music. The President of Cool seems emotionally disconnected from events in Tehran — not unconcerned but not particularly upset, either.

[vindicated: vin·di·cate 1. to clear somebody or something of blame, guilt, suspicion, or doubt 2.    to show that somebody or something is justified or correct.

“…vindicated”? it did nothing of the kind! It proved, once again, that Obama knows nothing of history.  Few lawyers do – and it’s quite debatable whether we could call Obama a lawyer.

Cohen: This is a quality that will cost Obama plenty in coming years. He can acknowledge your pain, but he cannot feel it.

[This “quality” will cost Obama – but the real cost will be charged against America.]

Cohen: Iran, the first foreign policy “crisis,” alerts us to what to expect in the future: a tightly controlled message from the White House (anyone heard from Hillary Clinton lately?), a deliberate consideration of the options and no shoot-from-the-hip remarks.

[Many Americans are finally awakening to the question – who is Obama? Is he a Muslim or an American?]

Cohen: This is how Obama ran his campaign. This is how he’ll run his foreign policy. As McCain should know, it works.

CURRENT NEWS: IRAN: U.S. Policy Issues

Given the current turmoil in Iran, we thought that CFNS members would find it helpful to take a factual look at Iran’s economy, with a view toward understanding the part that it may be playing in influencing the protests there, and U.S. policy here. The attached document – excerpted and edited from a recently released 39-page Congressional Research Service report – serves that purpose.

The major question being asked while the riots and violence are unfolding on Iranian streets is, “How should America be reacting to this turn of events?” Most are pointing to President Obama as the key to setting the policy for our actions. But how about Congress – what role can and should it play? Practically speaking, both have limited options – at least on the surface. Covert operations are another matter!

See attached document: CLICK HERE: Iran’s_Economy_-_Policy_Perspectives

Cartoon: IRAN: Where’s Obama Now?

Great Nidra Poller Articles

This great series of stories are just fascinating.  Nidra Poller is a dear lady – writing from Paris – Don’t miss her great insight.

Don

Nidra graces us with her unique insight into the Iranian election bloodbath.

On those frail shoulders the world might turn

Paris 19 June 2009

Nidra Poller

Something is missing from most of the analyses floating around this week as Iranians one by one proclaim liberty against overwhelming odds. So many commentators seem to be afraid to capture the moment in its near miraculous scope. I’ve been connected to the résistance pipeline for years through friends like Banafsheh Zand Bonazzi, Ken Timmerman, and Michael Ledeen. They think this movement could push all the way past Ahmadinejad, past Mousavi, and topple the mullahs.

I don’t know what will come of it. Whether or not the revolt is crushed in blood and broken bodies or, if it succeeds, goes on to build one more variation on the theme of Islamic Republics, at this very moment we are witnessing the unquenchable desire for freedom in its penultimate stage. We see the living proof that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights… No tyranny is powerful enough to resist this truth when its victims believe in their rights.

It is so dramatic! Why doesn’t it resonate in our “free” world? I feel uplifted at the very thought that it might go all the way. Ayatollah Khamenei is looking frail these days. Ahmadinejad has lost his glow. The very mechanics of it is so fascinating, I can’t think of anything else. You have a population crushed under the heel of turbaned perverts that lapidate, hang, torture, gouge, slash, lash and imprison at will. The tyrants build nuclear weapons, threaten to wipe Israel off the map, menace Europe, the United States, neighboring Muslim countries… Even though everyone in his right mind knows they must not be allowed to get the Bomb, almost no one has the courage and the means to stop them.

Wherever you turn, it’s one big sigh of resignation. Our people living in wealthy democracies are so languid it’s infuriating. No one is asking you to go and bomb Natanz, buddy, just to say that it could be done, someone should do it, and if someone does, the rest of us should nod and say “well done.” Even that is too much for your average conversationer. B Hussein O put them at ease with his coming-out-of-the-Muslim-closet speech in Cairo. He said, among other rhetorical atrocities, that no country can decide who should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Whew! Sit back and snore, there’s no need to fret.

Now, in the space of one week, something totally unexpected is happening. Even those who hoped for regime change from within are surprised. Rightfully so. It’s one thing to imagine a popular revolt, altogether another to watch it happen.

We are, justifiably, wary. Enthusiastic crowds brought down the Shah and we know where that led. But, millions of individuals acting from their own indomitable need for freedom can, this time around, bring down the mullahs and make way for something like a decent government. This too is possible. No one knows today which way it will go. I am not thrilled to hear the cries of allahu akhbar. But it doesn’t destroy my sense of wonder at the capacity of individuals to seize their rights with their bare hands.

It’s uplifting, because these crowds are composed of individuals, acting one by one together. This is not crowd psychology in all its horror. Men and women each one separately breaking the chains that bind them, each one separately drawing courage from the depths of their being, each one individually crossing the line from slavery to freedom. They are telling us “I am not afraid anymore.”

No surprise that the champions of the Palestinian cause are not inspired by the Iranian people’s movement. The whole vocabulary of the Arab-Israeli conflict is dumbfounded. Nothing the mullahs do is disproportionate, the death toll got stuck at the number seven and no amount of blood could push it upward, graphic images don’t provoke outcries and, unless I am mistaken, no one is calling for a cease fire, no one is going to the UN.

President Obama has egg on his face but the media photoshop it away. Where’s the Obama effect now? Wedged in between Hamas and Abbas, competing for the intransigency award. It’s the Bush effect in Iran today. And the smarties who kept telling us you can’t impose democracy with guns and bombs are exposed. Truth is, they wouldn’t want to “impose” democracy with flowers and candy. They don’t even want to help Iranian citizens who are willing to go for it with their own blood sweat and tears.

In France, the capital of human rights, media coverage of events in Iran is particularly opaque. No enthusiasm, hardly any debate or analysis, no big picture. But our president took a stand!

Am I running away with my hopes? Maybe, maybe not. What if it works, what if the people overthrow the mullahs, what if their freedom is not snatched away once more, what if Iran really becomes the nation that cowardly western leaders have been pretending to see behind the snarling little monkey-face tyrant? A dignified refined nation that deserves a place at our table. A regional power that can have a stabilizing influence on the region. An unclenched fist. So where is the outstretched hand now?

On those frail shoulders the world could turn. If they succeed, would it mean that we don’t have to dread a nuclear attack on Israel or bear the burden of an Israeli attack on Iran? Would it mean no more money for Hamas, Hizbullah, and thousands of mini terror enclaves disseminated throughout our free nations? Would it strike hope in the hearts of other Muslims who are tired of living under sharia law? Couldn’t it turn the tables, shift the balance of power, slice into the lethal narrative and begin a new story, closer to the truth?

Whether they succeed today and fail afterward, or fail today and succeed the next time, nothing can deprive me of this moment of wonder at the power of one single human being—or a million of them one by one– to transform the world. This is why people like me fervently defend our right to think for ourselves and express ourselves in our own words, without making painful concessions to the multitude of guardians who stand between us and our readers. And this is why I am never pessimistic, never fatalistic.

What will happen to the Jews in Europe, I’m asked. What will happen to Europe. Europe is finished, isn’t it? If the Israelis don’t make peace with the Palestinians and give them a state, what are they going to do, kill them all? What are you going to do with all the Muslims in Europe… There are a billion and a half Muslims in the world, you can’t be against all of them…

Ah but that’s not how these questions will be settled. Not by stale arguments and twisted logic. And not by peace processes! There are upstarts hidden under every hard surface, and their power is immense. Acts of courage show the way. They cast a brilliant light on human events. Benjamin Netanyahu stood up to Obama. Avigdor Lieberman did not cave in to Hillary Clinton. Young Iranians born into a barbaric oppressive state know the taste for freedom. Their elders remember. My heart goes out to them. No matter what happens next, we have shared a moment of humanity. And the world has changed.

UPDATE: As I love to commiserate with Nidra [Poller], here is her reaction — from the other front line, France:

I followed Bibi’s speech on a live stream from Bar Ilan. Reception was shaky. I’ll have to see the written text to make a proper analysis. But here’s my first reaction: I was happy! I was happy because he stood up to Barack Hussein Obama like a proud Israeli. He didn’t swallow even a crumb of that lethal narrative about how Israel was a consolation prize for the Holocaust and Israel had been stuck in the Palestinian’s craw for 61 years, and Israel is the cause of all the world’s ills…

He stated our conditions. Recognition that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people. We are here because this is our land. Give up trying to kill us by every means imaginable and unimaginable. Forget about flooding us with refugees. We took the refugees from Arab lands, you take care of your own refugees. Jerusalem will never be divided. We will make no commitment to restricting growth in the settlements. We tried every kind of peace plan, every kind of withdrawal. It doesn’t work.

We will not allow the creation of another Hamastan that can attack Tel Aviv, ben Gurion airport… We will not talk to Hamas, we don’t talk to people who want to destroy us.

He began with shalom and ended with shalom and spoke of shalom all through his speech. Shalom is the peace we want. Real peace, with fruitful multiplication and swords turned into plowshares. He held out a vision of the kind of peace that could exist in the Middle East IF AND ONLY IF Israel’s neighbors accept her existence as a Jewish state.

Towards the end, he spoke of Palestinians, a flag and a hymn. Maybe I listened selectively. I didn’t hear the word “state.” Whatever it was the Palestinians would fly their flag over, it would not be a territory from which to kill Israelis. Demilitarized. No weapons smuggling. Not like what is happening today in Gaza.

OK, call it wishful listening. To me he was saying that the kind of state the Palestinians want is not on the table and not on the horizon.

As soon as the speech was over I rushed to hear how French media would react. State-owned France Info said Netanyahu accepts a Palestinian state but it has to be demilitarized. Abbas, they report, says Netanyahu torpedoed any hope of peace. He asked too much.

Well, that seemed like a reasonable reaction from Abbas. It reassured me. Then I checked out FoxNews. And then the Figaro: “Netanyahu accepts the principle of a Palestinian state.” And finally, the Jerusalem Post. Our friend Aryeh Eldad said it too. Netanyahu crossed the red line. All the conditions he set forth will be forgotten, the only thing that will be remembered is that he agreed on the principle of a Palestinian state.

Can I still be happy? Didn’t Bibi stand up to Obama? Everyone else is caving in. Driveling. Drooling. And he lobbed those shots right back into Obama’s court, one by one, like a pro. Everyone knows the Palestinians don’t want a demilitarized state. So what does the word “state” mean if, in fact, Netanyahu pronounced the word?

Obama makes the most scandalous dhimmi speech ever pronounced in modern times and gets praised all over the planet. Netanyahu answers him back without pulling punches or picking a fight, and all you’ll hear is that he agrees that the Palestinians should have a state.

[dhimmi: Second class citizens.  That's what Islam expects us to be.  All we have to do is pay them.]

I don’t think he did.

To be continued…

TWO STATE POLLUTION

Paris June 14, 2009, 4 :10 PM

Nidra Poller

Two state pollution, two state delusion, two state concoction, two state distraction, two state corruption, two state disruption, two state misconception, two state misdemeanor, two state mistake, two state takeover, two state holdup…two state solution. You see? Those three words—two state solution– were not joined at the hip. They are not an organic whole. They are not verified by their inseparability. Whatever was put together by the will of man can be taken apart by his intelligence. Each element can be examined independently.

“Two” meaning who? Which two states are we talking about? Gaza and Judea-Samaria? Judea-Samaria and Israel? Israel and Gaza? Obviously not. So wipe out the “two,” it is mathematically incorrect.

“State”? What kind of state? Both the same kind? Sovereign and defendable? No. Everyone promises us that the sweet little Palestinian state they are going to force down our throats will of course be harmless. That is unarmed. More accurately “disarmed” because they are currently armed to the teeth and intend to get armed to the heavens. And our state, our Israel? Will it be the sovereign Jewish state created and built by the Jews, beautifully armed and brilliantly skilled, proud and independent, peaceful and prosperous? No. It will be a borderline state. Not Jewish. Not sovereign. Not free to defend itself, weakened, pushed down to the beach and into the sea. Strike out the “state,” it’s geopolitically false.

“Solution”? What solution?  The solution of what? Solution by fiat? By bla bla repetition? By unanimous hypocrisy?

Here’s an example in private life:

After all these decades of sexual freedom, women’s liberation, ease of coupling and ease of separation, we still get mismatching that leads in too many cases to nasty divorces, tugs of war over the children, drawn out court cases, dilapidation of financial resources, psychological trauma and sometimes murder. What’s to be done about it?

Not to worry.

Try the two parent solution. Two parents, living separately in peace and harmony, each in his own home, each equally devoted to all the children, living and letting live in fruitful prosperity. Why not? And how is this achieved? You just repeat it every time the problem is raised. Two parent solution, two parent solution, two parent solution.

It’s magical. It would probably even work for orphans.

Yes, death is a pesky problem that can strike anyone when least expected. Though we all know we will die one day, that our loved ones will die, that our forebears already died, we take death personally as an unbearable tragedy. Great writers write about it, philosophers try to wring it dry with highminded conversation, truthtelling poets describe its sting with such force they make us cry, but surely there must be some way to get past this problem that has caused so much suffering on both sides—that of the living and that of the dead.

Why not have the “two person solution?” Make people in two copies. When one dies, you throw it away and take out the replacement.

It should be clear from these two examples that everything can be solved with a solution.

Not so? Then why is the democratically elected prime minister of the sovereign Jewish state of Israel being pushed up against the wall and threatened with worse than death unless he squeals “yes, yes, I want a two-state solution”? And why are we hoping and praying he says NO?

Because the words can be disconnected and analyzed all the way down to their hidden meaning. And the catch phrase can be reconstructed in transparent truth. It’s so precise, it’s almost mathematical. Maybe it’s kabalistic. Whatever. Here’s the correct equation:

Following the demonstration above, strike out “two”—it’s mathematically incorrect. Strike out “state”—it’s geopolitically false. Retain “solution”—for the sake of argument. Take “two” and “state,” reduce to basic, heat to room temperature, carefully place each recomposed letter on the page, as follows.

F …I…N…A…L

Place to the left of “solution” and you get the macabre joke:

FINAL SOLUTION

Say what?

Say NO.!!!

Monday, June 08, 2009

FACT VS Ooo-la-la FICTION

The real story hat tip martin

U.S first lady Michelle Obama and France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy attend a ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy at Colleville-sur-Mer cemetery, June 6, 2009.

See more of Michelle photos at Yahoo Photos

Nidra Poller wrote this wonderful piece at the end of May, and I thought you would enjoy it.

It’s amusing how Obama campaigned on forging better relationships with the world and repairing Bush’s damage to America’s image in the world. Bush looks positively loved next to this clown. Merkel can barely stand him, and Sarkozy? Don’t even get me started in Israel.

It seems Obama is obsessed with getting in good with da jihad. The thing is, recent elections across Europe and the Middle East shows us the world is moving to the right while Obama careens wildly out of control to the radical left.

Why does Obama cold shoulder Sarkozy?

May 22, 2009

Nidra Poller

Why does Barack Hussein Obama shun Nicolas Sarkozy and why does it matter?

Curiously enough this Franco-American iceberg is escaping attention on both sides of the Atlantic. I gave up asking for reactions from otherwise astute observers in France who shrug their shoulders, raise their eyebrows, and mumble “Ah bon? Je n’ai rien remarqué.” It’s so glaring they don’t even notice it.

And here in the United States, the people who have been telling me–the longtime resident of France–that George Bush poisoned our relations with Europe and Barack Obama will turn them to milk and honey, don’t seem to notice that nothing of the sort is happening.

Why should President Obama be chummy with President Sarkozy? And why doesn’t he want to be? This is not a rhetorical question that will be followed by a torrent of revelations and glib explanations. I really don’t know what is going on here, but I am sure it matters.

Whatever you think of France you have to admit that it is still a power to be reckoned with in Europe and, to a lesser extent, on the international scene. The Franco-German “couple” counts for more than the sum of the parts of the European Union. France maintains significant influence in the Arab-Muslim world, much of which was under its colonial domination until recently…and now the liberated colonies are exerting their dominion over France by way of immigrant populations. France, more than any other continental European nation, seeks to exert its influence wherever conflict focuses world attention. France, self-appointed embodiment of human rights, rushes to the rescue of besieged populations when disaster strikes, waves the banner of the oppressed, and lends support—if only vocal– to aspiring peoples. As a major proponent of Euro-pacifism France has effectively undermined American power over the past decades and nourished the moral confusion that weakens the West in its conflict with global jihad.

Having promised to align the United States with suave European savoir faire, President Obama would be expected to grow closer to France, the world capital of diplomacy. Sarkozy, for his part, has made a step in America’s direction: While remaining faithful to the “diplomacy first & foremost” mode of operation, he has affronted strong domestic opposition by increasing troop strength in Afghanistan, reintegrating the NATO command, and taking a strong stand against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Is that the rub?

Weeks after President Sarkozy’s triumphant May 2007 election he fostered rapprochement with the United States by accepting an invitation to a cookout lunch at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport. This chumming up to George Bush was grist for the smash-Sarkozy mill that is running strong to this day. The president was recently accused of lèse majesté for allegedly saying–at a private luncheon—that Spanish President Zapatero is “not intelligent” and Obama is inexperienced. The source that had leaked the comments rapidly came forward to add the missing words and prove that they were not insulting, but international media had already run with the story and our French media scooped up their dirt and dumped it on the president’s head. They claimed the “uppity arriviste Nicolas” was an international laughing stock. The joke is, those international media were only repeating what French media told them.

If Sarkozy is as disgraceful as his detractors claim, why do they find Obama so admirable? The critics who dump on “Sarko the omnipresident” for running to the scene of every issue big or small instead of letting his Prime Minister govern and his Ministers handle whatever they are Minister of, applaud Obama every time he runs up or down a flight of stairs, grabs a mike, and shows his face. They snarl at Sarkozy’s infradig accent and commonplace vocabulary but jive with Obama’s street talky hype. The French whined for months when their president took a long weekend to court and marry Carla Bruni; they drool over hand-holdings between Barack and Michelle. The hate-Sarkozy crowd snickers over outdated nude pictures of the graceful French first lady, a former model, that circulate in the sewers of the Net; willfully blind French commentators praise Michelle’s stunning taste in fashion. Sarkozy, they say, is so bling bling it’s a scandal. Then Obama gave madame a priceless rock of a ring in gratitude for her comradely support of his presidential campaign and it was ooooohhh soooo tender. The French president’s immigrant origins—a Hungarian father, a Jewish Thessalonian grandfather– earn him zero brownie points and a flow of gutter anti-Semitism. Needless to say Obama, the “first black American president,” hits the jackpot. And so on and so forth: whatever Obama does, doesn’t do, is, isn’t, lacks or has is good. Nothing Sarkozy can do, say, be, or wish for can find favor with the handful of opinion-makers who rule the roost. It’s unfair!

Obama insulted Gordon Brown, his wife touched the Queen of England, he fuels a shameless personality cult and throws in his wife and daughters for cutesy cutesy photo ops. French journalists and opposition politicians raked Sarkozy over the coals for giving a warm welcome to Ghadafi after the military personnel unjustly held in Libyan prisons were released…with the help of the then first lady, Cecilia. They haven’t raised an eyebrow as Obama fawns over Muslim countries to the point of rewriting American history and demographics (the US a nation of Muslims and miscellaneous others, Islam’s contribution of to our society…). If American media, having massively contributed to Barack Hussein Obama’s popularity and electoral success serve up a bit of objective reporting when his government hits a bump—the Nancy Pelosi two-step, for example —French media cover their eyes in embarrassment.

Curiously, the opinion-makers who get their kicks out of throwing darts at Sarkozy haven’t noticed that in snubbing the French president, Obama is snubbing France and all that’s in it.

Repeated attempts by Nicolas Sarkozy’s aides to arrange for an official visit to Washington were rebuffed. On several occasions, rumors of an impending Obama-Sarkozy encounter rippled and faded. In France we were led to believe the American president would visit Omaha Beach with his French counterpart between the G20 meeting in London and the NATO summit in Strasbourg. Then we learned, from US sources, that Obama’s team had humored the Frenchies and even walked through the event before informing them that the Franco-American cordiality show was postponed once again. The Omaha Beach junket is now promised for the June 6^th Normandy landing commemoration …two days after Obama’s epistle to the Muslims pronounced in Cairo.

Unless I am mistaken, Nicolas Sarkozy was standing right behind the Saudi king when Barack Hussein Obama bowed deeply in reverence to the Muslim potentate at the G20 reception. At the NATO summit he told the EU to open its arms wide and welcome Turkey. Gulp! Will he smooth things out at Omaha Beach? Try to talk the French into taking a few dozen Gitmo guys? Get some inside tips on nationalized health care?

I don’t think they will broach the very delicate subject of…how shall we say…government meddling…no, let’s not be too harsh…government intervention in all things economic. What if Nicolas asked Barack (if they ever get to first-name status) why he is striving to impose…excuse me, institute interventionist economic policies that, he, Nicolas, promised to phase out because he, and a healthy majority of French voters, are convinced that the French economy has gone from doldrums to dumps to recession precisely because of a lack of freedom. Overweening labor unions, overbearing taxes, overweight bureaucracy, and a preference for handouts over endeavor have been the bane of France’s existence.

Sarkozy’s promised reforms have been butting against opposition from a coalition of the parliamentary left, the far left, labor unions, ecologists, and Islamists, with the helping hand of intellectuals and the media. Whereas Obama is hoping to make his promised changes with the help of the Congressional left, the far left, labor unions, ecologists, and…?

The Normandy hills are so green and peaceful today. The beaches are bright and clean. Row upon row of white crosses, studded with white Stars of David, stretch as far as the eye can see. Will the sobering reminder of young American lives lost to defeat the Nazi tyranny that held France in its murderous grip restore the warmth of Franco-American friendship when the two presidents meet on June 6^th? Or will this be a chilly downgrading encounter that makes France look like an old friend who hasn’t done much with his life? Someone you meet once a year, when you can’t find a good excuse to avoid him?

Update June 4: lepost.fr reports today that Sarkozy’s team tried every which way to set up a tête à tête with Obama on the fringes of the D-Day commemoration. Nothing doing. Le Figaro reports that offers to schedule quality time between the two heads of state have been rebuffed. Obama is not interested in breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He won’t even prendre un verre with our president. They say the whole bit about the Queen of England is one more ploy by Obama’s guys to avoid close contact with Sarkozy. Following upon the miracle of the loaves featured in the Cairo speech—America’s 2 million or so Muslims became 7 million—you have to wonder why the president of “one of the world’s largest Muslim countries”—the USA dixit Barack Hussein Obama—would brush off the president of the European country that boasts the biggest Muslim population…approximately 7 million in fact, but it’s only a guess because ethnic and religious breakdowns are outlawed in France. Having offered a set of DVDs to Gordon Brown, an i-phone to the Queen, I suppose President Obama will be bringing an appropriate gift to Nicolas Sarkozy. Maybe a Walmart grooming kit? With one of those neat Fusion razors? And two packages of blades?

Nidra Poller
nidrapol@gmail.com

Iran Election: Recount Set as Iran Seethes

TEHRAN — Pro-government and opposition demonstrators poured into the streets of Iran’s capital Tuesday for a fourth day of sometimes-violent rallies, as the country’s religious leaders agreed to a partial recount of Friday’s disputed presidential vote.

Amid the unrest, and more shooting by government-backed militia, authorities arrested prominent opposition leaders and clamped down on media covering the crisis. The demonstrations came hours after state media reported the top religious oversight council would examine Friday’s vote, which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trounce opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and two other challengers.

The plan by the Guardian Council for a targeted recount — aimed at specific voting sites where fraud was alleged — is the first direct action by authorities to address claims of irregularities by rivals of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on state matters, said Monday he asked the Guardian Council to look into those allegations.

Such a recount appears to be unprecedented, and it wasn’t immediately clear when it would begin, or how many voting sites would be included.

From Bad To Worse

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | 18 June 2009

Iran: The suspicious re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad means more inflexibility from Tehran on its nuclear program. Even feckless UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei sees it.

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Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, this week admitted to the BBC: “It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons. They want to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: ‘Don’t mess with us.’ “

In spite of this too little, too late epiphany, the IAEA head still blames us, calling nuclear technology “an insurance policy against what (Iran) heard in the past about regime change, axis of evil.”

So the U.S. made them do it, with all that post-9/11 saber rattling.

With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad getting a phony re-election mandate, the reality has finally hit ElBaradei square in the face that Iran is impervious to diplomatic goodies and half-hearted economic sanctions. The terrible truth is the mullahs and their minions really are the Jew-hating, apocalyptic, genocidal fanatics their own words and actions have revealed them to be.

A freshly emboldened Mahmoud will now have no reason to back down on nuclear matters, and ElBaradei can now see whatever legacy he fantasized for himself crumbling.

The IAEA chief won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for opposing America’s efforts to prevent nuclear terror. Emblematic of his thinking were these 2007 remarks regarding attacking Iran: “I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that the country has nuclear weapons.”

That outlandish figure is over six times the estimates of the Iraqi government and others on civilian war casualties, but ElBaradei used such histrionics to convince the world Iran wasn’t “a clear and present danger that requires we go beyond diplomacy.”

Earlier this month, ElBaradei admitted his UN “watchdog” agency can do precious little watching of either Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant, or its newly roofed heavy water facility in Arak.

ElBaradei ends his tenure as IAEA head this November, and the agency has been agonizing over replacing him.

Not surprisingly, Iran enthusiastically supported his re-election in 2005. But ElBaradei’s successor will likely come from Japan, Spain or South America, not the Islamic world — a new excuse for further nuclear intransigence from the “re-elected” Ahmadinejad.

Too bad this Nobel laureate’s “gut feeling” about Iran’s true intentions didn’t come years ago, before today’s ever-growing clear and present danger.