W.H. Get's A Rush, Obama Fiddles,Markets Burn!

Bogus threats or is al Qaeda going to be targeting Saudi interests in the near future? (See 1 below.)



Sent by a dear friend and fellow memo reader regarding de Toqueville's thoughts as recently published in The Weekly Standard. (See 2 below.)


Netanyahu - lack of choice? Ne'eman lays it all out in an excellent analysis.

Succinctly: Netanyahu does not favor a two state solution but Livni does. Thus, Netanyahu is forced to align with the far right though he would prefer a unity coalition. This puts Netanyahu in conflict with the U.S. But a two state solution is probably geographically and security-wise unworkable because Fatah and Hamas are also in conflict.

The best solution is Gazans with Egypt, West Bankers with Jordan but the Arab world will not accept their own brethren so Obama will push for the unworkable, resulting in legitimate security issues while Israel also faces an existential threat from Iran.

Netanyahu is likely to form an interim govenment betting that a forthcoming war will unite the country. (See 3 and 3a below.)

Red Skelton was a charming comedian, not political but he had a skit entitled 'Freddie The Free Loader.' Little did Red know he was psychic. (See 4 below.)

Hamas: Create conditions for peace now so can attack later from a strategically stronger position.

U.S. using leverage of money to buy peace and change of heart. Can you change Arab minds and strategy with money? Even if you can, will it produce permanent or simply temporary appearance of such?

Obama apparently believes money will buy anything so for $900 million Hamas will renounce eliminating Israel. In Gaza that comes to about $600 per Gazan. This implies Palestinians will sell their principles for a cheap price.(See 5 and 5a below.)

Israel offers Obama advice on Iran. (See 6 below.)

More advice for Obama regarding the forthcoming world finance minister's meeting. (See 7 below.)

It's all about fairness folks. (See 8 below.)

The White House Get's a Rush while Obama fiddles and markets burn. (See 9 below.)

Editorial regarding Odbama's overture to Iran. (See 10 below.)


Dick


1) Pakistan: A Bogus Threat and the Bigger Picture
By Scott Stewart and Kamran Bokhari

On March 5, the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad reportedly received threatening e-mails warning of attacks on Saudi interests in Pakistan. According to English-language Pakistani newspaper The Nation, the e-mails purportedly were sent by al Qaeda and threatened attacks on targets such as the Saudi Embassy and Saudi airline facilities in Pakistan.

When we heard the reports of this threat, our initial reaction was to dismiss it. While al Qaeda has sometimes made vague threats before executing an attack, it does not provide a list of precise targets in advance. Prior to the June 2008 bombing of the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, al Qaeda leaders repeatedly threatened to attack European (and Danish) targets in retaliation for a series of cartoons published in Denmark in 2005 that satirized the Prophet Mohammed. When the issue was reignited in early 2008 with the release of a film critical of Islam called “Fitna,” by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, Osama bin Laden himself issued a statement in March 2008 in which he threatened strikes against European targets in retaliation. However, in all of these threats, al Qaeda never specified that it was going to strike the Danish Embassy in Islamabad. In addition to being out of character for al Qaeda, it is foolish to issue such a specific threat if one really wants to strike a target.

While we were able to discount the most recent e-mail threat reportedly sent to the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad, it generated a robust discussion among our analytical staff about Saudi counterterrorism and anti-jihadist activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the large number of threatening statements senior al Qaeda members have made against the Saudis and the very real possibility of an attack against Saudi interests in Pakistan.

Threats Against the Saudis
Beginning with some of bin Laden’s early public writings, such as his August 1996 “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” al Qaeda leaders have spoken harshly against the Saudi royal family. Bin Laden and others have accused the Saudis of collaboration with the “Zionist-Crusaders alliance” that bin Laden claimed was using military force to impose “iniquity and injustice” on the people of Islam.

However, the verbal threats directed against the Saudi royal family have escalated in recent years in the wake of a string of attacks launched inside Saudi Arabia by the Saudi al Qaeda franchise in 2003 and 2004, and as the Saudi government has conducted an aggressive campaign to crush the Saudi franchise and combat the wider phenomenon of jihadism.

In fact, it is rare to see any statement from a senior al Qaeda leader that does not condemn the Saudi government specifically or in more general terms. In a July 28, 2008, video message, al Qaeda ideologue Abu Yahya al-Libi called on Muslims to act quickly and decisively to kill the Saudi king, reminding them that “killing this reckless tyrant, who has declared himself the chief imam of atheism, will be one of the greatest qurubat” (an act of devotion bringing man closer to God). In a May 2008 message, al-Libi also had urged Saudi clerics to lead uprisings against the Saudi monarchy similar to the July 2007 uprisings at the Red Mosque in Islamabad. Al-Libi never mentioned Saudi King Abdullah by name in that message, preferring to call him the “lunatic apostate” because of the king’s call for a dialogue among Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Commenting on this interfaith dialogue in the July 2008 message, al-Libi also said, “By God, if you don’t resist heroically against this wanton tyrant … the day will come when church bells will ring in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.”

In March 2008, al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri said the Saudi monarchy was part of a “satanic alliance” formed by the United States and Israel to blockade the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. In a January 2009 message, al-Zawahiri said: “Oh lions of Islam everywhere, the leaders of Muslim countries are the guards of the American-Zionist interests. They are the ones who have given up Palestine and recognized Israel … Abdallah Bin Abd-al-Aziz has invented the interfaith dialogue and met Peres in New York, paving the way for the complete recognition of Israel.” Al-Zawahiri continued, “Thwart the efforts of those traitors by striking the interests of the enemies of Islam.” In a February 2009 audio statement, al-Zawahiri declared, “The Muslim nation must, with all its energy and skills, move to remove these corrupt, corrupting and traitorous rulers.”

After a January 2009 video by jihadists in Yemen announcing the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Zawahiri proclaimed in a February statement that the new organization “is the awakening, which aims to liberate the Arabian Peninsula from the Crusader invaders and their treacherous agents. It is escalating and flourishing, with God’s help and guidance, despite all the campaigns of repression, misleading, and deception, and despite all the obstacles, difficulties and hindrances.”

Focus on the Saudis
All these threats raise an obvious question: Why is al Qaeda so fixated on the Saudis? One obvious reason is that, since the launching of a disastrous offensive by the Saudi al Qaeda node, the Saudi government — which previously had turned a blind eye to many of al Qaeda’s activities — has launched a full-court press against the organization. Al-Zawahiri acknowledged this in a December 2005 message entitled “Impediments to Jihad,” in which he said the Saudi franchise in the kingdom had been defeated by collaborators. The Saudi offensive against al Qaeda also played a significant part in the Anbar Awakening in Iraq. Saudi cajoling (and money) helped persuade Iraqi tribal leaders to cooperate with the coalition forces.

One way the Saudis have really hurt al Qaeda is by damaging its ability to raise funds. For example, in March 2008, the top Saudi cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, cautioned Saudis against giving money to charities or organizations that finance “evil groups” who are known for harming Islam and its followers — a clear reference to al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations. We have repeatedly seen appeals for more funds for the jihad, and in a Jan. 14, 2009, message by bin Laden, he noted that the jihadists were under financial “distress” and that it was the duty of the Muslim ummah to support the jihadists “with all their soul and money.”

Perhaps one of the greatest threats the Saudis pose to al Qaeda is the threat to its ideological base. As STRATFOR has long argued, there are two different battlespaces in the war against jihadism — the physical and the ideological. For an ideological organization such as al Qaeda that preaches persecution and martyrdom, losses on the physical battlefield are expected and glorified. The biggest threat to the jihadists, therefore, is not a Hellfire missile being dropped on their heads, but an ideological broadside that undercuts their legitimacy and ideological appeal.

Many Saudi clerics have condemned jihadism as a “deviance from Islam.” Even prominent Saudi clerics who have criticized the Saudi government, such as Salman al-Awdah, have sent open letters to bin Laden condemning violence against innocents and claiming that al Qaeda was hurting Muslim charities through its purported ties to them.

The sting of the ideological attacks is being felt. In a May 2008 speech, al-Libi addressed the ideological assault when he said, “and because they knew that the key to their success in this plan of theirs is to turn the people away from jihad and mujahidin and to eliminate them militarily and intellectually.” Al-Libi recognized that without new recruits and funding, the jihad will wither on the vine.

In addition to financial and ideological threats against the organization, the Saudi assault has also gone after al Qaeda where it lives — in Pakistan.

Deep Connections
Saudi Arabia has long had a strong relationship with Pakistan, based on shared perspectives toward regional and international matters. A key common sphere of influence for the two sides over the past four decades has been Afghanistan. This close Saudi-Pakistani relationship was well-illustrated by the pairing up of Saudi petrodollar wealth with Pakistani logistics (along with U.S. weapons and intelligence) to support the Islamist uprising that followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

After the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Saudis and the Pakistanis continued to cooperate. Even though the world at large refused to accept the Taliban regime after it took power in 1996, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. (These three were the only countries to do so.) However, while enjoying support from Riyadh and Islamabad, the Taliban also established relations with the transnational jihadist forces led by al Qaeda.

The Saudi and Pakistani relationship with the Taliban was shattered by the events of 9/11. In spite of aggressive negotiations with the Taliban, neither the Saudis nor the Pakistanis could convince Mullah Omar to surrender bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership to the Americans. Because of this, the two countries were forced to end their overt relationship with the Taliban as the Americans invaded Afghanistan, though they obviously have maintained some contact with members of the Taliban leadership.

The U.S. response to 9/11 placed the Saudis and the Pakistanis into a very difficult position, where they were forced to fight jihadists on one hand and try to maintain control and influence over them on the other. As previously discussed, the Saudis possessed the resources to effectively clamp down on the al Qaeda franchise in the kingdom, but Pakistan, which is weaker both financially and politically — and which has become the center of the jihadist universe on the physical battlefield — has been hit much harder by the U.S.-jihadist war.

This situation, along with the ground reality in Afghanistan, has forced the United States to begin working on a political strategy to bring closure to the U.S.-jihadist war that involves negotiating with the Taliban if they part ways with al Qaeda and the transnational jihadists.

Hence the recent visit by Taliban officials to Saudi Arabia and the trips made by Riyadh’s intelligence chief, Prince Muqrin bin Abdel-Aziz, to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, is also rumored to be personally involved behind the scenes in efforts to pressure Taliban leaders to break free from al Qaeda. But as in the past, the Saudis need help from their allies in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and here is where they are running into problems. A weak and threatened Pakistani state means that before working with the Pakistanis on the Afghan Taliban, Riyadh has to help Pakistan combat its own Taliban problem, which the Saudis currently are attempting. The Saudis obviously have much to offer the Pakistanis, in terms of both cash and experience. They also have the religious cachet that other Pakistan allies, such as the Americans and the British, lack, giving them the ability to broach ideological subjects. However, as is the case with the Afghan Taliban, the Saudis will have to get the Pakistani Taliban to part ways with al Qaeda and are working hard to drive a wedge between Pakistani militants and their foreign guests.

These efforts to divide the Taliban from the global jihadists are happening not only during the plush, Saudi-sponsored trips for Taliban members to conduct Hajj and Umrah in the kingdom. Following a strategy similar to what they did in Iraq, the Saudis and their agents are meeting with Taliban commanders on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan to twist arms and offer cash. They also are coordinating very closely with the Pakistani and Afghan authorities who are leading the campaign against the jihadists. For example, Rehman Malik, the Pakistani adviser to the prime minister on the interior (Pakistan’s de facto terrorism czar), traveled to Saudi Arabia in January at the invitation of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdul-Aziz to discuss improving counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries. Many of the 85 most-wanted militants on the list recently released by the Saudi government are believed to be in Pakistan, and the Saudis are working with Malik and the Pakistanis to arrest those militants and return them to Saudi Arabia.

A Clear and Present Danger
Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, et al., are well aware of these Saudi moves, which they see as a threat to their very existence. When asked in a November 2008 interview what he thought of the Saudi efforts to mediate between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, al-Zawahiri responded that the Saudi efforts pointed out “the historical role of saboteur played by the House of Saud in ruining the causes of the Muslim ummah, and how they represent the agents whom the Crusader West uses to disperse the ummah’s energy.”

The al Qaeda leadership has nowhere to go if circumstances become untenable for them in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Caught between U.S., Pakistani and Saudi forces, the last thing al Qaeda wants is to lose local support from the Taliban. In other words, Pakistan is their final battleground, and any threat to their continued haven in Pakistan poses a clear and present danger to the organization — especially if the Saudis can play a pivotal role in persuading the Taliban in Afghanistan also to turn against them.

Leveraging its successes against the al Qaeda franchises in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Riyadh also is working closely with governments to combat the jihadists in places like Yemen as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is, in effect, a global Saudi campaign against jihadism, and we believe al Qaeda has no choice but to attempt to derail the Saudi effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is not much al Qaeda can do to counter Saudi financial tools, but the militant group is in a position to hit back hard on the ideological front in order to counter any Saudi attempt to moderate and rehabilitate jihadists. As noted above, we have seen al Qaeda launch a sustained stream of ideological attacks in an attempt to undercut the Islamic credentials of the Saudi monarch and the Saudi clerical establishment.

Another avenue that al Qaeda can take to interfere with the Saudi charm offensive is to strike Saudi targets — not only to punish the Saudis, but also to try to drive a wedge between the Saudis and the Pakistanis. Al Qaeda’s military capabilities have been greatly degraded since 2001, and with the remnant of its Saudi franchise fleeing to Yemen, it likely has very little ability to make a meaningful strike inside the kingdom. However, the one place where the al Qaeda core has shown the ability to strike in recent years is Pakistan. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the group’s operational commander in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Danish Embassy in Islamabad and for the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and we have no reason to doubt his claims.

Also, an attack against a diplomatic mission in Pakistan that represents a regime considered an enemy of the jihadists is not unprecedented. In addition to the Danish Embassy bombing and several attacks against U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel in Pakistan, al Qaeda also bombed the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad in November 1995. According to al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian Embassy was targeted because it “was not only running a campaign for chasing Arabs in Pakistan but also spying on the Arab Mujahedeen.”

Based on the totality of these circumstances — Saudi activities against al Qaeda in South Asia and elsewhere, the al Qaeda perception of the Saudis as a threat and al Qaeda’s operational ability in Pakistan — we believe there is a very real threat that Saudi interests in Pakistan might be attacked in the near future.



2) Barack Obama's America: A timeless critique from Tocqueville.
By Alexis de Tocqueville



It seems that if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them. .  .  .

When I think of the small passions of men of our day, the softness of their mores, the extent of their enlightenment, the purity of their religion, the mildness of their morality, their laborious and steady habits, the restraint that almost all preserve in vice as in virtue, I do not fear that in their chiefs they will find tyrants, but rather schoolmasters. .  .  .

I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. .  .  .

Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living?

So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of it from each citizen. .  .  .

Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which government is the shepherd. .  .  .

I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the external forms of freedom, and that it would not be impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people.


From Democracy in America, volume two, part four, chapter six: "What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear" (translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop)

3) Netanyahu: Lack of Choice?
By Yisrael Ne'eman

A month ago the Likud won the Israeli elections and Pres. Shimon Peres chose Benyamin Netanyahu to form the next government. The Likud did not gain the most seats in the Knesset but rather their right wing faction was the only one with the choice of establishing either a center-right coalition with Kadima as their major partner or a hard line right/religious government which would include bringing in four to five other parties.

Many (including this commentator) expected Kadima's chairwoman Tzipi Livni to respond positively to Netanyahu's overtures for a center right coalition but in direct discussions between the two no agreement emerged. Rather Livni is portrayed as desperately wanting to lead the opposition while Netanyahu is understood to want a "unity government" but not willing to make compromises on policy substance to ensure an agreement. The major stumbling block is the demand by Livni that Netanyahu and the Likud publicly recognize "two states for two peoples" as the basis for a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians. Netanyahu speaks of "self-rule" for the Palestinians but falls short of endorsing a Palestinian State. Former PM Ariel Sharon and outgoing PM Ehud Olmert along with Livni have endorsed the two state solution. All three are from Kadima and broke with the Likud over this very issue (and the Gaza-northern Samaria Disengagement) in the 2006 elections. Apparently no semantical acrobatics can overcome the disagreement, or maybe no one cares to try too hard.

Netanyahu is in a difficult position: To adopt a two-state solution would obliterate the differences between the Likud and Kadima as the Likud would move to the center and be seen as selling out their electorate. Trying to build a Right/Religious coalition will guarantee paralysis on many fronts as the ultra-orthodox (haredi) parties of Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) will demand massive funding for yeshivas and subsidized housing while continuing to obtain as many military draft deferments as possible – all very unpopular with the mainstream Israeli public. Furthermore, the National Union and Jewish Home factions (offshoots of the modern orthodox national religious movement) are pushing for legalizing "illegal" settlements and the development of many more in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). This will cost a fortune, not only in funding from constantly shrinking state revenues, but in political/diplomatic capital with the US, Canada and the EU, all of whom support Israel but demand a two-state solution. Netanyahu's "economic peace" and "self-rule" do not go far enough for any of the above mentioned international players. He had hoped to paper over the differences with Kadima and Avigdor Leiberman's Yisrael Beitainu but Livni wants a clear cut endorsement of Kadima policy, not "constructive obfuscation" in the words of Henry Kissinger.

As if this is not bad enough, US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has been to Israel with a mission statement from Pres. Obama that the "two-state" solution is the only way. Washington also wants a Likud-Kadima agreement. Netanyahu is a follower of Revisionist ideologue and founder, Zev Jabotinsky who made it clear that one never compromised unless there was absolutely no choice. Furthermore, Jabotinsky made it clear that the Jews as a small nation would need a patron to survive, a role the US has filled for decades. Writing in the 1920s and 30s Jabotinsky made two cardinal points. Firstly, one should not get in the way of the patron's vital interests and second: an agreement with the Arabs could be made in the future when they no longer could hope for Jewish elimination. What direction does one take when certain Arabs as represented by Fatah are said to be willing to come to conflict resolution with the Jewish State while others (Hamas, Moslem Brotherhood, etc.) demand Jewish destruction? What happens when the patron views Netanyahu's non-acceptance of the two-state solution as undermining its own foreign policy? And what of a bi-national state signaling a territorial "victory" but a demographic defeat? When Jabotinsky wrote 70 to 90 years ago he envisioned a Jewish majority in all the Land of Israel (including Jordan) and there was no Jewish State to be lost in the demographic battles.

Jabotinsky could afford to be an ideologue while Netanyahu is a politician attempting to be a statesman. The bottom line was that one compromised or accepted an unpleasant reality when there was absolutely no choice. This was written concerning the Arabs in "The Iron Wall" (1923) and hence the principle flows equally for all. In the Wye Accords (1998) Netanyahu conceded territory to Yasir Arafat in the Land of Israel (west of the Jordan River) when he had no options remaining. Today have Netanyahu and the Likud come to the new baseline of the "two-state solution"?

Like Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni comes from a Revisionist family and knows the Jabotinsky rules. The question is whether she and Kadima will do Israel major international damage by forcing Netanyahu into a hard line Right/Religious coalition which essentially the Israeli public does not want. The thinking is that Kadima will be the party of power after the massive diplomatic, economic and social failures of such a coalition. Would it not be better to battle from the inside? After all, Netanyahu is no fool, or must he be humiliated first and left with "no choice"?

Most commentators see a Right/Religious coalition as the only option because of Kadima's stance and Netanyahu's rejection of a definitive "two-state solution". But let us not forget, the US patron may very well have the last word – a Likud-Kadima agreement embodying a "two-state solution" in one form or another either now or at a future date. Any Right/Religious coalition can expect some tough times in US-Israel relations.

3a)Netanyahu may settle for interim government until early election

Binyamin Netanyahu has not given up on unity government.

Having failed to draw Kadima and Labor into a unity government, political sources report Israel's prime minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu is planning to settle for a provisional administration serving six months before calling another early election.

Loth to rest his government's stability on right-wing and religious parties (61 out of 120 Knesset members), Netanyahu prefers to take his chances on a new ballot. But he rejected the recommendation from of his close advisers to notify the president next week that he is throwing in the sponge in the belief that he can use the extra six months to good advantage.

His main consideration is that Israel expects to be embroiled in a major military confrontation in the next few months with Iran, Hamas or Hizballah – or all three at once – a compelling scenario for a national emergency government against which Kadima and Labor will find it hard to hold out.

With this eventuality in mind, the Likud leader keeping the senior portfolios of security, treasury and justice open for members of those two parties or deposited with Likud ministers who will step aside and make way for them in an emergency.

A prominent example of this tactic is the new Likud legislator, the former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon. He is penciled in for defense in the interim administration on the understanding that if Labor joins, he will step down and accept the No. 2 position. Uri Yogev, a former treasury official, likewise expects to stand down for a Labor or Kadima candidate in finance.

Netanyahu is not waiting for a war emergency; he is quietly pursuing Labor and Kadima in informal conversations with defense minister Ehud Barak of Labor and Kadima's Shaul Mofaz and Tzahi Hanegbi.

His offer of the foreign ministry to Israel Beteinu's controversial leader Avigdor Lieberman is not yet signed and sealed. The prime minister-designate calculates that if the ongoing police probe into his financial affairs culminates in an indictment, Lieberman will have to withdraw, but his party will continue to support the government.

Lieberman's exit will ease the path of Kadima and Labor to government.

Netanyahu closest circle of advisers, our political sources report, consists of his wife, Sara Netanyahu, the lawyer-politician and former justice minister, Yaacov Neeman and Likud lawmakers Reuven Rivlin, Gideon Saar and Gilead Erdan.



4) Obama and the Liberal Freeloader Culture
By Christopher Chantrill

Many conservatives experience President Obama's budget as a radical lurch to the left. Obviously, they conclude, President Obama is a radical lefty.


Unfortunately it's worse than that. President Obama is not leading from the left of his party. He is leading from the center.


Scratch a liberal and you will find someone who believes in universal health care run by the government. But President Obama's budget doesn't do that, not yet. It just sets a clear course towards that long-term liberal goal.


Scratch a liberal and you will find someone who believes in universal education from "early-childhood education" to graduate school. She will nod approvingly when her European guest relates how she got a government stipend while doing post-doc work at a university in the United States. President Obama's budget doesn't do all that. Not yet.


And we all know that liberals are getting ready to believe that global-warming skeptics are ethically close to being Holocaust deniers.


If you are a moderate -- and that usually means you are not that engaged in politics -- why would you argue with a president who wants to improve access to health care, expand educational opportunities, and do something about climate change? Don't we all want health care, education, and a habitable planet?


Of course we do. But isn't there a better way than turning the United States into a nation of freeloaders ever searching for a "free" government program to meet its needs?


Liberals have made freeloading into a way of life -- even for the well to do. There's the well-to-do woman who cadges free meds from a physician relative. There's the well-to-do woman who's signed up for her state's basic health plan. There's 2007's S-CHIP poster child whose parents can afford late-model cars and private school tuition but not health insurance.


The great problem of human society is the problem of the freeloader. How do you get people to pull their weight instead of take advantage? Religion, it turns out, is mankind's best answer to the problem. If you don't have religion then you have to pursue freeloaders with force, as the liberal welfare state is finding out.


You can see the conservative problem in this battle of ideas. Conservatives say that people should pay for their own health care; that's the only way to get costs down. It's the only way to find out what people really value when it comes to protecting their health. But liberals say that health care is a right. Conservatives approve of parents that remove their children from the public schools to teach them at home; they think that's the difference between a 13 year-old philosopher like Jonathan Krohn and a whiny adolescent in thrall to his whiny adolescent peers. Liberals say that homeschooled children aren't properly socialized.


Moderates go along to get along. Why should they push against the stream? It's just too hard.


"There never was an age of conformity quite like this one," wrote William F. Buckley, Jr., half a century ago, and sometimes it seems like conservatives are the only ones around that won't conform to the liberal line. Conservatives advance the idea that there ought to be a wall of separation between government and society. They talk about "little platoons" and empowering people in voluntary mediating institutions between government and the individual. They talk about the movement "from status to contract."


Back in the nineteenth century this was all new and unprecedented. But it got such a head of steam that liberals took fright and spent the next century putting the lid back on. Health care shouldn't be arranged in friendly societies and mutual-aid assocations, they said; much better let liberals run it from the government. Education shouldn't be done by amateurs; much better let liberals run it from the government. And they've never liked Americans driving around using energy without permission.


Our liberal friends tell the world that conservatism is a reactionary movement. It is not. It is a movement of gentle reform that is trying create a new world of ordered freedom that escapes from the rigid status society once run by a warrior aristocracy and and now dominated by a liberal oligarchy.


Today the liberal oligarchy is in the ascendant. Perhaps it will succeed in ratcheting up the level of compulsion in health care and in education.


But let us hope for better things. Let us hope that the American people will revolt against the further expansion of the liberal freeloader culture.


But our fellow Americans won't have a chance without a broad conservative movement willing to risk life, fortune, and sacred honor in the cause to persuade them with the truth.

5) Hamas: Factions trying to reconcile differences over Israel

A Hamas spokesman says Palestinian factions trying to hammer out a power-sharing agreement are struggling to reconcile their differences toward peace talks with Israel.

Fawzi Barhoum says the disagreement is one of the key hurdles holding up the formation of a new unity government between the militant Hamas group and the more moderate Fatah faction.

Egypt, which is mediating the talks in Cairo, has set a Saturday deadline to produce an agreement.



Negotiators say Egypt's powerful intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will meet the delegates Thursday to try to reconcile their differences. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Egypt hopes to host a signing ceremony by the end of March.

Meanwhile, Hamas rulers made some rare criticism Thursday of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.

The Islamic militant group has fired thousands of rockets at southern Israel in recent years. But it says now is the wrong time for these attacks.

Hamas said Thursday that it was not behind recent attacks and that it was investigating who was responsible.

5a) Clinton: U.S. Gaza aid tied to recognition of Israel


About $900 million pledged by the United States to the Palestinians will be
withdrawn if the expected Palestinian Authority coalition government between
Fatah and Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, Western and
Israeli diplomats said Wednesday.

During her visit to the region last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against forming a
coalition with Hamas that will not meet the expectations of the Quartet.

Clinton told Abbas that Congress will not approve funding of a Palestinian
government that does not recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce
violence. She added that if those requirements are not met the U.S.-funded
program under the supervision of General Keith Dayton training PA security
forces would be the first to be axed.

Fatah and Hamas are currently engaged in talks intended to reestablish ties
between the Palestinian factions that were severed two years ago when Hamas
forcibly took over the Gaza Strip, routing Fatah-backed PA security forces.

Clinton discussed the issue of forming a Palestinian coalition with Fatah
representatives, who told her that the new government would consist of
non-affiliated officials whose chief task will be to prepare the Palestinian
territories for new general elections.

She reportedly told the officials she believed holding new elections was
secondary to building the bureaucracy of the Palestinian Authority. The
Obama administration is adamant in maintaining the previous U.S.
presidential administration's position of boycotting Hamas. Two weeks ago
Clinton said lifting the boycott would damage attempts to reach peace in the
region.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner recently supported an initiative
aimed at easing sanctions against Hamas. Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin
Jassim bin Jabir al-Thani is also trying to promote dialogue between the
West, Arab states and Hamas.

Two weeks ago Clinton met with a number of Arab foreign ministers at the
conference held at Sharm el-Sheikh aimed at raising donations for the
rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, whose infrastructure was badly damaged
during Israel's operation there earlier this year. Talks between the U.S.
diplomat and her Arab counterparts focused on means of distributing money to
Palestinians in Gaza.

During negotiations Clinton insisted that the money be placed solely under
the Palestinian Authority's supervision and strongly rejected offers by Arab
states that they assume responsibility for distribution of the funds. In
total, a record $4.4 billion was raised at Sharm, with Saudi Arabia making
the largest single donation of $1 billion. The donations greatly exceeded
the PA's expectations of raising $2.5 billion total. Egyptian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the total figure comes to $5.2 billion.

6) Israel’s ‘tips’ for America
By Ron Ben-Yishai

Senior Israeli officials advise Clinton on desirable US approach vis-à-vis Iran


Israeli officials have been monitoring the Obama Administration’s approach to dialogue with Iran with guarded satisfaction, yet major



Concerns persist.


Officials in Jerusalem understand that the new Administration in the United States is determined to engage in talks with the Ayatollah regime in order to promote America’s interests. Therefore, there is a risk that the initial American position will be watered down during the discussions, thereby enabling the Iranians to ultimately acquire the extra time they need in order to complete their preparations to produce nuclear weapons.


If that happens, America’s envoy to the talks with the Iranians, Dennis Ross, will turn into a modern-day Chamberlain.


In order to avert this possibility, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni presented (separately) a series of “efficiency tips” to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her recent visit to Israel.


Clinton did not respond, either positively or negatively, to these proposals, yet she promised that they will be given the appropriate attention in Washington.


All options on the table
The main Israeli demand was to limit the duration of the negotiations with the Iranians in advance. Another demand was to embark on talks only after the US makes all the needed preparations and ensures that it would be able to impose very harsh economic and diplomatic sanctions on Iran, in conjunction with other Security Council members, should the negotiations with Tehran fail.



The third Israeli proposal was to make it clear to Iran, in a decisive manner, during the dialogue and even before it, that “all options are on the table.” Or simply put: Making it clear to the Iranians that the United States is not discounting the possibility of a military strike – or active assistance to such military strike – on Iran’s strategic facilities, should Tehran continue to pursues its nuclear program.


Another Israeli proposal to the US is that America at least hint publically that it is willing to grant Israel the armaments and stealth aircraft it seeks for the IDF’s “long arm.” Such signal on the part of the US can serve the Administration during its dialogue with Iran and be used as proof that, indeed, “all options are on the table.”



7) It's an emergency: get your act together, Obama
By Anatole Kaletsky

As the world's finance ministers gather in London the greatest danger to the global economy is America's failure of resolve.

This could be the week when the greatest financial crisis in history finally reached its nadir. Then again, it could merely be another week in which a brief rally in global stock markets has suckered more investors, politicians and commentators into assuming that the worst is over, when the tentative improvement in financial confidence is just another false dawn.

So which will it be? The answer depends, even more than usual, on the finance ministers and central bankers gathering at a potentially chaotic G20 meeting this weekend. The omens are not benign.

It is now understood that the global financial system can be stabilised and economic demand revived only through government intervention. Private businesses and consumers do not have the access to credit or the confidence to start spending and investing again. But government intervention will work only with some degree of international co-operation and that requires leadership from America. Yet despite the mandate won by President Obama, Washington has proved muddled in its economic priorities and indecisive in its financial response to the crisis.

International co-operation is necessary because of the global linkages of trade and finance. Any country that allows a bank to fail spreads financial contagion to every other nation. And any country that cuts taxes or boosts public spending or expands its money supply, creates demand not only for its own businesses and workers, but also for the world as a whole.


The upshot is that financial guarantees, fiscal stimulus and credit expansion, will be much more effective and less expensive for each country if they are implemented in a co-ordinated way. By contrast, imagine a global free-for-all, in which some nations subsidise their banks while others try to punish bankers; in which some central banks print money while others grumble about Zimbabwe and Weimar; in which some governments promise to spend their way out of recession while others denounce this as the road to perdition and call for belt-tightening in the public sector. Not only would such divergent policies cancel one another out at the global level, they would also deal another blow to confidence in the world financial system.

But how can global co-operation be achieved when governments around the world seem to have completely divergent economic philosophies and agendas for this weekend? Gordon Brown wants to close down tax havens, while the Germans want to regulate hedge funds, policies that may or may not be desirable, but which have nothing to do with the present crisis. The US is demanding that Germany, Japan and China announce new programmes of public spending and tax cuts - which is simply not going to happen, either this weekend or at the G20 summit next month. The financial markets, meanwhile, are hoping for a $500billion increase in the IMF funds available to rescue insolvent governments, but this does not seem a high priority for any of the G20 governments, except perhaps the Germans, who fear the cost of bailing out Latvia, Hungary, Austria, Greece and the Irish Republic will otherwise fall on them.

Past experience of such international negotiations shows that American leadership is necessary for reaching any kind of agreement. Which brings us to the greatest risk facing the world economy: Mr Obama's failure to present a credible response to the financial crisis or even to assemble a proper economic policy team. After the British Government's leaked messages of despair about nobody answering the phone at the US Treasury in the preparations for the G20, everybody is now aware that Mr Obama has nominated only two out of 18 deputy and assistant Treasury secretaries. What is less widely recognised is that this decision-making vacuum reflects a deeply worrying feature of US economic policy.

American politicians simply don't seem to understand the existential threat that their economy is now facing. Instead of uniting to deal with a national emergency far more threatening to their way of life than the terrorist attacks of 9/11, they have responded by dividing more sharply than ever into hostile partisan camps.

Efforts to revive economic activity and to stabilise the financial system that are clearly indispensable on the basis of any economic analysis, whether Keynesian or monetarist or plain business-sense, have been denounced on the Right for interfering with free markets and on the Left for feather-bedding bankers. Instead of rallying around in a moment of crisis, many Americans are openly expressing their hope that the new President will fail and the economy collapse. Candidates for key Treasury posts have been viciously attacked in the media and Congress for trivial tax and administrative infractions inadvertently committed many years ago or simply for having once worked on Wall Street. As a result, these jobs have become almost impossible to fill.

Mr Obama himself seems to have attached a surprisingly low priority to dealing with the financial crisis. He had, for example, selected key State Department officials, from Hillary Clinton downwards even before his inauguration. He has managed to get dozens of these confirmed by Congress in the past two months and immediately put his personal stamp on US foreign policy. Yet there has been no similar focus on creating a properly functioning economic team or launching a coherent new response to the financial crisis.

The lack of urgency, of focus and of national unity in America's response to the financial crisis is the most surprising - and most dangerous - threat to our chances of recovery. With clear American leadership, a global policy to stabilise the banks and pull the world out of recession could readily be agreed. All the main elements of such a policy - lower taxes, public works programmes, monetary and credit expansion, cast-iron government guarantees for recapitalised banks - are broadly agreed among economists and endorsed by global institutions such as the IMF.

None of these policies would be painful to voters, since they would involve easier financial conditions, lower taxes, more jobs and stronger guarantees for savings. Why then are they proving so hard to put into practice? Is it because many Americans would rather see their economy collapse than a Democratic President succeed? If so, then perhaps the Marxists now enjoying a new lease of life will have been right all along: American capitalism will have proved a decadent civilisation at the end of its global hegemony and doomed to self-destruction.

8) The Obama Rosetta Stone
By Daniel Henninger


Barack Obama has written two famous, widely read books of autobiography -- "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." Let me introduce his third, a book that will touch everyone's life: "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise. The President's Budget and Fiscal Preview" (Government Printing Office, 141 pages, $26; free on the Web). This is the U.S. budget for laymen, and it's a must read.

Turn immediately to page 11. There sits a chart called Figure 9. This is the Rosetta Stone to the presidential mind of Barack Obama. Memorize Figure 9, and you will never be confused. Not happy, perhaps, but not confused.


One finds many charts in a federal budget, most attributed to such deep mines of data as the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The one on page 11 is attributed to "Piketty and Saez."

Either you know instantly what "Piketty and Saez" means, or you don't. If you do, you spent the past two years working to get Barack Obama into the White House. If you don't, their posse has a six-week head start on you.

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, French economists, are rock stars of the intellectual left. Their specialty is "earnings inequality" and "wealth concentration."

Messrs. Piketty and Saez have produced the most politically potent squiggle along an axis since Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin in the mid-1970s. Laffer's was an economic argument for lowering tax rates for everyone. Piketty-Saez is a moral argument for raising taxes on the rich.

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As described in Mr. Obama's budget, these two economists have shown that by the end of 2004, the top 1% of taxpayers "took home" more than 22% of total national income. This trend, Fig. 9 notes, began during the Reagan presidency, skyrocketed through the Clinton years, dipped after George Bush beat Al Gore, then marched upward. Widening its own definition of money-grubbers, the budget says the top 10% of households "held" 70% of total wealth.

Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute criticized the Piketty-Saez study on these pages in October 2007. Whatever its merits, their "Top 1%" chart has become a totemic obsession in progressive policy circles.

Turn to page five of Mr. Obama's federal budget, and one may read these commentaries on the top 1% datum:

"While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not."

"Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected."

"There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . . It's a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it."


Wonder Land Columnist Daniel Henninger on the latest autobiographical work from Barack Obama.
Mr. Obama made clear in the campaign his intention to raise taxes on this income class by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. What is becoming clearer as his presidency unfolds is that something deeper is underway here than merely using higher taxes to fund his policy goals in health, education and energy.

The "top 1%" isn't just going to pay for these policies. Many of them would assent to that. The rancorous language used to describe these taxpayers makes it clear that as a matter of public policy they will be made to "pay for" the fact of their wealth -- no matter how many of them worked honestly and honorably to produce it. No Democratic president in 60 years has been this explicit.

Complaints have emerged recently, on the right and left, that the $787 billion stimulus bill will produce less growth and jobs than planned because too much of it goes to social programs and transfer payments, or "weak" Keynesian stimulus. The administration's Romer-Bernstein study on the stimulus estimated by the end of next year it would increase jobs by 3.6 million and GDP by 3.7%.

One of the first technical examinations of the Romer-Bernstein projections has been released by Hoover Institution economists John Cogan and John Taylor, and German economists Tobias Cwik and Volker Wieland. They conclude that the growth and jobs stimulus will be only one-sixth what the administration predicts. In part, this is because people anticipate that the spending burst will have to be financed by higher taxes and so will spend less than anticipated.

New York's Mike Bloomberg, mayor of an economically damaged city, has noted the pointlessness of raising taxes on the rich when their wealth is plummeting, or of eliminating the charitable deduction for people who have less to give anyway.

True but irrelevant. Mayor Bloomberg should read the Obama budget chapter, "Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities." The economy as most people understand it was a second-order concern of the stimulus strategy. The primary goal is a massive re-flowing of "wealth" from the top toward the bottom, to stop the moral failure they see in the budget's "Top One Percent of Earners" chart.

The White House says its goal is simple "fairness." That may be, as they understand fairness. But Figure 9 makes it clear that for the top earners, there will be blood. This presidency is going to be an act of retribution. In the words of the third book from Mr. Obama, "it is our duty to change it."

9) The White House Misfires on Limbaugh
By KARL ROVE

Presidents throughout history have kept lists of political foes. But the Obama White House is the first I am aware of to pick targets based on polls. Even Richard Nixon didn't focus-group his enemies list.

Team Obama -- aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House press corps into dropping what they were doing to get Mr. Limbaugh.

Was it smart politics and good policy? No. For one thing, it gave the lie to Barack Obama's talk about ending "the political strategy that's been all about division" and "the score-keeping and the name-calling." The West Wing looked populated by petulant teenagers intent on taking down a popular rival. Such talk also shortens the president's honeymoon by making him look like a street-fighting Chicago pol instead of an inspirational, unifying figure. The upward spike in ratings for Rush and other conservative radio commentators shows how the White House's attempt at a smackdown instead energized the opposition.

Did it do any good with voters not strongly tied to either party? I suspect not. With stock markets down, unemployment growing, banks tottering, consumers anxious, business leaders nervous, and the economy shrinking, the Obama administration's attacks on a radio talk show host made it seem concerned with the trivial.

Why did the White House do it? It was a diversionary tactic. Clues might be found in the revelation that senior White House staff meet for two hours each Wednesday evening to digest their latest polling and focus-group research. I would bet a steak dinner at Morton's in Chicago these Wednesday Night Meetings discussed growing public opposition to spending, omnibus pork, more bailout money for banks and car companies, and new taxes on energy, work and capital.

What better way to divert public attention from these more consequential if problematic issues than to start a fight with a celebrity conservative? Cable TV, newspapers and newsweeklies would find the conflict irresistible. Something has to be set aside to provide more space and time to the War on Rush; why not the bad economic news?

Here's the problem: Misdirection never lasts long. Team Obama can at best only temporarily distract the public; within days, attention will return to issues that clearly should worry the White House.

Not even Team Obama can forestall unpleasant reality. And among those America now faces is Mr. Obama adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt in his first 20 months and 11 days in office, eclipsing the $2.9 trillion added during the Bush presidency's entire eight years.

Another reality is that Mr. Obama's fiscal house is built on gimmicks. For example, it assumes the cost of the surge in Iraq will extend for a decade. This brazenly dishonest trick was done to create phony savings down the line.

Mr. Obama's budget downplays some programs' true cost. For example, his vaunted new college access program is funded for five years and then disappears (on paper); the children's health insurance program drops (on paper) from $12.4 billion in 2013 to $700 million the next year. Neither will happen; the costs of both will be much higher and so will the deficits.

Mr. Obama's budget also assumes the economy declines 41% less this year and grows 52%more next year and 38% more the year after than is estimated by the Blue Chip consensus (a collection of estimates by leading economists traditionally used by federal budget crunchers). If Mr. Obama used the consensus forecasts for growth rather than his own rosy scenarios, his budget would be $758 billion more in the red over the next five years.

Then there's discretionary domestic spending, which grows over the next two years by $238 billion, the fastest increase ever recorded. Mr. Obama pledges it will then be cut in real terms for the next nine years. That's simply not credible.

Then there's his omnibus spending bill to fund the government for the next six months, laden with 8,500 earmarks and tens of billions in additional spending above the current budget. What happened to pledges for earmark reform and making "meaningful cuts?"

In the face of our enormous economic challenges, top White House aides decided to pee on Mr. Limbaugh's leg. This is a political luxury the country cannot afford, and which Mr. Obama would be wise to forbid. Or did he not mean it when he ran promising to "turn the page" on the "old" politics?

10) Obama's opening to Iran


ULTIMATELY, the nuclear issue will make or break the dialogue that President Obama wants to open with Iran. But Obama has chosen the right place to test the possibilities for US-Iranian cooperation. This was the significance of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent acknowledgement that Iran is to be invited to "a big-tent meeting with all the parties who have a stake and an interest in Afghanistan."


Iran has supported anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan and is suffering greatly from the cross-border smuggling of opium grown in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. It makes sense to begin the US-Iran dialogue where shared interests are clear and past cooperation was fruitful.

But the hard issue that cannot be deferred much longer remains Iran's apparent quest for the capability to become a nuclear power. Despite varying estimates on how much low-enriched uranium Iran has already produced, governments and inspectors are fairly clear on Iranian capabilities. The mystery is Iran's ultimate intentions.

In a genuine US-Iran dialogue, particularly one that builds upon mutually beneficial actions in Afghanistan, Obama would have valuable incentives to offer Iranian leaders if they agreed to forgo a nuclear weapons capability. They could have a guarantee of nuclear fuel supplies for peaceful uses, even a uranium enrichment facility on Iranian soil - provided it was outfitted with technology that prevented Iran from diverting what was produced there for use in a military program.

Iranian policy makers might also obtain the equivalent of a no-regime-change guarantee from Washington. In return for ceasing to play the spoiler and divider in Lebanon, the Palestinian arena, and the Arab world generally, Iran could be included in regional organizations and have a say in commercial and security matters that affect its interests. In this way, Iran could follow a diplomatic path to the recognition it seeks as a major power in its region.

But Obama will have to explain to his dialogue partners in Iran that these benefits are not compatible with Iran's becoming a nuclear power. On the contrary, should Iran acquire the ability to field nuclear weapons, it will almost certainly set off a round of regional nuclear proliferation, provoking more wariness than ever among its neighbors. As India learned after going nuclear and thereby nullifying its conventional military advantage over Pakistan, the acquisition of unusable nuclear weapons can leave a country more vulnerable and less secure.

Obama has done well to show Iran he is ready to come to the table. But sooner rather than later, Iran will have to show its cards - to reveal its true intentions.