Big Government - One Big Leaky Damn!

An 'engaging' Sweet-Tammys cake that makes you want to get engaged all over again.

Here is the finished audition video we shot for the Food Network's cupcake wars. Lets hope we make it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bc1AfT2-zg
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Pat Condell is a British stand-up comedian, but this video isn't comic, it's pure truth, and utterly brilliant. You may have seen it already. I had but still it is worth re posting.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html
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Big Government is just one big leaky 'damn.' From oil to paper!

Was it an attempt to make everything McChrystal clear that Obama's expanded Afghanistan War has simply made us more hated? Is Obama's targeted drone bombings, that have killed untold innocent Pakistanians, something about which Goldstone should draft a UN sponsored report.?

Will the liberal press and media now attack Obama as they did Israel for its engagement in Gaza?

War is hell and those who are opposed to Obama's war seem prepared to make his life hell.

Life is just full of surprises but one thing is for sure - what goes around comes around even for our Messiah.

We lived through "The Pentagon Papers" and we will get through this bigger leak but it does create a problem for those who are being asked to trust us with their intelligence and what will be the impact on the troops who are out there exposed to attack every minute.(See 1 below.)
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When it comes to doing something laudable for his people ,Abbas can't quite rise to the occasion or better yet sit down and talk face to face. He claims he will do so when there is nothing left to negotiate.

Meanwhile, this Israeli believes the Gordian knot is due to Israel's intransigence over security. No doubt Israel abuses Arabs living within Israel and no doubt there are Israeli politicians who have extreme views towards them. However, when you are dealing with those who still want to kill you, who have already engaged in doing so, disengaging from them carries a burden which this young lady seems to dismiss as meaningless.

I know of no nation that treats all its citizens, regardless of their personal differences, as equals. Obama proves that every time he opens his mouth yet, Israel always gets singled out. Could anyone perhaps look into how Arab and Muslim nations treat their own much less Christians and others living within their borders and issue a report.

And another apologist offers his solution - Netanyahu quit being so obdurate. Oh well!

But then a more realistic view.(See 2, 2a, 2b and 2c below.)
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Guilt meet trauma. A hard hitting article explaining why Europeans have a growing contempt for Israel.

My thoughts, for what they are worth, is that opinions should be seriously considered when they come from trustworthy and moral sources. Europe's hands are fairly dirty when it comes to even handedness because they are energy dependent and commercially committed to Arabs and have a sad history of treatment of their Jewish fellow citizens.

Seeking to gain the friendship of the world community, at this point in time, lamentably means bowing to cowards and that has never paid rich dividends. Investing in illusions is dumb.

Netanyahu should not lecture the world but neither should he kowtow.

Eventually the world will pay a heavy price for its own collective weakness and unwillingness to face up to its true enemy - radical Islamism which is fascism parading under the guise of a religion. (See 3 below.)
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Russia and China and Iran. Long but interesting. (See 4 below.)
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Daniel Pipes poses an interesting question regarding Turkey and world opinion. (See 5 below.)
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Obama is seeking to re-sell his own re-branding. What the messiah does not comprehend is that smooth talk and coolness will not wash away the consequences of his dumb radical policies.

Yes, Obama got a lot of legislation passed. His problem is that he did it against the wishes of those impacted by it - DUH!

The more Obama tries the more he seems to turn off even those who once revered him and now are hanging on as they bite their fingernails.

It is all too plain Obama feels our pain.

At least, Obama can still count on black voters because they continue to live on the Obama- Democrat plantation. Charlie Rangel benefited but little ever trickled down to the average black person. A unified black family remains illusory and that directly impacts education but government welfare stuck a knife through the heart of the black family. Education is the best lever for black citizens to improve their personal lot but unions remain an impediment and Democrats remain loyal to their union funding relationships.(See 6 below.)
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WAKE UP AMERICA! http://apathetic-usa.com/
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Dick
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1)Damage from leaks? WH says disclosure alarming
By ANNE FLAHERTY and RAPHAEL SATTER,


The monumental leak of classified Afghan war documents threatened Monday to create new conflict with Pakistan, whose spy agency was a focus of much of the material, and raised questions about Washington's own ability to protect military secrets. The White House called the disclosures "alarming" and scrambled to assess the damage.

The documents are described as battlefield reports compiled by various military units that provide an unvarnished look at combat in the past six years, including U.S. frustration over reports Pakistan secretly aided insurgents and civilian casualties at the hand of U.S. troops.

WikiLeaks.org, a self-described whistleblower organization, posted 76,000 of the reports to its website Sunday night. The group said it is vetting another 15,000 documents for future release.

Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military would probably need "days, if not weeks" to review all the documents and determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."

The White House says it didn't try to stop news organizations who had access to secret U.S. military documents from publishing reports about the leaks. However, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it did ask WikiLeaks — through reporters who were given advanced copies of the documents — to redact information in the documents that could harm U.S. military personnel.

It was not clear whether Wikileaks' decision to withhold 15,000 of its files was related.

The Pentagon declined to respond to specifics detailed in the documents, including reports of the Taliban's use of heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.

"Just because they are posted on the Internet, doesn't make them unclassified," Lapan said.


The Pentagon says it is still investigating the source of the documents. The military has detained Bradley Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst in Baghdad, for allegedly transmitting classified information. But the latest documents could have come from anyone with a secret-level clearance, Lapan said.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised on Monday that the release of documents — one of the largest unauthorized disclosures in military history — was just the beginning.

Assange told reporters in London he believed "thousands" of U.S. attacks in Afghanistan could be investigated for evidence of war crimes, although he acknowledged that such claims would have to be tested in court.

Assange pointed in particular to a deadly missile strike ordered by Taskforce 373, a unit allegedly charged with hunting down and killing senior Taliban targets. He said there was also evidence of cover-ups when civilians were killed, including what he called a suspiciously high number of casualties that U.S. forces attributed to ricochet wounds.

The Defense Department declined to respond to specifics contained in the documents, citing security reasons.

But Lapan said that coalition forces have made great strides in reducing the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones said the release of the documents "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk," while Pakistan dismissed the documents as malicious and unsubstantiated.

Pakistan Ambassador Husain Haqqani said the documents "do not reflect the current on-ground realities." Islamabad's ministry of foreign affairs issued a similar statement, defending Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, against allegations it has supported insurgent networks.

"The people of Pakistan and its security forces, including the ISI, have rendered enormous sacrifices against militancy and terrorism," the ministry wrote.

NATO refused to comment on the leak, but individual nations said they hoped it wouldn't harm current operations in Afghanistan.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there has been significant progress recently in building up the Afghan state "so I hope any such leaks will not poison that atmosphere."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned about possible "backlashes" and urged all sides in Afghanistan to work toward national reconciliation.

Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the documents reflect his view that U.S. war strategy was adrift last year, before President Barack Obama's decision to retool the war plan and add tens of thousands of U.S. forces.

Skelton, D-Mo., warned Monday that the documents are outdated and "should not be used as a measure of success or a determining factor in our continued mission there."

U.S. government agencies have been bracing for the deluge of classified documents since the leak of helicopter cockpit video of a 2007 fire fight in Baghdad. That was blamed on Manning, the 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst who was charged with releasing classified information earlier this month.

Manning had bragged online that he downloaded 260,000 classified U.S. cables and transmitted them to WikiLeaks.org.

Assange on Monday compared the impact of the released material to the opening of East Germany's secret police files. "This is the equivalent of opening the Stasi archives," he said.

He also said his group had many more documents on other subjects, including files on countries from across the globe.

"We have built up an enormous backlog of whistleblower disclosures," he said.

Assange said he believed more whistle-blowing material will flood in after the publicity about the Afghan files.

"It is our experience that courage is contagious," he said.

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2)U.S. presses Abbas to resume direct peace talks with Israel
Internal memo to Palestinian officials urges PA president to resist U.S. pressure, warning that dropping preconditions for face-to-face negotiations with would be political suicide.

By The Associated Press

A senior U.S. envoy warned the Palestinian president that he must move quickly to direct talks with Israel if he wants President Barack Obama's help in setting up a Palestinian state, according to an internal Palestinian document obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

The 36-page memo, sent to senior Palestinian officials, advised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resist growing U.S. pressure, warning that rescinding his conditions for face-to-face negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be political suicide.

Abbas has said he won't resume talks that broke off in December 2008 unless Netanyahu accepts the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, with some alterations, and freezes all settlement building there.

Netanyahu refuses to commit to anything before the start of talks, but has said he will not give up east Jerusalem. On Monday, he strongly indicated that he would not extend a 10-month freeze on housing starts in West Bank settlements beyond September.

The Palestinian memo was distributed just before a crucial meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Thursday.

Ministers are set to decide whether they favor a move to direct talks or support the Palestinian position that U.S. shuttle diplomacy should be allowed to run its course. Indirect talks, with U.S. envoy George Mitchell meeting separately with Abbas and Netanyahu, began in early May and were to last up to four months, until early September.

However, in recent days, the U.S. has stepped up pressure on Abbas to go to direct talks now.

In a July 17 meeting, Mitchell told Abbas that direct talks must begin soon in order to keep Obama engaged, according to the Palestinian memo, which summarized recent diplomatic efforts and was e-mailed to leaders of Abbas' Fatah movement.

Mitchell told Abbas that in the event of direct talks, the U.S. administration can push forcefully for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, according to the document. If Abbas refuses to negotiate, Obama may not be able to be of much help, get the settlement curb extended or prevent the demolition of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, the document said.

The envoy told Abbas he should seize the fleeting opportunity and not waste time, the memo said. He cautioned Abbas not to count on Netanyahu being replaced by another Israeli leader anytime soon, the document said.

In Washington, State Department officials would not confirm that the memo reflected Mitchell's exact words or talking points, but said that this indeed illustrates where we are. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the memo is based, in part, on notes taken of an oral presentation he made to Fatah leaders, but that not all points made in it are accurate.

Erekat confirmed that U.S. officials told Abbas that if he wants Obama to help, then he needs to go to direct talks.

Erekat denied that Abbas was warned by Mitchell of the possible downside of refusing to go to direct talks or told that Netanyahu could remain in office for several more years.

Two Palestinian officials confirmed receipt of the memo, which carried the letterhead of the Palestinian Negotiations Department.

The document summarizes diplomatic contacts with the Obama administration since February. It says that since the beginning of July, Abbas has come under growing pressure from the U.S. to go to direct talks.

The memo ends with recommendations to Abbas. There should be steadfastness in the Palestinian position regarding direct talks, the document says. Going to direct talks while the Israeli government refuses to stop settlement activities and refuses to continue talks where they left off in December 2008 would be like political suicide.

Also Monday, Israeli settlers entered a Palestinian village, set fire to a field, tried to tear down an unfinished house and attacked villagers, residents said. The rampage appeared to be in response to the demolition of illegal settler buildings earlier in the day by Israeli authorities.

The two sides began hurling rocks at each other, injuring 10 people, including one settler who was seriously hurt, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli police said.

The Israeli military, which controls the West Bank, arrived on the scene and separated the sides. No shots were fired.

2b)Israel needs a Palestinian state
By ALON BEN-MEIR
07/26/2010 22:16


Without direct talks, the Palestinians will declare statehood unilaterally.
Israel’s national security and self-preservation as a democracy, if not its very existence, depend on its ability and willingness to come to terms with the reality of coexistence with the Palestinians on the basis of a two-state solution.

Unfortunately, instead of seeking to promote the creation of a Palestinian state, the current government has sought to impede it.

Although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s endorsement of the two-state solution at Bar-Ilan University last summer offered a good start, it fell far short of the kind of vision needed to achieve a sustainable, lasting agreement.

What he and his government have proposed amounts to an autonomous Palestinian entity, lacking territorial contiguity, with ultimate security responsibility remaining in Israel’s hands.

Today, few Israelis view the establishment of a Palestinian state as a national security imperative, and a growing number have resigned themselves to supporting the idea of conflict management rather than conflict resolution.

They simply do not believe that the Palestinians will ever accept Israel as an independent state. This particular view gained tremendous currency following the eruption of the second intifada beginning in September 2000 in which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed, many by suicide bombers. The intifada prompted prime minister Ariel Sharon to reoccupy much of the territories from which Israel had withdrawn as part of the Oslo Accords, and fueled disillusionment with the peace process. This skepticism was reinforced after the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Instead of using the withdrawal as an opportunity to build the foundation for a future state, the territory was used as a staging ground for rocket attacks, ultimately leading to Operation Cast Lead. These events, coupled with growing fears of Palestinian militancy following Hamas’ takeover of Gaza, have moved the political pendulum in Israel to the right of center, even as the concept of a two-state solution has moved more and more into the mainstream.

As Israelis have become disillusioned with the peace process, the country has strengthened its formidable military power and economic development, creating the false impression that it can sustain the status quo indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the settlement movement has gained significant political power, enabling it to exert immense influence on successive governments. The settlers’ commitment to territorial expansion that is driven by a belief in their divine right to settle the West Bank, coupled with widely held deep skepticism about the Palestinians’ intentions that is fueled by legitimate security concerns, have led the public to seemingly become immune to the plight of the Palestinian people.

Against this backdrop, the right-of-center government appears to be committed to disfranchise Palestinians, suppress opposition, undermine democratic values and forsake the moral tenants on which the state was created.

IN THIS regard, the introduction of two abominable measures in the Knesset speak volumes about how far this government will go to advance the right-wing “Greater Israel” agenda, however perilous this prospect may be. The first bill requires every individual seeking Israeli citizenship to declare his loyalty to a “Jewish democratic state,” specifically designed to discriminate against Palestinian citizens.

The second bill would punish anyone calling for a boycott of any Israeli individual or institution, whether in Israel or in the territories, with a fine of NIS 30,000 plus any proven damages.

In addition to such legislative efforts, the government has continued to demolish Palestinian houses, force eviction, seize land and deliberately disrupt communal life.

Indeed, there is no internationally orchestrated campaign to delegitimize Israel as many claim. By its own actions and policies, the country itself is doing a very good job at that. Rather than address Palestinian national aspirations for statehood in the context of a secure and independent Israel, the current government erroneously views maintenance of the occupation and expansion of settlements as synonymous with long-term national security.

The Palestinians have joined in choosing a convoluted course of action that has undermined their aspirations for statehood. Their intense and often violent factionalism has prevented them from adopting a unified purpose and an effective strategy vis-a-vie the occupation. In addition to the political rivalry for power, the dispute between Fatah and Hamas, which intensified following Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, is a battle of ideas over whether a militant or nonmilitant strategy would have greater effect on Israeli policy.


The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, although skeptical about the prospect of an agreement, still opts for a nonviolent strategy having concluded that violence provides justification for Israel to maintain the occupation. However, its inability to make significant progress at the negotiating table has served to further Hamas’s contention that Israel is not interested in peace and that only a militant strategy will force it to change course.

Although Hamas has suspended violence following the conclusion of the Gaza war in January 2009, the Netanyahu government has made no effort to explore a possible rapprochement with a group that it dismisses as an irredeemable terrorist organization that must be eliminated.

The building and expansion of settlements in the West Bank – even as Israel has declared a moratorium on such construction – has further strengthened the hand of those who argue that Israel has no intention of allowing Palestinians to establish a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza.

WHILE THE two sides remain in a deadlock, Palestinians recognize that the status quo cannot be sustained, and that the international community is on their side. It is with this recognition that Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has begun to build the infrastructure for a future state with the goal of ultimately declaring statehood with or without Israeli cooperation.

In so doing, he and President Mahmoud Abbas have disavowed the use of violence, thereby evoking tremendous international support and pressure on Israel to ease the occupation. In many ways this has created an historic point of departure in Israeli-Palestinian relations by offering the Israelis what they have always wanted – a nonviolent approach to reach a lasting solution. The Palestinians are thus demonstrating that, contrary to Israeli claims, there is indeed a partner ready and able to negotiate an end to the conflict.

That being said, their ability to negotiate is constrained by time, and it is unclear whether the current Israeli government will be willing to offer the minimum they can accept. The Palestinian public, like that in Israel, is disillusioned with failed peacemaking efforts. The leadership in Ramallah cannot afford to enter into negotiations unless they can demonstrate to the people that such talks have a real chance to succeed. Meanwhile, the more time that passes, the more the cases for a nonviolent approach and for continued peacemaking efforts are undermined. As such, it is no wonder that the Palestinian leadership is increasingly looking to the option of a unilateral declaration of statehood, supported by the international community.

The current deadlock does not change the reality that Israelis and Palestinians must coexist in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

In one form or another, and regardless of any political and territorial configurations, Israelis and Palestinians are stuck with one another. The welfare and well-being of both nations are interdependent.

Now they must make that fateful choice: Do they want to live in hatred and debilitating hostility, leaving a shameful legacy to the next generation, or do they want to live in amity and peace, and become a model of prosperous, neighboring democracies? Should Israel forfeit this historic opportunity to negotiate a conflict ending with an agreement with the leadership in Ramallah, the Palestinians will have the right and the obligation to move with full speed to coalesce international support for a declaration of statehood, with or without Israel’s consent. To avoid this scenario, the government must recognize that the national security of the State of Israel is dependent on the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state, and work accordingly to achieve this objective and market it as such to the public.

I maintain that Israel’s and the Palestinians’ long-term security and prosperity are interdependent, and that the establishment of an independent Palestinian state is central to this equation.

The writer is professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

2c)Who's Against a Two-State Solution?
By Efraim Karsh

"Two states, living side by side in peace and security." This, in the words of President Barack Obama, is the solution to the century-long conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs in the Middle East. Washington is fully and determinedly on board. So are the Europeans. The UN and the "international community" vociferously agree. Successive governments of the state of Israel have shown their support for the idea. So far, there is—just as there has always been—only one holdout.

The story begins a long time ago. In April 1920, the newly formed League of Nations appointed Britain as the mandatory power in Palestine. The British were committed, via the Balfour Declaration, to facilitating the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. But they were repeatedly confronted with violent Arab opposition, which they just as repeatedly tried to appease. As early as March 1921, they severed the vast and sparsely populated territory east of the Jordan River ("Transjordan") from the prospective Jewish national home and made Abdullah, the emir of Mecca, its effective ruler. In 1922 and 1930, two British White Papers limited Jewish immigration to Palestine and imposed harsh restrictions on land sales to Jews.

But the violence mounted, and in July 1937 it reaped its greatest reward when a British commission of inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, recommended repudiating the terms of the mandate altogether. In its stead, the commission now proposed a two-state solution: the partitioning of Palestine into an Arab state, united with Transjordan, that would occupy some 85 percent of the mandate territory west of the Jordan river, and a Jewish state in the remainder. "Half a loaf is better than no bread," the commission wrote in its report, hoping that "on reflection both parties will come to realize that the drawbacks of partition are outweighed by its advantages."

But partition did not happen. While the Zionist leadership gave the plan its halfhearted support, Arab governments and the Palestinian Arab leadership (with the sole exception of Abdullah, who viewed partition as a steppingstone to the vast Arab empire he was striving to create) dismissed it out of hand.

The same thing happened in November 1947 when, in the face of the imminent expiration of the British mandate, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine. Rejecting the plan altogether, the Arab nations attempted to gain the whole by destroying the state of Israel at birth. This time, however, Arab violence backfired. In the ensuing war, not only did Israel confirm its sovereign independence and assert control over somewhat wider territories than those assigned to it by the UN, but the Palestinian Arab community was profoundly shattered, with about half of its members fleeing to other parts of Palestine and to neighboring Arab states.

But the results hardly won the Arabs over to the merits of the two-state solution. Rather, the Arab states continued to manipulate the Palestinian cause to their own several ends. Neither Egypt nor Jordan permitted Palestinian self-determination in the parts of Palestine they had occupied during the 1948 war. Jordan annexed the West Bank in April 1950, while Egypt kept the Gaza Strip under oppressive military rule. No new Palestinian leadership was allowed to emerge. Only after the conquest of these territories by Israel during the June 1967 Six-Day war, and the passage five months later of UN Security Council Resolution 242, would their political future become a question of the first order.

At the time, though, nobody envisaged a return to the two-state solution. To the contrary: Palestinian nationhood was rejected by the entire international community, including the western democracies, the Soviet Union (then the foremost supporter of radical Arabism), and the Arab world itself (as late as 1974, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad openly referred to Palestine as "a basic part of southern Syria"). Instead, under Resolutions 242's "land for peace" terms, it was assumed that any territories evacuated by Israel would be returned to their pre-1967 Arab occupiers: Gaza to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. The resolution did not even mention the Palestinians by name, affirming instead the necessity "for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem"—a clause that applied not just to Arabs but to the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab states following the 1948 war.

What, then, about the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), established in 1964 at the initiative of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser? Through a sustained terror campaign in the late 1960s and early 1970s, most notably including the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the September 1972 Munich Olympics, the PLO would gradually establish itself as a key international player. In October 1974 it was designated by the Arab League as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people, and in the following month PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat became the first non-state leader ever to address the UN General Assembly. Soon afterward, the UN granted observer status to the PLO despite that organization's open commitment to the destruction of Israel, a UN member state; within a few years, it was allowed to open offices in most west European capitals.

The PLO's ascendance, coupled with Jordan's renunciation of its claim to the West Bank, led to a reinterpretation of Resolution 242 as in fact implying a two-state solution: namely, Israel and a Palestinian state governed by the PLO in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Conveniently ignored was one glaring fact: the PLO rejected any such solution. In June 1974, the organization adopted a "phased strategy," according to whose terms it would seize whatever territory Israel was prepared or compelled to cede and use it as a springboard for further territorial gains until achieving, in its phrase, the "complete liberation of Palestine."

It is true that, in November 1988, more than two decades after the passage of 242, the PLO made a pretense of accepting the resolution; but this was little more than a ploy to open a dialogue with Washington. Shortly after that move, Salah Khalaf, Arafat's second-in-command (better known by his nom de guerre of Abu Iyad), declared: "The establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of Palestine is but a step toward the whole of Palestine." Two years later, following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait (which the PLO endorsed), he reiterated the point at a public rally in Amman, pledging "to liberate Palestine inch by inch from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river."

Despite all this, Israel's Labor government, which had backed the "land for peace" formula in the immediate wake of the 1967 war, decided to enter into its own peace negotiations with the PLO. In 1993 it signed the "Oslo Accords" providing for Palestinian self-rule in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip for a transitional period not to exceed five years, during which time Israel and the Palestinians would negotiate a permanent settlement. Although the Oslo accords were not based explicitly on a two-state solution, they signaled an implicit Israeli readiness to acquiesce in the establishment of a Palestinian state.

But once again the PLO had other plans. In its judgment, the Oslo "peace process" offered a path not to a two-state but to a one-state solution. Arafat admitted as much five days before signing the accords in Washington when he told an Israeli journalist that "In the future, Israel and Palestine will be one united state in which Israelis and Palestinians will live together"—that is, Israel would cease to exist. And even as he shook Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's hand on the White House lawn, Arafat was assuring the Palestinians in a pre-recorded Arabic-language message that the agreement was merely an implementation of the PLO's phased strategy.

The next ten years offered a recapitulation, over and over again, of the same story. In addressing Israeli or Western audiences, Arafat would laud the "peace" he had signed with "my partner Yitzhak Rabin." To his Palestinian constituents, he depicted the accords as transient arrangements required by the needs of the moment, made constant allusion to the "phased strategy," and repeatedly insisted on the "right of return," a euphemism for Israel's destruction through demographic subversion.

And that was the least of it. Further discrediting the idea of "two states living side by side in peace and security," Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) launched a sustained campaign of racial hatred and political incitement. Israelis, and Jews more generally, were portrayed as the source of all evil and responsible for every problem, real or imagined, in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians were indoctrinated in the illegitimacy of the state of Israel and the lack of any Jewish connection to the land, supplemented with tales of Israeli plots to corrupt and ruin them.

Nor did it stop there. Embracing violence as the defining characteristic of his rule, Arafat set out to build an extensive terrorist infrastructure in the territories—in flagrant violation of the accords and in total defiance of the overriding official reason for his presence there: namely, to lay the groundwork for Palestinian independence. Israeli concessions had no effect, or worse. In 1997, Jerusalem gave the PA full control over virtually the entire Arab population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as some 40 percent of the land, as a prelude to final-status negotiations. But Israel's civilian casualties only mounted. At the American-convened peace summit in Camp David (July 2000), Ehud Barak offered Arafat a complete end to the Israeli presence, ceding virtually the entire territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the nascent Palestinian state and making breathtaking concessions with respect to Jerusalem. Arafat's response was war, at a level of local violence unmatched in scope and intensity since the attempt to abort the creation of a Jewish state in 1948.

Although it had become abundantly evident by then that the PLO had no interest whatsoever in statehood, the international community responded by condemning Israel's defensive measures against the Palestinian intifada and urging it to accelerate the "peace process." It also maintained the massive influx of international aid to the Palestinian Authority, making the Palestinians the largest recipients of foreign aid per-capita in the world—though most of the funds were promptly siphoned off to the personal bank accounts of Arafat and his cronies and/or channeled to terror operations. Even after Arafat's death in late 2004 and the landslide victory of the militant Islamist group Hamas in Palestinian parliamentary elections twelve months later, Western governments insistently maintained the façade of a "peace process," now embracing Mahmoud Abbas and his defeated Fatah as the epitome of moderation.

But is there in fact a fundamental distinction between Hamas and Fatah when it comes to a two-state solution? Neither faction formally accepts Israel's right to exist; both are formally committed to its eventual destruction. Moreover, for all the admittedly sharp differences between Arafat and his successor Abbas both in personality and in political style, the two are warp and woof of the same dogmatic PLO fabric.

In a televised speech on May 15, 2005, Abbas described the establishment of Israel as an unprecedented historic injustice and vowed his unwavering resolve never to accept it. Two-and-a-half years later, at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, he rejected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's proposal of a Palestinian Arab state in 97 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip, and categorically dismissed the request to recognize Israel as a Jewish state alongside the would-be Palestinian state, insisting instead on full implementation of the "right of return."

In June 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke with longstanding Likud precept by publicly accepting a two-state solution and agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state, provided the Palestinian leadership responded in kind and recognized Israel's Jewish nature. The Arab world exploded in rage. Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, whose country had been at peace with the Jewish state for 30 years, deplored Netanyahu's statement as "scuppering the possibilities for peace." Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that Netanyahu "will have to wait 1,000 years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him."

At Fatah's sixth general congress, convened in Bethlehem in August last year, the delegates reaffirmed their longstanding commitment to "armed struggle" as "a strategy, not a tactic . . . . This struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is eliminated and Palestine is liberated." More recently, even as Abbas has publicly mouthed the Obama formula for "two states living side by side in peace and security," he pointedly insists on preconditions impossible for Israel to accept.

The Peel Commission had the principle right. While a two-state solution "offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely, freedom and security." It is a great historical irony that this "half-a-loaf" solution should have been repeatedly advanced as a response by others—Europeans, Americans, Israelis—to the actions of its most implacable opponents, who have then repeatedly proceeded to repudiate it in word and deed. On the Palestinian side, not a single leader has ever evinced any true liking for the idea or acted in a way signifying an unqualified embrace of it. The same is true, with the partial exceptions of Egypt and Jordan, for the larger Arab world.

Nearly two decades and thousands of deaths after the launch of the "peace process," one might hope that Western policy makers would at last begin to take the measure of what the Palestinian leadership tells its own people and wider Arab audiences. For the lesson of history remains: so long as things on the Arab side are permitted, or encouraged, to remain as they are, there will be no two-state solution, and therefore no solution at all.

Efraim Karsh, editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author most recently of Palestine Betrayed (Yale), is professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London.
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3) EU hostile to Jewish State because Israel’s success flaunts Europe’s failure
By Moshe Dann



Antipathy for Israel among Europeans is increasing and alarming as campaigns of de-legitimization and vilification spread across the world, fueled by Muslim propaganda and money, whetted by the hunger for oil. Even once friendly European countries, those that helped establish the State of Israel and tried to assist Jews during the Holocaust, have become more hostile towards Israel. Europe's brief love affair with Israel seems over. Why?


"The path of national self-determination ... lies beneath the nearly boundless disgust so many feel towards Israel, and especially toward anything having to do with Israel’s attempts to defend itself… It is driven by the rapid advance of a new paradigm that understands Israel, and especially the independent Israeli use of force to defend itself, as illegitimate down to its foundations."

Still, this does not explain why the right of self-defense, sacrosanct and enshrined in national and international law, does not apply to Israel.


For Europeans today, who did not experience the Holocaust, Israel is a constant reminder of their complicity and guilt in the genocide of Jews. They want to forget it; Israel can't.


Before and after World War II, the Soviet Union slaughtered, persecuted and enslaved Jews in gulags, sponsored and trained Arab terrorists, and attempted to wipe out Judaism. Eventually, the barriers fell, Jews emigrated, and the USSR folded and became the FSU.


Every time we force European dignitaries to visit Yad Vashem, we rub their noses in what they allowed; a return to scenes of their crimes. We make them pay when they see how vibrant we are and - the ultimate snub, except for Russia - with an army more powerful than their own!


Deliberately, methodically, Europe became Judenrein; instead it has mosques and veils, and primitive Islamic laws to worry about.


Europe rid itself of most of its Jews - some escaped, built a country, and now Israel has a more stable economy than theirs. What an indignity that those whom you punished and persecuted for so long sing and dance before you, and make you pay to see their heritage revealed in archeological sites.


Let Arabs do dirty work
For 2,000 years, Europe expelled or murdered Jews, stole their property, tried to crush their spirit, and yet, they came back even stronger. Jews are on the cutting-edge of everything, while Europe can't seem to find the tools. It doesn't make sense.



Jews were supposed to be finished off in ghettos, gas ovens, and slave labor prisons. That didn't work. Ok, give them a state and let the Arabs, generously supplied by most European governments and corporations, finish them off; that didn't work either.


Ok, Oslo, a diplomatic coup, land-for-nothing: still undecided. Welcome Iran to do the job, its nuclear reactors built by Russians, French and Germans, financed by the ever-neutral Swiss; well, maybe that will work.


Israel's success flaunts Europe's failure. And, despite European economies going down the tubes, EU countries still fund Arab Palestinian hate groups and rescue terrorists. Having used the most powerful forces in the world to eliminate the Jewish people, Europeans must feel frustrated at the audacity of Jews, not only to defend themselves, but to survive as Jews, forcing their leaders to salute a flag that bears a Jewish symbol, and shake hands with Jewish generals.


Instead of their traditional Jew-hatred, Europeans smile, and slip cash to the Arabs to do their dirty work. Condemning Israel is easier than feeling shame.


Jews in Israel are a traumatized people. Traumatized by the Holocaust and by constant Arab terrorism, we are also traumatized by our own leaders who, in the name of peace, emboldened our sworn enemies and exposed us to their murderous efforts. And many Israeli academics never lose an opportunity to condemn the country that pays their salaries. Israel's media often operate as propaganda machines for the Left.


How Europeans must relish their bigotry when they see Israeli political cartoons, opinion pieces (as "news"), literature and art that depict Israelis as vicious, Jews as despicable, and Judaism as worthless.


Ach, Europe, how you must shiver with humiliation when you need Israeli-produced technology, science and medicine. What angst overtakes you when you must decide whether to boycott Israeli fruit and vegetables, or enjoy them.


Like a supposedly dispatched victim, Israel comes back to haunt Europe, not only to confront it with its strength, but ablaze with Jewishness. What an indignity for Europeans to see flourishing Jewish communities instead of piled corpses, bones of those buried in mass execution pits renewed in Israeli children.


Europe hates Jews, finally, because it hates itself; it knows what European civilization allowed, permitted, and condoned. "Never Again" is the Jewish password; Europeans know it can.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)SPRING 2010 • VOLUME XVII: NUMBER 2
By George L. Simpson, Jr.

Recent years have witnessed the rise of irregular but frequently intensive opposition to U.S. global preeminence by Russia and China. In their own ways, and in pursuit of their own interests, each of these authoritarian governments has established an informal alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran. For its part, the Khamenei regime in Tehran continues to view the United States as the "Great Satan" and works against American interests by engaging in international terrorism,[1] aiding in attacks on U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq[2] and Afghanistan,[3] working to derail any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,[4] and most of all by seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.


Iran tests a Shahab-3 missile in November 2006. Currently, the Iranian military is trying to develop the Shahab-6 missile, which will have a range of 3,500 miles, putting Europe within its sights. There is some speculation that Moscow is helping Tehran with a missile that will have a 6,300-mile range, enabling it to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States.

There is a long history of conflict between Russia and Iran, so why is Moscow now warmly regarded by the Islamist regime, and why does Moscow, in turn, court Tehran? Furthermore, what explains Iran's new alliance with China? Has a new axis, opposed to the United States and Europe, formed, and if so, what are its roots and ramifications?

A New Geostrategic Axis?
Russian commentator Andrei Volnov has called the de facto Moscow-Beijing-Tehran alignment "a new geostrategic axis."[5] While such a characterization is more metaphor than reality, a trilateral combination, based on the common goals of promoting economic self-interest and reducing U.S. influence, certainly has been built on the foundations of fairly recent but significant bilateral ties between the two countries and Tehran. Thus, Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, notes that Moscow's ties with the Iranian regime "reflect a geopolitical agenda which is at least twenty years old."[6] Russia is engaged in what might be called "strategic opportunism" as it constantly fishes in troubled waters with the goal of identifying vulnerabilities that its policy makers can exploit.[7] Similarly, one can trace Beijing's increasing links with Tehran to the first years of the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s.[8] For its part, Iran has followed a consistent anti-America and anti-Israel path since its 1979 revolution.

Proponents of an informal alliance from the Russian Federation, China, and Iran present it as a reaction to the unilateralism of the United States and alleged U.S. aspirations for global hegemony. They consider the United States a significant rival and a threat to their long-term security. Consequently, Russia's goal, according to Cohen, is to engage in a "balancing strategy" that will knock the United States down a notch and thus revise the international status quo. While Cohen makes this point for Moscow's policy, it is an equally apt characterization of Beijing's approach as well.[9]

The View from Beijing
The leaders of China and Iran feel that they are the proud heirs to two great and ancient civilizations that have been humiliated and made victims of Western imperial aggression. They believe that Washington's "hegemonism" represents the unjust continuation of long-standing Western efforts to keep them weak and subordinate.[10] Hence, Sino-Iranian relations are bound by what Asia and Middle East analyst John Calabrese calls a "kinship of nationalisms."[11]

Perhaps more importantly, an understanding of economic issues further explains China's lukewarm support for the United States in its disputes with Iran. China, which has one of the world's fastest growing economies and which has designs on becoming an economic superpower, is today the world's second largest consumer of oil. Nearly 60 percent of its oil is imported from the Middle East. Iran, which possesses about 10 percent of the world's proven petroleum reserves, replaced Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier of oil to China in May 2009. Indeed, since reaching an agreement in October 2004, Beijing and Tehran have penned energy deals that purportedly are worth more than US$120 billion.[12]

Furthermore, Iran's oil producing facilities and equipment are in serious need of modernization. Beijing's willingness to invest in this vital sector of the Iranian economy (as much as 90 percent of Iran's export income comes from oil) is crucial to the fiscal well-being of the present Islamist regime, which, according to official estimates, faces an 11 percent unemployment rate and inflation exceeding 13 percent.[13] Thus, the China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil producer and supplier, signed a deal in January 2007 worth $3.6 billion to develop Iranian offshore gas fields. As recently as June 2009, the same company put its name to a $2 billion contract for development of the northern section of Iran's Azadegan oil field near Ahvaz.[14]

Despite U.S. pressure to keep Iran economically isolated, China has leaped into the void created by U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution. In 2003, trade between the People's Republic and Iran reached a record $4 billion, and that figure soared to $16 billion in 2006 and $29 billion in 2008.[15] Crude oil constitutes 80 percent of China's imports from the Islamic Republic with mineral and chemical products making up most of the remainder. Beijing's exports are more diversified, with machinery, electrical appliances, textiles, vehicles, and aircraft comprising the most important commodities in demand from Iran.[16]

Before 1997, Beijing had, for more than a decade, been Iran's most important partner in helping the Islamist regime develop its nuclear capability. As China expert John W. Garver writes, China's cooperation with Iran "was extensive, sustained over a fairly long period, and of crucial importance to Iran's nuclear effort."[17] The Chinese have apparently retreated from their policy of direct cooperation with the mullahs on the nuclear front since that time.

The View from Moscow
One might think that the long history of conflict between Russia and Persia would preclude Iran from seeking Russian aid. As far back as Peter the Great (r.1682-1725), tsars and tsarinas have nibbled at Iranian borders in the Caucasus and the Caspian region. Over time, first the Romanovs, then the communists intervened more and more in Persian affairs, with the latter going so far as to establish short-lived "People's Republics" in Kurdish and Azeri regions of Iran. Despite this, the courtship continues.

Russia also has economic reasons to back the Tehran regime. Russia's trade with Iran is more modest than China's but nevertheless significant. Total trade between the two countries equaled $3.2 billion in 2008 with analysts predicting even higher numbers within a few years. As both countries are major energy producers, they share a common interest in establishing pricing policies for oil and natural gas as well as manipulating these markets to their advantage.

More significant, however, is Moscow's role in the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The Russian government has assisted in Iran's construction of the $800 million Bushehr nuclear power plant and has helped the mullahs obtain nuclear knowledge.[18] As a result, Moscow, as well as Beijing, is at odds with Washington over how to deal with Tehran's efforts to gain a nuclear capability. China and Russia, both of which wield veto power on the United Nations Security Council, have consistently obstructed efforts in the U.N. to halt Tehran's drive to obtain nuclear weapons. While it is true that from time to time, both countries have called on Iran's regime (which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), neither has supported effective sanctions or forceful measures to deal with the problem. Gennady Yevstafyev, a senior adviser at the Center for Policy Studies in Russia, has gone so far as to contend that "Washington closed its eyes to the creation of nuclear weapons by its strategic partner, Pakistan. But now it is threatening a war on its ex-strategic partner Iran for the same crime."[19]

Moscow continues to talk out of both sides of its mouth. Sergei Kiryienko, the director-general of Rosatom, Russia's federal atomic energy agency, has stated the official Russian position that "broad access to civilian nuclear power must be guaranteed while at the same time there must be a guarantee that weapons of mass destruction will not proliferate under any circumstances."[20] As recently as October 2007, then-president Vladimir Putin described a nuclear armed Iran to be a "strategic threat" to Russia when he met with leaders of the European Jewish Congress and with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow. Yet the Russian leader went on to claim that there was no "objective data" proving that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons so that "we proceed from a position that Iran has no such plans."[21] What lies behind the inscrutable strongman's thinking is difficult to say for certain, but one can speculate that Putin's antipathy towards the United States as well as his desire to conciliate cronies within the Russian Federation's military-industrial complex goes a long way to explain this gamble.

China, Russia, and Iranian Weaponry
Arms sales to Iran by China and Russia, which the three countries insist are lawful, is another source of contention between the latter two and Washington.[22] Russia is Iran's biggest weapons supplier by a wide margin, though China is also an important source. Russia reportedly supports the Islamic Republic's development of ballistic missiles, which former Secretary of State Colin Powell warns have been redesigned to enable them to carry nuclear warheads.[23] Currently, the Iranian military is trying to develop the Shahab-6 missile, a variant of the North Korean Taep'o-dong-2C/3, which will have a range of 3,500 miles, putting Europe within its sights. There are unverified reports that the Russians have transferred rocket engine technology for this program and even some speculation that Moscow is helping Tehran with a missile that will have a 6,300-mile range, enabling it to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States.[24]

For its part, although the Chinese government denies as "groundless allegation[s]" reports about its role in supplying Iran with weaponry,[25] it is clear that it has transferred missile components and technology to Iran since the 1980s.[26] For example, Tehran has obtained Chinese-made anti-ship surface-to-surface C-801 and C-802 missiles, which pose a potential threat to Persian Gulf shipping and U.S. naval vessels in the region.[27].

According to the CIA and experts in the field, Iran is also trying to develop sophisticated biological and chemical weapons.[28] These efforts go back to the Iran-Iraq war when the Iranians were on the receiving end of Iraqi chemical attacks. Although Iran has ratified the Biological Weapons Convention, specialists believe that with the help of Russian experts, it is "in the advanced research and development phase" of weaponizing chemical toxins and living organisms.[29] For its part, China has helped in Iran's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by selling precursor and dual-use chemicals, as well as the technology and equipment needed to use them. Thus there is good reason to conclude that "the Iranian leadership intends to maintain a robust CW [chemical weapons] capability."[30]

Washington is concerned not just with Iranian possession of sophisticated weapons but with the prospect of Tehran transferring them to terrorist proxies, such as Lebanese-based Hezbollah. In fact, the group launched an Iranian C-802 missile during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, which hit the Israeli missile frigate Hanit.[31] According to Israeli press reports, the mullahs are currently supplying Iranian-made Zelzal and upgraded Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles to the radical Shi'i group.[32] In August 2009, Israeli president Shimon Peres claimed that Hezbollah currently had 80,000 Iranian-supplied missiles.[33] While neither Moscow nor Beijing is directly responsible for these developments, neither appears particularly concerned when the weapons or technologies they transfer to Iran find their way into the hands of terrorist organizations.

Finally, both Moscow and Beijing are aiding the Iranian military as it develops advanced conventional weapons. Despite Washington's strong objections, by late 2006, the Russia government had sold and begun delivery to Tehran of twenty-nine of its Tor-M1 air defense systems. Moscow argues that the $700 million sale is totally legal and asserts that these are "defensive" weapons.[34] Iran's acquisition of such a sophisticated and advanced system poses a threat to any potential U.S. or Israeli air attack to take out Tehran's nuclear facilities.[35] Iran has also acquired at least ten Russian-made Pantsyr-S1E self-propelled short-range gun and missile air defense systems from Syria.[36] In March 2007, the Russian investigative journalist Ivan Safronov died mysteriously after learning that Moscow's military-industrial complex was planning to transfer S-300VB missiles to Iran via Belarus.[37] These are Russia's equivalent to the U.S.'s Patriot missiles: The S-300VB is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and has a range of 150 kilometers.[38] As of this writing, it appears that Iran has not received the weapons, but Iranian officials are eager to do so.[39] There are numerous reports that Russia and China have also covertly sold Iran an array of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), combat aircraft, sophisticated radar systems, and fast-attack missile vessels.[40] Some of the SAMs have apparently made their way to insurgents fighting coalition forces in Iraq.[41] Sources also claim that either China or Kyrgyzstan has sold the Iranians high-speed torpedoes originally produced by the Russians.[42]

Mixed Signals?
Recent events demonstrate the complexities of the evolving relationship between Tehran and its great-power allies. Over the summer of 2009, there were mixed signals coming from Russia and Iran concerning bilateral ties. In June, following the upheavals in Iran over that country's disputed presidential elections, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev cancelled, because of alleged scheduling conflicts, a planned meeting with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a mutual-security organization comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.[43] Iran has observer status with the multinational group and aspires to become a full member, but the Russians have not gone out of their way to make this happen. In August 2009, Russia joined with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in a four-party regional summit to which Iran was not invited.[44] At that time, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a journal whose views sometimes reflect those of the Kremlin, editorialized, "It appears that the idea that Iran is a regional power, which Russia could use as a trump card in relations with the West, has turned out to be mistaken."[45] It would appear that at least some in the upper echelons of the Russian government doubted the wisdom of continuing support to Tehran following the disputed election and the international opprobrium directed against the mullahs as they suppressed subsequent dissent.

For their part, at least some Iranians took note of this chilly behavior. An editorial in the "moderate" Iranian newspaper E'temad, which serves as the mouthpiece for Mehdi Karroubi's oppositional National Trust Party, complained that Moscow had not helped Iran in the United Nations with its "peaceful pursuit" of nuclear energy as much as it could, and that it was dragging its feet in getting the Bushehr nuclear facility up and running. The article concludes, "Russians cheat their allies if it is necessary, and history shows that they have swindled us heavily."[46]

At the same time, other Russian officials have acted as if it were business as usual between Moscow and Tehran. Moreover, supporters of this approach seem to have had the final say in the Kremlin. Two days after what was viewed by most outside observers as a fraudulent vote, newly "reelected" Iranian president Ahmadinejad made his first foreign trip to Russia. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called the visit "symbolic" and added, "This is a signal of successful mutual relations in the future."[47] Shortly thereafter, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov referred to the Iranian elections as "an exercise in democracy."[48]

In early September 2009, Foreign Minister Lavrov opined, "The most important thing is Iran is ready for a comprehensive discussion of the situation, what positive role it can play in Iraq, Afghanistan and the region."[49] In fact, he all but ruled out imposing sanctions on Tehran in order to get the regime to come clean on its nuclear program. In light of this, it is doubtful that the Obama administration's recent lobbying efforts have fundamentally altered Russia's position on Iran. Two weeks after Lavrov's statement, following the revelation that Iran had been covering up the existence of a nuclear facility, CNN reported an unidentified senior U.S. official's claims that Washington's efforts to bring Russia (and China) on board with new sanctions against Tehran had "already begun to bear fruit."[50] Yet even after the existence of the secret Iranian nuclear site near Qom became public knowledge,[51] Medvedev told the press, following the Group of Twenty summit in Pittsburgh:

I do not believe sanctions are the best way to achieve results. Sanctions were used on a number of occasions against Iran, but we have doubts about the results. Nevertheless, when all instruments have been used and failed, one can use international legal sanctions. … I think we should continue to promote positive incentives for Iran and at the same time push it to make all its programs transparent and open. Should we fail in that case, we'll consider other options.[52]

Medvedev's statement offers no clear sense of what might prompt the Russians to wield a stick against the mullahs. Moreover, one must still wonder whether former president Putin, the real power behind the throne, would agree to such a policy. Notwithstanding Moscow's concurrence with an October 2009 IAEA compromise for Iran to send most of its enriched uranium abroad to be processed into reactor fuel, there seems to have been no Russian reaction to Tehran's failure to respond to President Obama's December 31, 2009 deadline regarding the offer. It is hard to imagine that Moscow will support any but modest penalties to be imposed against Tehran. Indeed, as recently as January 2010, Russian foreign minister Lavrov said that "acting with a logic of punishing Iran … is not a sober approach."[53]

On the surface, the Kremlin has apparently joined with the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany in pursuing the so-called "two track" policy of threatening Iran with sanctions while still dangling the carrot of dialogue. On February 5, 2010, Lavrov met with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle in Berlin and afterwards told reporters that "if we do not see a constructive answer from Iran, we will have to discuss this in the U.N. Security Council." Yet, the Russian foreign minister went on to say that he was still hopeful of a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue.[54] The question remains, however, whether Moscow will let go of the carrot and, even if it does, whether it would ever support more than a slap on Tehran's wrist.

Basing one's appraisal of Russian intentions on experience rather than hope, one is inclined to agree with the conclusion of Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Nicholas Gvosdev, adjunct senior fellow at the Nixon Center: "Russia is not interested in playing an active role in resolving the Iran crisis on terms America will find acceptable."[55]

Tehran's ties with Beijing appear even stronger than those it has with Moscow. Chinese president Hu Jintao had even fewer scruples than his Russian counterpart in the wake of the fraudulent Iranian election. Days after the disputed vote, he shook hands with Ahmadinejad as Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, reported on the "sound momentum" of bilateral relations.[56] When the Chinese media actually did report on the post-election disturbances in the streets of Tehran, they were attributed to "vandals" and "terrorists," and Chinese television viewers were shown no images of Iranian security forces brutalizing protesters.[57] Still, Wu Sike, China's special envoy to the Middle East, maintains that Beijing opposes Iran's production and possession of nuclear weapons. The problem is that while he avers that China's policies have not changed on this issue, he and his superiors appear to see no urgency in acting to stop it.[58]

China does not, however, offer a strictly one-sided backing for all of Iran's aspirations. In 2008, China's Hu Jintao officially "welcomed Iran's interest to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), saying an expert committee will be formed to consider the proposal."[59] Yet little progress has been evident thus far; Iran sent a representative to the SCO secretariat in Beijing in January 2010 to discuss how it might further its interaction with the organization but remains an observer state.[60]

On the nuclear issue, Beijing also appears intent on opposing sanctions. Thus, in early September 2009, China's Foreign Ministry declared that "under current circumstances, we must increase diplomatic efforts and renew talks with Iran."[61] Although there was some hope that Vice President Joseph Biden's September 11, 2009 meeting with Wu Bangguo, China's second most powerful leader, would have changed this response, such has not been the result. Indeed, shortly thereafter, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson gave Beijing's response to the revelation about Iran's covert nuclear facility: "We believe that sanctions and exerting pressure are not the way to solve problems and are not conducive for the current diplomatic efforts on the Iran nuclear issue."[62]

While French prime minister Francois Fillon has since asserted that his country and China "share identical views on how to lead Iran away from its threatening stance and isolation on the nuclear issue,"[63] no such declaration has been forthcoming from Beijing. In fact, the opposite is true.

In January 2010, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States gathered in New York to focus on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Beijing, however, sent a low-level diplomat to the meeting in what observers considered a snub to the others.[64] The Chinese representative explained that his country was only prepared to begin discussing the possibility of imposing sanctions.[65] At this point, it would seem that optimism regarding China's coming around to support effective sanctions is reminiscent of Samuel Johnson's estimation of second marriages as "the triumph of hope over experience."

Conclusions
The most imminent threat to the global order comes from the radical Islamic regime in Iran bent on developing nuclear weapons. Both Russia and China have consistently supported Tehran by their aggressive, opportunist—and shortsighted—policies, and both are in large measure responsible for the threat that the Iranian government poses to the world today.

Should the radicals in Tehran obtain the ability to launch ballistic missiles with warheads on them, there is no guarantee that one day they might not target Russian cities or other objectives. China, too, might ultimately find itself in the sights of an unfriendly regime in Iran. Should a military conflagration occur in the Persian Gulf and curtail the flow of oil from the region, it would surely spell disaster for the Chinese economy. With its vast supplies of oil and natural gas, Moscow might reap windfall profits, but there is no guarantee of where the chain reaction of a Middle East war might stop. A radical Shi'i Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons would likely lead to proliferation among other states in the area such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. The stakes are high and getting higher. Indeed, those who have decided to back Tehran should consider how a nuclear Iran will promote their security interests.

The opaqueness of decision-making in the Kremlin makes it difficult to explain fully Moscow's behavior in abetting the Iranian regime, but it would seem that the temptation of making a fast ruble and undermining Washington in the bargain is just too much for those in power to resist. Likewise, both China's economic imperatives and its desire to become the next great superpower on the world stage likely play a decisive role in its behavior.

Russian and Chinese posturing that they have sought peace and stability in the region through constructive dialogue has been a façade. The occasional snubs from Russia following the 2009 sham election or expressions of discomfort from both countries over Iran's covert nuclear program seem little more than public relations stunts.

The two authoritarian regimes have consistently undermined the United States in its efforts to contain Iran and have profited by doing so. Indeed, if the leaderships in Moscow and Beijing continue to sabotage diplomatic efforts to halt the clerical regime's drive for nuclear weapons, they should be held accountable by Washington and the international community for obstructing nonviolent remedies to the Iranian problem. U.S. officials could launch a concerted public relations campaign to demonstrate to the world the depth of the Russian and Chinese culpability in creating a problem that threatens the stability of a vital geopolitical part of the world. Washington might press the restart button on its plan to provide missile defense systems in central Europe or increase its military cooperation with Taiwan. Additionally, as trade is a two-way proposition, the Russians and Chinese could encounter a host of difficulties in this sphere as well.

Unless they change their course immediately, it is they who will carry the onus for a U.S. or Israeli recourse to military intervention in order to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. It may seem hard to imagine the present administration in Washington taking such action, but it is also unclear what Jerusalem will do. An Israeli strike against Iran would likely result in a serious setback to Tehran's nuclear program, but its certainty of success is by no means guaranteed. Moreover, Israel would pay a heavy diplomatic price for what would no doubt be termed its "reckless adventurism." Thus, it hesitates, and if it does so for too long, one should not be at all surprised if Israel or some other country ends up being the innocent victim of a nuclear power that the Russians and Chinese will have helped to create.

While there may not be a new axis in a formal sense, the combination of Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran on a range of issues has undermined the security of the Persian Gulf region and worked against the interests of the United States and its allies. Its potential continuation represents a broader and more fundamental threat to global stability, would likely destroy decades of diplomacy, and sound the death knell of the nonproliferation regime.

George L. Simpson, Jr., is professor and chair of the history department at High Point University.

[1] Ely Karmon, "Counterterrorism Policy: Why Tehran Starts and Stops Terrorism," Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 1998, pp. 35-44.
[2] Jonathan Schanzer, "Ansar al-Islam: Back in Iraq," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2004, pp. 41-50.
[3] Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander U.S. Central Command, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategic Review and the Posture of Central Command, Apr. 1, 2009.
[4] Elihu D. Richter and Alex Barnea, "Tehran's Genocidal Incitement against Israel," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp. 45-51.
[5] Rossiiskie Vesti (Moscow), Russian Federation, June 23, 2005.
[6] Ariel Cohen, "The Russian Handicap to U.S. Iran Policy," Jerusalem Issue Briefs, Apr. 22, 2009.
[7] Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund, Russia since1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 211-30.
[8] John W. Garver, China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), pp. 71-82.
[9] Cohen, "The Russian Handicap to U.S. Iran Policy."
[10] Garver, China and Iran, p. 5.
[11] John Calabrese, "China and Iran: Partners Perfectly Mismatched," Middle East Institute, Aug. 18, 2006.
[12] Ilan Berman, "The Logic behind Sino-Iranian Cooperation," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Nov. 2006, pp. 15-23; "Fueling the Dragon: China's Race into the Oil Market," Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Potomac, Md., accessed Dec. 28, 2009.
[13] Tehran Times, Jan. 6, 12, 2010.
[14] United Press International, June 12, 2009.
[15] Asia Times (Hong Kong), Nov. 29, 2004; China Daily (Beijing), Feb. 18, 2008; The Guardian (London), June 22, 2009; Canberra (Aus.) Times, Nov. 12, 2007; Tehran Times, May 11, 2009.
[16] Garver, China and Iran, p. 247.
[17] Ibid., pp. 139, 155.
[18] "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Bushehr-Background," GlobalSecurity.org, accessed Dec. 28, 2009.
[19] United Press International, June 6, 2006.
[20] Barbara Slavin, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (New York: St. Martins Press, 2006), p. 29.
[21] BBC News, Oct. 10, 2007.
[22] Fars News Agency (Tehran), May 9, 2009.
[23] The Washington Post, Nov. 17, 2004.
[24] Charles P. Vick, "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Shahab-6," GlobalSecurity.org, Jan. 26, 2009.
[25] Xinhua General News Service, June 16, 2006.
[26] "Unclassified Report to Congress, January–June 2003," Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., Apr. 30, 2007; Garver, China and Iran, pp. 182-9, 213-4.
[27] "C-801 YJ-1/YJ-8 (Eagle Strike), CSS-N-4 SARDINE," Military Analysis Network, Federation of American Scientists, Aug. 10, 1999; Reuters, Jan. 19, 2010.
[28] Agence France-Presse, Sept. 14, 2006.
[29] "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Biological Weapons," GlobalSecurity.org, Apr. 28, 2005.
[30] "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Chemical Weapons," GlobalSecurity.org, Oct. 15, 2008; Ronen Bergman, The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power (New York: Free Press, Sept. 2008), p. 313.
[31] "Din vecheshbon chelki," HaVaadah Livdikat Eiru'ei haMa'arachah beLevanon 2006 vaadat Winograd, MyNet.co.il, Apr. 2007.
[32] "Zelzal-1/2/3," MISSILETHREAT.com, Claremont (Calif.) Institute, accessed Jan. 25, 2010; The New York Times, July 9, 2008.
[33] Al-Manar TV (Beirut), Aug. 22, 2009.
[34] Jareer Elass and Amy Myers Jaffe, The History and Politics of Russia's Relations with OPEC (Houston: James A Baker, III, institute for Public Policy, Rice University, May 6, 2009), p. 31.
[35] Defense Industry Daily (Thetford Ctr., Vt.), Dec. 5, 2005; Pravda (Moscow), Dec. 1, 2007.
[36] Agence France-Presse, May 21, 2007.
[37] The Washington Post, Mar. 6, 2007.
[38] The Times (London), Sept. 19, 2008; The Guardian, Sept. 8, 2009.
[39] Tehran Times, Jan. 18, 2010.
[40] Gill Bates and Evan S. Medeiros, "Foreign and Domestic Influences on China's Arms Control and Nonproliferation Policies," The China Quarterly, Mar. 2000, pp. 74-9; Kenneth Katzman, "Iran: Arms and Technology Acquisitions," Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2001; "Iran Missile Milestones," IranWatch.org, Jan. 2010, accessed Feb. 7, 2010; "Thondar Fast Attack Missile Boat," GlobalSecurity.org, accessed Feb. 7, 2010.
[41] Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox, Communications Division chief for Multi-National Force-Iraq, and Brig. Gen. Mark Gurganus, Ground Combat Element commander for Multi-National Force-West, news briefing, Baghdad, Sept. 30, 2007.
[42] Associated Press Worldstream, Apr. 6, 2006; Bergman, The Secret War with Iran, pp. 294-5.
[43] Interfax News Agency (Moscow), June 16, 2009, in BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union-Political, June 16, 2009.
[44] Siyasat-e Rouz (Tehran), Sept. 12, 2009, in BBC Monitoring Middle East-Political, Sept. 27, 2009.
[45] Los Angeles Times, Aug. 10, 2009.
[46] E'temad (Tehran), Aug. 12, 2009, in BBC Monitoring Middle East-Political, Aug. 29, 2009.
[47] The Christian Science Monitor, June 16, 2009.
[48] Reuters, June 25, 2009.
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[50] CNN News, Sept. 25, 2009.
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5)Turkey in Cyprus vs. Israel in Gaza
by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
July 20, 2010

http://www.meforum.org/pipes/8649/turkey-in-cyprus-vs-israel-in-gaza

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In light of Ankara's recent criticism of what it calls Israel's "open-air jail" in Gaza, today's date, which marks the anniversary of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, has special relevance.

Turkish policy toward Israel, historically warm and only a decade ago approaching full alliance, has cooled since Islamists took power in Ankara in 2002. Their hostility became explicit in January 2009, during the Israel-Hamas war. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan grandly condemned Israeli policies as "perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction" and even invoked God ("Allah will … punish those who transgress the rights of innocents"). His wife Emine Erdoğan hyperbolically condemned Israeli actions as so awful they "cannot be expressed in words."


Emine Erdoğan, wife of the Turkish prime minister.

Their verbal assaults augured a further hostility that included insulting the Israeli president, helping sponsor the "Freedom Flotilla," and recalling the Turkish ambassador.

This Turkish rage prompts a question: Is Israel in Gaza really worse than Turkey in Cyprus? A comparison finds this hardly to be so. Consider some contrasts:

•Turkey's invasion of July-August 1974 involved the use of napalm and "spread terror" among Cypriot Greek villagers, according to Minority Rights Group International. In contrast, Israel's "fierce battle" to take Gaza relied only on conventional weapons and entailed virtually no civilian casualties.
•The subsequent occupation of 37 percent of the island amounted to a "forced ethnic cleansing" according to William Mallinson in a just-published monograph from the University of Minnesota. In contrast, if one wishes to accuse the Israeli authorities of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, it was against their own people, the Jews, in 2005.
•The Turkish government has sponsored what Mallinson calls "a systematic policy of colonization" on formerly Greek lands in northern Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots in 1973 totaled about 120,000 persons; since then, more than 160,000 citizens of the Republic of Turkey have been settled in their lands. Not a single Israeli community remains in Gaza.
•Ankara runs its occupied zone so tightly that, in the words of Bülent Akarcalı, a senior Turkey politician, "Northern Cyprus is governed like a province of Turkey." An enemy of Israel, Hamas, rules in Gaza.
•The Turks set up a pretend-autonomous structure called the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." Gazans enjoy real autonomy.
•A wall through the island keeps peaceable Greeks out of northern Cyprus. Israel's wall excludes Palestinian terrorists.

The division of Cyprus since 1974.



A sign on the fence around Varosha, Cyprus.

And then there is the ghost town of Famagusta, where Turkish actions parallel those of Syria under the thuggish Assads. After the Turkish air force bombed the Cypriot port city, Turkish forces moved in to seize it, thereby prompting the entire Greek population (fearing a massacre) to flee. Turkish troops immediately fenced off the central part of the town, called Varosha, and prohibited anyone from living there.
As this crumbling Greek town is reclaimed by nature, it has become a bizarre time capsule from 1974. Steven Plaut of Haifa University visited and reports: "Nothing has changed. … It is said that the car distributorships in the ghost town even today are stocked with vintage 1974 models. For years after the rape of Famagusta, people told of seeing light bulbs still burning in the windows of the abandoned buildings."

Curiously, another Levantine ghost town also dates from the summer of 1974. Just 24 days before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli troops evacuated the border town of Quneitra, handing it over to the Syrian authorities. Hafez al-Assad chose, for political reasons too, not to let anyone live in it. Decades later, it too remains empty, a hostage to bellicosity.


Erdoğan claims that Turkish troops are not occupying northern Cyprus but are there in "Turkey's capacity as a guarantor power," whatever that means. The outside world, however, is not fooled. If Elvis Costello recently pulled out of a concert in Tel Aviv to protest the "suffering of the innocent [Palestinians]," Jennifer Lopez canceled a concert in northern Cyprus to protest "human rights abuse" there.

In brief, Northern Cyprus shares features with Syria and resembles an "open-air jail" more than Gaza does. How rich that a hypocritical Ankara preens its moral plumage about Gaza even as it runs a zone significantly more offensive. Instead of meddling in Gaza, Turkish leaders should close the illegal and disruptive occupation that for decades has tragically divided Cyprus.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
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