Beware of The Arab Trojan Horse and Arab Money!

Claire Berlinski writes about how enormous amounts of Arab/Muslim money supports Arab Centers on American University campuses and have influenced the thinking of our so called elites.

Georgetown University, she cites, is an example of how the Saudi's have bought their way into the cultural thinking on that campus and, as a result, how the Muslim Brotherhood is viewed as some benign force in the Arab World.

I have repeatedly written about Dr. Ellen Cannon's explanation of how subtle Arab influence is gaining a foothold in our nation using our own freedom's to under gird our democratic experience.

Beware of the Arab Trojan Horse and Arab Money! Money buys influence! After all we have the best Congress money can buy.(See 1 below.)
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It's the Egyptian economy stupid.

John Mauldin analyzes why Egypt is most likely to have to start borrowing from foreign sources and the negative implications it will have on an economy that constantly under produces. (See 2 below.)
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Two more PJTV videos worth watching. Click on PJTV.Com:
a)PJTV Report: Has the Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrated the Conservative Movement?

"I don't have to reach out to La Raza... I want conservatives to be as far away from them as possible... they are a racist group..."- Tony Katz

b) "Instavision: Putting a "CAP" on Obama's Budget: Sen. Bob Corker on Controlling Federal Spending

The CAP Act aims to set government spending at 20.6% of GDP. That's the 40 year average says Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), and he thinks that the deficits are within the control of Congress. Can we afford to return spending levels to the historical average? Find out as Glenn Reynolds interviews Sen. Corker."
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In these troubles times a little humor is in order.

VISITOR:

There was a knock on the door this morning, I opened it and there was a young man standing there who said:

"I'm a Jehovah's Witness".

I said," Come in and sit down". When he sat down I asked, "What do you want to talk about"?

He said, " Damned if I know, I never got this far before"
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A letter from a concerned Muslim. Have not authenticated but on point regardless.
(See 3 below.)
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Iran holds the key according to Ne'eman! (See 4 below.)
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This is from a friend and fellow memo reader. He was in intelligence when in service.

Hello Dick ,
Your article about Colin Powell and weapons of mass destruction brought up a concern that I have had for some time, namely that we in the US have been using the WMD term to apply to nuclear weapons only. This term is in fact of Soviet origin (oruzhie massovogo porazhenija) and refers to chemical , biological, and nuclear weapons( see pages 523-524 in the Voennyi Entziklopedicheskij Slovar' ,1983).

We have adopted the Soviet abbreviation, WMD , to replace our own abbreviations for these weapons, but we have translated that abbreviation in our own very misleading and limited fashion, quite likely for some misguided political purpose, producing considerable confusion which is only heightened by the mass media.

Iraq was, in fact, very much involved in the development of WMDs. Iraq had developed and used chemical weapons ( ask the Kurds and the Iranians!), and was working on biological weapons ( the lovely Dr.Death). There were also reports during the US invasion, that a Russian spetznaz unit had transported nuclear materials ( backpack nukes?) across the northwestern border of Iraq into Syria. Therefore: chemical, biological, and probably nuclear weapons were present in some stages of development. These certainly match the original Russian definition of the WMD abbreviation.

Despite the artificially created confusion about the meaning of "WMD," I wonder how Powell can be certain that the source who claims he lied in the past is not lying now? We are, after all, dealing with the Middle East where truth is a very relative thing. This "revelation" may damage Powell's chances for a political sinecure, but given his former positions, and the intelligence access those positions provided to him, he should have known! In fact, one might politely ask: who is lying here?
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Let's play the "What If Game." Would you have approved? (See 5 below.)
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There is an expression that goes: "Only a matter of time before the pigeons come home to roost." But,in truth, we are the pigeons. (See 6 below.)
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Rep. Paul Ryan would be happy to sit down and chat with Obama but the president will not, nor is likely, to call. Why? Because Democrats prefer to demagogue Ryan in the hope they can slide under the public's radar screen and keep on spending like that 'battery bunny.' (See 7 below.)
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Obama is a far better lumberman than president. The only problem is, he sawed off the Middle East limb on which he perched.

Fear of both political and economic isolation may force Israeli leaders to do something stupid - buckle!

No matter what Israel does to appease Europeans they will remain unloved.

It is easy for me to give Israelis advice but I hope they 'suck it up' and tell the Europeans to stick it. (See 8 and 8a below.)
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If Obama's policies help us lose our Bahrain base it would make his stupidity over Quantanamo irrelevant.

Events continue to place him behind the eight ball.

I would almost be willing to favor the building of a high speed rail if we could ship him out of D.C. but the problem is Obama is too busy supporting unions against Wisconsin children.

Wisconsin's governor should fire the teachers for lying about their health status as Reagan did the air controllers and seek impeachment proceedings against Wisconsin Democrats who fled and thumbed their noses at their citizens. (See 9 below.)
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Kim Strassel comes tomorrow so no memos for several days.
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Dick
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1) Anwar at Georgetown: A Case Study in the Shaping of Expert Opinion
By Claire Berlinski

Prompted by Harlech's question, I want to offer some thoughts about why we're having a serious debate in America now about the Muslim Brotherhood's aptitude for "moderation."

I should say that his comment seems to have annoyed quite some number of Ricochet members, but I appreciated it. I have a better sense now of what many outside of the small community of American Ikhwan-watchers must be thinking: "Surely the people who are calling the Muslim Brotherhood moderate, or otherwise benign, couldn't be that wrong? They are, after all, experts, no?"

Those of us who follow the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood closely keep smacking our foreheads in bewilderment at these blithe pronouncements, unable to comprehend how this could be a matter of debate at all. There are serious debates to be had about the Ikhwan, but they're not debates about whether they're moderate. They are debates about how powerful they really are--in Egypt, for example--and what their strategy is apt to be at a moment like this, which appears to have caught them by surprise as much as it has everyone else. These are questions worthy of debate and difficult to answer.

That we're having a serious discussion, however, at high levels of our foreign policy establishment, about whether the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate should be seen not as a sign that those who say they are might be right, but as a symptom of a pathology in our foreign policy apparatus. It's important to recognize just what has happened to our intelligentsia--our experts, in other words--and to evaluate what they're saying in this light.

One part of it, a plain fact that's poorly appreciated but demonstrably true--not a conspiracy theory at all--is that the Saudis and other Gulf regimes have poured breathtaking amounts of money into American universities and think tanks since the 1970s. The Saudis spend $4 billion per annum to promote a particular view of Islam. This exceeds the Soviet Union’s budget for foreign subversion during the Cold War. A mind-boggling amount goes to funding America's top-tier universities, and of course this has an influence.

Now, I am not claiming that the Saudis have made explicit conditions for the receipt of this money, but I am certainly claiming that people are human. I'm not pure. Ricochet has financial backers, too, and you sure won't find me going out of my way to criticize them. When you're talking about Saudi money, though, it doesn't just all balance out in some big marketplace of competition for influence--they have enough to make whole university departments appear overnight. Or disappear, a fact that will weigh particularly on the mind in a recession.

Let's look at just one example--Georgetown. In 2005, Georgetown accepted a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, whose money was contemptuously rejected by Mayor Giuliani in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This was used to finance Georgetown's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. (Muslim-Jewish understanding wasn't a priority, I guess.) What does it do with this money? Well, for example, it hosts symposiums such as this one, in 2007: “Islamophobia and the Challenge of Pluralism"--co-host, CAIR.

In 2008, Representative Frank Wolf wrote to Georgetown to ask whether “the center has produced any analysis critical of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example in the fields of human rights, religious freedom, freedom of expression, women’s rights, minority rights, protection for foreign workers, due process and the rule of law.” Georgetown president John DeGioia didn't answer the question directly, but said instead something quite important:

Our scholars have been called upon not only by the State Department, as you note, but also by Defense, Homeland Security and FBI officials as well as governments and their agencies in Europe and Asia. In fact, a number of high ranking U.S. military officials, prior to assuming roles with the Multi-National Force in Iraq, have sought out faculty with the Center for their expertise on the region.

Do you see what might ensue from this? Mitchell Bard has provided the most patient and detailed account I've seen of the amount of money flowing from the Gulf to our universities in The Arab Lobby, which I reviewed here--behind the firewall, alas. That's a book that should have forever put paid to the idea that it's the Israel lobby running the show, but that idea, alas, dies hard.

So let me point out something that happened recently at Georgetown that should give you a feel for things. This past week, Anwar Ibrahim visited Georgetown for a discussion titled "Revolution and Democracy in the Muslim World." He argued there--and this was widely reported in the media--that the United States shouldn't fear the Muslim Brotherhood. It should rather "engage them," because it was "crucial to support peoples' choices in the Islamic world."

First let's start with the assumption that the Muslim Brotherhood is the peoples' choice in the Islamic world. That alone is an insane and unsupported assertion; we have no evidence of this. A lot of Muslims I know are terrified of them. The idea then goes cheerfully unchallenged in conventional wisdom, although I dare say these Malaysian women would find the idea quite remarkable.

But that's not even the main point. The main point is the way Georgetown billed this speaker. Do you not feel it would have been minimally responsible, since the media covered this event and policy makers no doubt paid attention to it, for Georgetown to have mentioned that where the Muslim Brotherhood is concerned, Anwar is not neutral? That he himself co-founded the IIIT, a major Muslim Brotherhood think tank in the United States? Don't you think it might be relevant to note that the Justice Department named the IIIT as unindicted co-conspirators in a crucial terrorism-financing case involving the covert channeling of funds to Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation? Or perhaps they might have mentioned that the survivors of September 11 sued the IIIT for “rendering material support to radical Islamism?” None of this is a secret; it has been widely reported.

Anwar's affection for and ties to the the most influential Muslim Brotherhood cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, are also extremely well-known to those paying any attention at all--that would be "Hitler didn't finish the job" Qaradawi; that would be "I encourage the mutilation of women's genitals" Qaradawi; that would be "Rape victims should be flogged" Qaradawi; that would be "Kill pregnant Israeli women because their unborn children are future soldiers" Qaradawi. And Anwar's anti-Semitism is so notorious and vulgar that the B'nai Brith has begged US officials to cut ties with him. Wouldn't you think Georgetown would be wary of inviting such a speaker to present the views of "moderate Muslims" about the Muslim Brotherhood?

And if they did invite him--out of the sense, perhaps, that universities should promote open debate, even with radicals--wouldn't you think they'd signal something to the media about their guest's intellectual pedigree by means of a word such as "controversial," or "Islamist," or anything, really, but "respected internationally as a leader in interreligious dialogue?"

And you know, Anwar isn't just a one-time guest. He's a distinguished visiting researcher at the university--at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Do you see how crazy this is? Do you see why our experts might be a bit confused? I want to take pains to say that Georgetown still produces important and valuable scholarship, and that I don't believe this is a plot or a conspiracy. But I do think it's a culture--a culture in which you don't point certain things out or ask too many questions, and at a certain point you don't even realize how strange it is that you're not, because extremism has come to seem mainstream.

It's only one part of the explanation, but it's an important part.
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2)Egypt's Next Crisis: The Economy
By John Mauldin

Until just a few years ago, Egypt’s ruling military elite was able to “borrow” money from Egyptian banks with no intention of paying it back. President Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal changed all that, reforming and privatizing the system in order to build an empire for himself. For the first time in centuries, Egypt’s financial position was not entirely dependent upon outside forces. Now, Mubarak and his reform-minded son are out of the picture and Egypt has a budget deficit and a government debt load that are teetering on the edge of sustainability.

Analysis

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit called on the international community Feb. 15 to help speed Egypt’s economic recovery. Such foreign assistance will certainly be essential, but only in part because of the economic disruptions caused by the recent protests. Even more important, the political machinations that led to the protests indicate Egypt’s economic structure is about to revert to a dependence upon outside assistance.

Egypt is one of the most undynamic economies of the world. The Nile River Delta is not navigable at all, and it is crisscrossed by omnipresent irrigation canals in order to make the desert bloom. This imposes massive infrastructure costs upon Egyptian society at the same time as it robs it of the ability to float goods cheaply from place to place. This mix of high capital demands and low capital generation has made Egypt one of the poorest places in the world in per capita terms. There just has not been money available to fund development.

As a result, Egypt lacks a meaningful industrial base and is a major importer of consumer goods, machinery, vehicles, wood products (there are no trees in the desert) and foodstuffs (Egypt imports roughly half of its grain needs). Egypt’s only exports are a moderate amount of natural gas and fertilizer, a bit of oil, cotton products and some basic metals.

The bottom line is that even in the best of times Egypt faces severe financial constraints — its budget deficit is normally in the range of 7 to 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) — and with the recent political instability, these financial pressures are rising.

The protests have presented Egypt with a cash-crunch problem. At $13 billion in annual revenues, tourism is the country’s most important income stream. The recent protests shut down tourism completely — at the height of the tourist season, no less. The Egyptian government estimates the losses to date at about $1.5 billion. Military rule, tentatively expected to last for the next six months, is going to crimp tourism income for the foreseeable future. Simultaneously, the government wants to put together a stimulus package to get things moving again. Details are almost nonexistent at present, but a good rule of thumb for stimulus is that it must be at least 1 percent of GDP — a bill of about $2 billion. So assuming that everything goes back to normal immediately — which is unlikely — the government would have to come up with $3.5 billion from somewhere.

Which brings us to financing the deficit, and here we get into some of the political intrigue that toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

One cannot simply walk out of Egypt, so since the time of the pharaohs the Egyptian leadership has commanded a captive labor pool. This phenomenon meant more than simply having access to very cheap labor (free in ancient times); it also meant having access to captive money. Just as the pharaohs exploited the population to build the pyramids, the modern-day elite — the military leadership — exploited the population’s deposits in the banking system. This military elite — or, more accurately, the firms it controlled — took out loans from the country’s banks without any intention of paying them back. This practice enervated the banks in particular and the broader economy in general and contributed to Egypt’s chronic capital shortage. It also forced the government to turn to external sources of financing to operate, in particular the U.S. government, which was happy to play the role of funds provider during the final decade of the Cold War. There were many results, with high inflation, volatile living standards and overall exposure to international financial whims and moods being among the more disruptive.

Over the past 20 years, three things have changed this environment. First, as a reward for Egypt’s participation in the first Gulf War, the United States arranged for the forgiveness of much of Egypt’s outstanding foreign debt. Second, with the Cold War over, the United States steadily dialed back its economic assistance to Egypt. Since its height in 1980, U.S. economic assistance has dwindled by over 80 percent in real terms to under a half-billion dollars annually, forcing Cairo to find other ways to cover the difference (although Egypt is still the second-largest recipient of American military aid). But the final — and most decisive factor — was internal.

Mubarak’s son Gamal sought to change the way Egypt did business in order to build his own corporate empire. One of the many changes he made was empowering the central bank to actually enforce underwriting standards at the banks. The effort began in 2004, and early estimates indicated that as many as one in four outstanding loans had no chance of repayment. By 2010 the system was largely reformed and privatized, and the military elite’s ability to tap the banks for “loans” had largely disappeared. The government was then able to step into that gap and tap the banks’ available capital to fund its budget deficit. In fact, it is this arrangement that allowed Egypt to weather the recent global financial crisis as well as it did. For the first time in centuries, Egypt’s financial position was not entirely dependent upon outside forces. The government’s total debt load remains uncomfortably high at 72 percent of GDP, but its foreign debt load is only 11 percent of GDP. The economy was hardly thriving, but economically, Egypt was certainly a more settled place. For example, Egypt now has a mortgage market, which did not exist a decade ago.

From Gamal Mubarak’s point of view, four problems had been solved. The government had more stable financing capacity, the old military guard had been weakened, the banks were in better shape, and he was able to build his own corporate empire on the redirected financial flows in the process. But these changes and others like them earned the Mubarak family the military’s ire. Mubarak and his reform-minded son are out of the picture now, and the reform effort with them. With the constitution suspended, the parliament dissolved and military rule the order of the day, it stretches the mind to think that the central bank will be the singular institution that will retain any meaningful policy autonomy. If the generals take the banks back for themselves, Egypt will have no choice but to seek international funds to cover its budget shortfalls. Incidentally, we do not find it surprising that now — five days after the protests ended — the banks are still closed by order of the military government.

Yet Egypt cannot simply tap international debt markets like a normal country. While its foreign debt load is small, its total debt levels are very similar to states that have faced default and/or bailout problems in the past. An 8-percent-of-GDP budget deficit and a 72-percent-of-GDP government debt load are teetering on the edge of what is sustainable. As a point of comparison, Argentina defaulted in 2001 with a 60-percent-of-GDP debt load, and it had far more robust income streams. Even if Egypt can find some interested foreign investors, the cost of borrowing will be prohibitively high, and the amounts needed are daunting. Plainly stated, Cairo needed to come up with $16 billion annually just to break even before the crisis and the likely banking changes that will come along with it.
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3)A Letter from a Fearfully Concerned Muslim
To an American-Jewish friend.
By Salim Mansur

Dear Roger,

Since 9/11 I have been mulling over the words of Georgi Arbatov pinned on the wall above my desk. I don’t believe in conspiracies, and I strive to keep my distance from the sophisticates of the Chomsky school of conspiracy-peddlers. But I do believe in what Barbara Tuchman described so well in The March of Folly. Folly, it seems to me, is the most severe and unforgiving sin of politicians, especially politicians responsible for the security of societies in advanced cultures of relative freedom, such as ours at this time in history. As Martin Walker, then the Moscow correspondent for the Guardian, reported in August 1992, Arbatov said to him: “We are going to do the worst thing we possibly can to America — we are going to take away their enemy.” Arbatov, you might recall, was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, responsible for keeping track of Soviet-American relations.

Arbatov — now looking back nearly twenty years later in deconstructing his words — seemed to possess a piercing understanding, as student of history, of the American scene, and how it could likely unfold over time in the post-Soviet and post-Communist era. His words to Walker were more insightful than any offered by just about all the left-leaning talking heads and commentators, in the U.S., Canada, and Europe put together. Arbatov understood, given his experience sitting in the privileged seat of the party in Moscow during the Brezhnev period, how the existence of Communist Russia checked the forces of the left in the West, keeping them from gaining influence and power. Now, as Arbatov reflected, since the Soviet Union as a military superpower had collapsed and the threat of Soviet Communism was discarded in the so-called dustbin of history, the spoiled children and beneficiaries of the West’s longest and strongest economic expansion and technological achievements, unparalleled in history, would set forth to do what the Soviet Union could not do — to advance the aim of Communism to wreck liberal capitalism from the inside.

Just ponder how a third-rate community organizer — from the most incestuously corrupt political region in the U.S.; with a record of participation in the most vulgar gathering of Jeremiah Wright posing as a reverend, spouting Fanonian rhetoric and bigotry; with mentors such as the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers; channelling the teachings of Saul Alinsky and Rashid Khalidi of the Chomsky school of self-loathing and sophistry — could advance through the ranks of American politics at an astounding speed, with little or no record of experience in government, to become the 44th president. In one of my columns from 2008 for the Sun Media in Canada, I had written in disbelief, as I watched the primaries unfold, of how American voters could be so beguiled by a charlatan of the Harold Hill type from The Music Man and vote for Obama. I was wrong in my overestimation of reason and experience among American voters as a check on the naivete of the university crowd and the duplicity of Lenin’s “useful idiots” in free societies. One of the lessons from 2008, for me, is this: how can I now scold Egyptians for wanting freedom and democracy behind the banners of the Muslim Brotherhood when their experience with electoral politics is negligible, and their history of 7,000 years offer little guidance for what freedom requires — respect for the other and not mistaking freedom for licentiousness?

There is not a very long arc connecting the joyful news of Soviet disintegration with the painfully distressing slide of American politics framed for posterity in the election of Obama. Arbatov did not nor, even if he had indulged in irresponsible speculation, could have predicted such an eventuality in American politics. But he had it right, it seems to me, for what he meant was the presence of the Soviet Union placed upon liberal democracies, led by the U.S., a discipline and a check upon the excesses and follies of democracy. But once this discipline was removed it would lead to a bacchanalia in the West, the near instant raising of the slogan “end of history” even as the dust from the tearing down of the Berlin Wall had not settled, and this lack of discipline combined with the “flower children” of the sixties coming of age and grasping for power, would bring about a situation, Arbatov imagined, that would do more damage than the old men of the Communist plutocracy could ever deliver without committing suicide of their own.
It is on account of the circumstances in which we find ourselves since 9/11 that I fear the West is precariously tilting at the edge of terminal decline. The situation today is dramatically different than the one in 1979. Then, Ronald Reagan, with Thatcher and Pope John Paul II on either side, reversed the slide of American politics and the West — from the debacle of defeat in Vietnam, brought by the fecklessness of the Democrats, to the hostage crisis in Tehran.

The Soviet Union did discipline the West and, ironically, the existing reality of the Soviet Empire gave Reagan the measure needed to re-group and deliver the coup de grace. But after 1992 we have been in the state of enjoying our unrestrained appetite for endless orgy, the zeal that comes to declining bodies from the artificiality of induced eroticism by pills which give to narcissists of the “sixties” generation the pathetic sense of immortality. These are the folks the people have elected to run their lives, protect their cultural legacy, hold back the enemies of freedom, maintain balance of power in strategic and vulnerable regions of the world and, as Burke reminded his own generation, maintain the promise of the present and inheritance of the past as trustees for the unborn generations of the future.

Ten years after 9/11, we, the broad public of liberal democracies, still have not fully grasped the meaning of that horror-filled morning, or understood without any apologetics or polemics the evil nature and ideology of the men who planned and executed the deed. We remain more or less preoccupied with re-litigating the debate over the decision by the Bush administration to take the war declared upon the West into the heartland of the enemy and expunge them; and instead of faulting Bush for not going far enough at home and abroad in defeating the Islamist jihadi assault on the West, for reasons that have everything to do with the nature of our corrupted polity, we have contorted ourselves to find the right mix of appeasement. From the ashes piled high at the end of the Second World War to the re-grouping that was essential to contain the Soviet Union, the passage of time was barely twenty-four months. Ten years after 9/11, the West has as leaders Obama and Cameron, Sarkozy, Berlusconi, and Merkel still clinging to the fantasy that Islamists are merely a Middle Eastern version of Milton and Locke, Tocqueville and Mill, leading the reform of the Islamic civilization that once gave us Alhambra and the Taj Mahal, Omar Khayyam and the tales from the Arabian Nights.

The fault, as Cassius reminds Brutus, is in ourselves, a decaying civilization that will be saved (if it will be) not by the snobs in Washington and New York, London and Paris, Rome and Berlin, but by our version of the unsophisticated children of truckers who are now waking up from the drug-induced stupor of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation. I have hope, the eternal hope of a fearful heart, that the West will survive and yet again gather speed, but how sad are the losses and tears that have piled up — with more to come. They could have been avoided if we, as a people, were not so irresponsible or unfaithful to our history as to place at the head of our societies leaders so unworthy and clueless as the one who so unfittingly occupies the seat of Washington and Lincoln, at the head of this great republic.

Cordially,

Salim

Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario.
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4)Iran Holds the Key to the Middle East
By Yisrael Ne'eman


Two months ago no one could have imagined the ousting of Presidents Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. To many the Middle East seems to be a tectonic plate shifting in unpredictable directions. At the moment there are hopes in both Tunisia and Egypt of moves towards a democratic system. Yet it is not known how many favor a true democratic system where parties win power in one election and then relinquish it upon losing the next. In a true democracy the people are loyal to the system and their country more than they are to any specific political party whether it be left, right, religious or secular. All this remains to be seen.

Demonstrations and riots have erupted almost everywhere – Algeria and Libya in North Africa with Morocco said to be on the way, Yemen, Jordan, even Syria and the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. Pres. Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khomenei's Islamic council were gloating upon the fall of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes, both close allies of the United States. Yet taking a page from the Egyptians and Tunisians discontented Iranians took to the streets in an attempt to topple the Shiite Khomenist regime.

In each case the situation is somewhat different yet there is one common denominator at the outset of the challenge to those in power – that being the initial response. Although there were deaths, neither the Egyptian nor Tunisian governments could allow for a large scale slaughter by their security forces. Certainly Bahrain, Morocco and Jordan are in the same boat because like the other two they are aligned with the West and particularly the US, where those in power would lose favor with their democratic patrons should they put down "the people" with such harsh measures. In itself such a move could oust them from office. The Iranian regime knows no such limitations and fully agrees with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddaffi's "zero sum game" approach demanding full defeat of opposition forces, whether democratic or not.

Although there appears to be an uprising, there is very little reporting from Iran. The Iranians will deal with any challenges as they have since June 2009 – threaten and then use massive violence, not only by the police but by the basij militia force made up of young men fiercely loyal to the Islamist regime. Closing down social networks and arresting their leaders would not only disrupt but deter further protests. The Iranian regime is also not one detached from the people, it has its power base among the more rural less educated and draws strength from the lower middle and lower classes. They continue to enjoy the support of the bazari (merchant) middle class. The regime and its supporters are at odds with the educated secular urban populations, viewing them as a deadly enemy and consequently cannot be considered "detached" from the populace. There is a large difference between being detached from the people and being in conflict with certain sections of the population.

Quietly Iran is expanding into eastern Iraq asserting its influence over the Shiites as the Americans disengage. This involves the best agricultural lands and major oil producing regions in the country. In Lebanon Iran is on the verge of solidifying power through Hassan Nasrallah and the Hezbollah. The fundamentalist Shiite Hezbollah threatens violence and uses it whenever necessary and although a minority in the Lebanese political landscape they know that to gain and retain power one must use all the force necessary. They have even attained Christian and Druze allies through threats and the exercise of force. To add fuel to the fire the demonstrations in Bahrain are by the majority Shiites against their own Sunni monarchy. Iran could not have hoped for more of a bonanza as America's allies are shaken in the Middle East while simultaneously Shiism is on the offensive against the Sunni regimes. Following a well thought out imperial policy with certain possibly unplanned bonuses rolling in, the Iranian regime can be expected to have little time or patience for those who demand secularism and democracy.

More than anywhere else, everyone should be looking towards Iran. Radical Shiism is doing its best to penetrate the Sunni Muslim world either through low level combat and threat of attack as evidenced in Iraq and Lebanon, or through supporting civil unrest in Bahrain – not for democracy as said to be demanded by the demonstrators but for expanding hegemony or through a direct alliance as is evidenced with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Adopting certain cultural and theological roots from the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism many see the world as a continual battle between good and evil. These are absolutes with little room for debate or compromise. Challenges to Khomenist power are categorized as originating from the evil secular West led by the Europeans, Americans and Zionists. This is a zero sum game where Khomenism must triumph whatever the cost.


The Iranians can be expected to use much more force accompanied by mass arrests, continual torture and executions to repress any challenges to their regime. They need not worry about Western criticism while enjoying a true power base among much of the populace.


The talk of reforms, democracy and individual human rights is very significant in the Middle East today and particularly as it affects the Arab world. Many are discussing the potential rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, not an event to be dismissed or downplayed, however present Middle Eastern security is predicated much more on what initiatives are taken by the Shiite rulers in Tehran. Like it or not Iran is the major player in the region. Their first step will be to eliminate any internal challenges. To do this as swiftly and efficiently as possible the regime must invoke massive sustained violence. Should the Tehran regime fully crush the opposition the Arab Muslim Middle East will be looking at something very different than internal debate and disturbances over democratic values.

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5)Subject: FW: THE PRESIDENCY

Some historical information


If George W. Bush had doubled the national debt, which had taken more than
two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W.. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10
years, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had criticized a state law that he admitted he never even
read, would you think that he is just an ignorant hot head?

If George W. Bush joined the country of Mexico and sued a state in the
United States to force that state to continue to allow illegal immigration,
would you question his patriotism and wonder who's side he was on?


If George Bush had pronounced the Marine Corps like Marine Corpse would you
think him an idiot?

If George W. Bush had put 87,000 workers out of work by arbitrarily placing
a moratorium on offshore oil drilling on companies that have one of the best
safety records of any industry because one company had an accident would you
have agreed?

If George W. Bush had used a forged document as the basis of the moratorium
that would render 87000 American workers unemployed would you support him?

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompTer
installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have
laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is
really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura
Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by
90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics,
would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and
incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and
historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos
of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and
tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have
approved?

If George W.. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent
"Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people
who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have
approved?

If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States
, would you have said that he is clueless.

If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five
minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front
door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited,
egotistical jerk.

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de
Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco
de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have
winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered
him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce
he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single
tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over
millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing
widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what
happened on 9-11?

If George W.. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout
the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans ,
would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of
racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly
to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in
America , would you have approved.

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation,
even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have
approved?
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6)US Will Eventually be Forced to Make Drastic Cuts
By David Skarica

As far as the eye can see, there are $1 trillion deficits. I have been predicting this for a while.

Right now, there just isn’t the political will in the United States to get real government and deficit reform done.

If you really want to balance the budget, it will take guts and determination. You will have to increase retirement ages and cut the sacred cows of Medicare and Social Security. However, most polls show that Americans don’t want these entitlements cut.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don’t see serious cuts to the budget, even by the Republicans, until the “bond vigilantes” are out in full force and interest rates spike.

The recent tax-cut deal was an abuse of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world. No other country in the world is increasing spending and cutting taxes at the same time.

At some time, there will have to be drastic changes to the budget: slashes in military spending, cuts in entitlements and the introduction of some sort of value-added tax.

However, at the moment, I don’t see any sign of these things occurring.
Many nations are already beginning to talk about getting away from the dollar.

China is doing the talking with their money by investing in mining projects in Africa, offshore drilling in Brazil and resorts in the Bahamas rather than buy U.S. Treasurys.

Many European countries are also angry that they must cut back while the U.S. continues its reckless spending ways.

At some point, this will end with the vigilantes rearing their ugly head, causing interest rates to spike and forcing the government officials to cut as the U.S. will become insolvent if they don’t.

About the Author: David Skarica is a member of the Moneynews Financial Brain Trust.
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7)Ryan's Charge Up Entitlement Hill
The GOP's fiscal leader explains why House Republicans will vote to reform Medicare and why the public is ready to listen.
By PAUL A. GIGOT

Paul Ryan doesn't look like the menacing sort. He's amiable in a familiar Midwestern way, his disposition varies between cheerfully earnest and wry, and he uses words like "gosh." Yet to hear Democrats tell it, the 41-year-old Republican congressman is the evil genius, the cruel and mad budget cutter who threatens grandma's health care, grandad's retirement, and the entitlement state as we know it.

Senate Democrats like Chuck Schumer issue almost daily press releases attacking Mr. Ryan, Paul Krugman is obsessed and demeaning, and even President Obama can't stop mentioning him. Only this week, the president justified his own failure to tackle entitlements in his dud of a 2012 budget by saying that "the chairman of the House Republican budgeteers didn't sign on" to the final report of Mr. Obama's deficit commission.

What are they all so afraid of?

"Did he really say that?" asks Mr. Ryan about the president, sitting in his House office this week after another day of the hearings he now runs as chairman of the House Budget Committee. "I'm actually flattered." Perhaps they're worried, he says, "because we put out more than just bromides and platitudes. We put out specifics."

He certainly has done that, most famously with his "Road Map" that is the full monty of conservative tax and entitlement reform. Mr. Ryan knows it won't pass, not even in the current GOP House, but he drew it up in 2009 to start a debate and show that a future of limited government was still possible. He adds that he opposed the Obama deficit commission report because it failed to do anything serious about health-care entitlements, and he proposed an alternative that the commission rejected. Mr. Obama has never proposed his alternative.

Has the president ever called him to talk? "Never once," he says, notwithstanding Mr. Obama's many public statements that he wants "aggressive" conversations with Republicans, especially Mr. Ryan. "He keeps saying that," says the Wisconsin native, but "they don't talk to us. It just doesn't really happen. I don't know what else to say."

So goes the reality of today's Washington, especially after Mr. Obama dropped his budget this week that does almost nothing about everything. To call it a punt is unfair to the game of football. That abdication makes Mr. Ryan, by dint of his expertise and his influence with other Republicans, the most important fiscal voice in Washington. As supply-siders used to say—and Mr. Ryan came of political age as a protege of Jack Kemp—Mr. Ryan is now the man on the margin. He says he's determined not to waste the opportunity, notwithstanding the huge political risks.

What's the White House political calculation behind its budget? "The fiscal strategy is to hang on to all the government we've grown, and hopefully rhetoric will get us through the moment. It strikes me as a posture or position to keep the gains of the last two years in place—the bump up in discretionary spending, the creation of these new entitlements—to lock in their gains, bank their wins, and then hang on through the rest of this year. And they believe they have the flourishing rhetorical skills to navigate the politics in the meantime," Mr. Ryan says.

He adds he was hoping for more, counting on at least some leadership on Social Security, but "we've seen triangulation in rhetoric, not in substance."

Would he prefer if the president sat down to talk seriously about Social Security, Medicare or tax reform? "Oh, gosh, yes," he says. "I think that would be great. It would be good for the country." He resists details about how far he'd be willing to compromise with Mr. Obama—save to rule out a payroll tax increase—but he says he's more than ready to talk details.

Paradoxically, however, he says the president's budget has helped Republicans. By failing to lead with such a loud thud, Mr. Obama has helped the cause of reformers within the House GOP. Some in the leadership had been wary of taking on entitlement reform—that's Medicaid, Medicare and perhaps Social Security—but this week tipped them over the edge.

"We have a lot of fiscal conservatives here. We have a determined caucus. . . . That is very helpful. We have a fiscal reality that is obvious and we have a president who is failing to lead. We feel duty bound to lead ourselves," he says.

Along with conference chairman Kevin McCarthy, Mr. Ryan has been doing an internal road show for all 87 House freshmen and many senior members on the looming debt and entitlement crackup, three sessions a week, six or eight members at a time, 10 minutes of PowerPoint, 50 minutes of questions and "listening."

He rolls out a chart comparing the debt trajectory under Mr. Obama's fiscal 2010 budget (a line shooting almost straight up) and the GOP alternative he offered last year (a relatively flat line sending it back down from its Obama peaks). "That's the chart that always gets them," he says. Reforming Medicaid alone won't get the deficit and debt on a downward path, he says. You have to tackle Medicare too.

"The freshmen have been the best thing going for us," he adds. They pushed for more cuts in what's left of the fiscal 2011 budget, "and that was fine with me." He says these new members are fiscally better overall than the class of 1994, a lot of whom "went native."

Being freshmen, however, they also haven't experienced the full fury of the entitlement state backlash—AARP's demagoguery, the Democratic attack ads, the media amplifying those attacks, and the fair-weather deficit hawks (including ostensibly conservative columnists) who will run for cover and blame Mr. Ryan for trying the minute the polls turn. Could Republicans be walking into a political trap?

"That's what everybody says, but I don't really spend much time thinking about it because I don't really care. . . . All the political people tell us this. Even the Democrats tell us this. That it's a trap, it's rope-a-dope. . . . It doesn't matter," he says.

"The way I look at things is if you want to be good at this kind of job, you have to be willing to lose it. Number two, the times require this. And number three, if you don't believe in your principles, and applying those principles, then what's the point?" He mentions limited government and economic freedom. "I believe these are the best solutions. I believe they will result in growth and opportunity for the country."

But why will this attempt at reforming entitlements be different politically than the marches into fixed bayonets of 1985, 1995 or 2005?

"Politically, I also believe it's going to be the right thing to do. People want conviction politicians. People want the problem solved. People turn on their TV, they see the European debt crisis. They see California, New York, Illinois. They understand there is a sovereign debt crisis popping all over the place," he says. "And to see a president duck and punt, and then try to use it as a political wedge against the opposing party to manipulate his re-election is not going to fly in this kind of climate."

I told you Mr. Ryan was an optimist. "Traditionally," entitlement demagoguery "would work," he concedes, but the times are different. "It didn't work in 2010. Ask the 87 freshmen who had this stuff thrown at them. And given the crisis we are in, and given that we are going to have a year and a half or two years of straight talking to the American people about how serious this is, and how we need to head it off at the pass, I like our chances."

The seven-term congressman can point to his own political success as a precedent. I first met him nearly 20 years ago when he worked for Mr. Kemp, and later for then-Kansas Congressman Sam Brownback. The lawyer's son returned home to Janesville, in southeastern Wisconsin, to run for a seat long held by the late Democrat and former Defense Secretary Les Aspin. It's the definition of a swing district, with closely divided party loyalties and one of the highest union populations in the country. John McCain lost the district with 47% of the vote in 2008 while Mr. Ryan was winning 64% despite his firmly conservative voting record.

Mr. Ryan knows House Republicans won't be able to get their most ambitious reforms through a Democratic Senate, much less past Mr. Obama's veto. But his goal is to honor the GOP's 2010 campaign promises while framing a 2012 choice for voters between two visions of the future.

One is the path Mr. Obama has set for the past two years. The other is a future of reformed entitlements, limited government, reduced debt—all in service to the goal of faster growth and more economic opportunity. Mr. Ryan figures the 2012 contest could turn into a "realignment election," in which voters declare which party's vision they prefer and give that party control of the entire government. The Republican thinks his party needs to offer such a choice because if Mr. Obama wins a second term, his health-care reform won't be repealed and will set the U.S. on Europe's path of excessive debt and shrunken destiny, perhaps irretrievably.

In reforming entitlements, one challenge for the GOP is making the case for growth, not merely budget austerity for its own sake. "We can't use the pitch fork and torch approach," he says. In 1995, Newt Gingrich famously said that traditional Medicare would "wither on the vine" under GOP reforms, and he seemed to welcome a debt-ceiling showdown. Democrats used both to portray the GOP as radical and turn public opinion against reform.

"It's important that we're the growth party, and cutting spending now is really not pain and root canal. Wait until we don't do that and what happens later. The question we have for ourselves in this country is, do we reform government, reform our entitlement programs, get these programs that were written in the 20th century to work in the 21st century, and have pro-growth policies to help our businesses that make us internationally competitive?" he explained recently, in another interview I did with Mr. Ryan hosted by the e21 website and the Manhattan Institute.

"That's growth. What austerity is, what pain is, is doing nothing, staying on the path we're on. And then having our own debt crisis and having our own European kind of fix where you're cutting everything and raising taxes." He calls this a future of "managing decline."

Mr. Ryan is also rare among Republicans in focusing on the dangers of reckless monetary policy. As early as 2003 and 2004, he was warning then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan about the dangers of negative real interest rates, not that anyone in the Bush Treasury paid attention.

This month, he asked current Fed chief Ben Bernanke tougher questions than he is used to getting about rising food and energy prices. Though advised in advance, Mr. Bernanke did not seem pleased. But Mr. Ryan is right to warn that growth can be undermined as easily by inflation and asset bubbles as by high taxes and overbearing regulation. Exhibit A is the credit mania and panic that undid the Bush administration and paved the way for President Obama and the destructive 111th Congress.

All of which invites a question: If the stakes for the country are so large, and the 2012 election is so critical, why doesn't Mr. Ryan run for president himself? Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol has nudged Mr. Ryan to run, and emails arrive often in my inbox suggesting that Mr. Ryan do so.

"My head's just not there," he says. "I want to be at home for the weekend" with his wife, two sons and daughter, ages six, seven and nine. (He sleeps in his office when he's in Washington during the week.) "If I could do it from Janesville," he quips. Later, after I press, he adds, "You've got to really, really want to be president, and you've got to have the belief that no one else could do it. . . . I think there are other people who could do that."

Such personal groundedness is admirable (and rare) in a politician, but about his last point, I am not so sure. The current GOP front-runners either don't share Mr. Ryan's convictions (Mitt Romney, Mr. Gingrich) or haven't yet shown they can combine fiscal reform with a pro-growth, optimistic message (Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels).

Perhaps one of those or others will adopt the Ryan message, the way Ronald Reagan so fortuitously absorbed Jack Kemp's in 1980. But don't be surprised, as the 2011 budget fight unfolds and the presidential campaign heats up, if more Republicans begin to ask why they shouldn't get the chance to vote for the Janesville original.

Mr. Gigot is the Journal's editorial page editor.
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8) Hoisted by Own Petard on Israeli-Palestinian Front
By Leo Rennert

From the start of his administration, President Obama demonstrated his animus against a Likud-led government by pouncing on Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and on new housing for Jews in East Jerusalem. He abdicated the U.S. role as an honest broker, tilting the scales against the Jewish state. It was bound to backfire.


And backfire it did -- big-time -- as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected personal Obama pleas not to push for a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction and demanding a building freeze for Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Obama vainly begged Abbas to support instead a watered-down "statement" rejecting the legitimacy of settlements. Abbas, however, wouldn't play.


So the die was cast, the issue went to the Security Council, with 14 of its 15 members voting in favor of an outright, one-sided anti-Israel resolution. That left Obama with no choice but to cast a veto, having declared beforehand that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be ended only by direct bilateral negotiations between the parties -- not with anti-Israel maneuvers at the UN in New York.


For his part, Obama was left with the worst of all possible outcomes -- having antagonized both sides and left the peace process in more tatters than ever before. The Palestinians are naturally furious about the U.S. veto. Jewish leaders, along with some members of Congress of both parties, are aiming a barrage of criticism at the White House for its 11th-hour push of a "compromise" that still would have left an anti-Israel imprimatur sealed by the UN.


Obama, it turned out, came to office praising the peace process -- and ended up burying it.


Having made opposition to "settlements" his transcendent diplomatic agenda item, Obama gave Abbas an opening to be at least as intransigent on this issue as the American president. And Abbas played it for all it was worth. His basic strategy was to drive a wedge between Israel and the U.S. -- a wedge made possible by Obama's obsession about settlements.


Except that both Obama and Abbas ended up badly miscalculating Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's refusal to buckle to Obama pressure. Netanyahu instead pushed for earliest possible direct negotiations where settlements would be taken up along with all other outstanding issues -- not as a separate sweetener to get the Palestinians to the table in the first place.


That left the peace process in a deep freeze -- with Israel insisting on negotiations to address all issues and Abbas insisting there will be no negotiations until and unless Israel succumbs to Obama's demands on settlements.


From there, it was but a small step for Abbas to turn his back on negotiations altogether and to launch a global diplomatic/political campaign against Israel -- hammering on "settlements" for starters. The culmination of this campaign took place in New York on Feb. 18 at the UN Security Council, as Abbas emboldened by Obama demanded and got a vote on a fierce resolution condemning Israel.


Having practically gotten on his knees to Abbas with his plea to avoid such a showdown and settle for a watered-down compromise, Obama now is left with a major wreckage of his Mideast diplomacy.


What, after all, is left of George Mitchell's portfolio as U.S. Mideast envoy in charge of mediating peace talks, which now are more elusive than ever.


Obama's hubris was bound to unravel the peace process and come back to haunt him -- and it did.


8a)President Obama must take the blame for the UN resolution condemning Israel that he had to veto.


President Obama did the right thing in cleaning up a foreign policy mess of his own making.

Obama did the right thing Friday in ordering a U.S. veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution that sought to condemn Israel for "illegal" West Bank settlements and demanding a halt to further construction.

The veto put America at odds not only with most of the world, but also with Obama's own terribly misguided position on the settlements.

The President said he was dead set against them, the Palestinians took full advantage and, presto, the Security Council followed the U.S.' lead to make Israel the bad guy in the drama.

In other words, Obama created the monster and was left to cope with destruction of his own making at a time when the Mideast has descended into turmoil.

First he alienated Israel and now, at a crucial turn of history, he has alienated the Arab world.

All in a very bad day's work.

Obama began the botch in 2009, when, out of nowhere, he called for a settlement freeze - effectively making that a precondition for peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

This was something no Palestinian partner had ever asked for or expected. It also vested a third-level consideration with more importance than, say, Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist. And it displayed a naive belief that Palestinians would negotiate in productive good faith if only Israel would make this one gesture.

With the American President suddenly prioritizing it, the demand morphed into the perfect excuse for the Palestinians to stall - telling people to "look over there" while rejectionists continued their frontal assault on Israel's legitimacy.

Obama further degraded matters by repeatedly using some of the same "settlement" terminology to describe neighborhoods that are home to tens of thousands of Jews in East Jerusalem.

These are not settlements in any shape or form.

And so the Palestinians adopted a strategy of painting Israel as a party so intransigent and anti-peace as to be willing to resist the requests of the Jewish state's close ally America.

With anti-Israel sentiment running high around the globe, it worked.

The Security Council took up a Palestinian-backed resolution that had more than 100 cosponsors. Desperately, Obama tried to persuade the council to issue a "statement" rather than a "resolution," as if the damage would have been less, as if any good would come of it.

This is not a split-the-difference, muddy-the-waters kind of thing. There is right and there is wrong - and the President, unfortunately, was wrong.

Not that he is willing to admit it. In explaining the veto, Ambassador Susan Rice said the U.S. agrees with the other 14 members of the council "about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity."

She said she cast a veto only because "it is unwise" for the UN panel to try to resolve Israeli-Palestinians relations by fiat.

Would that this could become a humbling lesson for Obama. His grand attempt to forge a Mideast peace is in shambles. Yes, talks break down, but this is worse. The parties are further apart than when he started, thanks largely to his settlements demand.

Meanwhile, with Egypt struggling toward a new government and people across the region rising up in revolt against despotic regimes, America should be courting the forces of change with great care, not infuriating them.
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9)Why Bahrain matters
By Paul Richter and David S. Cloud

A tiny monarchy in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain does not have the size or cultural importance of Egypt. But it's home to the Fifth Fleet headquarters. Chaos on the island could impact the Western world in a myriad of ways


A burst of deadly violence against demonstrators in Bahrain has left the Obama administration again confronting the awkward task of trying to stabilize an essential allied government besieged by growing opposition from its citizens.

A tiny monarchy in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain does not have the size or cultural importance of Egypt, whose president was forced out by demonstrators one week ago. Yet Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, and the fall of its government could scramble the strategic order in the Middle East, potentially weakening U.S. leverage and leaving Iran in a stronger position.

In an acknowledgement of the kingdom's crucial role, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other officials rushed to reach out Thursday to Bahraini officials, urging them to halt the violence and to quickly adopt political reforms that could satisfy the protesters.

Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, commanded by Vice Admiral Mark I. Fox, controls U.S. naval ships and aircraft operating in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Most months of the year, there are dozens of the U.S. naval vessels in the region.

The Fifth Fleet's broad mission is to protect the flow of oil and, in case of a military crisis with Iran, to keep open the Strait of Hormuz, the 29-mile choke point near the entrance to the Persian Gulf. More than 20 percent of the world's petroleum shipments travel through the strait.

"The importance of the Fifth Fleet's mission cannot be overstated," said Mark Kimmitt, former deputy director for operations for U.S. Central Command and a former senior State Department and Pentagon official. "They have the mission to keep the Persian Gulf open, defeat terrorism, prevent piracy and respond to crises, whether environmental, security or humanitarian.

"Few commands worldwide have as many daily challenges and responsibilities as the Fifth Fleet."

The administration carefully crafted its outreach to Bahrain's leadership, deploring the violence by security forces that killed at least five people, but stopping short of condemning the government. The U.S. appeared to be striving, as it did in the early stages of the Egyptian crisis, to leave the Bahraini government room to work out a solution.

Clinton, in a call to Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, voiced "deep concerns" about the security forces' violent crackdown on Thursday, and warned against more violence on Friday, when there would be "funerals and prayers."

But the U.S. message to Bahrain differed from how it approached Egypt in a key way: While Cairo for decades had resisted reforms, Clinton praised Bahrain as a "friend and ally" that has taken some steps to reshape its government. She urged "a return to the process that will result in real, meaningful changes for the people there."

In a visit to Bahrain in December, Clinton praised King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and said she "was impressed by the commitment that the government has to the democratic path that Bahrain is walking on."

The U.S. knows its handling of Bahrain is under scrutiny by other Middle Eastern allies, who saw the Mubarak regime tumble in Egypt and questioned whether the United States would support them if they faced similar unrest.

Some analysts are predicting that Saudi Arabia, worried that Iran could emerge with a new ally if Bahrain's Shia majority topples its Sunni monarchy, would send an armored column across the 16-mile causeway to Bahrain if it thought the government was teetering.

The Saudis "see this as their sphere of influence," said David Schenker, a former Pentagon official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

U.S. officials declined to offer details on their conversations with the Saudis about Bahrain.

A U.S. defense official said the protests were causing U.S. military officials to review backup plans in case the U.S. was asked to leave Bahrain. Pentagon officials said U.S. naval vessels also put in at several other ports in the Gulf, including Jebel Ali in Dubai.

But another senior military officer said, "We're not at that point right now. We have no indication that any of this is directed at Americans or American interests."
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