The Happiest of Mother and Grandmother Days!
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Congress and military appropriations. (See 1 below.)
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Is Iran on the verge of regime change? (See 2 below.)
Meanwhile, Iran and unassailable nuclear bomb evidence. (See 2a below.)
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Is Israel about to relive '67? Are there similarities? (See 3 below.)
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The Washington Post was once considered a serious newspaper. It has now become a sister to The New York Times - a muckraking fish wrapper or should I say 'rapper!'
Amazing how the 'august' press runs cover for Obama with stories that reach back forty years in order to help him avoid the embarrassment of the economic implosion his policies have created. Yet, this same press cannot dig up anything about Obama's own history.
Obama has become the untouchable stealth president operating through un-elected czars! (See 4 below.)
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I worked with Larry Edelson for many years. Whether he is right or not he is bright and, frankly, I too believe the dollar is going down and inflation is going up because that is the only way The Fed can finesse the debt we have incurred.
The question is by what method and when and Edelson provides his thoughts. (See 5 below.)
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Daniels reveals his thinking on how to whip Obama. (See 6 below.)
Over time most presidential campaigns deteriorate into mud slinging but this will be the worst ever because:
a) The media will do everything they can to help their messiah win so bias reporting and tactics will remain commonplace.
a) The media will do everything they can to help their messiah win so bias reporting and tactics will remain commonplace.
b) Obama's campaign is staffed with radicals and revolutionaries who will stop at nothing to win. Nothing is beneath them and they will stoop as low as it takes to smear, threaten and employ guerrilla tactics and strategies. Kim Strassel's recent op ed articles have scratched the surface.
c) Obama is on a mission, along with his cronies, not just to win and retain power but to use this power to transform this nation into something that suits their radical view of what we should become - a nation whose ability to project power has been sheared, a nation whose constitutional laws are disregarded and we become subject to international laws. A nation whose borders remain porous so more voting constituencies can be created favorable to their cause, a nation whose people will eventually become totally subsumed by government agencies and government by whim. Finally a nation so burdened by debt any vestige of capitalistic initiative and creativity will have become sapped from our sinews in order to pacify various constituencies who have single issue concerns, ie gays, greens and an assortment of racially motivated march on goons!
Nothing I have said is predictive actually because it is already happening. After four more years of Obama rule and domination what we are experiencing will become so ingrained, so instituted there will be no turning back because even nations can reach a point of no return.
d) The Obama crowd has values that are foreign to our nation because their culture was forged by foreign philosophy. They do not think in terms of public trust only in terms of their own narrow self(ish) interests. They are not motivated by patriotism only by what will accomplish their mission and goal of domination.
Big government is capable of controlling and then destroying whatever it touches. That is the lesson of history and the more dependent the subjects the more ignorant and the more likely history will be allowed to repeat.
Dumb them down and they will succumb.
Vote Obama in again at your peril.(See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1)Will Congress Defend the Military?
It’s one thing to talk a good game about cutting spending, but it’s quite another thing to actually do something about it. This week, the House of Representatives has an opportunity to finally set some limits on Washington’s spending spree while also ensuring that the U.S. military has the resources it needs to defend America. Here’s the lay of the land this week in the nation’s capital.
On Thursday, the House is set to take up a spending reduction plan known inside the beltway as “reconciliation.” Under the measure, Congress would tackle two looming problems hanging over Washington’s head: the soaring cost of entitlement spending and the arbitrary defense cuts mandated by the so-called Budget Control Act (BCA) that was enacted last year.
Those issues are nothing to gloss over, even though some in Washington would like to pretend they’re not a problem. Since 1965, spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has more than tripled as a share of the economy, is continuing to grow at a rapid rate, hitting 9.7 percent of GDP this year, and will nearly double by 2050. Meanwhile, spending on defense has dropped over time, even when you add in the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As you can see in Heritage’s Federal Budget in Pictures, that means that spending on entitlement programs is crowding out spending on defense — a core constitutional function of government.
The U.S. military is about to get slashed and burned even further under automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration,” which is mandated under last year’s Budget Control Act. Under sequestration, future defense spending will be cut across the board by nearly $500 billion beginning next year. Add in the $487 billion in cuts already put forward by the President in February (as projected by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta), America’s military will see its budget drop on average by $100 billion annually over the next decade.
Panetta warned that those cuts will be “devastating,” leaving America with “[t]he smallest ground forces since 1940,” “a fleet of fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915,” and “[t]he smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force.” General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly told Congress that the mandated reductions create “very high risk” to national security.
Some in Congress would like to rely on defense cuts in order to balance the budget while keeping spending on entitlement programs intact. But that just won’t work. Even if defense spending were completely eliminated, entitlements would continue to drive deficits to unmanageable levels. That’s why Congress must take action to get that spending under control.
Heritage’s Patrick Louis Knudsen writes that though the budget reconciliation falls short in some areas — namely, it suspends only one year of the sequestration, meaning Congress would have to address the issue again in 2013 — he says it is a key part of implementing the budget passed by the House in March. The benefit, Knudsen explains, is that it is “the only fully developed plan for addressing the near-term problem of sequestration and the longer-term issue of runaway entitlement spending.”
Under the reconciliation plan, national security capabilities would be protected and the sequestration’s deep defense cuts would be reversed. As for entitlement spending, the plan introduces important reforms to the food stamp program, which has grown dramatically under President Obama, with spending shooting from $39 billion in 2008 to $80 billion in 2012. Knudsen explains that the reconciliation planeliminates categorical eligibility — the policy of granting cash welfare assistance regardless of one’s income or assets. In addition, the plan finds savings by reforming the National Flood Insurance Program and ending the Obama Administration’s ineffective housing bailout, the Housing Affordable Modification Program, among other measures.
Knudsen writes that “The longer Congress delays, the more likely are steep, sudden benefit cuts, sharply higher taxes, deeper deficits and debt — or all of the above.” Washington can’t keep putting off its fundamental duty to enact a budget and get spending under control, and it shouldn’t try to solve the nation’s fiscal crisis by gutting America’s national security.
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2)Regime Change in Iran?
by Brendan Daly
Middle East Quarterly
Middle East Quarterly
There is every reason to believe that the Islamic Republic's days are numbered. The current government, lorded over by the religious supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, and his Guardian Council of aging mullahs, who can overrule any policy change by the pseudo-elected president, seem wildly out of touch with the general populace. Not only are the youth of Iran—some 70 percent of whom are under the age of thirty—chaffing under the "guardianship of the Islamic jurists" (velayet-e-faqih)—but so is the economy, due to sanctions imposed by the West in response to the regime's insistence on pursuing its nuclear program.[1]Inflation has long been out of control and trade and tourism a tiny fraction of what it could be, and yet the establishment has on the whole shown little interest in sacrificing militant, revolutionary principles for economic, and indeed, political expediency. Can this approach be sustained in view of the tightening economic noose around Tehran, and at what cost?
Background
Tensions between the mullahs and the West are ratcheting up. The downing of a U.S. spy drone was both a feather in the cap for the ayatollahs and a warning that Washington and its allies may soon seek to exert even greater pressure on the Islamic Republic.
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Any visitor who spends significant time in the country will find ample justification for the Iranians' reputation for open-mindedness, artistry, intellectualism, and an almost fanatical reverence for culture. The most popular poet in Iran is Hafez, a national hero who is more readily quoted by most Iranians than the Qur'an. His poetry is full of wine-soaked revelry, unrequited and requited love, and a palpable hatred of religious hypocrisy and austerity.
Indeed, even after decades of repressive Islamist rule, Iran is still full of apparent contradictions. It is run by a highly moralistic, puritanical clergy, yet cannabis and heroin are more freely available than in most Western countries;[4] a country where producing music with a lone female voice is illegal, yet relatively early-term abortion is not;[5] where most people are constantly on guard against expressing true political opinions, yet one will find an old woman who will loudly shout "Long live the shah!"; where nepotism reigns at almost every level of society and wealth and power go hand in hand, yet many of its most powerful political figures were three decades ago "riding donkeys in the provinces" as one Tehran resident put it.[6]
Advocates of the Islamic Republic's imminent demise point to the small semi-nationalist, Zoroastrian revival burgeoning among the youth of Iran. The Faravahar, the symbol of the religion, is a common sight on key-rings and hanging from rearview mirrors. For some it simply represents Iran and its past glory. But for others, it is a real spiritual alternative to Islam. As Ali-Reza, a construction worker in his fifties from south Tehran told me: "My grandparents were Zoroastrian, but my parents were forced to convert. … We are still Zoroastrian in our hearts, but in Islam, if you change your religion, they kill you," he adds, followed by several expletives.
But one must be careful not to get carried away with this narrative. For every Zoroastrian revivalist, for every youth in north Tehran who spits at a passing bearded militiaman; for every exile who speaks in glowing terms of the shah; for every student in Shiraz who visits the bathroom with the words "I need to say hello to our President (Ahmadinejad)"— it is hard to escape the conclusion while travelling around the country that those who demand nothing less than the total abolition of the Islamic Republic are in a clear minority. Still, it is a minority that history and demographics would suggest is steadily growing.
Why No "Iranian Spring"?
With the ostensibly pro-democratic upheavals in the Arab world in 2011, many were asking why there were no equivalent mass protests in Iran. In fact, in the earliest days of the Arab uprisings, Tehran witnessed a series of sizeable demonstrations. Two protesters, Sane Jaleh and Mohammed Mokhtari, were killed on February 14-15, 2011. Amazingly, the state-run media tried to claim that they were in fact pro-government activists and that they were killed by either anti-regime terrorists or supporters of Green Movement leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi—a quite ludicrous notion that was conclusively refuted by interviews carried out with the men's friends and family.[7]
However, the bulk of the Iranian population did not back these February-April protests. Even among north Tehran's educated middle-class, the stronghold of the opposition movement, the prevailing feeling since the failed 2009 anti-government "Green Movement" demonstrations is one of cynicism and despair. Shokoufeh, 27, is an artist and veteran of antigovernment activity. When I asked her in March 2011 of her estimated time-frame for the collapse of the regime, she said,
Twenty, thirty years. If we all protest now, and don't give up, they will kill thousands of us. They don't care. They have all the power, all the guns, and they consider us traitors. They will kill as many of us as they want; they will win easily.
There is a hard-line element of the Iranian population, estimated at anywhere between 10 to 25 percent, that is willing to die and kill for the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, this militant minority has a monopoly on political and military power. The genius of the Islamic Republic is that for every state and civic institution—parliament, judiciary, military—there is a parallel, unaccountable religious body to either mirror it or police it. The on-the-ground authority of the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij militia exceeds that of the official Iranian military and police respectively.[8]
In short, the regime is strong and dynamic. Its byzantine political structure provides fundamental veto powers to any attempt at systemic, democratic change from within, and its sophisticated security and military apparatus dwarfs anything that could conceivably be mustered by the opposition. And there is no indication that the supreme leader and his circle of ayatollahs have any intention of "giving up one iota"[9] of control over the reins of power. Indeed, just the opposite is true.
Ahmadinejad Down, Ayatollahs Rising
In 2009, Ayatollah Khamene'i took the unprecedented step of publicly backing incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory against the reformist opposition and its claims of electoral fraud, declaring the victory a "divine assessment."[10] Several days later, as protests continued to escalate, the supreme leader appeared to backtrack somewhat, announcing that he had ordered the Guardian Council to investigate the claims of fraud—who, of course, denied the claims.[11]
Virtually all serious commentators have alleged some degree of fraud in the elections. The accusations came not only from every opposition candidate but from numerous nongovernment clerics and from foreign journalists.[12] Some results, such as Mousavi's loss in his own home province of East Azerbaijan, were too hard for many to swallow.[13] But to what extent Ahmadinejad's victory reflected, or failed to reflect, the majority's genuine preference has been hotly debated. Polls conducted by Western organizations both before and after the June 2009 elections, showed anywhere between a 12 percent to 39 percent[14] margin in favor of Ahmadinejad. However, such polls are themselves subject to a myriad of weaknesses, not least self-censorship.
Still, the Guardian Council's alliance with the president turned out to be ephemeral. Ahmadinejad and his circle have never been true orthodox conservatives. Instead, he is a part of a "religious nationalist" current within the broader conservative milieu. Ayatollah Khomeini was famous for his anti-nationalism: "Those who say that we want nationality, they are standing against Islam... We have no use for the nationalists. … Islam is against nationality."[15] In a Machiavellian twist, the president is now being derided as a "deviant" by the conservative establishment, accusing him and his inner circle of having messianic aspirations[16] and of trying to usurp the supreme leader and the velayet-e-faqih.
Ahmadinejad's closest friend and confidant Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whose daughter is married to the president's son, is particularly loathed by the orthodox conservatives and has even been jeered at by hardliners in the streets. It was the general opinion, both within and outside Iran, that Ahmadinejad was grooming Mashaei to be his successor (the presidency has a two-term limit).[17] This now seems impossible. When Ahmadinejad caused outrage by appointing Mashaei as first vice president (one of twelve VPs), Khamene'i quickly ordered Mashaei to resign from the cabinet, forcing Ahmadinejad to appoint him his chief of staff instead.[18] After being relentlessly slandered in the conservative state-run press, Mashaei has now been implicated in the largest corruption scandal in the republic's history—as have several of Ahmadinejad's other close associates.[19]
The antipathy does not end there. On November 21, 2011, Ahmadinejad's top media advisor and chief of the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Ali Akbar Javanfekr, was arrested and handcuffed by security services in his own office. Reportedly, only a personal telephone call from the president secured Javanfekr's release.[20]
In the ultimate affront to what semblance of democracy the country has, in mid-October, the supreme leader casually remarked that the position of a popularly-elected president may be abolished "someday in the distant future" and replaced with a prime minister appointed by the parliament.[21]
These events mark a high point in Khamene'i's involvement in politics from which he is traditionally supposed to be aloof. With Mousavi under indefinite house arrest,[22] and Ahmadinejad's faction despised if not decisively discredited in the eyes of the Guardian Council, it is hard to imagine what kind of reformist candidate might be allowed to run—let alone succeed—in the upcoming 2013 presidential elections.
Regime Change and the Pitfalls of Intervention
It has been a busy few months in Washington-Tehran diplomacy. First there was the FBI's revelation of a plot by Iranian nationals to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States (and possibly bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies),[23] followed by a damning International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report[24] and Washington's promise of increased sanctions,[25] then by the downing of a U.S. spy drone,[26] and now, according to some reports, by placing the Revolutionary Guards "on a war footing" in anticipation of further escalation.[27]
Keeping all these recent developments in mind, it is easy to understand why the rhetoric in favor of regime change and confrontation has escalated in the United States. At a recent Republican Party presidential debate, Newt Gingrich argued that not only was regime change in Iran possible but that it could be accomplished within a year.[28] Indeed, some of the Republican presidential candidates seem to have been trying to outdo each other in their willingness to use the "military option" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
The problem with this kind of posturing, and any possible campaigns of solidarity with the opposition, is the strengthening of the regime's already dominant "siege-mentality"—thereby forfeiting more credibility, in a domestic political sense, to the hard-line conservatives. The success of the elites running the Islamic Republic depends heavily on their ability to assume the moral high-ground for their domestic audience—regardless of how twisted their moral compass might seem to outside observers. Events like the seizure of the U.S. drone or presidential candidates hinting at invasion are huge propaganda coups for the regime.
In the words of the pro-Western, antigovernment Parisa, a 28-year-old teacher from Shiraz: "I hate the government, but I hate more that [John] McCain would come over here and attack our country... Also, it would be a disaster. It would make Iraq look like nothing."
The Waiting Game
Some argue that sanctions have the same effect of rallying the Iranian people behind the regime, but conversations with Iranians have not borne this out. Whether an Iranian is likely to place the blame for the sanctions on Ahmadinejad's hostile statements or U.S. and European hawkishness tends to depend on their preexisting political views. It is true that sanctions cannot do much to hinder the activities of the likes of the Qods Force, the external Iranian intelligence agency, or the "millionaire mullahs,"[29] but their loosening or tightening can be an invaluable pressure card against the regime.
For all the ayatollahs' political maneuverings, there is no doubt about the regime's "protracted crisis of legitimacy"[30] since the 1990s. So much so that, in sharp contrast to the Islamist surge elsewhere, Iran may be the world's only sizeable Muslim-majority nation where Islamism is on the decline. Whether this makes the regime's collapse both inevitable and unpredictable, as suggested by Carnegie Endowment scholar Karim Sadjadpour, remains to be seen.[31] For now, all eyes are on the 2013 elections
Brendan Daly is a journalist with extensive experience in the Middle East and conflict and post-conflict zones.
[1] BBC News, Nov. 8, 2011.
[2] Melik Kaylan, "How a Regime Change in Iran Would Transform the World," Forbes, July 24, 2010.
[3] Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2008), chap. 6.
[4] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 18, 2005.
[5] BBC News, Apr. 12, 2005.
[6] Author interview, Mar. 2011.
[7] The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 17, 2011; Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, Tehran Bureau, Feb. 16, 2011.
[8] Harold Rhode, "How Iran's Rulers Think about the Nuclear Program," Hudson New York, Dec. 15, 2011.
[9] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, Oct. 9, 2011.
[10] Time Magazine, June 15, 2009.
[11] Press TV (Tehran), June 29, 2009.
[12] See, for example, Agence France-Presse, July 7, 2009; Reuters, June 13, 2009.
[13] Ynet News (Tel Aviv), June 13, 2009.
[14] "Iran: Public Opinion on Foreign, Nuclear and Domestic Issues," International Peace Institute, New York, Dec. 8, 2010; "Iranian Opinion on Current Issues," WorldPublicOpinion.org, Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2009.
[15] Mehregan Magazine (Washington, D.C.), Spring and Summer 2003, p. 16.
[16] Mohebat Ahdiyyih, "Ahmadinejad and the Mahdi," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2008, pp. 27-36.
[17] The Guardian (London), Apr. 21, 2011.
[18] Reza Molavi and K. Luisa Gandolfo, "Who Rules Iran?" Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2010, pp. 61-8.
[19] Newsweek, Nov. 21, 2011.
[20] The New York Times, Nov. 22, 2011.
[21] insideIRAN (New York), Nov. 1, 2011.
[22] Amnesty International, London, Sept. 29, 2011.
[23] ABC News, Oct. 11, 2011; al-Jazeera TV (Doha), Nov. 19, 2011.
[24] Voice of America News, Nov. 10, 2011.
[25] BBC News, Dec. 1, 2011.
[26] The Scotsman (Edinburgh), Dec. 14, 2011.
[27] The Daily Telegraph (London), Dec. 5, 2011.
[28] The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 24, 2011.
[29] Paul Klebnikov, "Millionaire Mullahs," Forbes, July 21, 2003.
[30] Danny Postel, "The Specter Haunting Iran," Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, Tehran, Feb. 21, 2010.
[31] Paul R. Pillar, "Inevitable and Unpredictable Regime Change in Iran," The National Interest, May 14, 2011.
[2] Melik Kaylan, "How a Regime Change in Iran Would Transform the World," Forbes, July 24, 2010.
[3] Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2008), chap. 6.
[4] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 18, 2005.
[5] BBC News, Apr. 12, 2005.
[6] Author interview, Mar. 2011.
[7] The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 17, 2011; Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, Tehran Bureau, Feb. 16, 2011.
[8] Harold Rhode, "How Iran's Rulers Think about the Nuclear Program," Hudson New York, Dec. 15, 2011.
[9] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, Oct. 9, 2011.
[10] Time Magazine, June 15, 2009.
[11] Press TV (Tehran), June 29, 2009.
[12] See, for example, Agence France-Presse, July 7, 2009; Reuters, June 13, 2009.
[13] Ynet News (Tel Aviv), June 13, 2009.
[14] "Iran: Public Opinion on Foreign, Nuclear and Domestic Issues," International Peace Institute, New York, Dec. 8, 2010; "Iranian Opinion on Current Issues," WorldPublicOpinion.org, Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2009.
[15] Mehregan Magazine (Washington, D.C.), Spring and Summer 2003, p. 16.
[16] Mohebat Ahdiyyih, "Ahmadinejad and the Mahdi," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2008, pp. 27-36.
[17] The Guardian (London), Apr. 21, 2011.
[18] Reza Molavi and K. Luisa Gandolfo, "Who Rules Iran?" Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2010, pp. 61-8.
[19] Newsweek, Nov. 21, 2011.
[20] The New York Times, Nov. 22, 2011.
[21] insideIRAN (New York), Nov. 1, 2011.
[22] Amnesty International, London, Sept. 29, 2011.
[23] ABC News, Oct. 11, 2011; al-Jazeera TV (Doha), Nov. 19, 2011.
[24] Voice of America News, Nov. 10, 2011.
[25] BBC News, Dec. 1, 2011.
[26] The Scotsman (Edinburgh), Dec. 14, 2011.
[27] The Daily Telegraph (London), Dec. 5, 2011.
[28] The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 24, 2011.
[29] Paul Klebnikov, "Millionaire Mullahs," Forbes, July 21, 2003.
[30] Danny Postel, "The Specter Haunting Iran," Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, Tehran, Feb. 21, 2010.
[31] Paul R. Pillar, "Inevitable and Unpredictable Regime Change in Iran," The National Interest, May 14, 2011.
2a)The most important report on nuclear Iran you are likely to read
An in-depth reading of the last several IAEA reports have led Anthony Cordesma to conclude that anyone who believes Iran is not yet pursuing a nuclear-weapons program is committing an act of willful delusion.
I hesitate to recommend Rethinking Our Approach to Iran's Search for the Bomb by the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Anthony Cordesman as weekend reading, since its conclusions are just too sobering. On the other hand, the comprehensive report is rather heavy-going, and may be hard to find sufficient time to do it justice during the working-week. It is compulsory reading for anyone with an interest in strategic issues, and does a fantastic job of summing up all the most up-to-date and unclassified information available on Iran's nuclear program, with the added bonus of Cordesman's invaluable insight.
The veteran national-security expert has done much of the work for us by wading through hundreds of pages of the full versions of the last two International Atomic Energy Agency reports on Iran and other relevant documents, rendering them into something approximating laymen's terms. As he notes at the beginning of study, very few of those commentating on these affairs have actually read the entire documents, probably even less have the necessary qualifications to actually understand them. Any serious readers of this blog would do very well to make the time and read Cordesman, unless you have access to classified material, as this is the most important report on Iran you will read until something really big and new comes out. I certainly hope the Western negotiators who are about to meet their Iranian counterparts for the second round of the P5+1 talks in Baghdad, ten days from now, will have read it by the time they land in Iraq. It is probably much better than anything they will get in their briefing papers.
- Anyone who believes that Iran is not yet actively pursuing a nuclear-weapons program and merely developing the capabilities is committing an act of willful delusion. The intelligence supplied to the IAEA and verified by different "member countries," is clear on that Iran has been working on a wide range of projects for over a decade, all of which are specifically aimed at acquiring the capabilities necessary not only to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, but to assemble a nuclear advice that can be launched by long-range missile. Talk of a fatwa against nuclear weapons is just that: talk.Here is a short summary of the document. I hope I do it justice:
- Despite sanctions and international monitoring, Iran has received highly specialized instruments and equipment, benefited from the knowledge of foreign nuclear weapons designers and made impressive advance in its own scientific centers, so as to be able to carry out most of the necessary testing for a nuclear device, without actually creating a nuclear detonation. There has also been preparation for an actual nuclear test.
- The P5+1 talks will be useless if they continue to focus only on an Iranian commitment to curtail uranium enrichment for two main reasons. First, Iran is simultaneously advancing on multiple fronts of nuclear development and can continue even if it delays enrichment. Second, advances in centrifuge technology by Iran mean that it could well be capable of building a new network of smaller, easily dispersed enrichment installations unknown and unmonitored by the IAEA.
- A military strike on Iran, whether by the U.S, Israel or anyone else, may take out some of the key installations but the technological advances already achieved by Iran, mean that the damage will be limited and not prevent the continuation of the nuclear program. Only a willingness by whatever country attacks Iran to carry out a series of follow-on attacks can seriously endanger the nuclear weapons project.
- Iran will be extremely reluctant to abandon its nuclear program as it is a key element to the regime's entire regional strategy. In order to offset Iran's inferiority in conventional weapons when compared to other regional powers, it sees the nuclear option as its only way of fully countering that imbalance of force. Any future dealings with Iran or military strikes must take that into consideration.
Another researcher may have reached the conclusion that Iran has already achieved so much so as to render the situation irreversible. But Cordesman does not say that the West has totally failed in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. According to him, it must entirely rethink both its diplomatic approach and its military strategy in order to do so.
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3)Echoes of '67: Israel unites
By Charles Krauthammer
In May 1967, in brazen violation of previous truce agreements, Egypt ordered U.N. peacekeepers out of the Sinai, marched 120,000 troops to the Israeli border, blockaded the Straits of Tiran (Israel’s southern outlet to the world’s oceans), abruptly signed a military pact with Jordan and, together with Syria, pledged war for the final destruction of Israel.
May ’67 was Israel’s most fearful, desperate month. The country was surrounded and alone. Previous great-power guarantees proved worthless. A plan to test the blockade with a Western flotilla failed for lack of participants. Time was running out. Forced into mass mobilization in order to protect against invasion — and with a military consisting overwhelmingly of civilian reservists — life ground to a halt. The country was dying.
On June 5, Israel launched a preemptive strike on the Egyptian air force, then proceeded to lightning victories on three fronts. The Six-Day War is legend, but less remembered is that, four days earlier, the nationalist opposition (Menachem Begin’s Likud precursor) was for the first time ever brought into the government, creating an emergency national-unity coalition.
Everyone understood why. You do not undertake a supremely risky preemptive war without the full participation of a broad coalition representing a national consensus.
Forty-five years later, in the middle of the night of May 7-8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national unity government. Shocking because just hours earlier, the Knesset was expediting a bill to call early elections in September.
Why did the high-flying Netanyahu call off elections he was sure to win?
Because for Israelis today, it is May ’67. The dread is not quite as acute: The mood is not despair, just foreboding. Time is running out, but not quite as fast. War is not four days away, but it looms. Israelis today face the greatest threat to their existence — nuclear weapons in the hands of apocalyptic mullahs publicly pledged to Israel’s annihilation — since May ’67. The world is again telling Israelis to do nothing as it looks for a way out. But if such a way is not found — as in ’67 — Israelis know that they will once again have to defend themselves, by themselves.
Such a fateful decision demands a national consensus. By creating the largest coalition in nearly three decades, Netanyahu is establishing the political premise for a preemptive strike, should it come to that. The new government commands an astonishing 94 Knesset seats out of 120, described by one Israeli columnist as a “hundred tons of solid concrete.”
So much for the recent media hype about some great domestic resistance to Netanyahu’s hard line on Iran. Two notable retired intelligence figures were widely covered here for coming out against him. Little noted was that one had been passed over by Netanyahu to be the head of Mossad, while the other had been fired by Netanyahu as Mossad chief (hence the job opening). For centrist Kadima (it pulled Israel out of Gaza) to join a Likud-led coalition whose defense minister is a former Labor prime minister (who once offered half of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat) is the very definition of national unity — and refutes the popular “Israel is divided” meme. “Everyone is saying the same thing,” explained one Knesset member, “though there may be a difference of tone.”
To be sure, Netanyahu and Kadima’s Shaul Mofaz offered more prosaic reasons for their merger: to mandate national service for now exempt ultra- Orthodox youth, to change the election law to reduce the disproportionate influence of minor parties and to seek negotiations with the Palestinians. But Netanyahu, the first Likud prime minister to recognize Palestinian statehood, did not need Kadima for him to enter peace talks. For two years he’s been waiting for Mahmoud Abbas to show up at the table. Abbas hasn’t. And won’t. Nothing will change on that front.
What does change is Israel’s position vis-a-vis Iran. The wall-to-wall coalition demonstrates Israel’s political readiness to attack, if necessary. (Its military readiness is not in doubt.)
Those counseling Israeli submission, resignation or just endless patience can no longer dismiss Israel’s tough stance as the work of irredeemable right-wingers. Not with a government now representing 78 percent of the country.
Netanyahu forfeited September elections that would have given him four more years in power. He chose instead to form a national coalition that guarantees 18 months of stability — 18 months during which, if the world does not act (whether by diplomacy or otherwise) to stop Iran, Israel will.
And it will not be the work of one man, one party or one ideological faction. As in 1967, it will be the work of a nation.
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4)WASHINGTON POST ROMNEY HIT PIECE IMPLODES
By BEN SHAPIRO Today’s unconscionable Washington Post story, which implied without evidence that Mitt Romney was a homophobic bully to one John Lauber back in his high school days five decades ago, has totally imploded.
Timed to drop the day after President Obama’s announced embrace of same-sex marriage, the story set the political world atwitter. But earlier today, Breitbart News reported that the Post had inflated witness testimony. The original Washington Post piece stated the following:
“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and has long been bothered by the Lauber incident. [emphasis added]
Yet in an interview with ABC News today, White disowned that characterization:
While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.
White didn’t know about the incident until this year, but the Post reported that he had “long been bothered” by it. We demanded a correction.
So the Washington Post did what no reputable newspaper should ever do when caught falsifying testimony: it made a stealth correction to its own article. The article now reads:
“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and said he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago, before being contacted by The Washington Post. “But I was not the brunt of any of his pranks.” [emphasis added]
The Post did not note that it had made any correction to the article.
It was irresponsible of the Post to run the hit piece in the first place, especially given its obvious bias; to retract a critical phrase and replace it without noting the retraction is just as bad.
But it gets worse. Tonight, Christine Lauber, John Lauber’s sister, said that she didn’t know anything about the bullying incident. More importantly, she said that the story had factual inaccuracies. Betsy Lauber, another of John’s sisters, told ABC News, “The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. There will be no more comments from the family.” Said Christine, “If he were alive today, he would be furious [about the story].” Jason Horowitz, the reporter on the Post story, did speak to both sisters and quoted them in the story – but apparently still botched the facts.
The Post piece implies that the Romney incident was somehow the beginning of the end for Lauber:
Sometime in the mid-1990s, David Seed noticed a familiar face at the end of a bar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.
Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”
Lauber died in 2004, according to his three sisters.
But Lauber, at least according to his obituary in the South Bend Tribune, led an incredibly full life. He graduated from Vanderbilt, became a member of the British Horse Society, had his seaman papers, was a licensed mortician in three states and head chef at the Russian River Resort in California, and even served as a civilian contractor to the troops in Iraq. This does not sound like someone crippled by a supposedly crucial incident back in high school.
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