Well the Arab Spring seems to be unraveling right before our very eyes and Obama's 3AM telephone call was not answered until much later the next day.
Obama now can argue since we are at war with radical Islam it is unpatriotic to question him. Before the outbursts from our beloved Muslim friends one was only being racial to question Obama.
Thin resume leading to thick smoke and a lot of flag burning.
Let's face it our neophyte president is so brilliant he does not even need to attend briefings , ask questions interact etc. He is capable of just inhaling it just like cocaine.
I wonder what Obama's mommy - Valerie - is now telling him what he must do?
If Obama gets reelected, Will he blame his predecessor? (See 1,1a and 1b below.)
Well at least the Germans understand Obama. (Float in a German parade.) (See 2 below.)
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Obama has been challenged by Netanyahu to establish a red line as Kennedy did in the Cuba confrontation.
Obama is not even red faced over what is happening in the Arab World. (See below.)
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President Cringe according to Pipes! (See 4 below.)
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Now that Obama's policies are in shambles it is time for the press and media to start attacking Romney again for not having answers, for premature oral ejaculations, for being rich, for not being patriotic, for having a wife who buys expensive blouses, for not being in touch with the common man and for wanting to destroy the middle class blah blah blah.
Anything to keep the focus off our dunce of a leader. We have deservedly become the laughing stock of the entire world and it would be funny if it were a movie but this is getting serious folks!
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Dick
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1)The White House and Press Create a Fairy Tale Version of History
By Clarice Feldman
When I was a kid, a popular TV show (and earlier a radio one) was You Are There, the theme of which was bringing the viewer into re-enacted historic events to better learn about them.
Watching the Middle East doings this week with any degree of care, news consumers can see quite clearly how mendacious officials, media and our enemies have created a false storyline about the uprisings in Cairo and Libya which, among other things have resulted in the murder of an Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his aides, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods and the loss of very important security information in Libya . (See this link is to the UK's Daily Mail because the US press coverage has come nowhere near as detailed or accurate as this. The attacks didn't even make it to the front page of the New York Times.)
These incidents mark the start of a serious further destabilization of a strategically significant part of the world. By Friday, other Western Embassies had been attacked in the Sudan, there was a bomb threat by Al Qaeda at the University of Texas and the US Embassy in Tunisia was being sacked. In fact, a Google map of the entire world shows how extensive the demonstrations are, many of which haven't been reported here.
Assuming you have a life and haven't been able to keep track minute by minute of this re-writing of history, here is what's going on behind the shadow puppet show screen.
Myth No 1: This Administration has strengthened our alliances and improved national security.
Obama jettisoned Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and gave aid to the Libyan rebels who deposed Moammar Gaddafi, acts entirely of his own doing, done without Congressional consent or bipartisan agreement. Mubarak, for all his faults, could be relied upon to keep out Embassy from being overrun and Gaddafi had been cooperating with us since the invasion of Iraq.
Obama okayed the killing of Osama bin Laden, but was so eager to get the credit for it that he crowed about it immediately and often, before we had an opportunity to act on the intelligence information about existing Al Qaeda operations around the world.
And he was certain these acts had strengthened our national security:
Here are Obama's words in his Sept. 8, 2012 address [emphasis supplied]:
"Instead of pulling back from the world, we've strengthened our alliances while improving our security here at home. As Americans, we refuse to live in fear. Today, a new tower rises above the New York skyline. And our country is stronger, safer and more respected in the world.Instead of turning on each other, we've resisted the temptation to give in to mistrust and suspicion. I have always said that America is at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates - and we will never be at war with Islam or any other religion. We are the United States of America. Our freedom and diversity make us unique, and they will always be central to who we are as a nation."
Here is the reality, from Jonathan S. Tobin of Commentary
What we are seeing on the screen is the meltdown, collapse of the Obama policy on the Muslim world," Charles Krauthammer said on the panel segment of FOX News' "Special Report" tonight. "The irony is that it began in Cairo, in the same place where the speech he made in the beginning of his presidency in which he said, you wanted a new beginning with mutual respect, implying under the other presidents, particularly Bush, there was a lack of mutual respect. Which was an insult to the United States, which had gone to war six times in the last 20 years on behalf of oppressed Muslims, in Kuwait, in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere." "So to imply that we somehow had mistreated Muslims which was the premise of his speech and how the Iraq War had inflamed the Arab world against us. Well there was no storming of the U.S. embassy in Cairo in those days," the FOX News contributor and syndicated columnist said. "What we're seeing now is al-Qaeda developing in Libya, meltdown of our relations with Egypt, you have riots in Yemen, attacks on our embassy in Tunisia. This entire premise that we want to be loved and respected, we'll apologize, has now yielded all of these results and these are the fruits of apology and retreat and lack of confidence in our own principles," Krauthammer concluded.
Myth No. 2: The Administration and media lied that the attacks were occasioned by a film attacking Islam.
The responses to these lies draw into question Obama's claim on September 8 that freedom " will always be central to who we are as a nation." Freedom of speech here is now in some practical, if not legal, jeopardy.
Michael Ledeen, like me, believes the attacks timed to occur on September 11, were not inspired by outrage at a film with attacked Islam, a YouTube low budget number available on line since sometime in 2011 which practically no one has seen.
[quote] No serious person believes that an obscure movie shown to less than a dozen people many months ago was the "cause" of the simultaneous assaults in Cairo and Benghazi. Or that the assaults were unrelated, let alone spontaneous. Or that there was no state actor involved in the operation.The event is strikingly similar to the "cartoon riots" against Denmark. In both cases there was no reaction to the original "offense" against Islam. Many months passed before the cartoons - duly altered to enhance the presumed "Islamophobia" - were publicly displayed to justify a carefully planned campaign that turned out to have been crafted by the Iranian regime and its Syrian ally. In the current case, the Iranians were ready with a crowd to demonstrate at the Swiss embassy in Tehran (our surrogate in Iran).If the cartoon crisis is a good model, it will be a while before we sort out the identities of the various actors. But it seems unlikely to me that those who chanted "Don't shoot, Morsi made me do it" were truth-tellers. Manipulators do not come out early to take credit for their schemes. This thing took time to organize; and simultaneous terrorist attacks are the trademark of Hezbollah (aka Iran) who taught the technique to bin Laden in Afghanistan (or was it Sudan? Senior moments abound).[/quote]
Still US officials responding to this preposterous excuse, rushed to punish and dissuade Americans from exercising their constitutional right to free speech to question Islam. Attorney General Holder initiated an investigation into the production of the film. Worse, Chairman of the U.S. Military's Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey (heard last week insisting we'd be blamed if Israel attacked Iran) took it upon himself, preposterously, to try to dissuade the a Christian minister from continuing to support the film. Reuters photographer Lucy Nicholson and other news agencies exposed the man behind the film. And invaded his privacy, endangering him.
The rush to pitch the First Amendment out the White House window inspired the great Iowahak to respond,
Today I learned I have moderate liberal friends who are absolutely cool with the US govt conducting a nationwide manhunt for a movie maker.
Certainly, that must be the media model, for I haven't seen outraged editorials on this score.
Myth No. 3: Obama might not know what he's doing but his staff does
The evidence that Obama is out of his depth on foreign affairs and national security matters has always been before us. Tom Maguire writes:
Ed Morrissey noted the shock felt by NBC News' man in Cairo at the notion that Obama was pitching Egypt under the bus.And the press corps at the State Department briefing hung a huge "No Sale" sign on the idea that Egypt's status as an ally was really in play.But none of that happened in Times World, where reporters are eagerly awaiting the next Romney statement so they can gaffe-check it.OBAMA UNPLUGGED: Surely Obama doesn't just talk first and reflect afterwards when he is on the diplomatic stage? Of course he does, and stop calling me 'Shirley'.Back in 2007 Obama was just making it up when he promised to meet Iran's leaders without pre-conditions (Matt Yglesias extolled the virtues of this creative "foreign policy by gaffe" approach.In 2008 Obama was free-associating when he told AIPAC he favored an undivided Jerusalem. That one, his advisors couldn't rationalize.So yes, the Magic Mouth theory is always in play with this guy. Obama has grown up thinking he can BS his way past anything. And hey, that belief has carried him a long way. And with the media in his pocket, it may continue to carry him.
Fewer people might have been aware until now that his Secretary of State, and his top foreign policy aides, Susan Rice (U.S. Ambassador to the UN)and Samantha Powers (Special Assistant to the President) are every bit as feckless and ill-informed on these matters as he is.
I read with initial suspicion the report from the UK Independent that we had received 48 hours notice that an attack on our interests in the Middle East preceded the Egyptian and Benghazi assaults. After all the Independent's reporting during the Iraq war was laughably false on every count that I recall. Then I saw the weasel words of Shawn Turner spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence : "This is absolutely wrong. We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent."
I read this as utterly consistent with the claim that we had received an advance general warning of trouble to our interests in the Middle East on September 11. (Certainly, one would suppose as a matter of prudence we'd harden security there on this anniversary of the worst attack on US soil.) There is no indication that our embassies received this news. If they did there's more than negligence involved, for our Ambassador to Egypt was in the U.S. and had forbidden the guards there to use live ammunition, and there were no Marine guards at our Consulate in Benghazi, our Ambassador being a man who like Obama had a deluded concept of his influence on the Moslem terrorists there. Daniel Greenfield writes at Frontpagemag.com:
Many in the World Trade Center chose to jump to their deaths, but Christopher Stevens chose to remain inside and die rather than face the tender mercies of his attackers. Stevens had spent enough time in Libya to have seen what the jihadist fighters did to their captives and must have known what horrors he could expect at their hands. The photos that have been released, along with claims by Libyan jihadists that they sexually assaulted his corpse, suggest that he made the right choice. And perhaps in those final moments, facing that terrible choice, Christopher Stevens finally understood the true horror of the Muslim world that he had fallen in love with as a Peace Corps volunteer."He was an avid student of Islam and the Middle East, and consistently strove to build the proverbial bridge between our two cultures in the face of sometimes overwhelming antagonism and bitter misunderstanding," a friend from the diplomatic service tells us. But though Christopher Stevens may have studied Islam, he had learned very little about it, and so his final lesson was the bloody one that Westerners who never really learn what Islam is about end up receiving."The world needs more Chris Stevenses," Hillary Clinton said, but does it really? Does it need more tall dead blond Americans lying bloodied in the gutters of Muslim cities? Does it need men who give up the hopes and dreams of their country to take on the dreams of their enemies without ever realizing where the fatal road of those dreams leads?
None of this seems to be making any impact on the White House operations. Obama neglected to attend the intelligence briefing before the attacks and didn't participate in the briefing afterward, choosing instead to fly off to Las Vegas for yet another fundraiser. Maybe Leon Panetta should try to find a way to combine the briefings with the fundraisers.
On Fox News Wednesday night, both Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity were full of self-congratulatory comments about how they had easily seen the Muslim Brotherhood problem with the "Arab Spring," and how could Obama have failed to see it? Duh. Of course, our State Department and White House knew that the Muslim Brotherhood would be taking over Egypt. It was obvious to any reasonably informed ordinary citizen.
The same debate we've seen over Obama's destruction of the American economy has already begun over his Middle East policy. Did Obama hand Egypt over to jihadis, and is he giving a green light to nuclear Iran, because of incompetence or his leftist ideology?
John Hinderacker over at Powerlineblog.com writes:
You could call his actions in the region incoherent, except that it's worse than that, especially if you take into account his hostility toward Israel. If a consistent principle can be deduced, it is that Obama wants to avoid doing anything that might advance U.S. interests. Maybe that's the answer, or maybe he just doesn't care enough to formulate a real policy. Be that as it may, one thing is clear: but for Obama's feckless participation in the overthrow of Egypt's and Libya's governments, yesterday's events would not have happened.
The answer, of course, is both incompetence and ideology. Muddle-headed ideologues of the left, such as our president, want America to be brought down to size. They truly believe that violent jihadi hate-groups can be tamed by appeasement, because the evil parties are Israel and America. So Obama helps depose Mubarak and Gaddafi, knowing they will be replaced by Islamic supremacists. He tells Israel they are on their own, we didn't really mean it about being allies. He blocks attempts to prevent a nuclear Iran, even by economic sanctions, because he doesn't like American shows of force and thinks we can live with a nuclear Iran. We lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, didn't we? Are we against Arabs, that we think they shouldn't have nuclear weapons, too? It sounds like a joke, but it isn't.
Incompetence was also in full force this 9/11. The attacks in Egypt and Libya were preventable. Why weren't our embassies and consulates in the Middle East properly protected? Why are fifty Marines sent in after the fact? Why didn't we have intelligence in advance? When the mob was gathering outside the Cairo embassy, the frightened staff issued an apology. What is wrong with our diplomatic corps if that was their response? Clinton should have gotten on the phone to the Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi and explained to him what would happen if he didn't protect our embassy. The rent-a-riot, inflamed purposefully by publicizing an obscure anti-Mohammed video, should have been stopped before they got anywhere close to our embassy.
When the embassy did issue their pathetic attempt at appeasement, and reissue it after our flag was torn down, Obama should have made a strong statement immediately, one that indicated that there are repercussions for attacking America. Instead, he allowed the apology to stand (for nine hours) until Romney condemned it. Desecrations of our flag didn't get the president's attention, but electoral politics did.
Obama's incompetence is an outgrowth of a broadly based Democrat ideology that wants us to believe that the war on terror was a stupid Bush idea. They accuse Republicans of exaggerating the jihadi threat. They smear any public figure who is concerned about the global Islamist war with the label "Islamophobe."
Obama, along with many liberal Democrats, believes that American strength is immoral. We shouldn't impose our views on other nations. So when the Muslim Brotherhood made its move last year, using the "Facebook revolution" as cover (and a very transparent cover it was), we abandoned Mubarak and told the Egyptian military to stand aside. We purposefully let the Middle East's oldest terror organization take over the Middle East's most populous country.
The Muslim Brotherhood is considered the father of the jihadi movement. It was adopted by Adolf Hitler under the Third Reich and grew from a languishing 10,000 members to a million strong by the end of World War II -- Hitler's permanent legacy for world destruction. Yet our president and State Department believe in embracing the Brothers as modernizing moderates.
The Brothers started the modern jihadi movement, complete with a genocidal program against Jews. In the words of Matthias Kuntzel, "[t]he significance of the Brotherhood to Islamism is comparable to that of the Bolshevik Party to communism: It was and remains to this day the ideological reference point and organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Hamas."
Mubarak was the reason there have been no attacks by Arab states on Israel for thirty years. The 1979 Camp David accords neutralized Egypt as a player in the Arab war against Israel. To protect his own life and power, Mubarak kept the Muslim Brothers of Egypt under control. In return, Egypt has been receiving a billion and a half dollars a year -- payoff money from the United States. Egypt didn't agree to a friendly peace, and it wasn't a democracy, but in terms of Middle East geopolitics, supporting Mubarak was a critical success factor.
Obama and Hillary threw all that away with their embrace of the Arab Spring. It could have gone differently. We could have spoken out in support of Mubarak, showing the world that we are trustworthy allies. Instead, we abandoned a crucial ally when the mob howled. We could have told the Egyptian military that they had better make sure the Muslim Brothers don't take over the country. Instead, we told them to step aside and usher the Brothers into power.
Hillary's State Department proclaimed that the Muslim Brothers had become moderates. Anyone having a flashback to the Carter era, when all the liberals knew that the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a partner for peace?
The Obama Doctrine on the Middle East was hinted at in the president's 2009 Cairo speech, during a Middle East tour in which Obama did not visit Israel. Obama apologized for our war on terror. "The fear and anger" after 9/11 "led us to act contrary to our ideals," he told the Egyptian crowd. In a speech in France, Obama declared that America must make deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal, because otherwise we don't have "the moral authority to say to Iran, don't develop a nuclear weapon."
President Obama fought Congress tooth and nail on imposing economic sanctions against Iran this year -- already too little, too late. According to vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, the White House did everything they could to stop Congress from requiring sanctions, and then they used the waiver provision to gut them. There is no benign explanation for this. Left-wing anti-colonialists -- and our president is one -- think Iran will use its nuclear weapons responsibly.
One of the most chilling visuals in 2016: Obama's America is a map of the world's nuclear arsenals. Obama has already cut our nuclear warhead arsenal from 5,000 to 1,500 (in an "arms treaty" that allowed Russia to increase its arsenal). He has asked the Pentagon to report to him on reducing our nuclear warheads to 300. That's about the same number as France. Pakistan has 110 nuclear weapons. Obama, it seems, believes in equality in national defense, as well as in class warfare.
In July, five conservative congressmen, including Michele Bachmann, expressed alarm over evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in placing operatives in key positions throughout the Obama administration. In Bachman's words, State Department polices "appear to be a result of influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood." Instead of backing up Bachmann, our Republican leadership joined in Democrat attacks on her.
The policies Bachmann listed are not trivial. The Obama/Clinton team defied a congressional resolution to hold up our 1.5 billion dollars to Egypt until we knew they were still allies. Paying off Mubarak made sense. Handing billions to a Muslim Brotherhood Egypt, not so much. Do you think Egyptian President Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, would have allowed a mob to attack our embassy if these funds were in play?
Congressman Bachman is concerned, based on Frank Gaffney's analysis, that our Department of Homeland Security may have eight Muslim Brotherhood members in key advisory roles, including the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)'s Working Group, which is responsible for training homeland security agents. The CVE will be using federal Homeland Security funds to funnel money to Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the United States, in the name of a "community-oriented policing approach." The Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has established the policy of protecting "terrorism-precursor activities" as "cultural behaviors."
Congressman Bachmann questioned why the DHS official lexicon equates jihadi extremists with "Christian patriots" and "Constitutionlists." She asked about Huma Abedin, Hillary's closest adviser at State, who formerly worked for a Brotherhood organization, founded and funded by Abdullah Naseef, who also finances al-Qaeda. There is no question that Abedin helps Clinton formulate U.S. Middle East policy.
The sorry list goes on and on. (For more details, see Frank Gaffney's "The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration.")
The point here is not only that the Muslim Brotherhood is influencing American foreign policy. The arrow points in both directions: the Obama/Clinton policy of tolerating and even promoting the power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is the same policy that promotes their front groups in America. It is the liberal idiocy that our enemies are friends, and our friends enemies.
Obama has signaled clearly and repeatedly that America no longer has Israel's back. He could not have done anything more effective to sabotage negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians than his public pressure on Israel to declare unilaterally they will withdraw to their 1948 borders. Obama bypassed congressional limits on aid to the Palestinian Authority after their alliance with Hamas, putting $200 million into the hands of one of the most vicious and dangerous terror groups in the Middle East. And he has signaled to the Iranians that Israel is on its own. Then there are the personal but well-publicized snubs to the Israeli prime minister, and the open mike revelations of Obama's contempt and dislike for Bibi. Obama has time to go on the Letterman show in New York next week, but he refuses to meet with Netanyahu, as the go/no go decision on bombing Iran stares Israel in the face.
Abandoning Israel invites war. But in Obama's mind, he is promoting fairness. He thinks Israel is the problem. He thinks that harming Israel will win America friends among Arabs. He thinks he is pressuring the Israelis to stop being bad guys.
Obama is purposefully harming American interests, but he thinks it will turn out okay. He attacks the American economy and free-enterprise system, and he thinks it will turn out okay. He attacks our energy industry, and he thinks it will turn out okay. He attacks the rule of law and our Constitution, and he thinks it will turn out okay. He undermines the hard-won stability of Egypt and thinks it will turn out okay. We have a president who thinks American national security interests, power, and prosperity are the problem. Then, when it's a broken mess, he's surprised, and he asks for more time to do more of the same. Obama is the problem.
The Middle East is a harsh taskmaster. It is no place for an aging schoolboy leftist like our president. In the real world, stupid ideas such as the one dominant in Obama's administration, that jihadis really want peace -- such ideas have very bloody consequences. The tragic deaths of our diplomats in Libya are only the beginning. Iran looms over us all.
1b)Appeasement and Blowback
By G. Murphy Donovan
Too much honesty in military politics is kin to tinkering with an improvised explosive device. Take the recent incendiary essay, Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan, by Colonel Daniel L. Davis that appeared in the Armed Forces Journal earlier this year. The AFJ article is a summary of a longer report released to the press in January 2012. Davis claims that the US military leadership, and the administration by extension, lied to taxpayers and the troops about our progress and prospects in Afghanistan.
Germany has closed its embassies in a number of Muslim-majority countries in fear of attacks. "We are observing how the security situation develops with great attentiveness and we have increased security precautions at a number of foreign missions," a spokesman for the German Foreign Office told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Embassies in North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan are believed to be among those affected.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "deeply concerned" about the attacks on US embassies. He called on the countries in question to protect foreign missions. "Diplomats have to be able to do their work without fear," he said.
The video and the associated protests have also become an issue in the US election campaign. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used the protests and what he called an apology by the US government as an opportunity to attack Obama.
"We rooted for the demonstrators at Tahrir Square, and many of us have longed to see democracy in the Arab nations. But democracy includes honoring the lives of fellow humans."
-- David Gordon Smith
1b)Appeasement and Blowback
By G. Murphy Donovan
Too much honesty in military politics is kin to tinkering with an improvised explosive device. Take the recent incendiary essay, Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan, by Colonel Daniel L. Davis that appeared in the Armed Forces Journal earlier this year. The AFJ article is a summary of a longer report released to the press in January 2012. Davis claims that the US military leadership, and the administration by extension, lied to taxpayers and the troops about our progress and prospects in Afghanistan.
The Davis report deals only with Afghanistan, but events in Egypt and Libya also put the lie to any notions of Arab Spring, Jasmine Revolutions, and other pretentions of peace or democracy in the Arab world and the Middle East. American embassies are being put to the torch and the Obama administration still insists that we are not at war with Arabs or Muslims. The question now for this administration and the next is; how much is enough?
Lack of candor about war has deep historical roots. US and allied troops have been at the ready, or engaged with one "ism" or other, for a hundred years or more. First there was German revanchism, then imperial Communism, followed by National Socialism and Fascism, and then a series of lesser wars with Communist regimes in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. And today there seems to be an endless string of small wars in the Muslim world. Combat has become a kind of permanent coda for American foreign policy, where euphemism is part of the art.
Take the "war of necessity." Not as imperative today as it was yesterday -- before the last presidential election. According to Colonel Davis, America is headed for the exits in South Asia under a smoke screen of optimism; in short, the longest war in American history is being lost in slow motion.
The Davis charges may be too generous. While lying, at first glance seems to be a serious allegation; ground truth may be worse. Patraeus, now at CIA, theater commanders, the Joint Chiefs, and the State Department, may actually believe what they say to each other, to the president, and to the public.
Surely strategic illusions are more dangerous than lies. And killing Osama bin Laden may not have been a military capstone as advertised; it might just be a convenient point to declare victory and proceed with an orderly retreat. If all of this is true, delusions of success with Islamism may be more dangerous than any tactical defeat in the Afghan theater.
Nonetheless, Colonel Davis has energized a conversation that has been begging since the end of the Cold War. While America and Europe were preoccupied with Communism and the Soviets, strategic necrosis in the Muslim world flared anew.
So before stealth retreat in Afghanistan and the middle East turns into an indignity like the Russian rout of 1989, it might be useful to examine, not just the Afghan campaign, but the larger conflict with Islam; that war whose name we dare not speak, the global clash. As a cautionary tale, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the entire Soviet system were not unrelated to Russian misadventures in places like Afghanistan.
Literature on the sources of modern Muslim rage is voluminous. Schools might be divided into two untidy camps: Paradigm Alpha, a majority view and Paradigm Baker, the minority opinion. Alpha theory holds that Muslims are historical victims of colonialism, cultural imperialism, and racism. Scholars with this view would include Arnold Toynbee, Edward Said, Joseph Esposito, Sayyid Qutb, Tariq Ramadan, and Yusef Qaradawi.
Paradigm Baker argues that totalitarian governments and repressive religious dogma are the roots of Muslim pathology; in combination, leavening an irredentist Islam and stimulating terror. Typical advocates might include Elie Kedourie, Samuel Huntington, Bernard Lewis, Paul Berman, and the late Christopher Hitchens. Huntington wrote The Clash of Civilizations, a volume whose title speaks for his thesis.
At the end of the 20th Century, many scholars were anxious to celebrate the Russian defeat in Afghanistan and the subsequent Soviet collapse. Indeed, Frank Fukuyama's declaration of victory over the "isms" (Nazism, Fascism, and Communism) in The End of History (1989) was quickly embraced as bedrock political science. Social democracy was thought to be the logical outcome of 20th Century military and political dialectics.
This rosy picture did not account for events like 9/11 a decade later -- or irredentism. At the time, a war weary Europe and America had little patience with yet another "ism." From the beginning, there was little interest in examining a growing political religiosity.
Thus we begin here with a definition of that "ism;" and the assumptions that underwrite what policymakers and generals appear to believe about these matters.
What is Islamism?
Partisans across the American political spectrum are reluctant to associate Islam with religious imperialism, terror, or insurgency. Indeed, such links are proscribed on White House stationary. Sponsored research underwrites the official line. How Terrorist Groups End, a RAND Corporation report, is a prominent example.
The terrorist as criminal is part of the Paradigm Alpha thesis; yet, how the West defines terror is irrelevant. For too many Muslims, the jihadist is a martyr, hero, or holy warrior. And global Muslim attitudes overwhelming support the primacy of religious law.
Speculating about terror and small wars without examining religio-political motives is a little like studying malaria without mosquitoes. If terror tactics are criminal; we might have sent Arizona sheriffs instead of US Navy SEALs to arrest, not assassinate, Osama bin Laden. Alas, RPV's and gunships are blunt instruments if the problem is simply better police work.
In spite of evasions, we must have a fairly clear definition of the threat. We must give a name to the enemy and the war. Euphemisms like "criminals," radicals, extremists, or zealots will not do.
The enemy has a name and that name is Islamist. The enemy has an ideology and that ideology is Islamism. Not all Muslims are Islamists, but just as surely bomb makers act for a vision of imperial Islam. Indeed, the meaning of Islam is literally "submission," a cognate that has personal and martial significance.
Simply stated, Islamism is a belief in theocracy. Advisory groups exist; capable of influence, but they are not legislators. Authority resides with tribal leaders, clergy, or religious scholars. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Afghanistan (under the Taliban), are modern examples, if not models.
Assumptions about Islamism
Assumptions about militancy, imperialism to some, have been as troublesome as attempts to define the threat. When assumptions are miscast, then beliefs are flawed. Beliefs about Muslims in general seem to stand on three a priori legs:
- Israel is the root of Muslim angst,
- the vast majority of Muslims are "moderates,"
- the Islamic world is the moral equivalent of any other culture.
Blame Israel?
The belief that an Israel/Palestinian settlement is the key to pacifying Muslims has a venerable pedigree. A recent manifestation is contained in a CENTCOM survey of Arab "opinion" commissioned when General David Patraeus held that command. Never mind that CENTCOM has no geographic responsibility for the Levant or Israel, the Patreaus brief made the rounds in Washington anyway, reaching the vice-president.
Blame Israel argues from a limited set of particulars to an implausible general conclusion. Palestine is, in fact, a regional problem commonly used as an excuse for all manner of global mischief. Were it not, Israel might be flying airliners into skyscrapers to make their case also.
And any erosion of support for Israel may serve as a disincentive for settlement and a stimulus for terror. What message do jihadists get from a president who visits Muslim capitals, but studiously avoids Israel? Remember the global apology tour that included Muslims but not Jews? Does Islam need to be patronized about a threat that originates exclusively in Muslim communities?
Judaism is a shopworn historical scapegoat. In those Islamic countries where PEW surveys are possible, attitudes towards Jews and Israel are overwhelmingly (90% +) hostile. The targets are Jews not Zionists -- as if jihadists would know the difference. Terror in Bali, Mumbai, Beslan, and French schoolyards, and Benghazi has little to do with Palestinian real estate.
How does a Moroccan shooting a Jewish girl in France advance a two-state solution? Islamic shooters outside of the Levant, couldn't find the West Bank or Gaza on a map. Anti-Jewish sentiment is more likely to be cultural envy or viral bigotry; each featured on the internet and at mosques worldwide.
Israel is a beacon of art, science, and democracy on a primitive frontier. The Jewish state is to contemporary civilization as Austria was to early Europe. Defense of Vienna broke the Ottoman advance in 1689; defense of Israel today is surely analogous.
The Alpha's are loath to assess the comparative merits of religion in western and Islamic cultures. Nonetheless, the differences are profound. For the West and Israel, religion is not an ideology of arbitrary control; but, faith that is value added. For much of the Muslim world, religion is the heavy hand suppressing the arts, sciences, capitalism, and democracy.
A Moderate Muslim Majority?
Statistics on attitudes towards Jews would not be the only evidence to disprove assertions about Muslim beliefs. Assertions about moderation provide a related example.
Assume for a moment, that Islamism is a minority sentiment. Do not such beliefs beg the question? Indeed, out of 1.5 billion souls, what is the necrotic minority? If it's only 33 percent, then the number is 500 million! And the primary targets of the irredentist movement, while decentralized, are secular (or apostate) Muslim governments. Where there are no good measurements; there is no good science.
Even if data were available, the net number of Muslims with hostile or belligerent intentions might be irrelevant. Historical records here are clear. Ideology and zeal may triumph, no matter the numbers. Less may be more.
The Marxist revolution in Russia, the National Socialist putsch in Germany, and more recently, the theocratic coup in Persia, the electoral coups in Turkey and Egypt, and the political trends in Tunisia and Libya are all but a few cautionary tales. Majority apathy is ever the ally of minority activism.
And recall that exiled fanatics like Lenin, Qutb, Khomeini, or Qaradawi are made possible by the indulgence of democracies.
Suggestions that the West will enlighten or reform Islam are delusional. As Bernard Lewis and Paul Berman remind us; if the Muslim world has been immune to meaningful reform for 1400 years, the prospects are even dimmer today. The same internet that is supposed to be spreading "jasmine" revolutions is also distributing hate, terror, and intolerance. Syria, the Sudan, Bahrain, Somalia, and Yemen, if not most of Arab Africa, are object lessons in progress.
Most declarations about Muslim moderation, or the space between Islam and politics in the Ummah are projections or asserted conclusions. Evidence to support the moderation spin is invariably anecdotal as is analysis that claims that the West can do business with the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salifist. Again, where there are no good measurements, there is no good science.
Political and social studies are dicey enough in open societies; in closed societies, they amount to educated guesses or wishful thinking. And how do we account for the beliefs of the illiterate tribesmen under such conditions? The State Department and the Pentagon may get to know the truth of the likes of Mullah Omar when the Taliban controls the Loya Jirga again. In spite of these facts, our political and military leaders may have been captured by Paradigm Alpha, the Muslim victim trope.
Surely the historical schism between Sunni and Shia is significant for Muslims; but, both sects have similar views of non-Muslims. And notions that any Islamic fissures might be exploited are illusory. Nothing unites apostates like guilt-ridden or pandering infidels. Appeasement isn't working.
Iran set the theocratic standard for contemporary Islam. Now populous Sunni nations are tripping over each other in the race backwards. Since the fall of Tehran, almost every regime change in the Sunni world, starting with Tunisia, has irredentist overtones. The dominoes are indeed falling -- backwards.
Moral Equivalency?
Moral equivalency is the third rail of international politics. Contemporary Islam has been granted equality by default. Here again apathy in the West may have led to a kind of unilateral disarmament in the world of ideals. Surely none of the civil or human rights abuses extant in the Muslim world today would be tolerated in any western democracy. The press reports that the American ambassador to Libya was sodomized before being dragged though the streets of Benghazi several days ago.
The most difficult idea for Western observers to grasp is that there is no ideological schizophrenia for much of Islam. Politics and religion are increasingly joined. This single distinction separates Islamic culture and politics from the democratic West. No digressions about poverty, colonialism, or criminality are likely to alter that indigestible fact. When Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon agree that the West must learn to live with religious parties like the Taliban or al-Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), appeasement, not prudence, is the agenda.
Do American diplomats and generals not recall the first incarnation of the Taliban where female adulterers and homosexuals were summarily executed in a soccer stadium (built with US funds, we could add)? Twentieth Century National Socialists were genocidal, but there is no evidence that Germans ever used atrocities as weekly public amusements. Nazis actually took great pains to hide the Holocaust because they had a residue of moral probity -- or knew a harsh judgment was imminent.
And the influence and hegemony of imperial Islam is a growth business by any measure. Islamists think they are winning and they may be correct. Most of the secular casualties to date are in the Muslim world. Developments in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Turkey, Yemen, Somalia and others are symptoms of a kind of decentralized global theocratic coup. Polite scholars rationalize the same demographic phenomenon, in America and Europe, as "browning;" but the quest of, and quarrel within Islam is religious and political, not racial or ethnic.
Turkey, Egypt, and Libya and other erstwhile allies, represent special hazards where elections might be confused with democracy. Kemal Ataturk and Gamal Abdel Nasser separated church from state with force. And now religion comes back to Turkish and Egyptian politics through elections. No election is ever synonymous with democracy or reform.
Ironically, Paradigm Alpha in the West is often on the same page as Islamists when it comes to rationalizing some of the more egregious civil and human rights depredations. Just a few abuses would include: support (moral and financial) for terrorism, crucifixions, amputations, honor killings, kidnapping, imprisonment without trial, polygamy, consanguinity, slavery, religious intolerance, misogyny, child abuse, and lethal homophobia; just to name the obvious. We might also recall that Daniel Pearl, a Jewish American journalist, was beheaded on camera.
And what difference does it make that genital mutilation of women might be a cultural practice? How does that help the majority of girls in Egypt so brutalized? And how is polygamy justified in societies that can't provide potable water or a flush toilet? And how is any of this classified as equivalence?
As a general proposition, Islam is only moderate where it is a minority. Where Islam is a majority, with few exceptions, religious and many other varieties of moderation are often the first casualties. Multi-culture does not become monoculture without absolutism and coercion.
Many observers rationalize the political and social pathologies of the Muslim world as the products of poverty, ignorance, or exploitation. If PEW surveys are accurate, most Muslims agree, blaming backwardness on outsiders. The victim posture is cultivated by Islamic clerics for obvious reasons. The analytical spin in the West has darker roots.
Surely, considerations like energy, debt, and migration patterns are relevant. Demographic vectors, immigration and birth rates, seem to be the most ominous. Terrorism gets more press, but military tactics do not represent the totality of the menace. The underlying factors, fears if you will, of the Islamist threat are cultural; political and religious. Pathological practices and behaviors, excused in the name of culture, are the very evidence that undermines any argument for moral equivalence.
What is to be Done?
Alas, Islamism, in many ways, is no different than other totalitarian schemes of recent history; a quixotic, intolerant, oppressive quest for a kind of Utopia. But, modern jihad is not just another variant of historical imperialism.
Martial Islam began with Mohammed and eventually hit the wall of Ottoman decay. Sultanic corruption was replaced by Turkish, Persian and then Arabic secular nationalism. These janissaries eventually fell to excess also -- a bizarre nexus of post-WWII oil wealth and martyr/philosophers like Sayyid Qutb, ideological godfather of al Ikwan. The union of new money and religious passion was facilitated, as Kedourie warned, by the hasty European colonial retreat. Islamism was the best organized and best financed alternative to fill the post-colonial, post-fascist, political vacuum.
So how is the Islamist threat different today, and what is to be done?
Religious or political missionary goals, submission and Sharia (religious law), are constants for militants of both Muslim sects. Yet, there are exceptions to xenophobia and pervasive hostility. Sufis and modern Kurds are numerically small examples. Yet, the vector of global Islamic politics is anything but secular, tolerant, or progressive.
The Muslim base now represents one fourth of the world's population. Numbers are compounded by a toleration of aberrant behaviors in the name of religion; a deference that would not be granted to a secular ideology. Just two issues might make the case; religious freedom and women's rights in Turkey, Egypt, or Afghanistan -- to name a few states we think of as moderate. And today's Islamism is also different because Europe and America have little to offer dar al Islam except submission.
Small wonder, then, that the fire breathers are optimistic. Islamic assessments of American and European decline are very prescient. Charges of corruption have more than a little merit; the West seems to be unable to defend the values that made commerce, creativity, and science possible. Values like freedom, democracy, and tolerance are also at risk. Evolved religious immunities in the West protect a political Islam which grants no such quarter. How such a clash ends should not be difficult to imagine.
The enemy in South Asia, and the Middle East, has always been the Taliban and like-minded religious parties. Arab al Qaeda is a bit player in South Asia. And now after two decades, the Taliban may come back to power (like the Turkish AKP and the Egyptian al Ikwan) through the front door with a promise of US and European subsidies! It's hard to believe that we think of any of this as a "clash of civilizations;" when a more apt description might be "confederacy of dunces."
We think we know all we need to know about Islam and activist Muslims. Not much, but enough it seems; enough to stop any questions.
So what now?
Islamism is a global problem that requires a global strategy. The threat is ideology and kinetics. Dogma sanctuaries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, the Emirates, and Pakistan need to clean house, starting with the pulpits. The passive aggressor states either draw a bright line for clerics and the jihadists -- or else. If the cities of Europe, America, and Israel are to be continually at risk, then maybe it's time to put state-sponsored Islamist sanctuaries at risk.
We might also break camp at all those city-sized embassies and over-priced "green zones" in the Levant and South Asia. Large permanent diplomatic "missions" and permanent military bases are honey pots that corrupt our putative "allies" and simplify the jihadist targeting problem. We might consider withdrawing our diplomats and advisors and withhold any aid until the madness ends.
And the so-called "war on terror" needs to be given to the 22 nations of the Arab League and the 57 some odd nations of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation. For the most part, terror, with political or religious motives, originates in the Muslim world. NATO cannot save Islam from itself. If a nation-state crusade then turns west, so be it. Thus might the allied target set be simplified!
The West needs to be crystal clear with Muslim expatriates too. Islamist activists should have their visas, green cards, passports, and even citizenship suspended or forfeited. Europe and America can not afford to grant a bill of personal rights to a fifth column that has no respect for human rights. Tolerance in the West must end until tolerance in the East begins.
And finally, we are back to the issue of candor. How is it that an armor officer can write an insightful, honest assessment of a failed national strategy, when the US Intelligence Community cannot provide an honest assessment of the global threat? What does it profit America to have the best collection and targeting systems in the world and the worst strategic analysis? National security analysts now resemble a cabal of pandering underachievers. The Director of National Intelligence, Jim Clapper, and CIA's David Patraeus need to reform strategic analysis - or resign.
No nation can afford to be delusional, incompetent, and broke at the same time for very long. Our embassies are burning, Mr. Obama. What is the plan?
G. Murphy Donovan is a Vietnam veteran, a former USAF Intelligence officer, and a former senior research fellow for Intelligence at the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)The World from Berlin
'Obama's Middle East Policy Is in Ruins'
After days of protests over an anti-Islam film, American diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa were braced for further violence after Friday prayers. The US put its overseas missions on high alert.
The spokesman said that the missions would only close on Friday, though. Other German institutions such as aid organizations have also been urged to increase security precautions, he said.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "deeply concerned" about the attacks on US embassies. He called on the countries in question to protect foreign missions. "Diplomats have to be able to do their work without fear," he said.
Westerwelle said he could understand the outrage that many Muslims felt about the anti-Islam film. "But this outrage cannot justify violence."
The German army in Afghanistan is also increasing its security precautions. "We are assuming that we will also feel the effects of this whole business," one German soldier told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a telephone interview. "When the people here see the film, they are sure to protest."
Violent Clashes
The US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday when protesters attacked the US consulate in Benghazi. American officials are investigating the possibility that militant Islamist groups such as al-Qaida may have exploited the Benghazi protests to attack the consulate.
There have been violent protests in Cairo and Yemen since then. On Friday, Egyptian police clashed with protesters after security forces blocked the route to the US Embassy.
The protests were sparked by an anti-Islamic film posted online that features an unflattering depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the video on Thursday. "The United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video," she said. "We absolutely reject its content and message."
The video and the associated protests have also become an issue in the US election campaign. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used the protests and what he called an apology by the US government as an opportunity to attack Obama.
At a campaign event on Thursday, Obama took a hard line on the attacks. "To all those who would do us harm: No act of terror will go unpunished," he said. "No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America."
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI began a three-day visit to Lebanon on Friday. His visit is the focus of much international attention, given the heightened tensions in the region.
On Friday, German commentators analyze the violence and its implications for US foreign policy.
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"The murder of an ambassador in Libya and the attacks on US diplomatic missions in other Arab countries is sure to strengthen the skepticism that more than a few Americans feel toward Muslims and the political changes brought by the Arab revolutions. The deeply held American belief that all you have to do is liberate people from serfdom and dictatorship, and then democracy and a market economy will develop more or less on their own, burned to ash in the trial by fire of Iraq. A fact that academics and historically informed diplomats have always known can now be observed throughout the Arab world: Deeply ingrained cultural attitudes do not change simply because one political regime replaces another. In the long process of building a democratic society, it is not possible to simply skip stages."
The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:
"The attacks on US embassies and consulates in the Arab world can not be justified in any way. If it turns out that al-Qaida is behind the attacks, as some US officials suspect, then they are acts of terrorism committed under the guise of religion. If they turn out to be uncoordinated actions by angry believers, then they are an expression of a frightening ignorance. A crazy individual US citizen has uploaded a movie onto the Internet which denigrates the Prophet Muhammad. The US government can not be held responsible for that. But that clearly does not help US President Barack Obama very much. He has to bear the political consequences of the recent events by himself."
"Four years ago, Obama pledged to seek reconciliation with the Muslim world. Now, it is doubtful whether he has succeeded. The US and its European allies now have to ask themselves how much support they still enjoy in the countries of the Arab Spring."
The center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"Since the Arab Spring broke out, there have been many difficult moments in the relationships between America and the Arab nations. But few have been as delicate as this one. America hardly has influence in the region any longer, and now sees itself confronted with anti-American sentiment in places where it no longer controls the dictators. Meanwhile, forces that simultaneously exploit and spurn America are gaining influence."
"Middle Eastern policy is a thankless task for America. But for precisely this reason -- and despite the election campaign -- it would be unwise to pour oil into the fire. The fact that President Obama has deployed destroyers and marines to Libya, and may soon send out drones, isn't a good sign, though. … Should Washington fall into defense mode, as it has in Yemen against al-Qaida, where the anti-terrorism fight is the top priority and there have been civilian victims, then the tables could turn quickly. People in the Arab world want to be more than just a security risk."
The conservative Die Welt writes:
"US President Barack Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. Like no president before him, he tried to win over the Arab world. After some initial hesitation, he came out clearly on the side of the democratic revolutions. … In this context, he must accept the fact that he has snubbed old close allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian military. And now parts of the freed societies are turning against the country which helped bring them into being. Anti-Americanism in the Arab world has even increased to levels greater than in the Bush era. It's a bitter outcome for Obama."
"Obama was naive to believe that one only needed to adopt a new tone and show more respect in order to dispel deep-seated reservations about the free world. In practice, the policies of the Obama administration in the region were not as naive as they may have seemed at times, and the Americans have always been much more involved in the Middle East than the passive Europeans. But Washington has provided the image of a distracted superpower in the process of decline to the societies there. This image of weakness is being exploited by Salafists and al-Qaida, who are active in North Africa from Somalia to Mali."
"One thing is clear: If jihadists believe they can attack American installations and kill an ambassador on the anniversary of Sept. 11, then America's deterrent power has declined considerably. For a superpower, it is not enough just to want to be loved. You have to scare the bad guys to keep them in check."
The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:
"The conservative US media have already -- excessively -- labeled the anti-US protests in Egypt, Libya and Yemen as a 'wildfire' and interpreted them as a result of Obama's 'weakness.'"
"It's lucky for Obama that his opponent Romney is acting in such a hapless manner. Instead of condemning the attacks in a statesman-like fashion and assuring the president of his support, Romney criticized the government's alleged 'apology' to the demonstrators. That was not just nonsense, but partisan maneuvering at a moment when patriotism would have been appropriate. With his attack, Romney has scored an own goal."
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
"Three years after Obama's speech in Cairo, which was supposed to initiate a new beginning in the Middle East, the United States now has even less support in the region than before. That's not a failure of this president. Instead, it is the consequences of an American foreign policy that for decades favored power over democracy, and a hard line over human rights -- and which will suffer from a credibility problem for a long time for precisely those reasons."
"Mitt Romney has, however, failed to recognize the very core of the American dilemma. He attacked Obama with twisted facts shortly after the announcement of the death of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. He claimed that the US government had sympathized with the attackers in Benghazi. But not only was that factually wrong, it also demonstrated an alarmingly high level of foreign policy incompetence to his own party. None of this would matter, except that Romney wants Obama's job -- and might even get it on Nov. 6."
The mass-circulation daily Bild writes:
"Naked hatred is raging against a country that many people in the world regard as a symbol of freedom. When US flags burn, embassies are vandalized, and diplomats are murdered, it is an attack on the West, and not just America!"
"The turmoil in Libya, Cairo, and Bangladesh is a return to the Middle Ages, when people were beheaded and stoned to death. No pathetic anti-Islam film can justify hate-filled murder."
"The West must be tough on terrorism. And it must show that it can differentiate between rabble-rousers and peaceful Muslims."
With reporting by Hasnain Kazim.
-- David Gordon Smith
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| Example of Kennedy red line and Cuban Missile Crisis] Netanyahu Says Irans Nuclear Program Is in a Red Zone |
“When President Kennedy set a red line in the Cuban missile crisis, he was criticized,” Netanyahu said. “But it turns out it didn’t bring war. It actually pushed war back and probably purchased decades of peace with the Soviet Union.” Netanyahu Says Iran’s Nuclear Program Is in a ‘Red Zone’ By David Lerman and Silla Brush Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons is now in a “red zone”, and the U.S. must set a clear “red line” that Iran can’t cross without risking a military attack. “They’re in the red zone,” Netanyahu said in an interview on NBC News “Meet the Press,” according to a transcript. “You know, they’re in the last 20 yards. And you can’t let them cross that goal line. You can’t let them score a touchdown.” Raising the stakes in a dispute with Washington over how quickly military action may be needed to thwart or delay Iran’s nuclear program, the prime minister said Iran is now six months away from having about 90 percent of the enriched uranium that would be needed for a nuclear bomb. “I think that you have to place that red line before them now, before it’s too late,” Netanyahu said. Officials from the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said that Iran has stepped up its efforts to enrich uranium to about 20 percent, though there’s no evidence that it’s moved to the 90 percent that’s needed to make nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is intended only for civilian purposes. In urging a tougher stance from the Obama administration, Netanyahu likened the Iran case to President John Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when a potential nuclear war was averted after the Soviet Union withdrew missiles from Cuba. Red Lines “When President Kennedy set a red line in the Cuban missile crisis, he was criticized,” Netanyahu said. “But it turns out it didn’t bring war. It actually pushed war back and probably purchased decades of peace with the Soviet Union.” Yet Netanyahu didn’t say explicitly what the “red line” should be when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta appeared to mock the notion of setting “red lines,” in an interview with Foreign Policy last week. Leaders of the U.S., Israel and other nations “don’t have, you know, a bunch of little red lines that determine their decisions,” Panetta said. “What they have are facts that are presented to them about what a country is up to, and then they weigh what kind of action is needed to be taken in order to deal with that situation.” Underscoring the tension between the U.S. and Israel over Iran strategy, Panetta added, “Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner.” The U.S. and Israel sparred last week over how to handle Iran, with Netanyahu and President Barack Obama holding an hour- long telephone conversation about the issue. ‘Red Light’ Last week’s rift began when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Bloomberg Radio interview Sept. 9 that the U.S. is “not setting deadlines” on negotiations with Iran. On Sept. 11, Netanyahu said on the CBS “This Morning” show that unless the U.S. and others draw a “red line” regarding Iran’s nuclear work, they will have no right to put a “red light” against possible Israeli action. Leaders of the two countries spoke later that day by telephone, and the White House said in a statement that Obama and Netanyahu “reaffirmed that they are united in their determination to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Netanyahu said the next day that he has a duty to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon even when “the best of friends” disagree, referring to policy differences with the U.S. Israeli leaders have said Iran’s atomic program is for military purposes and poses a threat to Israel’s existence. ‘Good Conversation’ “We had a good conversation,” Netanyahu said in a separate interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” according to a transcript. “What’s guiding me, contrary to what I’ve read in the United States is not the United States’ political calendar, it’s the Iranian nuclear calendar.” Netanyahu also said on the CNN program the U.S. and Israel have been operating on “different clocks,” with Israel seeing a greater urgency in stopping or delaying Iran’s nuclear program more quickly than the U.S. timetable. As Iran gets closer to completing its first nuclear bomb, Netanyahu said on CNN, “The differences between us are -- and our capabilities are -- becoming less and less important, because Iran is fast approaching a point where it could disappear from our capability of stopping them.” ‘Diplomatic Course’ The U.S. has supported sanctions and international pressure on Iran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. “There is still time and space for that course to be pursued,” White House Press spokesman Jay Carney said Sept. 14 at a news conference. “The window of opportunity here in terms of pursuing the diplomatic course will not remain open indefinitely.” Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for U.S. president, has sought to portray Obama as insufficiently supportive of Israel. During a trip to Israel in July, Romney said stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is the “highest national-security priority.” In a July 30 speech in Jerusalem, Romney said it is “right” for America to stand with the Jewish state and employ “any and all measures” to stop Iran. Netanyahu, in his NBC interview, repeatedly deflected questions about the U.S. presidential race, saying Obama and Romney are “equally committed” to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. ‘Unbelievable Fanaticism’ Netanyahu described Iran at times as a rational actor on the world stage that will respond to threats made by Israel or the U.S. “Once the Iranians understand that there’s a line that they can’t cross, they’re not likely to cross it,” he said. At other times in the interview, he described the Iranian regime as being driven by “an unbelievable fanaticism” that causes its leaders to “put their zealotry above their survival.” He added, “I wouldn’t rely on their rationality.” U.S. officials don’t all share Netanyahu’s belief that Iran’s leaders value zealotry above survival, arguing that despite their rhetoric their top priority is ensuring the survival of the Islamic Republic and continuing to export their brand of religious revolution. That’s why the Iranians generally try to wipe their fingerprints off many of their terrorist attacks by using proxies such as the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and, more recently, what they thought was a Mexican drug cartel to murder Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., said two American officials. Devastating Counterattack Still, it isn’t safe to assume that Cold War-style deterrence would prevent a nuclear-armed Iran from launching an attack on Israel or giving a nuclear device to terrorists. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is well aware that using a nuclear weapon or attacking Israel, U.S. bases or troops, or Saudi Arabia or other Persian Gulf states would bring a devastating American or U.S.-Israeli counterattack, they said. Yet Iran’s desire to preserve the Islamic Republic doesn’t rule out a miscalculation, mistake, or hot-headed decision -- all of which would be infinitely more dangerous if Iran obtained nuclear weapons, the officials said. Netanyahu also used the NBC interview to urge greater coordination between Israel and the U.S., even as he warned that time may be running out. “If we are able to coordinate together a common position, we increase the chances that neither one of us will have to act,” he said. To contact the reporters on this story: Silla Brush in Washington at sbrush@bloomberg.net; David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Another Islamist Assault, Another Western Cringe
By Daniel Pipes
Attacks on Tuesday against American missions in Cairo and Benghazi fit into a familiar pattern of Islamist intimidation and Western appeasement that goes back to the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989. The Obama administration's supine response to the murder of American diplomats increases the likelihood of further such assaults.
The Rushdie crisis suddenly erupted when the ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, put a death edict on a novelist for having written a magical realist novel, The Satanic Verses, declaring that the book was "against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran." That incident was then followed by a long list of similar assaults – concerning a U.S. Supreme Court frieze in 1997, American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell in 2002, Newsweekin 2005, the Danish cartoons in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI also in 2006, Florida preacher Terry Jones in 2010, and U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan early in 2012. In each of these cases, the perceived insult to Islam led to acts of violence, sometimes against Westerners but more often among Muslims themselves.
Indeed, the 2010 incident caused some 19 deaths in Afghanistan, prompting David Goldman, then of First Things magazine, to observe that "a madman carrying a match and a copy of the Koran can do more damage to the Muslim world than a busload of suicide bombers.… What's the dollar value of the damage from a used paperback edition of the Koran?" Goldman speculated how intelligence services could learn from Jones and, for a few dollars, sow widespread anarchy.
So far, the 2012 spasm has led to four American deaths, with more possibly to follow. Jones (with his "International Judge Muhammad Day") and Sam Bacile (who may not exist but is alleged to have created theanti-Islamic video that mainly inspired this 9/11's violence) can not only cause deaths at will but they can also put a wrench in U.S.-Egypt relations and even become a factor in a U.S. presidential election.
As for the Obama administration: acting in its usual appeasing and apologetic mode, it blamed the critics of Islam. "The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims. … We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others." Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ("The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others") and Barack Obama("the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others") confirmed the initial cringe. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rightly retorted that "It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks." This argument has very large implications, not so much for the elections (Iran is the key foreign policy issue there) but because such weakness incites Islamists again to attack, both to close down criticism of Islam and to impose one aspect of Shari'a, or Islamic law, on the West.
Terry Jones, Sam Bacile, and their future imitators know how to goad Muslims to violence, embarrass Western governments, and move history. In response, Islamists know how to exploit Jones, et al. The only way to stop this cycle is for governments to stand firmly on principle: "Citizens have freedom of speech, which specifically means the right to insult and annoy. The authorities will protect this right. Muslims do not enjoy special privileges but are subject to the same free-speech rules as everyone else. Leave us alone."
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