Are Most Liberals Political Hemophiliacs? Iran Goes Nuclear? What Difference Does It Make?

Sowell on education versus politics.  (See 1 below.)
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Now that Christie is being investigated for everything, including the underwear he puts on each day, he should be asking himself was hugging Obama worth it?  He should also learn something he should have already known but somehow forgot - never hug a Liberal.  If you do, you are likely to get blood all over your clean white shirt because most liberals are bleeders or political hemophiliacs.
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My sentiments exactly. (See 2 below.)

Having just returned from Israel I can testify to the fact that the land was inhabited by a biblical people who called themselves Jews and I  also know our son , when he was a student at The Univ. of Rochester, participated in two summer digs and his group made critical and historical discoveries which were sent to England and verified,  What his group uncovered changed the perception of history in the region of their diggings and validated that Josephus actually lived in the area.  etc. (See 2a below.)

Meanwhile, Iran will get what they want - nuclear status.  Thanks again to Obama and Kerry. Today, Iran, taunted America while claiming victory and a major win for their nation.  (See 2b, 2c and 2d  below.)

Reid continues to defy the press for new sanctions by a mounting number of Senators, as he continues to do Obama's bidding.

Will Egypt be next?  (See 2e below.)

I have maintained from the git go that Obama will allow Iran to go nuclear notwithstanding, his earlier pronouncements in which he stated he would protect Israel's back. blah blah blah

Anyone who believes Obama's commitment to preventing the spread of Iran's influence has to disbelieve an awful lot of events in the Middle East that point in the opposite direction but then what difference does it make!
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Less freedom for American economics? Why not? Fits hand in glove with Obama's desire to grow government, tax the productive and reduce freedom for the public at large.  (See 3 below.)

Meanwhile the IRS attacks on Conservative Organizations was simply administrative misunderstanding of its myriad rules and had nothing to do with intentional behaviour.

And I have Christie's portion of the GW Bridge for sale!
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Dick
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1)  Politics Versus Education
By Thomas Sowell 


Anyone who has still not yet understood the utter cynicism of the Obama administration in general, and Attorney General Eric Holder in particular, should look at the Justice Department's latest interventions in education.

If there is one thing that people all across the ideological spectrum should be able to agree on, it is that better education is desperately needed by black youngsters, especially in the ghettos. For most, it is their one chance for a better life.

Among the few bright spots in a generally dismal picture of the education of black students are those successful charter schools or voucher schools to which many black parents try to get their children admitted. Some of these schools have not only reached but exceeded national norms, even when located in neighborhoods where the regular public schools lag far behind.

Where admission to these schools is by a lottery, the cheers and tears that follow announcements of who has been admitted -- and, by implication, who will be forced to continue in the regular public schools -- tell the story better than words can.

When the state of Louisiana decided to greatly expand the number of schools available to students by parental choice, rather than by the rigidities of the usual public school system, Attorney General Holder's Justice Department objected on grounds that this was at cross-purposes with the federal government's racial integration goals for the schools.

In short, Louisiana's attempt to improve the education of children is subordinated by Holder to the federal government's attempt to mix and match black and white students.

If we have learned nothing else after decades of socially divisive and educationally futile racial busing, it should be obvious that seating black kids next to white kids is neither necessary nor sufficient to get them a better education.

The truly despicable intervention by Attorney General Holder is his warning to schools against discipline policies that result in a higher proportion of minority students than white students being punished.

This racial body count method of determining whether there is discrimination by the schools might make sense if we were certain that there could be no differences in behavior that would explain the differences in punishment. But does any sane adult really believe that there cannot be any difference between the behavior of black boys and Asian girls, for example?

There is a lot of make-believe when it comes to racial issues, whether out of squeamishness, political correctness or expediency. There is also a lot of deliberate racial polarization, and attempts to promote a sense of grievance and fear among black voters, in order to keep their votes in the Democrats' column.

What makes this playing politics with school discipline so unconscionable is that a lack of discipline is one of the crushing handicaps in many ghetto schools. If 10 percent of the students in a classroom are disruptive, disrespectful and violent, the chances of teaching the other 90 percent effectively are very low.

Yet, in the words of the New York Times, "The Obama administration speaks out against zero tolerance discipline." It quotes Attorney General Holder and says that he was "on the mark" when he said that a "routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal's office, not in a police precinct."

In other words, Eric Holder, sitting in Washington, knows better than the thousands of people who run public schools across the country what kinds of sanctions are necessary to preserve some semblance of order in the classrooms, so that hoodlums do not make the education of their classmates impossible.

Like the New York Times, Attorney General Holder has made this an issue of "The Civil Rights of Children." More important, the implied threat of federal lawsuits based on racial body count among students who have been disciplined means that hoodlums in the classroom seem to have a friend in Washington.

But even the hoodlums can end up worse off, if lax discipline in the school lets them continue on in a way of life that usually ends up inside prison walls. Nevertheless, if all this means black votes for the Democrats, that may well be the bottom line for Holder and the Obama administration.

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2)  A Terrorist's Dream Come
Gil Solomon 

It must be any Arab terrorist’s dream come true to have Jews as their enemy.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you can fire rockets by the thousands and finally receive a response you know will end prematurely and inconclusively. You face an Israeli enemy which, during a war, gives advance notice by flyers and phone calls to apartment residents that this or that building is being targeted, thereby giving so called “innocent” civilians and yourselves enough time to escape with your life.

About a year ago a US drone targeted a well known terrorist in Pakistan and even after confirming the man’s wife and extended family were present, the missile launch went ahead killing the terrorist and nine of those present with him and not a peep from anyone. This should be the example of blatant hypocrisy Israel should hold up next time the world accuses it of anything. No country on the face of the earth goes to the extent Israel does in trying to avoid civilian casualties but one must ask, what benefit has it gained?

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you can fabricate stories of a supposed massacre (e.g. in Jenin), knowing full well that nothing occurred but that it will cast dispersions on an enemy which foolishly states that it will investigate the claim and thereby, to the rest of the world, implies there may be something to the story. In this regard, if you are a terrorist you know that in respect to your Israeli enemy, that they have not a clue how to counter the Hasbara war you are waging against them and wouldn’t even know that Hasbara is a war.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will certainly know that you can make the most outrageous and heinous statements, such as “Jews are the offspring of pigs and apes,” knowing full well that the Israelis will still offer to sit down with you in talks with no preconditions! Not even will they demand that the indoctrination of children in hate must stop.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will know that if captured, you will be well treated. In the case of Barghouti, a terrorist “with blood on his hands” sitting in an Israeli prison, being well treated apparently includes being given access to the world media in order to babble on about anything he likes, as was recently the case.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will rejoice in that country’s foolishness in allowing the Muslim Waqf to retain control of the Temple Mount after the 1967 war, all for then Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan’s desire to be magnanimous in victory. This will allow you to go on excavating under the Temple Mount with a bulldozer, destroying any remaining Jewish artefacts in order to rid the place of any trace of the first and second Temple periods and in the process continue to build an underground mosque there for future proof of claim to the land. Contrary to popular misconceptions, Rabbis wanted Israeli control of this holy site while researching where Jews were not allowed to go. Moshe Dayan’s decision doesn’t say much about the people around him in the Israeli cabinet at that time who allowed his decision to prevail.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will know that so successful is your propaganda, that your enemy will still be held responsible by the world media for so called settlement “expansion” even though it is clearly only building a new house or an extension to an existing home but within the boundaries of existing Jewish communities.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you know that the world has bought your lie that there were once a Palestinian people when in fact no such people ever existed. As a matter of fact, in biblical times, all of what is now Israel and the west bank (Judea and Samaria) was Jewish. When the Romans conquered the territory they named the entire area “Philistina” in order to rub salt into the wounds of the defeated Jews by calling the place in honour of their ancient and mortal enemies the Philistines. By doing so, the Romans acknowledged that the owners of the territory were Jews. Down the centuries the name Philistina was anglicized to Palestine.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, if one were referred to as a Palestinian, it was automatically implied that he or she was Jewish. Decades later Arabs cleverly commandeered the term “Palestinian” and the illiterate masses have bought their message that these same Arabs have never forgiven the division of “their country” by the UN. The facts are that Palestine was a land mass finally administered by the British from 1914 until the 1947 Partition Plan when only a part was allocated back to its centuries old rightful owners, the Jewish people.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will know that no nation in the Western world will call you to account for your ongoing perpetrated myths and lies.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you know that your enemy will indulge your ludicrous and incessant claims and still be willing to sit down with you in good faith.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you should pray that your enemy will continue treating you as they do now, that is, not as any “normal” country would do. If your enemy was a “normal” country like Russia, China or the USA facing barrage after deadly barrage of missiles, you could rest assured that parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank would have been reduced to rubble long ago.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel you should get down on your hands and knees and thank Allah that this insane democracy called Israel allows its President (Shimon Peres) to bad mouth the Israeli Government at every opportunity in order to bring its downfall, to be replaced with a left wing rabble more to his liking. In spite of the fact that Abbas has stated over and over again that the PA will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, this being a red line which he will not cross, the good Shimon Peres, that left wing ideologue, that “elder statesman” that man who brought Israel the disastrous Oslo Accords, still harbours the view that his good friend Abbas is a partner for peace! This same Peres who, when learning that Yasser Arafat was caught out preaching “jihad” in Arabic to his assembled throng, rushed to his immediate defence by saying he was really calling for a “jihad for peace.”

That insane democracy called Israel does not apparently enforce Israeli law where Negev Bedouin are concerned. The fact that they once roamed the Middle East tending their flocks does not prove ownership and for Israel to have succumbed to pressure to, in many cases, allow these people to register vacant land in the Land Registry as privately held is appalling. It is outrageous that an organisation called Regavim has to take the Israeli Government to court to enforce its own laws in order to keep Jewish lands in Jewish hands.

Most disgusting of all, if you are a terrorist facing Israel you will know that within the Jewish Diaspora, you will have countless numbers who have fallen for your propaganda, fallen for your attempts to rewrite history, who will flock to your side and denounce Israel for every step it takes in its defence. In short, you will be able to count on many of those who you call the “offspring of pigs and apes” who will defend your every move and pronouncement. If this is not obscene enough, these same offspring of pigs and apes will devise ways of bringing economic hardship to Israel by such devious schemes as a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

It is my opinion that Obama and Kerry aim to destroy Israel one way or another. Kerry’s periodic mumblings that if Israel does not offer more and more concessions, then there could be more acts of terror, is to me a clearly veiled message to the “Palestinians” on what to do should these so called “peace talks” break down. On a personal note, I find it an appalling indictment of American Jewry that the overwhelming majority voted for this administration.

It is time for Israel to act like a sovereign power in control of its own destiny. It has only one option and that is to walk away from this so called “peace process’, to take unilateral action on borders, hand the welfare of those people outside those borders to the UNHCR, Jordan, Egypt or whoever and to expel all foreign and hostile NGOs. The world would no doubt not recognize these moves but then the world recognizes nothing Israel does anyway.

At a minimum, the world would see that Israel has finally got up off its knees.

In conclusion, should there be another war, which is a distinct possibility, it will have profound implications. Israel must not allow the next one to end prematurely or inconclusively like all others in the past because of world pressure. This one has to end with the unconditional surrender of the enemy on Israel’s terms. This time the gloves must come off, the IAF unleashed with no more of those ludicrous advance warnings.

2a) Mr. Kerry, Dig for the Truth!

By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein 

One of the more interesting claims made by pro-Arab interests regarding Jerusalem is directed, of all things, against archaeological findings. A booklet explaining the Arab Peace Initiative first presented by Saudi Arabia complains that “archaeology is used to strengthen Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, and hampers any possible future solution of the conflict.”

If ever there was a classic case of blaming the messenger, this one tops it. For it’s obvious that archaeologists simply reveal to us what was there all along. Since Jews lived in and governed this Holy Land for hundreds of years prior to, during, and after the First and Second Temple periods, it is quite to be expected that remnants of dynamic Jewish life would be found wherever archaeologists dig. Does the Palestinian Authority expect Israel to stop archaeological digs so that evidence of Jewish life here not be found?

Among the more interesting finds of the past few year have been:

* a building dating to the Hasmonean Period in the City of David;

* a layer of rich finds in the area of the Gihon Spring in the City of David including thousands of pieces of clay pottery, lamps and figurines, and especially a ceramic bowl with an ancient Hebrew inscription, linking us to the Jerusalemites of the end of the First Temple period;

* and part of an enormous Crusader-period hospital uncovered smack in the middle of the Old City’s Christian Quarter. Historical Latin documents from that time tell of Crusaders who made sure their Jewish patients received kosher food.

Two months earlier, 2,000-year-old evidence of the Roman siege of Jerusalem was found in the form of three cooking pots and a small ceramic oil lamp found in a small cistern in a drainage channel running from the Shiloah Pool to Robinson’s Arch. Just prior to that, a huge Second Temple Period quarry was exposed in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, and a mikveh from the same time was found in Kiryat Menachem in southwestern Jerusalem.

There’s still more, of course: What is now known as the “Ophel Treasure” was unearthed this past year, comprised of 36 gold coins and a large gold medallion from the year 614 CE. Found only 50 meters from the Temple Mount’s southern wall, the medallion is believed to be a Torah-scroll ornament, with images of a menorah, shofar and Torah scroll etched into it.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comments on the find encapsulate the absolute insignificance of the PA claims: “This magnificent discovery attests to the ancient Jewish presence and sanctity of the place; this is as clear as the sun. [The fact that the menorah etching] is from over 500 years after the destruction of the Second Temple is historic testimony of the highest order to the Jewish People’s link to Jerusalem, its land and its heritage.”

Given the overabundance of evidence of Jewish life in the Holy Land, and especially in Yerushalayim, Arab claims regarding the history of the area are all the more absurd. Possibly most unbelievable of all is that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas actually issued a holiday greeting last month declaring that “Jesus was a Palestinian messenger.” Is it not incredible not only that he could make such a claim, but that he knew in advance that the international community – well aware that Jesus was Jewish – would accept such an illogical pronouncement with equanimity? Not even the Vatican protested.

Even if we were to assume that Abbas was merely referring to the geographical area in which Jesus lived, he still lied – for the term “Palestine” was first used to denote an official Roman Empire province 100 years after Jesus died.

In this light, let us consider Secretary of State John Kerry’s frenzied drive to reach some kind of agreement; any agreement in the world will do, from his standpoint, as long as he can avoid the label “failure.” The diplomatic fight for Jerusalem is thus in high gear, and as such, Abbas realizes that the more he denies the facts of Jewish history, the more he might be able to squeeze out of these negotiations. He and other PA spokesmen are clearly being driven to the extremes of rationality, as can be ascertained from the following quotes:

* The mufti of Jerusalem says Israel has no historical, religious, or any other rights to Jerusalem, and that the city “has been the historical, religious, cultural, and scientific capital of the Palestinians from time immemorial, the center of the Islamic world, and the focus of world civilization” (courtesy of Dr. David Bukai).

* Dr. Marwan Abu-Khalaf, director of the Archaeological Institute at Al-Quds University, argues shamelessly that “Jerusalem’s archaeological treasures emphasize the depth of the city’s heritage and history; they emphasize its Arabness and refute the Israeli claims that it is a Jewish city…. It is known that perhaps under every stone and in every corner, on every street and at every turn in Jerusalem there are relics. These relics say, ‘We are Arab, we are Muslim, we are Christian.’ ”

* Abbas has accused Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem while obliterating and robbing its “historical and religious Palestinian character” (Qatar, Feb. 2012).

* Dr. Bukai has collected a list of similarly foolish PA claims: “Abraham was not a Jew; the Jews never lived in ancient Israel; the Jews never had any connection to Jerusalem; Jerusalem was never a Jewish city; there never was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem; the Western Wall is not a Jewish holy site; the Tombs of Rachel and Joseph are actually Muslim sites.”

Let us address Secretary Kerry directly: As we have written before, the following two facts must always be remembered. First is that the only three national, politically independent entities in the history of the Land of Israel have been Jewish: the First Jewish Kingdom (Judges and Kings), from the times of Yehoshua bin Nun up until the destruction of the First Temple; the Second Jewish Kingdom, otherwise known as the Second Temple Period; and the modern State of Israel, since 1948.

The second fact is that Jerusalem was never the capital city of any independent regime or nation other than the above three Jewish states. PA or Arab claims to Jerusalem of any type are groundless, historically unjust, and can only have catastrophic ramifications for regional peace. The Hebrew name Jerusalem includes within it the word shalom; without Jewish Jerusalem, there can be no peace.

Chaim Silberstein is president of Keep Jerusalem-Im Eshkachech and the Jerusalem Capital Development Fund. He was formerly a senior adviser to Israel's minister of tourism. Hillel Fendel, past senior editor at Israel National News/Arutz-7, is a veteran writer on Jerusalem affairs. Both have lived in Jerusalem and now live in Beit El.

2b)The U.S. needs a deal with Iran, not detente

By Ray Takeyh 

An unusual fear is gripping the Arab world, namely that nuclear diplomacy may yet bring Iran and the United States into a close regional embrace. This may seem comical given the legacy of mistrust separating the two nations. Yet this concern among Arab rulers, fueled by progress toward a final agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, may have some justification in history. The United States has never been able to pursue arms control without delusion and has always insisted on sanctifying its negotiating partners, conjuring up moderates and searching for common ground. The challenge for Washington today is to defy its history and reach a nuclear agreement with Iran while negating the Islamic Republic’s regional ambitions.

During the heydays of detente in the 1970s, nuclear accords between the United States and Soviet Union were inevitably followed by commerce and diplomatic recognition. Successive U.S. administrations were seduced by the notion that a nuclear agreement could pave the way for grander geopolitical convergence. If the thorny nuclear issues could be resolved through cool-headed dialogue, the thinking went, then why not other areas of superpower contention? This proved a fools’ errand, as the Kremlin saw no contradiction between negotiating a treaty on arms limitation and invading Afghanistan. U.S. adversaries have always been more practical about arms control and have seldom forfeited their ideological claims for the sake of trade and reconciliation.

On the surface, the chimera of bringing Iran in from the cold could prove equally alluring. After all, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, a radical Sunni movement, argues for cooperation with an alarmed Shiite state. The United States is seeking to leave its war-torn charge in Afghanistan and may yet need Tehran’s assistance for such a withdrawal. Perhaps once the two sides have agreed on the nuclear file, they could move toward a larger canvass of cooperation. These sober strategic arguments are seemingly buttressed by the rise of pragmatists led by President Hassan Rouhani. As such, a concerted U.S. effort at engagement might foster Iranian moderation in its foreign policy as well as strengthen the forces of progressive change domestically.

Like their Soviet predecessors, the guardians of Iranian theocracy are far less sentimental than Americans about their diplomacy. Whatever confidence-building measures Iranian diplomats may be negotiating in Geneva, supreme leader Ali Khamenei insisted as recently as late November that Iran is “challenging the influence of America in the region and is extending its own influence.” In Khamenei’s telling, the United States is a crestfallen imperial power unable to impose discipline on a recalcitrant Middle East. It is not his burden to salvage the wreckage of the United States but merely to fill the vacuums left by its abdication.

The key actors defining Iran’s regional policy are not its urbane diplomats mingling with their Western counterparts in Geneva but the Revolutionary Guard Corps, particularly the famed Quds Force. For the force’s commander, Qassem Suleimani, the struggle to evict the United States from the Middle East began in Iraq, as Suleimani proclaimed in September. The struggle has moved on to Syria. The survival and success of the Assad dynasty is now a central element of Iran’s foreign policy.

The U.S. task remains imposing stringent limits on Iran’s nuclear program through negotiations while restraining Tehran’s regional ambitions through pressure. This latter goal will require mending the United States’ battered alliances in the Middle East. Strategic dialogues and arms sales can go only so far. The United States cannot reclaim its allies’ confidence without being an active player in the Syria saga. To be sure, Syria’s opposition is fragmented and the rise of Islamist radicals is a troubling sign, but many are still committed to displacing Assad and taming Islamist militancy — and they are worthy of Western embrace and support. As long as the United States exempts itself from this conflict, its other pledges ring hollow to a skeptical Arab audience.

Too often tensions between the United States and Iran have been attributed to technical disagreements over the scope of Tehran’s nuclear program. For decades, diplomats have struggled to define just the right balance between centrifuges and sanctions relief. Those negotiations have taken place while Iran’s presidency has changed hands from reformers to hard-liners and now, finally, to pragmatists. At the core this conflict is ideological: Iran does not want us to succeed, and we should not want Tehran to prevail. Iran’s assault on the Arab order will define the parameters of Middle East politics for some time to come. The first step toward a sensible Iran policy is to dispense with the illusion of detente that too often accompanies arms control diplomacy.

Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

2c) FM: Iran to Accept No Precondition for Presence in Geneva II

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif once again renewed Iran’s support for a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis, but reiterated that Tehran will not accept any precondition for its participation in the upcoming Geneva II Conference on Syria.

“Iran will not accept any preconditions to attend the Geneva II conference,” Zarif said at a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Adnan Mansour in Beirut on Monday.

Meantime, he called on the world powers to avoid setting any preconditions for anyone to take part in the upcoming Geneva meeting, and added, “Foreigners had better allow the Syrian people administrate their country’s affairs themselves.”

The Geneva II conference, which will be a follow-up to an earlier one held in June 2012, had been proposed by Moscow and Washington to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

The conference is scheduled to be held in Switzerland in two parts. On January 22, the opening session of the event will be in the Swiss city of Montreux and then it will be moved to the UN office in Geneva on January 24.

Syria has been gripped by a deadly crisis since 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies, especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in the foreign-backed militancy.

The Iranian foreign minister, heading a high-ranking delegation, arrived in Lebanon late on Sunday at the head of a political and parliamentary delegation at the first leg of a three-nation tour of the Middle East.

Zarif’s visits to Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon are in line with Iran’s active regional diplomacy and come on the heels of the top diplomat’s previous regional tours which took him to Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar.

Earlier on Monday, the Iranian foreign minister held talks with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

2c) Obama withholds from Israel details of nuclear accord with Iran: Tehran denies dismantling its program

US Vice President Joe Biden when he met Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday night, Jan. 13, refused to level with him on the detailed agreements which the Americans claimed were reached by the six powers and Iran in their talks earlier this week on the implementation of their first-stage Geneva accord.  It was the first time US President Barack Obama personally vetoed a briefing to Israel on the content of the international nuclear negotiations he instigated - notwithstanding his private and public pledges to Netanyahu of “full transparency.”  

This secretiveness has stirred concern and mistrust in Jerusalem on two grounds:

1.  It denotes a sharp decline in the strategic relations between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government and leaves Israel in the dark on an issue of vital concern to its security.

2.  It is suspected that there is no implementation agreement at all and that the US President, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are repeating the performance they put on three months ago in Geneva. Then, they presented a very general framework of non-binding clauses reached between the six powers and Iran as a genuine, full-fledged, interim accord, when in reality it  omitted the details on how and when Iran would dismantle the military side of its nuclear program, and inter alia neglected to address the critical issue of Iran’s nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

Tehran itself has contradicted these assertions as “misleading," referring specifically to the White House statement of Jan. 12 which said: “From Jan. 20, Iran will for the first time start eliminating its stockpile of higher level enriched uranium and dismantling some of the infrastructure that makes such enrichment possible.”

Three days later, on Tuesday, Jan 15. Iran’s lead negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, went on national television with a less than polite denial: “…different interpretations come out of a single document and that is natural,” he said. “But we had better try to have common interpretations, and that is why during the talks we paused a couple of times and continued with the participation of the higher levels.”
Homing in on the White House term “dismantling,” Aragchi countered: “We are aware of Mr. Obama’s problems in Congress, but ‘dismantling’ abuses the word after the recent deal.”

In the light of the conflicting versions coming out the White House and Tehran - and Joe Biden’s refusal to level with Netanyahu on the latest rounds of nuclear talks - Israel is left wondering what in fact US-led international nuclear diplomacy has achieved in the way of curbing Iran’s progress toward a bomb – if anything.

Some pointed answers to those questions are in the offing as well as how President Obama’s policies have opened the door for a major Iranian political offensive in the Middle East, which gives Tehran free rein to meddle profoundly in the affairs of Iraq and Lebanon in addition to Syria.

2e) As Obama dithers, Egypt ramps up its nuclear options

By Raymond Stock 

After the fatally-flawed interim deal signed by the P5+1 in Geneva November 24 over Iran's nuclear program, America's slighted ally Egypt is now possibly pursuing its own nuclear option, amid fears of an atomic arms race between Tehran and its regional Sunni rivals in Cairo, Riyadh and beyond.

And no one seems to be paying attention.

Egypt's traditionally close relations with the U.S. have been severely strained since Minister of Defense General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ousted the narrowly-elected President Mohamed Morsi after more than thirty million marched against him and the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), to which he belongs.

To the outrage of most Egyptians, the U.S. cut roughly a third in cash and equipment of its annual $1.6 billion of mainly military aid to Cairo in early October in punishment for the new regime's crackdown on the MB, which demands the return of Morsi — and which Egypt now correctly classifies as a terrorist organization.

Yet the White House had boosted aid to Egypt even as Morsi grew more and more repressive, imposing his Islamist agenda on the country.

On October 6, Egypt's interim president, Adly Mansour, announced at the annual commemoration of Egypt's successful 1973 surprise attack on the Israelis across the Suez Canal that construction of a 1,000 MW light-water reactor to generate electricity at El-Debaa, 120 kilometers west of Alexandria — the first of four planned in the country — would go ahead.

Egypt's 60-year-old nuclear program is already the third largest in the region, after those of Israel and Iran.

On November 26, the respected Middle East news site Al-Monitor reported that Egypt expects to generate $4 billion in grants from interested international companies to finance the project.

Morsi, whom al-Sisi appointed Mansour to replace pending new elections next year, had earlier approved a similar plan, even obtaining a pledge of Russian “research assistance” for Egypt's nuclear expansion, as well as help in exploiting the nation's previously unknown major deposits of uranium.

In mid-November, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu visited Egypt, where they negotiated a deal through which Egypt will buy $2 billion worth of Russian military equipment.

“We want to give a new impetus to our relations and return them to the same high level that used to exist with the Soviet Union”—i.e., during the Cold War–Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi is quoted as saying.

On November 11, the destroyer Varyag docked with an official welcome at Alexandria, the first Russian warship to visit one of Egypt's ports in decades.

It is not known if the Russians and their hosts also discussed Egypt's nuclear program in those talks.

Morsi — whom the Iranians too had offered to help develop his nuclear program, and with whom he worked to have closer ties after three decades of frozen relations–was most likely interested in acquiring nuclear weapons, for which the MB has called since 2006.

That idea is still wildly popular in Egypt, even if the MB no longer is.

Yet unlike Iran, a major oil exporter, Egypt really does have an urgent, legitimate need to develop new sources of energy.

Rolling brownouts and blackouts have been increasingly common, especially in post-Mubarak Egypt.

But as al-Sisi and Obama drift further apart, there are good reasons to be aware, if not wary, of Egypt's push for nuclear power.

Egypt's nuclear program, which began in 1954, features two research reactors and a hot-cell laboratory, all located at Inshas in the Delta.

From the reactors' spent fuel rods, the hot-cell laboratory reportedly extracts at least six kilograms of plutonium — enough for one nuclear bomb — per year.

During the rule of Hosni Mubarak — overthrown in February 2011 in a U.S.-backed coup propelled by public protests–the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA) in 2004 opened an investigation into irradiation experiments and the unreported import of nuclear materials, and in 2007 and 2008 found traces of Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU), all at Inshas.

After each, the IAEA issued brief, bland reports, but the last case is apparently still open, while similar traces of HEU found in facilities in Iran provided the first clue that Pakistan had been aiding Tehran's own drive for the bomb.

Mubarak also called for a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East–now a movement, co-led by Iran, obviously aimed at freeing Israel of its most effective last-ditch defenses.

Yet, although Egypt signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968, it has refused to sign the NPT's Additional Protocol, which permits spot inspections, as well as treaties banning the possession of chemical and biological weapons.

Al-Sisi shares Mubarak's antipathy for the ayatollahs, and rightly fears their growing rapprochement with a gullible U.S. eager to create a new alignment in the Middle East, at the expense of traditional Sunni allies.

That means not only Egypt but Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who ultimately felt threatened by the MB in Egypt (the UAE is now prosecuting about thirty MB members accused of plotting subversion), which the Obama administration continues to stand by instead, despite the group's anti-Western ideology and actions.

There is now enormous support on the street for Egypt to shift its alliance away from the U.S., particularly toward Russia, especially after President Vladimir Putin's masterful diplomatic deflection of America's pusillanimous threat of a military strike against Moscow's Syrian client last fall.

The rift is not yet complete- — though there still is no clear sign that the Obama administration will either fully accept the loss of Morsi, or actually stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them.

Whatever Iran chooses to do when it finally gets the bomb, its very proximity to having these ultimate weapons could impel its neighbors to seek their own deterrent.

Sadly, no deterrent nor strategy of containment can control the dynamics of this most unstable region should Iran achieve its ultimate nuclear ambitions.

And a nuclear arms race between the Sunni states and Iran — also, in the end, aimed at Israel — would be even worse.

Raymond Stock, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a former Assistant Professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Drew University, spent twenty years in Egypt, and was deported by the Mubarak regime in 2010.

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3)America's Dwindling Economic Freedom

Regulation, taxes and debt knock the U.S. out of the world's top 10.

By Terry Miller

World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries.

For 20 years, the index has measured a nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity and social progress. Botswana, for example, has made gains through low tax rates and political stability.

Those losing freedom, on the other hand, risk economic stagnation, high unemployment and deteriorating social conditions. For instance, heavy-handed government intervention in Brazil's economy continues to limit mobility and fuel a sense of injustice.

It's not hard to see why the U.S. is losing ground. Even marginal tax rates exceeding 43% cannot finance runaway government spending, which has caused the national debt to skyrocket. The Obama administration continues to shackle entire sectors of the economy with regulation, including health care, finance and energy. The intervention impedes both personal freedom and national prosperity.

But as the U.S. economy languishes, many countries are leaping ahead, thanks to policies that enhance economic freedom—the same ones that made the U.S. economy the most powerful in the world. Governments in 114 countries have taken steps in the past year to increase the economic freedom of their citizens. Forty-three countries, from every part of the world, have now reached their highest economic freedom ranking in the index's history.

Hong Kong continues to dominate the list, followed by Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand and Canada. These are the only countries to earn the index's "economically free" designation. Mauritius earned top honors among African countries and Chile excelled in Latin America. Despite the turmoil in the Middle East, several Gulf states, led by Bahrain, earned designation as "mostly free."

A realignment is under way in Europe, according to the index's findings. Eighteen European nations, including Germany, Sweden, Georgia and Poland, have reached new highs in economic freedom. By contrast, five others—Greece, Italy, France, Cyprus and the United Kingdom—registered scores lower than they received when the index started two decades ago.

The most improved players are in Eastern Europe, including Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic. These countries have gained the most economic freedom over the past two decades. And it's no surprise: Those who have lived under communism have no trouble recognizing the benefits of a free-market system. But countries that have experimented with milder forms of socialism, such as Sweden, Denmark and Canada, also have made impressive moves toward greater economic freedom, with gains near 10 points or higher on the index scale. Sweden, for instance, is now ranked 20th out of 178 countries, up from 34th out of 140 countries in 1996.

The U.S. and the U.K, historically champions of free enterprise, have suffered the most pronounced declines. Both countries now fall in the "mostly free" category. Some of the worst performers are in Latin America, particularly Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia. All are governed by crony-populist regimes pushing policies that have made property rights less secure, spending unsustainable and inflation evermore threatening.

Despite financial crises and recessions, the global economy has expanded by nearly 70% in 20 years, to $54 trillion in 2012 from $32 trillion in 1993. Hundreds of millions of people have left grinding poverty behind as their economies have become freer. But it is an appalling, avoidable human tragedy how many of the world's peoples remain unfree—and poor.

The record of increasing economic freedom elsewhere makes it inexcusable that a country like the U.S. continues to pursue policies antithetical to its own growth, while wielding its influence to encourage other countries to chart the same disastrous course. The 2014 Index of Economic Freedom documents a world-wide race to enhance economic opportunity through greater freedom—and this year's index demonstrates that the U.S. needs a drastic change in direction.

Mr. Miller is the director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at the Heritage Foundation.

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