The Untouchable President!

I just returned from the movie "Lone Survivor" and it reminded me what a pathetic CIC we have and how those who fight in distant lands must feel.

Very tense movie but gives you reality of combat. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Reset button again with Russia?  (See 2 below.)
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The Affordable Health Care Act is working so well that Obama has given another extension to another group impacted by it beyond the 2016 election..

The number of exemptions now is off the charts but 'what difference does it make?' since, of course, Congress Constitutionally  passes legislation and Obama, without their approval, manipulates it for political reasons.

Furthermore, Obama lies about how many have enrolled because he never deducts those who have lost their coverage or have chosen Medicaid instead of Obamacare.

Furthermore, the chaos his actions are creating on business decision making is strangling the health insurance industry and contributing to the unemployment disaster his economic policies have created.

But if we point this out we are racists because he is the untouchable president.

I did not say this , though I agree.  A black doctor said it!  (See 3 below.)

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Sowell goes random. (See 4 below.)

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Dick
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1) When it Comes to Jihad Knowledge, Obama is on the Bench

President Barack Obama recently made headlines in a “New Yorker” magazine piece, in which he described the current crop of Al Qaeda fighters as being like when “a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms” adding, “that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” He indicated the analogy was common in the White House.

He went on to say that unlike Osama bin Laden, the current group was, “engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

The comment was in response to the recent seizure of Fallujah and Ramadi by the Al Qaeda group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, and was a defense of the president’s claims to have “demolished” Al Qaeda.

The president’s comment is deeply interesting, because its tone-deafness (even the “New Yorker” interviewer noted the analogy as “uncharacteristically flip”) reflects the general failure of the Obama administration to understand Al Qaeda, or Islamist movements more generally, and the disasters that have resulted from that failed understanding. President Obama even managed to point out that Al Qaeda fighters were “jihadists” while making absolutely clear he has no conception of what that actually means.

In this citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a protester holds a placard depicting U.S. President Barack Obama during a demonstration in Kafr Nabil town, Idlib province, northern Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2014.  (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

The president’s comparison of Al Qaeda action to “various power struggles and disputes” was naturally paired in the minds of many with a recent “CNN” report that “Al Qaeda Controls More Territory than Ever in The Middle East,” authored by national security journalist Peter Bergen. Ironically, as Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies rightly pointed out, Bergen is among those responsible for the utterly false meme (perpetuated by President Obama) that “Al Qaeda is defeated.”

Meanwhile Iraqi security forces, trained and equipped by the United States during our time in Iraq, failed to oust Al Qaeda from Ramadi, while one Iraqi minister lamented that Al Qaeda in Fallujah had weapons, “huge and advanced and frankly enough to occupy Baghdad.”

This is apparently not something that worries President Obama. In his “New Yorker” interview he noted:

“…how we think about terrorism has to be defined and specific enough that it doesn’t lead us to think that any horrible actions that take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic ideology are a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.”

In other words, if Al Qaeda forces put all of the Middle East under the thumb of Sharia Law, that’s no reason to be alarmed.

It’s a curious statement, particularly since under President Obama the United States has repeatedly waded into conflicts ON BEHALF of those motivated by “an extremist Islamic ideology.”

Fighters of al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant carry their weapons during a parade at the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, near the border with Turkey January 2, 2014. Picture taken January 2, 2014 (REUTERS/Yaser Al-Khodor)

First in Egypt, where the closeness in relations between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood (M.B.) was such that M.B. members were given “visiting dignitary” treatment and permitted to bypass security screenings when entering the U.S., before they had even won Egyptian elections. The Egyptian interim government which took over after the military ousted the M.B. has designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist group after revealing evidence they say links the Muslim Brotherhood closely to Al Qaeda affiliated fighters in the Sinai Peninsula.

In Libya, U.S. aircraft provided close air support for rebels known to be associated with Al Qaeda. Those responsible for the attack on the Benghazi Consulate killing four Americans were also Al Qaeda linked rebels, as May noted in his column. A “horrible action” which was presumably not, as President Obama noted, “a direct threat to us.”

In Syria, the Obama Administration has attempted to negotiate with the Islamic Front, a group of rebels that includes Ahrar-al-Sham, a militia linked to Al Qaeda. The leader of the group, Abu Khaled al Suri, has openly admitted to being Al Qaeda, and was the man designated by Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to mediate between the Al Qaeda branches of Al Nusra Front and ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham).

We now have the curious situation of Al Qaeda attacking Al Qaeda.

This has baffled commentators, who have described the Islamic Front and other rebel battles against ISIS as some kind of rejection of the jihadist element. But the reality is that ISIS is being ostracized not because it is fighting to impose Islamic law upon otherwise secular rebels as some have claimed, but because ISIS has violated Islamic law and refused to answer to sharia courts, and the other jihadi forces will not stand for it.

In particular, ISIS has been accused of killing a doctor with ties to Ahrar al-Sham and the Islamic Front called for the ISIS operatives responsible to face charges. As former Department of Defense analyst and specialist on Islamic law Stephen Coughlin explained to this author,

“For a person to kill a Muslim who has not engaged in apostasy, adultery or likewise killed an innocent Muslim represents a capital offense under the Sharia, providing an Islamic legal justification for the Islamic Front to fight ISIS. Failing to understand that Al Qaeda-affiliated organizations take the practice and implementation of Islamic law seriously leads to their actions being misinterpreted by Western observers.”

This understanding indeed seems to mirror that of Al Qaeda head honcho Ayman Al Zawahiri (certainly a varsity player if there ever was one) who has favored the Islamic front and Al-Nusrah over the ISIS in previous disputes and who was recently reported speaking out on the inter-jihadi fighting:

Zawahiri says that al Qaeda does not accept “any violation” or “any assault” against the “sanctity of any Muslim or jihadist.” Al Qaeda also does “not accept” the accusations of “infidelity or apostasy” that have been levied against some jihadist groups, because they are all “sacrificing their lives and properties” for the sake of jihad.

Having backed those with an “extremist Islamic ideology” in every location in the Middle East, President Obama now claims to be reluctant to fix the chaos his Administration has helped to unleash, and which he now attributes to “warlords and thugs and criminals [who] are trying to gain leverage or a foothold so that they can control resources, populations, territory.”

This view is precisely wrong. Whatever else they may be, the jihadists operating in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere in the Middle East are not mere “warlords.”  The fighting ongoing now is not strictly about “controlling resources, populations or territory.” It is about the imposition of Sharia law. The fact that President Obama does not understand that reality means his judgment about who is a direct threat, or who is varsity player and who is “jayvee,” is not to be trusted.

1a)  Iran's bomb in the basement

By Caroline Glick

Iranian bomb

It is happening in slow motion, to be sure.

But we are witnessing how a nuclear armed Iran is changing the face of the Middle East.

For years, US leaders, including President Barack Obama, warned that a nuclear armed Iran would spark a regional arms race.

And this is happening.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens (a former Jerusalem Post editor in chief) noted this week, Turkey signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Japan that includes “a provision allowing Turkey to enrich uranium and extract polonium, a potential material for nuclear weapons.”

Saudi Arabia has long had a nuclear cooperation deal with Pakistan, whose nuclear weapons program the Saudis financed.

Jordan and Egypt have both raised the prospect of developing nuclear programs.

And in 2007, Israel bombed a Syrian nuclear installation built for it by North Korea and paid for by Iran.
In his article, Stephens cited a recent report by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board stating that the world is entering into “a new nuclear age” that, as we see is characterized by everyone, including non-state actors, seeking to develop and proliferating nuclear capabilities.

Iran’s nuclear status has opened the floodgates to this era of nuclear chaos.

Also in response to Iran’s nuclear progress, Gulf states and others are treating Iran with newfound deference. Kuwait, Qatar and Oman all seem to be breaking ranks with Saudi Arabia by expressing support and indeed obedience to Iran.

Shortly after word broke in late November that the US and its partners had reached an interim nuclear deal with Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammed Javad Zarif took a victory lap in Kuwait and Oman.

In his press conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Zarif said, “We believe that a new era has begun in ties between Iran and regional states which should turn into a new chapter of amicable relations through efforts by all regional countries.”

Zarif also visited Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. In Beirut, he took on the role previously held by the US and France when he mediated between Hezbollah and the March 14 movement to form a new government.

The fact that Hezbollah has since reneged on its agreement to the deal doesn’t mean that Iran is weaker than it thought. Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy. Its refusal to join the government means that Iran is now demanding better terms than it previously accepted. Its new terms require total Hezbollah domination of the country.

As Michael Rubin reported in Commentary this week, the Iraqi Kurds, who have been US allies for decades, have now accepted Iranian mediation of their leadership crisis.

All of this newfound deference toward Iran owes entirely to Iran’s new nuclear status.

In Washington, the Obama administration placed the full weight and prestige of the White House on its campaign to derail a widely supported bill in Congress to install additional sanctions against Iran in six months if Iran fails to comply with its obligations in the interim Joint Plan of Action. Over the past week, due to administration pressure, the Senate buried the sanctions bill.

Far from feeling the need to protect its agreement with the mullocracy, it appears that the administration’s main goal in that campaign was to weaken and discredit AIPAC, which supported the sanctions bill.

As Lee Smith noted this week in Tablet, weakening the pro-Israel advocacy group has become one of the administration’s major second-term goals.

AIPAC was the target of the administration’s campaign rather than the sanctions themselves because the sanctions regime against Iran – painstakingly cobbled together over a decade – disintegrated last November. When word of the interim deal got out, the stampede of European businessmen to Tehran began.

This week’s delegation of a hundred French businessmen to Iran in search of deals that could bring as much as $20 billion into the country was just the latest demonstration that the entire debate about sanctions is an irrelevant sideshow.

Just as its leaders have always believed, Iran’s new nuclear status is its economic salvation.

Most observers are missing Iran’s rise to the stature of regional hegemon because the Iranian regime has yet to try out its new power against Israel. With Iran and its Syrian and Hezbollah proxies tied up in their jihads in Iraq and Syria, they haven’t yet been able to turn their guns on Israel. But when the fighting in those theaters abates, there can be little doubt that Israel will move to the top of their target list.

And as Jonathan Schanzer pointed out in Foreign Policy this week, the Middle East is being flooded with advanced weapons that erode Israel’s qualitative military edge over its adversaries.

Hezbollah and Hamas have 60,000 missiles in their arsenals – three times the number they possessed at the end of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. And as Schanzer noted, these missiles are far more powerful and precise than the ones they fielded eight years ago. Hezbollah’s Yakhont missiles can strike naval vessels within 120 kilometers of Lebanon’s coast. Hamas has advanced anti-aircraft missiles that threaten the air force.

As for the air force, its fleet of F-15s and F-16s is already a decade old.

Syria, of course has retained more than 95 percent of its chemical weapons arsenal. And its forces are more battled hardened than ever before.

Iraq, now largely an Iranian satellite, is receiving advanced drones from the US. There is no reason to trust that those drones will not be shared with Iran and Hezbollah.

In his interview last month with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, President Hassan Rouhani stated unequivocally that contrary to claims by Obama administration officials, Iran will never “under any circumstances” destroy any of its centrifuges.

Zakaria said that means the negotiations for a final nuclear deal with Iran will end in “a train wreck,” since the sides’ conceptions of what was agreed to “look like they are miles apart.”

But Zakaria is wrong. The talks won’t end in a train wreck. Indeed, they may never end at all.

Catherine Ashton, the EU’ foreign policy chief, said Sunday that negotiations with Iran may well go on after their six-month deadline in July.

Moreover, whether the negotiations go on forever or end at a certain point, the result won’t be a train wreck. It will be Iran with a nuclear bomb or nuclear arsenal in its basement, waiting for a propitious moment to conduct a nuclear weapons test or attack.

Last spring, Rouhani gave a television interview explaining how he used his position as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in 2003 to facilitate Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Rouhani boasted that they massively expanded uranium enrichment at Natanz, and constructed the nuclear reactor at Bushehr and the heavy water plant at Arak under the cover of the negotiations.

In testimony last month before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that Iran has already reached the breakout point where it can assemble nuclear weapons at will. In his words, Iran’s “technical advancements strengthen our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons.”

Obama and his advisers claim that the US has the intelligence capability to know if and when the Iranians move from breakout capacity to actual bomb making.

But as Stephens reported, the Defense Science Board report rejects that conclusion. According to the board, the US does not have the capability to know when a country moves from breakout capacity to an actual arsenal.

So given Rouhani’s previous subterfuge, there is every reason to assume that Iran is using its current negotiations to move from breakout capacity to a nuclear arsenal.

This state of affairs has grave implications for Israel.

Today it is no longer self-evident that Israel has the capacity to effectively strike Iran’s nuclear installations.
Through deed and word, the White House has made clear repeatedly that it prefers a nuclear- armed Iran to an Israeli strike to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. As it has done several times over the past six years, the Obama administration can be expected to continue to use the many means it has at its disposal to prevent Israel from launching such an attack.

Moreover, with each passing day Iran’s nuclear sites become more and more difficult to attack successfully. And Iran’s technological capabilities have vastly expanded over the past decade. Today Iran can replace damaged or destroyed centrifuges much faster than it could in the past.

Iran’s ally North Korea has also expanded its nuclear capabilities and its arsenal. Pyongyang is ready and willing to sell Iran replacements for any nuclear components that might be destroyed in a military strike.

Finally, Iran recognizes the implications of growing European and US hostility toward the Jewish state. It knows that if Israel openly attacks Iran and sets back its nuclear weapons program, the EU and the US will punish Israel, and express sympathy with Iran, and so give the Iranians cover to rapidly rebuild any lost capabilities.

Iran’s achievement of breakout capacity and seemingly unfettered path to a bomb in the basement, and its consequent rise to the position of regional hegemony, is the greatest Israeli foreign policy failure since the 1993 Oslo Accord with the PLO.

Our leaders on the Right failed us. They were too weak to pay the diplomatic price for attacking Iran’s nuclear installations when Israel could have easily set the program back for a decade or more.

Our leaders on the Left failed us. Their messianic faith that America will protect us from Iran if we just surrender to Palestinian terrorists lulled us to sleep at the watch when we needed to be most vigilant.

Today, due to the administration’s full-bore assault on Israel’s right to defensible borders and to our historic heartland, we have devoted ourselves to a fruitless and irrelevant discussion of how much of our land and our security we need to give up to appease the Palestinians who will never, ever be appeased.

Our leaders continue to hope that a proper mix of concessions to the PLO will convince Obama to stand by his empty pledge to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Obama will do no such thing. Concessions to the Palestinians will weaken us militarily and politically. And they will give us no advantage over Iran. While it is important to deal with the administration’ hostile insistence on unreciprocated Israeli concessions to the PLO, we cannot ignore Iran.

Iran either has a bomb already or is about to get one. And, having been abandoned by the White House, we face this threat alone.

We must now, immediately and consistently, do whatever we can still do to diminish the Iranian threat.

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2)  New Dimensions of U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Russia

By George Friedman

The struggle for some of the most strategic territory in the world took an interesting twist this week. Last week we discussed what appeared to be a significant shift in German national strategy in which Berlin seemed to declare a new doctrine of increased assertiveness in the world -- a shift that followed intense German interest in Ukraine. This week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a now-famous cell phone conversation, declared her strong contempt for the European Union and its weakness and counseled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine to proceed quickly and without the Europeans to piece together a specific opposition coalition before the Russians saw what was happening and took action.

This is a new twist not because it makes clear that the United States is not the only country intercepting phone calls, but because it puts U.S. policy in Ukraine in a new light and forces us to reconsider U.S. strategy toward Russia and Germany. Nuland's cell phone conversation is hardly definitive, but it is an additional indicator of American strategic thinking.

Recent U.S. Foreign Policy Shifts

U.S. foreign policy has evolved during the past few years. Previously, the United States was focused heavily on the Islamic world and, more important, tended to regard the use of force as an early option in the execution of U.S. policy rather than as a last resort. This was true not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Africa and elsewhere. The strategy was successful when its goal was to destroy an enemy military force. It proved far more difficult to use in occupying countries and shaping their internal and foreign policies. Military force has intrinsic limits.

The alternative has been a shift to a balance-of-power strategy in which the United States relies on the natural schisms that exist in every region to block the emergence of regional hegemons and contain unrest and groups that could threaten U.S. interests. The best example of the old policy is Libya, where the United States directly intervened with air power and special operations forces on the ground to unseat Moammar Gadhafi. Western efforts to replace him with a regime favorable to the United States and its allies have not succeeded. The new strategy can be seen in Syria, where rather than directly intervening the United States has stood back and allowed the warring factions to expend their energy on each other, preventing either side from diverting resources to activities that might challenge U.S. interests.

Behind this is a schism in U.S. foreign policy that has more to do with motivation than actual action. On one side, there are those who consciously support the Syria model for the United States as not necessarily the best moral option but the only practical option there is. On the other, there are those who argue on behalf of moral interventions, as we saw in Libya, and removing tyrants as an end in itself. Given the outcome in Libya, this faction is on the defensive, as it must explain how an intervention will actually improve the moral situation. Given that this faction also tended to oppose Iraq, it must show how an intervention will not degenerate into Iraqi-type warfare. That is hard to do, so for all the rhetoric, the United States is by default falling into a balance-of-power model.

The Geopolitical Battle in Ukraine

Russia emerged as a problem for the United States after the Orange Revolution in 2004, when the United States, supporting anti-Russian factions in Ukraine, succeeded in crafting a relatively pro-Western, anti-Russian government. The Russians read this as U.S. intelligence operations designed to create an anti-Russian Ukraine that, as we have written, would directly challenge Russian strategic and economic interests. Moreover, Moscow saw the Orange Revolution (along with the Rose Revolution) as a dress rehearsal for something that could occur in Russia next. The Russian response was to use its own covert capabilities, in conjunction with economic pressure from natural gas cutoffs, to undermine Ukraine's government and to use its war with Georgia as a striking reminder of the resurrection of Russian military capabilities. These moves, plus disappointment with Western aid, allowed a more pro-Russian government to emerge in Kiev, reducing the Russians' fears and increasing their confidence. In time, Moscow became more effective and assertive in playing its cards right in the Middle East -- giving rise to the current situations in Syria and Iran and elsewhere.

Washington had two options. One was to allow the balance of power to assert itself, in this case relying on the Europeans to contain the Russians. The other was to continue to follow the balance of power model but at a notch higher than pure passivity. As Nuland's call shows, U.S. confidence in Europe's will for and interest in blocking the Russians was low; hence a purely passive model would not work. The next step was the lowest possible level of involvement to contain the Russians and counter their moves in the Middle East. This meant a very limited and not too covert support for anti-Russian, pro-European demonstrators -- the re-creation of a pro-Western, anti-Russian government in Ukraine. To a considerable degree, the U.S. talks with Iran also allow Washington to deny the Russians an Iranian card, although the Syrian theater still allows the Kremlin some room to maneuver.

The United States is not prepared to intervene in the former Soviet Union. Russia is not a global power, and its military has many weaknesses, but it is by far the strongest in the region and is able to project power in the former Soviet periphery, as the war with Georgia showed. At the moment, the U.S. military also has many weaknesses. Having fought for more than a decade in the core of the Islamic world, the U.S. military is highly focused on a way of war not relevant to the former Soviet Union, its alliance structure around the former Soviet Union is frayed and not supportive of war, and the inevitable post-war cutbacks that traditionally follow any war the United States fights are cutting into capabilities. A direct intervention, even were it contemplated (which it is not), is not an option. The only correlation of forces that matters is what exists at a given point in time in a given place. In that sense, the closer U.S. forces get to the Russian homeland, the greater the advantage the Russians have.

Instead, the United States did the same thing that it did prior to the Orange Revolution: back the type of intervention that both the human rights advocates and the balance-of-power advocates could support. Giving financial and psychological support to the demonstrators protesting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to reject a closer relationship with Europe, and later protesting the government's attempt to suppress the demonstrations, preserved the possibility of regime change in Ukraine, with minimal exposure and risk to the United States.

Dissatisfaction with the German Approach

As we said last week, it appeared that it was the Germans who were particularly pressing the issue, and that they were the ones virtually controlling one of the leaders of the protests, Vitali Klitschko. The United States appeared to be taking a back seat to Germany. Indeed, Berlin's statements indicating that it is prepared to take a more assertive role in the world appeared to be a historic shift in German foreign policy.

The statements were even more notable since, over the years, Germany appeared to have been moving closer to Russia on economic and strategic issues. Neither country was comfortable with U.S. aggressiveness in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Both countries shared the need to create new economic relationships in the face of the European economic crisis and the need to contain the United States. Hence, the apparent German shift was startling.

Although Germany's move should not be dismissed, its meaning was not as clear as it seemed. In her cell phone call, Nuland is clearly dismissing the Germans, Klitschko and all their efforts in Ukraine. This could mean that the strategy was too feeble for American tastes (Berlin cannot, after all, risk too big a confrontation with Moscow). Or it could mean that when the Germans said they were planning to be more assertive, their new boldness was meant to head off U.S. efforts. Looking at this week's events, it is not clear what the Germans meant.

What is clear is that the United States was not satisfied with Germany and the European Union. Logically, this meant that the United States intended to be more aggressive than the Germans in supporting opponents of the regime. This is a touchy issue for human rights advocates, or should be. Yanukovich is the elected president of Ukraine, winner of an election that is generally agreed to have been honest (even though his constitutional amendments and subsequent parliamentary elections may not have been). He was acting within his authority in rejecting the deal with the European Union. If demonstrators can unseat an elected president because they disagree with his actions, they have set a precedent that undermines constitutionalism. Even if he was rough in suppressing the demonstrators, it does not nullify his election.

From a balance of power strategy, however, it makes great sense. A pro-Western, even ambiguous, Ukraine poses a profound strategic problem for Russia. It would be as if Texas became pro-Russian, and the Mississippi River system, oil production, the Midwest and the Southwest became vulnerable. The Russian ability to engage in Iran or Syria suddenly contracts. Moscow's focus must be on Ukraine.

Using the demonstrations to create a massive problem for Russia does two things. It creates a real strategic challenge for the Russians and forces them on the defensive. Second, it reminds Russia that Washington has capabilities and options that make challenging the United States difficult. And it can be framed in a way that human rights advocates will applaud in spite of the constitutional issues, enemies of the Iranian talks will appreciate and Central Europeans from Poland to Romania will see as a sign of U.S. commitment to the region. The United States will re-emerge as an alternative to Germany and Russia. It is a brilliant stroke.

Its one weakness, if we can call it that, is that it is hard to see how it can work. Russia has significant economic leverage in Ukraine, it is not clear that pro-Western demonstrators are in the majority, and Russian covert capabilities in Ukraine outstrip American capabilities. The Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service have been collecting files on Ukrainians for a long time. We would expect that after the Olympics in Sochi, the Russians could play their trump cards.

On the other hand, even if the play fails, the United States will have demonstrated that it is back in the game and that the Russians should look around their periphery and wonder where the United States will act next. Putting someone in a defensive crouch does not require that the first punch work. It is enough for the opponent to understand that the next punch will come when he is least expecting it. The mere willingness of the United States to engage will change the expectations of Central Europe, cause tensions between the Central Europeans and the Germans and create an opening for the United States.

The Pressure on Russia

Of course, the question is whether and where the Russians will answer the Americans, or even if they will consider the U.S. actions significant at all. In a sense, Syria was Moscow's move and this is the countermove. The Russians can choose to call the game. They have many reasons to. Their economy is under pressure. The Germans may not rally to the United States, but they will not break from it. And if the United States ups the ante in Central Europe, Russian inroads there will dissolve.

If the Russians are now an American problem, which they are, and if the United States is not going to revert to a direct intervention mode, which it cannot, then this strategy makes sense. At the very least it gives the Russians a problem and a sense of insecurity that can curb their actions elsewhere. At best it could create a regime that might not counterbalance Russia but could make pipelines and ports vulnerable -- especially with U.S. help.

The public interception of Nuland's phone call was not all that embarrassing. It showed the world that the United States, not Germany, is leading the way in Ukraine. And it showed the Russians that the Americans care so little, they will express it on an open cell phone line. Nuland's obscene dismissal of the European Union and treatment of Russia as a problem to deal with confirms a U.S. policy: The United States is not going to war, but passivity is over.

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3)Dr. Ben Carson Blasts 'Gestapo' IRS Tactics

By David A. Patten

Dr. Benjamin Carson, the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital who is considered a possible GOP contender for the 2016 GOP nomination, told Newsmax TV on Monday that he and his family have been personally targeted by the IRS in retribution for his frank critique of President Obama’s policies at the February 2013 National Prayer Breakfast.

Carson said audits and other harassment began in May or June of 2013 and gradually expanded to include family members, associates, and his charitable endeavors. 

"I’ve been quite I would say astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered," Carson said in an exclusive interview with host John Bachman on "America’s Forum" on Newsmax TV.

"The IRS has investigated me. They said, ‘I want to look at your real estate holdings.’ There was nothing there. ‘Well, let’s expand to an entire [year], everything.’ There was nothing there. ‘Let’s do another year.’ Finally, after a few months, they went away. But they’ve come after my family, they’ve come after my friends, they’ve come after associates."

Carson received the presidential Medal of Freedom from former President George W. Bush in 2008. Previously, he has stated that he was audited by the IRS under unusual circumstances but has shied away from drawing a direct link between his opposition to the president’s policies and the IRS audits. 

"You know," Carson told Newsmax TV, "we live in a Gestapo age, people don’t realize it. But what I say is the Congress has to, at some point, step up to the plate. The reason we have divided government is if one branch of the government gets out of control, starts thinking they’re too big for their britches, you need to be able to have control."

Carson said the audits, which began a few months after his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, marked the first time he had been audited in his life. 

He also said a charitable organization that aids inmates’ children was informed last year, for the first time in recent years, that they would no longer be receiving a $1 million annual grant from the Justice Department.

"This is solely because you were involved?" Bachman asked.

"Correct," Carson replied, adding: "…They’ve come after my children in terms of their employment and things like this."

Carson declined to elaborate specifically on how his family had been affected.

"It is very disturbing," he said. "I don’t really want to go into the details too much, because I don’t want them to further go after these organizations, charities, children etc. 

"Because the problem right now is we as a society are just letting them do this. We sit there and we say, ‘Oh this is horrible.’ But we don’t do anything. And see, that’s what I’m trying to get our congressional people, our lawmakers – they’ve got to get courage. Because why would anybody who has an agenda to fundamentally change this nation, why would they stop if no one is opposing them?"

Pressed as to whether he feels he and his family were targeted out of retribution, Carson replied: "And probably will continue to do so. And this is what we have to stop. 

"We cannot allow it," he continued. "The only reason that I haven’t shut up is because in Romans 8 it says ‘If God be for you, who can be against you?’ And I believe in that protection that God gives you." 

Carson’s interview comes in the context of explosive testimony on Capitol Hill last week. It included charges by GOP super lawyer Cleta Mitchell that the IRS targeting — which singled out groups whose names contained words like "tea party" and "patriot," and sidetracked their applications for intensive review — continues against conservative organizations. 

The conservative American Center for Law and Justice is pursuing a lawsuit on behalf of 41 grass-roots plaintiffs who were affected. ACLJ officials tell Newsmax many of those groups still have not received a ruling from the IRS on applications that date back as far as December of 2009. 

Late last year, the IRS unveiled proposed new rules that would substantially limit the activities that "social welfare" organizations, such as those regulated by section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue code, would be permitted to engage in. Those regulations may be adopted later this year, and conservatives feel they add insult to injury by further limiting their activities. 

Mitchell told Newsmax on Monday afternoon that Carson’s experience of suddenly being audited after taking a more active role in conservative politics sounds similar to the complaints of targeting that she’s received from many other conservatives. She called Carson’s experience "pretty scary."

"I have heard this same story over and over and over throughout the last year … as I’ve traveled and spoken all across the country," she says. 

"I cannot tell you how many donors to conservative organizations, people who have become active, have said ‘I was never audited until I started giving money to X conservative candidate or cause.’" 

She tells Newsmax the targeting includes Romney donors, Perry donors, and donors to conservative issue groups. 

Mitchell says Carson’s experience "is not that different from what many others are experiencing. It’s quite, quite troublesome and disturbing."

Until recently Mitchell had resisted calls for Congress to request a special prosecutor, because the investigator would be designated by Attorney General Eric Holder, who himself has been at the center of several controversies involving the administration. 

But Mitchell tells Newsmax she has changed her mind since learning Holder had appointed DOJ trial attorney Barbara Bosserman, who has donated over $6,700 to President Obama’s election campaigns and to the Democratic National Committee in recent years, to head the DOJ’s investigation into the handling of conservative organizations’ applications for non-profit status. 

"The problem is the IRS is being allowed to just stonewall the investigation [of] the targeting of conservative groups," said Mitchell, who represents several grass-roots conservative organizations that have been affected. 

She added: "It’s pretty scary because the people who are supposed to be the neutral arbiter and law enforcement officials appear to me to be completely in the bag for the administration.

"And the IRS appears to me to be doing exactly what Dr. Carson has said is happening. I think he’s exactly right. I hate to say it, but I agree with him. I’ve had too many people across the country say the same things to me. It’s just not possible that it is a coincidence. It’s not statistically possible. 

"Suffice to say that I think that what Dr. Carson is describing is an experience that … far too many other Americans have had in the last four years," she said.
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4)  Random Thoughts

By Thomas Sowell |

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

It is amazing how many people still fall for the argument that, if life is unfair, the answer is to turn more money and power over to politicians. Since life has always been unfair, for thousands of years and in countries around the world, where does that lead us?

I am so old that I can remember when sex was private. "Don't ask, don't tell" applied to everybody.

However fascinated the U.S. Supreme Court may be with the concept of "diversity," every one of the 9 justices has a degree from one of the 8 Ivy League institutions, out of the thousands of institutions of higher learning in this country. How diverse is that?

Despite the rhetoric, the goals or the intentions of the political left, the world they seek to create is a world where decisions are taken out of the hands of ordinary citizens and transferred to third parties. ObamaCare is the latest example of this trend, and can now join the long list of the "compassionate" catastrophes of the left.

It is fascinating to see academics full of indignation over the "exploitation" of low-wage workers by multinational corporations in Third World countries, when it is common on their own academic campuses to have young men get paid nothing at all for risking their health, and sometimes their lives, playing football that brings in millions of dollars to the college and often gets coaches paid higher salaries than the president of the college or university.

I don't happen to like the idea of "stop and frisk." However, I like even less the idea of armed hoodlums going around shooting people. Those who refuse to see that everything has a cost should be confronted with the question: "How many more young blacks are you willing to see shot dead, because you don't like 'stop and frisk'?"

If you think human beings are always rational, it becomes impossible to explain at least half of history.

The ancient Greeks understood that carrying any principle to extremes was dangerous. Yet, thousands of years later, some Western nations take tolerance to the extreme of tolerating intolerance among immigrants to their own societies. Some even make it illegal -- a "hate crime" -- to warn against intolerant foreigners who would like nothing better than to slit the throats of their hosts, but who will settle for planting a few bombs here and there.

How do the clever Beltway Republicans and their consultants explain how Ronald Reagan won two consecutive landslide election victories, doing the opposite of what they say is the only way for Republicans to win elections?

I don't know why it bothers me when I see a good-looking woman who could be truly beautiful if she only took the trouble. But I can recall a woman like that who was educated at Berkeley, and who apparently thought attention to her appearance was not hip. Unfortunately, her husband met another woman, who had not gone to Berkeley, and who did not have this inhibition -- or many other inhibitions.

With his decision declaring ObamaCare constitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts turned what F.A. Hayek called "The Road to Serfdom" into a super highway. The government all but owns us now, and can order us to do pretty much whatever it wants us to do.

Anyone who wants to read one book that will help explain the international crises of our time should read "The Gathering Storm" by Winston Churchill. It is not about the Middle East or even about today. It is about the fatuous and irresponsible foreign policies of the 1930s that led to the most catastrophic war in human history. But you can recognize the same fecklessness today.

In a time of widespread disillusionment with both political parties, someone has noted that the only thing these parties say that is believed by the public are their accusations against each other.

Once, when I was teaching at an institution that bent over backward for foreign students, I was asked in class one day: "What is your policy toward foreign students?" My reply was: "To me, all students are the same. I treat them all the same and hold them all to the same standards." The next semester there was an organized boycott of my classes by foreign students. When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.

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