Miscalculation can carry a stiff price if your adversary is Israel. (See 1 below.)
Iran warned? (See 1a below.
And:
https://www.israpundit.org/
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Understanding Trump - start by reading his: " The Art of The Deal." (See 2 below.)
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Sent by a dear friend and fellow memo reader. A true conservative to boot.
"Technology changes, human nature does not!
With regard to the 2nd A.,the following article, written by David E. Vandercoy, Professor Emeritus of Law, Valparaiso University/Law discusses the issues that were of concern to both the Federalists and Antifederalists Camps in formulating a Constitution that they could mutually agree to ratify."
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The local newspaper reported Savannah had 14.1 million visitors last year. Savannah has about 200,000 citizens. That would suggest every week our population exploded some 70 or more %.
Our historic city continues to retain its charm but I fear popularity will eventually radically alter our beautiful city.
Already parking meter changes and crime has caused many here at The Landings to think about limiting their visits to downtown and that is a shame because our residents have made untold contributions to the city's culture and physical structure.
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This from a well connected friend whose family has been involved in politics in the New England area for decades. He also is a fellow memo reader and responded to my comment about Kerry as follows:
"Dick:
“Article three: Section three [of the U.S. Constitution], which defines treason, says you cannot give support to the enemy in time of war, and here you have Kerry giving a press conference in Washington on July 22, 1971 (a year after his meeting with the communist delegations in Paris) advocating the North Vietnamese peace plan and saying that is what the United States ought to accept.”
This from a well connected friend whose family has been involved in politics in the New England area for decades. He also is a fellow memo reader and responded to my comment about Kerry as follows:
"Dick:
In response to your comments about John Kerry, here is a piece of my history you may not know.
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In 1970, then Lt. John Forbes Kerry met in Paris to discuss a “peace plan” with representatives of The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (the government of the North Vietnamese communists), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PVR), an arm of the North Vietnamese government that included the Vietcong. Kerry was acting illegally then, and he was at it again in his “unofficial dealings” with the government of Iran. Maybe it’s time to put some teeth into the Logan Act?
In 1972, I was retained to develop a strategic communications and advertising program by the campaign committee of Paul Cronin a candidate for Congress in the 5th Massachusetts District His opponent was John Kerry. When Paul asked about my fee for these services I responded – “I want only my expenses and a line in Newsweek when we win.” I got both. I had followed Kerry’s “exploits” during the Vietnam War, and took on this assignment with a visceral commitment that he would never sit in the U.S. House of Representatives. His campaign was well-funded; approximately 10:1 over my candidate. Happily, we won the general election by some 18,000 votes. This crushing defeat sent Kerry into a tailspin, and kept him out of politics for about ten years. Not long enough.
I have attached a copy of the cover of Kerry’s diatribe against his comrades-in-arms during the Vietnam War, The New Soldier.
During the 1972 campaign, his people had cleared the bookstore shelves in Cambridge and elsewhere of this vomitous volume.
Kerry is the 2nd from the right in the cover photo. Others on the cover are his brother Cameron Kerry and his erstwhile brother-in-law
David Thorne.
What a great personal and professional pleasure it was to play a major role in defeating this egomaniac.
That was 46 years ago, I was a just a kid…but some things you never forget.
L----"
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1) Iran just overplayed its hand in Syria
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Iran’s drive to retaliate against Israel has led it to badly underestimate Jerusalem’s resolve and resulted in unprecedented destruction wrought on its infrastructure in Syria.
On May 10 the Israeli Air Force carried out precision strikes against dozens of targets in Syria, including those of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. Israel was responding to a barrage of twenty missiles Israel says the IRGC fired towards the Golan Heights. Iran gambled in Syria and now shows that its growing regional influence actually acts as a restraint against its ability to carry out attacks.
On May 10 the Israeli Air Force carried out precision strikes against dozens of targets in Syria, including those of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. Israel was responding to a barrage of twenty missiles Israel says the IRGC fired towards the Golan Heights. Iran gambled in Syria and now shows that its growing regional influence actually acts as a restraint against its ability to carry out attacks.
IDF strikes Iranian targets in Syria May 10, 2018 (IDF Spokesman's Unit)
Since clashes in February in which Iranian personnel were killed at a base in Syria during an Israeli raid, Tehran has vowed to retaliate. In April, further Israeli raids which targeted Iranian missiles and personnel upped Tehran’s need to do something to respond.
However, the IRGC was cautious because it has other interests in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq that it doesn’t want to jeopardize.
As Iran’s power has grown in the region in recent years - in part due to Iranian-backed militias playing a key role in the war against Islamic State in Iraq, and due to Iran’s long-term relationship with the Bashar Assad regime in Damascus and Hezbollah in Lebanon - Tehran is in a bind about confronting Israel.
The more Iranian power grows and its allies, such as Hezbollah, seek to engage in governing institutions, the more an Israel-Iran conflict imperils these carefully managed gains. Iran is too powerful now to risk a large-scale confrontation with Israel. Jerusalem has used this to its advantage, striking targets of opportunity, such as missiles, convoys and other threats that Iran has been unable to hide in Syria. This shadow war, in which Israel has dominated, has involved more than 100 air strikes in five years and increased as US President Donald Trump got closer to cancelling the JCPOA.
One of the central concerns when Trump announced Washington was leaving the Iran deal was that it could lead to a new phase of conflict in the Middle East. On May 8 former Secretary of State John Kerry wrote that Trump’s announcement “puts Israel at greater risk, empowers Iran’s hardliners and reduces our global leverage to address Tehran’s misbehavior.”
In Iraq, the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units, a group of mostly Shi’ite militias, have been integrated as an official force into the Iraqi Security Forces. Hadi al-Amiri, who worked with the IRGC in the 1980s when he was in exile in Iran, is now leading a list called “Fateh” in Iraq. He hopes that his Shi’ite group, the Badr Organization, which helped fight ISIS over several years, will play an even greater role after the country's recent elections. Like with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranian model in Iraq is a combination of armed militia and political clout, with religious sectarian overtones.
Iran wants to construct a network of organizations like Badr and Hezbollah, together with the Assad regime, to cement its influence. Israel sees this as a fundamental threat. “The Iranian octopus is trying to strangle us and break our spirit,” Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett warned in April. IRGC commander Hossein Salami claimed that Tehran’s “hands are on the trigger and missiles are ready.”
The problem for Tehran is that it cannot risk a major conflict with Israel or risk losing all the work it has put into propping up the Syrian regime. Since 2011, when protests broke out against Assad, Tehran has been one of the regime’s main backers. Up to 80,000 volunteers have been trained by Iran in Syria, some of them brought from as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan. This has been a massive financial investment at a time when Iran is just recovering from the sanctions relief of the nuclear deal and its currency is trading at all time lows. The more Iran builds and invests in Syria, the more it stands to lose. It found that out in the first hours of May 10 when Israel attacked numerous Iranian targets, carrying out its largest operations in recent history. This was in response to the firing of 20 missiles at Israel by Iranian forces in Syria. Reports indicate that “nearly all of Iran’s military infrastructure” in Syria was hit, totaling between thirty and fifty sites. Tehran badly miscalculated and realizes that it must think carefully about using Syria as a base of operations against Israel.
Besides overplaying its hand, a major flaw in Iran’s thinking has been not taking into account the Russian role in Syria. Russia has been working with Iran and Turkey to de-escalate the conflict in Syria, both through talks in Astana and also trilateral talks in November 2017 and April 2018. In addition Russia helped broker a ceasefire in southern Syria with Jordan and the US in July 2017 and Russia has held frequent meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the Syrian situation.
Iran’s rocket fire at Israel risks destabilizing Syria just when the regime has some breathing room after seven years of civil war and Russia opposes anything that might imperil the Assad regime. This leaves Iran with less options. In Syria it risks Iran’s relationship with Russia. Threatening Israel through proxies in Lebanon risks Hezbollah’s hard-won status in the government, most recently acquired again through elections in which Hezbollah allies performed well. Iraq is too far away to really threaten Israel, except by sending Iraqi Shi’ite militias to Syria. In addition, Hamas has been badly weakened in Gaza. Having overplayed its hand Tehran must now consider that conflict with Israel and with other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, are not in its interest. If it wants to keep its influence it will de-escalate the rising tensions near the Golan.
1a) Report: Pompeo Warned Iran — Harm Israel and Face Severe U.S. Response
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly warned Tehran in the follow-up to President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, that if it harms Israel, the American military will respond.
The news was first reported by Israeli news site Walla on Thursday and picked up by the Times of Israel.
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned, “I repeat: Whoever hurts us – we will hurt them sevenfold, and whoever is preparing to hurt us – we will act to hit them first.”
Following a deadly exchange between Iran’s Quds Forces and Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) in Syria on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reportedly said Iran does not want “new tensions” in the region.
Retaliatory attacks carried out by Israel over Damascus and which targeted dozens of Iran-run military bases in Syria will reportedly set Iran back by “several months.”
Iran’s Parliament speaker Ali Larijani says Iran could restart its nuclear program.
Several members of parliament, on Wednesday, set the U.S. flag and a copy of the nuclear agreement (JCPOA) on fire following Trump’s historic and long-anticipated announcement that Washington was exiting the Iran nuclear deal.
They reportedly also chanted, “Death to America;” a hallmark of anti-American protests in Iran.
During his speech, President Trump made a point to send a direct message to the Iranian people, as he has frequently done in the past.
“The people of America stand with you,” Trump said. “It has now been almost 40 years since this dictatorship seized power and took a proud nation hostage… But the future of Iran belongs to its people. They are the rightful heirs to a rich culture and an ancient land, and they deserve a nation that does justice to their dreams, honor to their history and glory to God.”
Despite the Iranian regime’s plan to hold anti-American protests after Friday prayers in an attempt to make it appear as though Iranians are against Washington’s move and with the Islamic Republic’s ruling clerical class, experts and analysts believe a series of renewed uprisings against the ever-weakening regime could gain traction.
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2)
President Trump hits global reset button from Paris to Pyongyang
by Sebastian Gorka
For a man who has been in the public limelight for more than 30 years, it is remarkable how little Donald Trump is properly understood, simply because he is now the president of the United States and no longer a real-estate magnate and media celebrity.When I was in the White House, and even today, if ever I am asked to help explain the way President Trump thinks and acts, I always start with the same advice: Read “The Art of the Deal.” For diplomats, journalists or simply the unconvinced, this is the quickest and most accurate way of understanding just how much America changed when we chose the iconoclastic non-politician for the highest office in the land.
Recent decisions from the Oval Office, especially on steel and aluminum tariffs, as well as the developments out of the Korean peninsula, underscore the enormity of the shift in the American politics and our role in the world as a nation which shapes geopolitics as opposed to just riding along its wavetops and being buffeted by events.
One of the earliest declarative statements from “The Art of the Deal” is the advice Donald Trump gives that you should never ever be so invested in a yet-to-be-sealed deal that you cannot walk away from it at any juncture. This attitude informed President Trump for nigh on half a century in the private sector, and it still informs his decisions today as president, from the Paris Accord to NAFTA.
The negotiations themselves, or maintaining the established way of doing business, are never the objectives. The real objective is defined by realizing your interests, which may not be possible if the status quo is maintained. President Trump may not be a biblical exegete, but I can assure you that he instinctively knows that there are times when you simply have to “turn over the tables in the temple” to get things done.
In other words, outside of our borders, in relations with other nations and organizations, there are very few sacred cows, especially if the matter at hand clashes directly with promises candidate Trump made to the American people. That is why, for example, despite howls from the establishment and even members of his own team, President Trump was never going to cave on recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the eternal Jewish state or renege on his promises to American coal miners and steel workers.
This commitment to promises made is all the more valid given that the president has minimal respect for the so-called “elite” that has been responsible for all the many policies that have undermined America financially and otherwise in recent decades, from interminable wars in the Middle East to trade deals and international regimes that facilitated the rise of a Communist China which steals our secrets wholesale, intimidates our friends and props up rogue regimes who preach our destruction.
Simply put, this is the “Revenge of Common Sense,” a characteristic of the new commander-in-chief which appeals to ordinary Americans all over the country, including areas that were long considered Democratic strongholds. The bucking of the establishment and its conventional wisdoms is, in fact, something the president relishes, most particularly when it comes to otherwise indefensible nostrums which have embedded themselves into the collective mind of the body politic.
How many times have we had to hear over the last few weeks that there are only 600,000 Americans working in the steel industry but millions in steel-dependent manufacturing, such as the automotive sector? Yet, did anyone stop to think what the logical ramifications of this “critique” of the president’s tariff policy truly are?
Such an unsophisticated boilerplate criticism only holds water if you subscribe to a belief that a national economy is a closed system and that we should never increase the number of steel workers because somehow for every additional foundryman you hire you must fire an assembler on a manufacturing line. Such zero-sum thinking is fine for a class in dialectic materialism in Pyongyang, but not on Wall Street, or the Chamber of Commerce, or anywhere else within a free market. Like the president, most Americans know instinctively that wealth is not an issue of redistribution in a bubble, but that it has always been created, from the historic Gold Rush, to Henry Ford, to Silicon Valley.President Obama sent Hillary Clinton to present a mislabeled “reset button” to the Kremlin. In reality, there was no reset. The Obama administration did not effectively address the expansionist and destabilizing behavior of former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin, not even after he invaded Ukraine. With regard to the Middle East, the Obama White House empowered the murderous regime in Iran by releasing $150 billion to Tehran, paying a cash ransom and agreeing to the Iran deal that wouldn’t, in fact, prevent a nuclear breakout by the mullahs.
In Egypt, President Obama embraced the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi. In Iraq, he decided to prematurely withdraw before our work was done and Al Qaeda had been crushed, thus sowing the seeds for ISIS. With regard to Asia, the last administration refused to take any meaningful action as Beijing expanded its reach with military installations on illegal artificial atolls, all the while perpetuating its acquiescence to North Korea’s continued policy of nuclear blackmail of Washington and the West. Ironically, all this while in ownership of a Nobel Peace Prize.
President Trump may not have been awarded a prize by anyone, let alone from the now increasingly irrelevant Nobel Committee. But he has effected a true reset, and a global one at that, from a revitalized NATO finally committed, after decades of sloth, to paying its fair share on defense, to the crushing of the physical caliphate of ISIS, to the restoration of our relations with nations we had turned our backs on, most importantly, Israel and Egypt. It is a reset that included tough talk with China and North Korea, talk followed up by actions that have led to a response on behalf of Pyongyang, which may take us to the cusp of bringing peace and stability to the region after 65 years of potential war.
And we are only in the fourteenth month of the Trump presidency.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Sebastian Gorka, Ph.D., is a national security strategist with Fox News and former deputy assistant and strategist to President Trump. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War.” You can follow him on Twitter @SebGorka.
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