"Black Edge," Fascinating Read. Hanoi Jane revisited. Memri's Assessment. Have Democrats Abandoned America''s Middle Class. Stephens A NYT's Hypocrite?
Just finished "Black Edge." It is the story of insider trading , hedge funds and the SEC and Justice Department's effort to snare Steve Cohen and SAC.
Steve Cohen had so many layers of information contacts and a host of top notch lawyers so he basically beat a criminal charge but was fined and eventually was found guilty of not properly supervising his employees.
The government had plenty on Cohen but not enough evidence to allow them to bring a criminal suit so they went for something they knew they could nail him with and were able to get him on lesser charges.
Cohen is an avid art collector, runs $10 billion of his own money, is about ready to reopen his investment services to hight net worth potential clients and is the brother of a very dear friend who lives with his wife in Atlanta.
We met him in Atlanta at his niece's wedding.
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Hanoi Jane revisited. (See 1 below.)
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Time to wipe out Gaza. (See 2 below.)
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MEMRI's assessment of Trump's Iran policy. (See 3 below.)
And:
Can Trump/Bolton/Pompeo/Mattis tie the two together? (See 3a below.)
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Have Democrats abandoned what is left of America's middle class? (See 4 below.)
And:
Has Bret become a NYT's hypocrite? (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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1) Fonda Cements Legacy as Hanoi Jane
Jane Fonda resumes her performance as an historical revisionist on a subject that keeps coming back to haunt her: the Vietnam War.
Fonda’s latest foray into her past as a useful propaganda tool for the communists has reared its ugly narrative all over again on the occasion of the thespian accepting a “Lifetime Achievement” award at the Traverse City Film Festival this summer. Michael Moore, the king of propaganda, added to the publicity swirl by heaping accolades on the actress as he bestowed the award.
Jane basked in the glow of her safe audience at the festival -- taking advantage of the occasion to screen the sanitized version of her life in the recently released HBO documentary,Jane Fonda in Five Acts.
At the event, gullible liberals made up most of her audience embracing the activist’s “proud” anti-war participation from the 1970s, but not everyone proved to be a fawning fan. Dozens of Vietnam veterans showed up to protest Fonda’s blatantly false wartime assertions including her attempts to delegitimize and demonize American combat soldiers (which has proven posthumously in the case of more than 58,000 veterans).
Veterans find many of her actions unforgivable, even 46 years later.
In 1973, Fonda called returning American POWs “liars and traitors” for telling the truth about their systematic torture and the killing of their comrades in captivity. Fonda’s cruel reception for returning POWs -- many of whom suffered captivity in cages, years in isolation and sadistic beatings -- failed to make the final edit in the appropriately named documentary,Five Acts. The point of the project was to romanticize Fonda’s life -- and to that end many viewers would never learn of the irreparable harm she has caused to others. Most Americans will never know Fonda earned the moniker, “Hanoi Jane,” because of her self-initiated broadcasts -- which included labeling American soldiers “war criminals” -- on Radio Hanoi. She succeeded in demoralizing our troops and acting as a “pro-victory” cheerleader for the communists.
“I am proud I went to Vietnam when I did,” says Jane who hasn’t veered much from her script since the early 1970s. She has even becomes philosophical about the war to further solidify her good intentions. “The U.S. loss represented our nation’s chance for redemption,” says Fonda failing to mention redemption was in short supply in the Gulag of reeducation camps established by Ho Chi Minh and his army of mass murderers.
Worse was yet to come. “And the communist victory symbolizes hope for the planet,” says Jane who has a difficult time floating this theory past the 100,000s tortured and murdered by the communists in the aftermath of war. This includes men, women, and children.
Veterans are appalled at the prospect of a new generation of young Americans learning about their history by peering through a lens carefully crafted by Hollywood.
Their fears are well founded. Owen Gleiberman is one such impressionable reporter who writes a gushing review of Five Acts, in the entertainment publication, Variety. “Then (she) became the rare celebrity entertainer brave enough to disengage from the system to pursue her political passions,” he writes.
“She was dissed for going to Hanoi, but the meaning of that crusade was debated all over the world -- and if that’s not successful activism, I don’t know what is.” He does have a point about Jane making her treasonous presence known -- from Hanoi -- to the far reaches of the world.
Many outraged veterans refuse to allow Fonda to serve as a filter for their actions and have pushed back against her wave of propaganda, including her self-serving biography, My Life So Far.
Dexter Lehtinen is one of the most qualified veterans to refute Fonda’s attacks on American servicemen as war criminals, having served more than two years in combat in the most treacherous terrain: He was severely wounded in the conflict and continued to serve his country as a U.S. attorney general and Florida state senator.
Lehtinen employs his legal mind to refute the “pseudo apology” offered by Fonda in her multimedia campaign: he points out the futility of her singling out one (repeat one) treacherous action from the multitude of egregious actions committed against soldiers, and now veterans. “She expressed regret for one photograph,” he writes referring to the infamous photo of Jane smiling and sitting behind an anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam. "But remains proud of her Radio Hanoi broadcasts, her efforts to achieve a communist victory, and her attacks on American servicemen as war criminals” adds Lehtinen in reviewing the biography, My Life So Far. “She never uses the word ‘apology’.”
With the advantage of hindsight, Fonda does extrapolate on her “regret” saying: “That two-minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until I die.”
Fonda’s two-minute timeline for her lapse in judgment has led Lehtinen to write: “Fonda has always lived in a kind of Wonderland -- where American POWs are liars and communist tyrants are honorable men,” he writes. “The Vietnam war only shows that, unlike Alice, Jane Fonda has yet to emerge from Wonderland.”
It appears Jane’s non-apology is not accepted.
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2)Weekly Commentary: Eliminating major Gaza targets: We don't need dead
Israelis to justify defending ourselves
By Dr. Aaron Lerner
We don't need dead Israelis to justify defending ourselves.
Human shields protect many of the most important offensive capabilities of
the enemy in the Gaza Strip.
These are targets that must be eliminated for a truly effective operation.
Israeli civilians don't have to pay with their lives to "earn" us the right
to eliminate these targets.
In fact, it is the obligation of the sovereign State of Israel to eliminate
these vital elements of the terrorist's war machine before they are used in
an operation against the Jewish State that would cost countless Israeli
civilian lives.
In December 2016 we released a detailed map of over 10,000 targets in south
Lebanon that provide infrastructure, assistance, cover, protection and other
resources for Hezbollah terrorists.
Today we should put the world on notice with an equally detailed map of
targets in the Gaza Strip that are ostensibly protected by human shields.
We should publicly advise all the relevant international forums as well as
countries that the terrorists have a prescribed time to clear out from those
locations.
And that at the end of the prescribed time the world is on notice that we
intend to defend ourselves in operations against terrorist targets in
accordance with their importance regardless of the presence of human
shields.
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3)
The U.S.-Iran Confrontation – Possible Developments In Advance Of The November Sanctions
An examination of developments that can be expected in the Iran-U.S. confrontation requires first an understanding of the policy of U.S. President Donald Trump, both in general and in how this policy is reflected in his approach to Iran.
Trump's Policy
President Trump's political rivals both within and outside the U.S. have called his policy inconsistent, contradictory, and impulsive. However, beyond the legitimate political criticism, it is possible to distinguish the clear lines and defined aims of a consistent policy, the elements of which are:
Refusal to accept the status quo inherited from his predecessors (including refusal to accept the existence of the Iranian regime itself, or at least its activity in the region and internationally);
Readiness to engage in open confrontation, both politically and economically;
Seeking to change the inherited situation by means of negotiations, to come about as a result of economic and political pressure, not military means;
Offering countries with which he is in conflict a choice between arriving at a new understanding by means of negotiations, or via severe conflict that can spill over to other areas – even if this is not at the initiative of the U.S. It should be emphasized that in all stages of negotiation, Trump appears to be striving not for maximum gain, but for partial achievements with reciprocal concessions – for example, with Europe, Canada, and China.
These policy lines apply to all countries with which Trump is in conflict – either economic, such as Europe or China, or those that constitute a military threat such as North Korea, Russia, and Iran – with the aim of changing the situation. One limitation of this political approach is that it does not suit all countries, for various reasons.
Europe and Canada, which share a political culture with the U.S, and are also in a weaker position vis-à-vis it, are willing to negotiate new understandings, and even to arrive at reciprocal concessions with it. In contrast,
China, which considers itself strong enough to clash with the U.S., has not yet put out political feelers regarding negotiations on changing economic relations with the U.S. Additionally:
Russia, with whose president Trump seeks to come to a new understanding, inter alia to enlist it for comprehensively confronting the real global threat – that is, China – feels confident enough, despite its weakness, to refrain from complying with pressure from Trump, who needs it as a partner. It should be noted that Trump has warned that if things do not work out that way, "I'll be the worst enemy he's [i.e. Putin's] ever had."
North Korea, although a totalitarian state with an extremist ideology, is not opposed to negotiations. For years it has been leveraging negotiations with American administrations to become stronger, by various deceitful means. This is because its political culture does not preclude negotiating with an enemy or even receiving aid from it while deceiving it.
The Case Of Iran
In the matter of Iran, President Trump is seeking fundamental change – not only withdrawing from the JCPOA, and as a result rescinding Iran's nuclear state status, but also changing the anti-West and anti-U.S. regime of the Islamic Revolution established nearly four decades ago. Although the Trump administration argues that all it wants is for Iran to change how the regime of the ayatollahs is acting regionally and internationally, this anti-West and anti-U.S. behavior is the most fundamental element of its identity, and changing it means changing the regime itself. Additionally, anti-Iranian regime statements by U.S. administration officials reflect a basic refusal to accept the Iranian regime itself.
Although according to the principle of his policy, as set out above – that is, a new understanding or a conflict – Trump and his administration are calling for meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rohani, it is also clear to his administration that such a meeting, under pressure about which Trump openly speaks, as part of negotiations, will constitute the Islamic Republic of Iran's surrender to the demands of the U.S.
The Iranian Response
The Development Of Internal Political Conflict In Iran On The Question Of "To Meet Or Not To Meet"
The question of "to meet or not to meet" has become a new focus of the protracted conflict between Iran's two camps, the ideological and the pragmatic/reformist. Although President Trump's aim is strategic – to bring about a change in the inherited Iran situation – with his policy of combining economic and political pressure, and even threats, with an invitation to meet and negotiate, he has already racked up the tactical achievement of exacerbating the internal dispute within Iran.Elements belonging to the ideological camp, such as officials of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian daily Kayhan, regularly – and now even more vehemently – accuse the pragmatic Rohani government of seeking to meet with the U.S. for talks. They consider the trips to Washington by Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah as a sign that meetings are in the works to deal with the issue of Iran. Other signs that concern them are reports by Western and Iranian media on the need for a U.S.-Iran hotline, and for the appointment of an American representative acceptable to the Iranian leadership for negotiations.[1]
It should be noted that statements by Iranian officials, primarily representatives of the Rohani government, as well as an August 3, 2018 report in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida, showthat negotiations are already beginning to form, with messages being transferred from Iran to the U.S. via the Omani foreign minister. The main thrust of the messages, the Al-Jarida report said, were seven Iranian conditions for negotiation: The U.S. must return to the JCPOA and meet all its conditions; it must stop the military threats; it must stop its activity to bring down the Iranian regime; it must stop fomenting disputes between Iran and the Arab countries; it must stop the new economic sanctions; it must stop the economic pressure; and it must stop pressuring European companies not to resume operations in Iran.[2]
In exchange, Iran has offered, according to the report, to cooperate with the U.S. in finding a solution for the crises in Yemen and Syria and to coordinate with it on the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan. The message, it said, was conveyed by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in early June 2018 to the Omani go-between,who delivered it to the Americans on his last visit to Washington. The report also noted that the Americans, for their part, had proposed a preliminary meeting between the Iranian foreign minister and the U.S. secretary of state in Singapore, on the margins of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) summit in late July 2018, and a meeting between the two countries' presidents on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September, without referring to the list of Iranian conditions. It also stated that there were disputes among members of Iran's Supreme National Security Committee when Trump's proposal for direct negotiations was discussed.
As for the position of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei regarding meeting/negotiating with the U.S., he did not explicitly prohibit meeting with American representatives. In a July 21, 2018 speech, he only noted that such talks with the U.S. were "useless." Moreover, he phrased his statements such that they in effect permitted President Rohani and Foreign Minister Zarif to conduct talks with the American administration with the aim of lifting the harsh sanctions that threaten the Iranian regime.
Under these circumstances, when it began to appear that a political move of negotiation with the U.S. was an option, IRGC officials immediately fired off statements against the U.S. president and against the option of open talks with the U.S. and its supporters. This was because as far as the members of the ideological-revolutionary camp are concerned, meeting openly with Trump would constitute an American triumph over Iran and even the end of the Islamic Revolution – one of whose main values is hostility to the "Great Satan," the U.S. Indeed, as far as revolutionary Iran is concerned, talks can be held, but only under the most limited of conditions: They can only be low level and secret, in order to find ad hoc solutions to specific issues (such as the nuclear issue or special time-limited agreements such as those during the era of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war permitting U.S. aircraft to cross the border into Iranian airspace), and if they reach a higher level, they can only take place after the U.S. accepts the demands of revolutionary Iran in advance, as was the case in its nuclear talks with the Obama administration. At that time, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and Secretary of State John Kerry met only after President Obama had provided a written guarantee that the U.S. recognized Iran's right to enrich uranium. It was this official commitment, constituting acceptance of Iran's position in advance, that made possible a secret channel for negotiations on the Iranian nuclear dossier.[3]
However, even at the height of the talks, Supreme Leader Khamenei refused to let President Rohani meet openly with the U.S. president or sign any mutual agreement, since that would imply recognition of a world order headed by the U.S. For revolutionary Iran, the JCPOA – characterized by Iranian officials as a "victory" – means that Iran is equal in status to the U.S., a global superpower, and that Iran has successfully defeated the U.S. without accepting the world order and the diplomatic protocol that generally mandates that international agreements be preceded by meetings at the highest level. In fact, even simple gestures such as Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif's handshake with his counterpart Kerry, and their public walk along the banks of Lake Geneva, sparked harsh criticism from the ideological camp and a warning from Khamenei).[4]
IRGC commander Ali Jaafari's reply to Trump's July 31, 2018 proposal to meet with Rohani without preconditions reflects this ideological stance. Jaafari said: "Mr. Trump... The Iranian people will not allow its leaders to negotiate with the Great Satan. You will take to your grave your wish that Iranian leaders will ask to meet you or ask the people for permission to meet with you. You will never see that day. You will remain in your Black Palace with your delusional [wish] to meet with Iranian officials. Know that this wish will remain with you until the end of your term in office, and that the American presidents that follow you will not see it [fulfilled]..."[5]
It is salient here that Jaafari chose to ignore the indirect permission given by Khamenei for dialogue with the U.S., evoking the authority of the people, not the authority of the Supreme Leader – who did not explicitly forbid it.His mention of the authority of the people over that of the Supreme Leader should be viewed as a direct challenge to Khamenei, who did not openly and vehemently ban talks with the U.S., and as an attempt to force the IRGC position on the Supreme Leader in the name of the Iranian people.
Trump's proposal for a meeting evoked a similar reaction from the IRGC mouthpiece Basirat. In a July 25, 2018 article titled "The Price of Capitulation to America," it stated that under the current circumstances, and in light of the ramping up of the sanctions, Iranian politicians have two options: capitulation to the U.S. conditions, or resistance. It added: "Some people [referring to members of the Rohani government and reformists who call for talks with the U.S.] propose to capitulate, since they believe that the price of capitulation is lower than the price of resistance... [But] according to the Quran, the price of capitulation is high. One loses one's identity and undergoes a change in ideology and faith. Under the current circumstances, America is seeking out the smallest opportunity to deliver a blow to the Iranian regime... It is clear that America is opposed to Iran's identity [as a revolutionary state], and that its goal is to strip Iran of its identity."[6]
IRGC Officials Launch Campaign Of Threats Against U.S. And Trump
On July 26, 2018, IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani said in a major speech: " Let me tell you, Mr. Trump the gambler... Let me tell you... Know that we are near you, in places that don't come to your mind. We are near you in places that you can't even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom. We are the nation of Imam Hussein. Ask around. We have endured many hardships. Come, we are waiting for you. We are the real men on the scene, as far as you are concerned. You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities. You may start the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end. Therefore, you must not offend the Iranian nation. You must not offend our president. You must realize what you are saying."[7]
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below
On July 24, Iranian chief of staff Mohammed Bagheri told the Fars news agency: "America's control centers are now within the range of Iran's defense capabilities [i.e. its missiles]... If Trump implements his threats against Iran, he will endanger all his interests and those of his supporters, given the presence of the Islamic Republic's [forces] in the region."[8]
IRGC commander Jaafari said on July 25 at the unveiling of 10 Sukhoi fighter planes: "If the gambler Trump hears of the current capability of the IRGC, which includes the resolve of the young revolutionary experts, and part of which we have seen in the aerospace and flight of the IRGC today that can appear at a range of 2,000 km, Trump will never make these mistakes, and he will believe that [Iran] can easily respond to a threat of an oil [embargo]."[9]
Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezai tweeted: "Trump told Rohani to beware. It is you [Trump], who has over 50,000 troops within range of Iran's fire and is stupidly threatening Iran. It is you who should beware."[10]
Assessment: In Advance Of The November Sanctions
The Pressure Of The November Sanctions Will Force The Iranian Regime Into A Strategic Decision: Negotiations Or Confrontation
The manifestations of the conflict, as reviewed above, are likely to strongly escalate in advance of a significant second wave of sanctions to come in November 2018 that will force Iran into a strategic decision: to give in to President Trump's demand for renewed negotiations on the JCPOA and to change its regional and international activity, or to enter into a violent conflict that, at least in the initial stage, will not be aimed directly at the U.S. but will likely end up that way.
The Domestic Level – Violent Suppression Of Public Protests
It is expected that the regime will engage in a massive operation of violent suppression of popular protests. This will come in response to the anticipated increase in the anti-regime riots and economic and political protests that are already widespread across Iran, occurring almost daily, that include slogans such as "Death to the Dictator [Khamenei]," "Bread, bread," and "The Enemy Is Not In America, But Here." The IRGC and Basij spokesmen have already declared that they are ready for such an operation.[11]
That operation will likely involve the elimination of pragmatic and reformist elements that advocate negotiating with the U.S., in the guise of fighting "economic corruption."[12]
The regime may also act harshly against dual U.S.-Iran citizens in the country; some of them have already been arrested and imprisoned.
The IRGC is also likely to take this opportunity to seize control from the Rohani government. Hints to that effect have already been voiced by IRGC officials, who announced that they are ready to act on the economic level. Basij commander Gholam-Hossein Gheibparvar said that "the people expect the government to handle this war with all its might and the Basij is ready to extend any assistance requested by those in charge [in the government]. With such assistance, it will be possible to more effectively solve the state's problems."[13]
On July 31, IRGC commander Jaafari urged Rohani to take measures to stop the plunge of the Iranian rial and to regulate its exchange rate, adding ominously: "Everyone is waiting for Rohani's revolutionary decisions in order to overcome the economic crisis."[14]
The Regional Level – Escalating Aid To And Activation Of Terrorist Organizations And Shi'ite Militias In The Region
The Iranian regime will step up its assistance to the terrorist organizations and Shi'ite militias it sponsors: the Houthis in Yemen, the Shi'ite militias in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, Hizbullah, and the Palestinian terror organizations, and will attempt to activate them all on various fronts.
The August 6 statements by top IRGC official Gen. Naser Sha'bani are notable: He is the first Iranian official to acknowledge that Iran had ordered the pro-Iran Shi'ite Ansar Allah militia (the Houthis) to attack Saudi tankers and that the order had been carried out. It is also notable that the Fars news agency, which published his statements, later removed that sentence from its report (MEMRI has in its possession a copy of the statements prior to the deletion). He said: "We told the Yemenis to attack the two Saudi tankers, and they attacked.Hizbullah in Lebanon and Ansar Allah in Yemen are our homeland depth. The enemy is so vulnerable that we can entangle it from across the border. Obviously, we are not insisting on a struggle with Saudi Arabia on the other side of the border."[15]
The International Level – Continued Futile Efforts Aimed At Europe And Other Countries To Help Iran Withstand The U.S. Sanctions
Although it is apparently clear to Iran that neither the European countries nor other countries will save it from the U.S., and will not significantly compensate it, Iran will continue its efforts, even if futile, to obtain such help, as long as Europe and other countries continue to recognize the JCPOA. This is in order to preserve the JCPOA and the nuclear state status that it confers upon Iran. This position was reflected in statements by Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, when he said that Iran will not withdraw from the JCPOA because it was endorsed by the UN Security Council: "The agreement is valid because it is a Security Council resolution."[16]
Kamalvandi's statements attest yet again that the Iranian regime will never, under any circumstances, leave the JCPOA, which is for it an historic achievement because it gives it nuclear state status – as explained in numerous MEMRI reports.[17]
* A. Savyon is Director of the MEMRI Iran Media Project; Y. Carmon is President of MEMRI.
[1] Conspicuous in his calls for negotiations with the U.S. is Majlis National Security Committee member Hashmatollah Falahat-Pisheh, who said on July 25, 2018 that "the Americans have always asked to negotiate with Iran, but talks with America are currently not on the Iranian agenda, because Iran has seen that the Americans have not fulfilled their obligations. [But] that does not mean that the lack of talks with Iran will go on forever." Asr-e Iran (Iran), July 25, 2018. On July 31, he said: "As long as there is no U.S.-Iran hotline,the interests of Tehran and Washington are at the mercy of manipulation by others who benefit from the increasing crisis between Iran and America. Talks must not become a taboo issue in Iran-U.S. relations." ISNA (Iran), July 31, 2018.
[2] In a July 30, 2018 tweet, Rohani advisor Hamid Abu Talbi listed similar conditions for negotiation with the U.S.: the Iranian nation's right to respect, a decrease in hostility, and a resumption of the JCPOA. Twitter.com/DrAboutalebi, July 30, 2018.
[11] Khamenei's representative in the IRGC, Abdallah Haji Sadeqi, informed Ayatollahs Makarem Shirazi, Nouri Hamdani, and Safi Golpaygani that the IRGC and the Basij are ready for any eventuality (popular protests), and are willing to help the government address corruption in Iran. Yjc.ir, August 6, 2018.
[12] Justice Ministry spokesman Mohsen Ejei said at a meeting with senior judges that the ministry is preparing to address the issue of economic corruption, according to the guidelines set out by Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Rohani, and is investing considerable resources in this. He added that 45 individuals are currently in custody as part of this campaign. Fararu (Iran), August 6, 2018. Khamenei's instructions, issued in the wake of a meeting with Rohani and his associates on the subject of dealing severely with economic corruption cases so as to eliminate this phenomenon, were posted on his website (Farsi.khamenei.ir) on August 5, 2018.
The HillWith the prospect of another round of North Korean diplomacy in the air, the United States must take full advantage by insisting that any deal with Kim Jong Un’s regime include full disclosure of everything it knows about the Iranian nuclear program and the decades-long nuclear proliferation abetted by Pakistan’s AQK Network. The president frequently mentions the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats in the same speech, but he needs to link the two.
As Anthony H. Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, there is “no reliable open-source data on exactly how Iran reached out to North Korea (or vice versa),” but the evidence of cooperation is incontrovertible. From shared Scud missile technology, to Iranian scientists present at North Korean nuclear tests, North Korea knows many of Iran’s secrets and can certainly provide enough evidence to satisfy even the most skeptical members of the international community.
The origin of North Korea’s success as a nuclear power began with assistance of the world’s most prolific proliferator, Abdul Qadeer Khan (AQK), Pakistan’s “Father of the Islamic Bomb” whose underground network sold centrifuge designs and equipment to numerous countries, both known (North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Iran) and unknown.
AQK provided much of the knowledge and materiel necessary for the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, but there were other connections. The founder of the Kim dynasty, Kim Il-Sung, was among the first to congratulate Ruhollah Khomeini after he seized power from the Shah of Iran. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, Kim offered Khomeini Scud missiles and sent military advisors to aid the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Amir Taheri with Gatestone Institute suggests that even the Iranian “swarm attack,” or “human wave attack,” was derived from a tactic Kim used against American forces in the 1950s.
The Shahab-3 missile, based on North Korea's Nodong-1 missile.
North Korea also helped Iran to make giant leaps forward in its missile program. When the Iraq-Iran War ended, North Korea helped Iran develop its own Shahab missile based on the Scud B design it had obtained from the Soviet Union. Iran’s current long-range Shahab-3 missile is based on the North Korean Nodong-1. Even the submarines used to launch missiles are similar; the Iranian Ghadir-class submarine is a close copy of North Korea’s Ono-class submarine.
Perhaps the most alarming evidence of cooperation came when North Korea tested a nuclear device in February 2013 and Iran’s seldom-seen chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, was there to witness the event. Some analysts believe that the cooperation is so complete that Iran actually has moved its most secret nuclear research facilities to North Korea.
With the almost dizzying images and prospects coming out of North Korea, it will be tempting to go down the perilous path toward another bad deal with another Kim. It is encouraging that this round of diplomacy is being led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who does not come from the world of traditional, weak diplomacy. And with John Bolton as national security adviser, we can be sure that President Trump is being advised of the North Korean-Iranian link. Bolton wrote in August of last year, “If Tehran’s long collusion with Pyongyang on ballistic missiles is even partly mirrored in the nuclear field, the Iranian threat is nearly as imminent as North Korea’s.”
If a peace deal with North Korea brings an apology for the murder of Otto Warmbier, return of any of the remains of the thousands of U.S. military personnel who disappeared fighting in the Korean War, or even the return of the USS Pueblo, which has sat in a North Korean harbor for over 50 years, Trump will be applauded.
But information that helps us expose and dismantle the Iranian nuclear threat might be the most important thing to come from any deal. Even if the next generation of Kims cheats and reneges on the deal, as the earlier generation of Kims did, we still will have gotten the goods on Iran.
Congress must urge the administration to push for a full disclosure of the entire history of North Korea’s participation with the Iranian nuclear program and everything it knows about the AQK Network. Adopting the tactics of law enforcement will make it possible to “flip” Kim Jong Un and turn him into an informant in return for his regime’s survival and the fabulous rewards that no doubt await him.
A.J. Caschetta is a Ginsburg-Ingerman Fellow at the Philadelphia-based think tank Middle East Forum and a senior lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Democrats are a good bet to retake the U.S. House of Representatives when midterm elections are decided in November, but it won't mean they have fixed the problems and perceptions that cost them big with voters in the 2014 and 2016 cycles. They may even be getting worse.
Democrats were once known as the party of rural families, union members and the white working class. It is now associated with the coastal elites, nouveau socialists, the "resistance" and all manner of identity politics.
The point is that Democrats have turned their backs on the voters who once lifted them to consistent congressional majorities and occasionally into the White House. They may win in dozens of districts scattered across the country in the fall, it may even be a "blue wave" election. But they still haven't come to terms with the fact that thousands of their former supporters believe that a wealthy, former reality TV star, casino mogul and New York real estate developer understands America's working class better than Democrats. Whatever the Russians did, it was Republican Donald Trump's connection to the "heartland of America" workers and families that pushed him to an Electoral College victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Perhaps no anecdote better explains the Democrats' failure than New York Times reporter Amy Chozick's story about the Clinton campaign's struggle to figure out how to talk about the middle class, let alone talk to them. And forget about talking for them.
In her book, "Chasing Hillary," Chozick says that Clinton "seemed like Rip Van Winkle, awake again after her stint as secretary of state to find a vastly different country. She'd missed the rise of the Tea Party. She'd missed the Occupy Wall Street movement and the rage over health care and bank bailouts and the 1 percent."
So when her advisers told her that "people no longer wanted to be called middle class -- a data point that seemed a fundamental shift in the American psyche and as clear a sign as any that there was something stirring in this election -- Hillary Clinton saw only a linguistic challenge."
Her high-paid consultants finally decided to label the 121 million Americans who were technically middle class as "Everyday Americans," which Chozick notes sounded a lot like "Walmart's Everyday Low Prices."
"'Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion,' Mrs. Clinton repeated this corporate catchphrase for several months until her campaign tested 84 possible replacement slogans," Chozick reports.
"Basket of deplorables," Clinton's own linguistic creation, rolled easily from her tongue but she had to call in focus groups to come up with a term to woo voters that had traditionally been the core of the Democratic Party.
Bret Stephens praised ABC when it fired Roseanne for a single tweet, yet he defends the racist tweets of Sarah Jeong.
By Sean Davis
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, an outspoken NeverTrump activist,effusively praised ABCwhen it fired Roseanne Barr for a single tweet, but when it comes to a mountain of racist tweets over nine years, he says his new colleague Sarah Jeong deserves a whole lot of graceand a second chance. What could possibly explain this blatant double standard?
To recap: Roseanne Barr, creator and star of the hit sitcom bearing her name, was swiftly fired by ABC in May after she posted a tweet comparing former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, to a terrorist ape. Shortly after her firing created a social media firestorm, Stephens used his column at the New York Times to praise ABC and its executives who fired Barr, while declaring that she deserved to be fired not because of a single tweet, but because she is simply a bad person unworthy of having any public platform.
“Barr’s tweet about Jarrett, in other words, wasn’t the odd needle in the haystack,” Stephens wrote. “It was the last straw.”
“This is not a ‘one bad tweet’ issue,” Stephens claimed, before endorsing the characterization of Barr as a “boor,” a “notorious believer and propagator of conspiracy theories related to 9/11,” and “a MIRVed ICBM ready to go off in all directions at any time.”
Stephens then declared that the Barr brouhaha was neither a “free speech” issue nor a “double standards” issue.
“[W]hat Barr tweeted wasn’t an idea,” Stephens wrote. “It was a slur.” And so she had to be fired.
With that background in mind, let’s compare Barr’s single tweet to years’ worth of undoubtedly racist tweets from Stephens’ new colleague Sarah Jeong.
Jeong wrote that white people are “only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.”
“Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants,” she wrote in another.
Jeong approvingly posted a chart which indicated one’s value as a human being was based entirely on the color of one’s skin.
“Theoretically you can’t be racist against white people,” shewrotetweeted beforeclaimingthat white people smell like dogs.
It goes on and on and on like that, for years. Whereas Barr was shown to the unemployment line due to a single tweet, Jeong was hired after several years’ worth of blatant racism and misandry. Given that Stephens declared that the totality of one’s work over years, rather than a solitary tweet, should be the determining factor in whether one deserves a prominent public platform, surely he denounced Jeong and demanded her immediate firing with the same fervor he brought to the fight against Barr, right? Right??
Wrong. Oh, so very wrong. Rather than applying the exact same standard to Jeong that he applied to the Trump-supporting star and creator of a show praised for sympathetically depicting a fictional Trump-supporting family, Stephens created a brand new standard for his new co-worker.
“Let he who is without a bad tweet cast the first stone,” reads the subhed in Stephens’ column on the matter.
“Is it ultimately [Jeong’s] fault for writing those ugly tweets?” Stephens asks. “Yes. Does it represent the core truth of who she is? I doubt it.”
Whereas Stephens gleefully joined the social media mob as it targeted Barr with pitchforks and torches, he now counsels caution and circumspection towards those who have spent years hurling slurs and epithets and racial invective at those who dared to be born with the wrong skin pigmentation.
“Anyone who has been the victim of the social-media furies knows just how distorting and dishonest those furies can be,” Stephens wrote. “God save us all when those pillars crumble in the face of our new culture of denunciation.”
How convenient for both Stephens and The New York Times, and the host of venomous left-wing cultural warriors constantly on the hunt for new apostates to set ablaze.
Naturally, Stephens praised himself in his Jeong column for his consistency and principled take on the matter. He patted himself on the back for applying “precisely the same logic” to the Jeong contretemps as he did to the controversy over the hirings of writers Kevin Williamson and Bari Weiss.
Curiously, Stephens failed to reference his full-throated endorsement of Barr’s firing even a single time. Much time was spent defending the honor of his friends and colleagues at The New York Times and praising his own unwavering principles and grace, but he offered nary a word about the embarrassing double standard evident in his treatment of Barr.
It’s difficult to come away with any explanation for Stephens’ hypocrisy on the matter that doesn’t include parochialism or politics. Barr, a comedian and sitcom writer, was fired for a single tweet. Jeong, whom we are told by Stephens to take seriously as a thinker due to her years-long body of literary work on serious matters, does not deserve to be fired over years’ worth of consistently hateful and unprovoked racist posts. Barr, who supported Trump, is not worthy of a public platform. Jeong, a rabidly left-wing ideologue, not only deserves an esteemed position at The New York Times, but also our utmost respect. The work of Barr, a Hollywood provacateur, does not belong in polite society. Yet the work of Jeong, a personal colleague of Stephens, is “consistently smart and interesting.”
Unfortunately the same cannot be said about Bret Stephens’ rhetorical acrobatics.
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Any North Korea nuclear deal must involve Iran’s nuclear program
Any North Korea nuclear deal must involWith the prospect of another round of North Korean diplomacy in the air, the United States must take full advantage by insisting that any deal with Kim Jong Un’s regime include full disclosure of everything it knows about the Iranian nuclear program and the decades-long nuclear proliferation abetted by Pakistan’s AQK Network. The president frequently mentions the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats in the same speech, but he needs to link the two.
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