I responded by agreeing America was in deep doo doo. I believe a Kasich-Rubio ticket was preferable and Trump's popularity reflected more despair than favor-ability.
Yes, Wilson began us toward the path of Socialism. Roosevelt widened and extended the path and Johnson turned it into an Interstate. Even Reagan failed to reverse course, though his act of firing Air Controllers provided a moment of hope. Every subsequent president has simply laid more concrete and Obama most of all. Now the Demwits are offering an avowed and proud Socialist ,named Sanders, and an even more radical one is lurking in the wings , named Warren, to drive us over the cliff.
This from another friend and fellow memo reader:
"RICHARD, THIS MAN WRITES WELL, AS YOU DO, AND BACKS UP HIS ARTICLES WITH FACTS. I THINK YOUR ARTICLE YESTERDAY WAS “RIGHT ON” AND THIS IS A FOLLOW UP. WE WERE ALL IN AGREEMENT THAT TRUMP MIGHT BE A UNPREPARED LOOSE CANNON. HIS PREFORMANCE TONIGHT MAY CHANGE THE RACE FOR AWHILE. I THINK HE WILL BE CIVIL BUT FRANK. I THINK HE WILL LAY HIS BUSINESS MODEL SIMPLY AND THE PUBLIC WILL UNDERSTAND & STATE HE WILL RUN THE GOV’NT AS A BUSINESS GETTING CABINET MINISTERS FROM BUSINESS NOT WASHINGTON. I THINK HE WILL STATE HIS CHOICE OF V.P. WILL COME FROM ONE OF THE OTHER CONTESTANTS. RIDING MY BIKE AROUND THE ISLAND MONDAY I WAS LISTENING TO GLENN BECK. HE PLAYED A CUT FROM THE 2008 CAMPAIGN BEFORE THE ELECTION AND IN IT HE STATED OBAMA WOULD WIN,DO ALL THE DESTRUCTIVE THINGS TO AMERICA HE HAS DONE AND AFTER 8 YEARS OF OFFICE HE WOULD BE REPLACED BY A “FAT MAN” WITH GRAVY STAINS ON HIS SHIRT. IRONIC, B.S. OR FORESIGHT? THESE ARE CRAZY TIMES AND EVEN A BLIND SQUIRREL FINDS AN ACORN. WE WILL KNOW MORE AFTER A FEW DAYS OF DIGESTING THE DEBATES. STAY IN TOUCH.
A--- W-------- (See 1a below.)
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My continuing review of : "Rediscovering America."
Agresto's second chapter is entitled: "Economics and Justice"and discusses Locke's theory that ownership of private property produced wealth once it allowed owners to retain the fruits of their labor and thus society benefited from the increased wealth created. As a result, the ability of a stable democratic society became a surer bet for survival.
Creation of wealth, through private ownership, is a far better societal result than what would be achieved through redistribution of poverty. The fact that economics creates wealth and thus goes a long way towards solving the issue of justice and material production nevertheless, did not eliminate the need for politics. Once again liberals and conservatives should find common ground with respect to the world's goods being more widely enjoyed and the middle class should be encouraged to expand and not be hindered in their quest for wealth. Yet there are those who see poverty as a virtue and possession of money akin to wickedness.
In chapter three entitled: "Democracy," Agresto discusses how the framers sought to create not a democracy but a far more sophisticated and difficult system of governance. Their study of history led them to recognize democracies failed for a variety of reasons which they sought to avoid..
Rather they devised a system that knowingly took into consideration man's nature, with all its good and imperfections. Consequently the people agreed to be governed by consent and all such governing powers were derived from the people. In essence, they combined a democratic rule based on moderation, good sense and respect for freedom.
Today, however, many repressive nations call themselves Democracies and Republics but none are either governed as we in America or derive their power from the governed.
The third chapter is entitled: "Liberty."
Basic rights precede government. Governments are a construct of people and ours was created to protect us, our property and our rights. When government no longer accomplishes this goal citizens can change it. Furthermore, governments should be thought of as being established to accomplish collectively what citizens might be unable to accomplish individually. That said, government should not undermine our ability to remain independent. Therefore, unrestrained political power is a threat to liberty . Yet, not all government power need become the enemy. Once again liberals and conservatives should be able to find common ground with respect to commonly recognized enemies of liberty.
In America the Preamble to our Constitution set forth the six goals of our government.
Americans have both individual rights as well as the Blessings of Liberty but not all individual rights are absolute because other individuals have rights which should not be impinged upon and society, as a whole, has collective rights which, oftentimes, must prevail over those of the individual.
My comments:
The risk we face today is that the subtleties and distinctions the framers understood are neither adequately taught nor widely appreciated. Consequently, the fragility of our freedoms are at risk because they rest upon insights, understanding and sensitivity that is sorely lacking.
Whereas unrestrained rights can destroy freedom as can unrestrained power. So one may ask are the many problems America faces caused by our inability to reach a commonly acceptable balance?
Furthermore, as worthy as it may seem, our attempt to spread Democracy among nations and peoples of a dissimilar culture incapable of understanding, implementing and living by its subtle precepts has proven to be an abject failure and has caused us to lose respect and probably made the world less stable. But then, was not instability already increasing prior to our democratization efforts?
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Let's hear from Professor Alan Dershowitz , Lori Marcus and Jonathan Tobin! (See 2, 2a, 2b and then 2c below.)
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Do not ever say I did not warn you and as recently as in yesterday's memo regarding Sharia Law coming to America. (See 3 below.)
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Another dear friend and fellow memo reader responded to the debate as follows:
"Just watched the first debate and have these observations.
1. Any of the Republican candidates is better than Hillary. I could support any of them, with the possible exception of Trump. Trump erred in saying he would not rule out a third party candidacy. Carson is still a hero.
2. The closing argument that brought tears to my eyes was from Marco Rubio, who was not my first choice. He's the emotional, but not the logical choice.
J---"
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I am reposting what I wrote prior to the debate tonight so you can assess what I wrote:
" Tomorrow there will be two 'debate' sessions. One will begin at 5 PM and will have 7 participants who failed to make the cut off and one at 9 PM featuring the top 10, polled.
I am reposting what I wrote prior to the debate tonight so you can assess what I wrote:
" Tomorrow there will be two 'debate' sessions. One will begin at 5 PM and will have 7 participants who failed to make the cut off and one at 9 PM featuring the top 10, polled.
As I noted above, I remain on the sideline in terms of who I am most likely to support but I do have some impressions and they are as follows:
Trump: His popularity is based on the angst Americans feel that we are going in the wrong direction and their future and that of their offspring is not bright.
The key he should be focusing on is getting a solid majority in the Senate because he is not a politician and will have to learn the political ropes of going along to get along, something he has not experienced.
I suspect he will not be an attack dog unless he is slighted and then he will respond.
Can he succeed as president? Yes, if he appoints solid advisers and listens to and takes sound advice.
Can he beat Clinton if she is the nominee? I believe so. Might be less effective against Biden who, in my opinion, is a likable bumbler.
Bush, Kasich and Walker: All three have achieved solid accomplishments at the political executive level and Bush and Kasich should appeal to those in the center and the uncommitted. Walker may appeal more to the solid conservative core and less to centrist mainstream. Do the three have the necessary charisma? They have the intelligence but may play it too close to their chests and thus be seen as too establishment - particularly when compared with Trump's more open and brash style.
Can they beat Clinton should she be the nominee? I believe so because Clinton is her own worst enemy, has a terrible personality, no record of true achievements and is justifiably deemed untrustworthy..
Cruz: Damaged goods. Bright, in fact very bright and a committed ideologue but too extreme and could not beat Clinton or Biden.
Paul: Has been successful at approaching non-white voters and is a believable ideologue but mostly has the wrong ideas and could not beat Clinton should she be the nominee or Biden.
Rubio: Needs more seasoning. Decent, thoughtful but would be like electing another novice. Might be able to beat Clinton but probably not Biden.
Carson: Would make a fine Cabinet officer in the area of health and veterans but just not enough breadth and experience. You have to like him for his achievements and personal decency. He speaks his mind and that is a very appealing attribute. Might beat Clinton, could not beat Biden .
Huckabee: Like Carson and Cruz he speaks his mind. He has plenty of television experience, was a good governor but too narrow in his appeal to a broad voting constituency. Might be able to beat Clinton but not Biden.
Christie: the dark horse. He tells it up front and that is appealing. He is bright and has had some executive experience and accomplishments in a Democrat controlled Legislature. Can he control his fly off the handle predilection? His weight could also raise questions and be a drag in an arduous campaign. Could beat Clinton and possibly Biden.
Two who did not make the cut:
Fiorino: Would make a good campaigner against Clinton and might have female appeal as a Vice President. Bright but the fact that she was relieved of her position at HP could raise some negatives.
Perry: I see him as a damaged dark horse because of his poor past performance. Good governor, balanced judgement and could appeal to voters of color. He is not a bomb thrower and is believable.
Might be able to beat both Clinton and Biden if he is allowed to be himself.
Republicans are fielding a host of qualified candidates. The Democrats are struggling with a shallow bench. If not Clinton then Sanders and Warren who are extremes. Biden is old, has seldom been right on any major decision or position he has taken, is likable but, in the final analysis, is a goof ball doofus!"
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1) I went at the analysis of the Presidential contenders in a different fashion than you. Here's my logic.
1. The country is in serious crisis. No country has contributed as much to peace and prosperity in the history of man as the United States in the last 239 years. I personally do not think it will survive this onslaught of liberalism that started more than 100 years ago.
2. But we were also down in 1979 because the American people were taken in by a buffoon named Jimmy Carter. He promised to be different, walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, worshiped at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Some people claim his Administration failed because he was incompetent. Actually, his Administration failed because its socialist underpinnings could not form the basis of success. The more he preached state control or rationing desire, the more the economy started to look like East Germany’s.
3. Ronald Reagan knew in his heart that free markets worked. He also had an unusual faith in the wisdom of the human heart, and believed that the activity that came from the common man’s pursuit of a passion would lead to a bright new future. And that activity – both economic and technologic – ushered in a period of prosperity and advances unlike any known since the Coolidge Administration.
4. We may never be able to replicate another Reagan. We are too jaded, too jaundiced, too skeptical. We are too much into Facebook, or the Kardashians, or cute kitten videos. But I suppose the likelihood of failure is irrelevant to how we act. We have to continue to act as if we can save our society. It is important for our kids and for people all over the world. We must remain the City on the Hill.
5. We need an inspirational leader to motivate -- someone like a Ronald Reagan, who looked at a country in malaise, and said, "This will not stand." But Ronald Reagans, George Washingtons, and Abraham Lincolns are hard to come by.
6. An inspirational leader is one who believes in their soul in the importance of the country, and can articulate that passion in a forceful and convincing way. The next Republican President must be someone like that. If we choose a nominee who is like that, there is a high probability that the nominee will become the next President. If we choose milquetoast, or a nominee who will not forcefully defend the history of the country, we will suffer the same defeat as when we nominated John McCain or Mitt Romney. Decent men, to be sure, and probably pretty good instincts on most issues, but apologists for the things that government cannot solve, and for the harshness of accountability.
7. In fact, any old white guy who is trying to wean citizens off Big Government will be perceived to be yelling, "Hey kids. Get off of my lawn." We need a young face. We probably need a non-white face on the ticket. We may need a woman if Hillary is the nominee, which I still think is possibly in doubt. Mike Huckabee will not make it. Neither will Rick Perry or Jeb Bush. All decent men, just like Mitt Romney. I like them and will crawl over broken glass to vote for them if they are the nominee. Just not likely to win, and even if they win, they are not likely to inspire a change in attitudes.
8. Who is inspirational and transitional? Scott Walker is not an apologist for Big Government, and has done a good job of articulating why it is bad for citizens to rely on Big Government. John Kasich is the same, with a great deal of budgetary experience as the Chairman of the first Budget Committee to balance the federal budget since the 50s, and a successful governor of Ohio who won 96 of 98 counties! Jindal does not have the experience and gravitas -- yet. Pataki is a joke candidate. Christie is impressive as an executive, but he does not lead by inspiration.
9. I get left with Rubio and maybe Carly, who has been surprisingly strong on these issues. Having seen Rubio in action -- both on the stump and answering questions, he does not get flustered, and he brings the message home. I have not seen him flub in all the times I have watched him. And I have watched a lot.
10. Are there skeletons in his closet that could derail him? Possibly, but even if he has a financial or other issue from the past, he can turn it to make himself look more human. More like the common man. Any Democrat nominee is unlikely to be viewed as like the common man, particularly Hillary. (Although she's more like the common man than she is the common woman.)
11. So after analyzing the potential candidates several months back, I stopped at Rubio. We are hosting a fund raiser in Atlanta on Friday night.
12. I would be interested in your critique of my logic.
R----- B-----
1a)
But our voters seem more ignorant, more intellectually lazy and more media-whipped than ever. Our candidates are easily intimidated. Mitt Romney ducked far too many incoming blows, while missing open chances to strike back. Dole and McCain were too old and worn out to run. Republicans should never yield to the vanity of old men.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------R----- B-----
1a)
Why History will Curse the Democrats
What will happen when the fanatics of Iran explode their first bomb? What if they drop a dirty bomb on Tel Aviv or Riyadh, as they can already do today? What if they stage an armored blitzkrieg against Saudi Arabia by way of Syria and Jordan, under the protection of their own nuclear umbrella?
They have threatened to do all those things -- and if they do, Obama will not escape the blame.
These are real scenarios that strategists around the world are studying in detail. Given Obama's disastrous weakening of U.S. and allied power, and especially his failure to act years ago when the nuclear program was vulnerable, the risk of major war is now much greater than ever before. Nothing like this has happened in the 66 years of the nuclear age. The world is entering unknown territory, with the first sworn Armageddon cult equipped with nukes. Destroy a stable balance of power and the world becomes much more dangerous, not less. That is exactly what Obama has done, and not a single liberal newspaper has had the guts to say it.
The rest of Obama's term may therefore be very dangerous. America's enemies will try to solidify their gains before a stronger U.S. president can be elected.
The only gain from major Iranian aggression would be a historic punch in the nose to the Democrats. Because this is not just Obama's failure. It all started when Jimmy Carter let the ayatollahs take power over the modernizing and relatively enlightened Shah in 1979. Bill Clinton had eight years to catch Bin Laden before 9/11/01, which could have been avoided. Nearly 3,000 innocents died that day because of Clinton's inability to take the danger seriously, and he has escaped any responsibility. Hillary committed gross malfeasance on the night of the Benghazi attack, along with Obama himself. Add to that the evidence for Muslim Brotherhood influence buying and infiltration, according to Admiral James Lyons (USN, ret) and defense journalist Bill Gertz, and we can imagine a scenario where disaster in the Middle East will turn American voters against the guilty party.
The Democrats are now associated with willful domestic destruction, as in the Baltimore riots, bankruptcy in Detroit and other Democratic cities, systematic sabotage of our borders, massive national security hacks, criminal leaking of national security secrets, predictable economic malaise, enormous misallocation of tax resources to fantasy energy projects, and finally, abject surrender to nuclear cults in North Korea and Iran. Mass murdering terrorists are now much stronger than six years ago, and we are weaker. That is not an accident. It follows directly
from Obama's actions.
Nations and parties can drift into self-destructive behavior, as the Democrats keep doing. When things get bad enough, frustrated voters have been known to take their revenge.
Major voter rebellions have happened several times in U.S. history. You may not remember the Whigs, the Federalists, or the German Bund. Those movements went extinct when Americans turned against them. Just before the Civil War, voters turned to Lincoln's Republicans, throwing out the Democrats as the party of slavery and rebellion.
Major electoral reverses happen when voters see repeated failures of leadership in frightening times. It took Ronald Reagan to defeat Carter after four years of economic and foreign policy weakness, and Obama hasn't done any better.
In 1948 CPUSA party stooges almost took control of the Democratic Party. Democrats were saved by the skin of their teeth by Harry Truman's victory. It took George Meany's AFL-CIO to drive Stalinists out of the unions, saving the Democrats from extinction in the 1950s.
However, since the McGovern Commission of 1968, which introduced affirmative action in Democratic delegate selection, the Dems have swung hard left again. Their yen for destructive radicalism has never been as more dangerous than it is today, under the angriest anti-American president in history, Barack Hussein Obama.
None of the Democrats seem to see the yawning abyss in front of their eyes. Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who could resist the nuclear surrender, is so fixed on becoming Senate majority leader that he is willing to open the gates of Hell in the Middle East. American voters turned against the Left when Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939. In the early 50s Soviet nuclear bombs helped elect a Republican Congress and president.
Today we see the most astonishing American surrender in history. If it leads to disaster, Obama and the Democrats will not escape the blame. Too many people know the truth. Even as Democrats are under relentless pressure to vote for the surrender, the ayatollah has issued a book detailing exactly how he plans to nuke Tel Aviv and New York City.
Shades of Mein Kampf!
But Obama tells us the mullahs don't really mean it.
The odds are heavily against Obama's gamble, but he is planning to be out of town when the inevitable crisis hits.
Americans haven't seen this kind of nuclear crisis since Stalin's and Khrushchev's sabre rattling in the 1950s. The Soviets never publicly threatened nuclear destruction in Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But the mullahs have been boasting about nuclear Armageddon ever since Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to be chased out of power.
Will American voters respond to obvious dangers? Or are we so stultified that nothing will wake us up?
So far, Republicans haven't broken through media censorship. Donald Trump may finally be showing us how to do it. Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson seem to have the courage of their convictions. They will be attacked by the media mob, of course. The question is whether Republicans will stick by their guns. Today it's not politics as usual, but national survival.
But our voters seem more ignorant, more intellectually lazy and more media-whipped than ever. Our candidates are easily intimidated. Mitt Romney ducked far too many incoming blows, while missing open chances to strike back. Dole and McCain were too old and worn out to run. Republicans should never yield to the vanity of old men.
When the Obama trance wears off, I have to believe that Americans will still respond to clear and present danger. But by then it could be too late.
Maybe the voters should put the Democrats on notice. If the nuclear balloon goes up, today's surrender to the mullahs is the one thing they will never walk away from.
Let them go the way of the Whigs.
2)The President Gets Personal about the Iran Deal
President Obama, in his desperation to save his Iran deal, has taken to attacking its opponents in personal ways. He has accused critics of his deal of being the same Republican warmongers who drove us into the ground war against Iraq and has warned that they would offer "overheated" and often dishonest arguments. He has complained about the influence of lobbyists and money on the process of deciding this important issue, as if lobbying and money were not involved in other important matters before Congress.
These types of ad hominem arguments are becoming less and less convincing as more Democratic members of Congress, more liberal supporters of the President, more nuclear experts and more foreign policy gurus are expressing deep concern about, and sometimes strong opposition to, the deal that is currently before Congress.
I, myself, am a liberal Democrat who twice voted for President Obama and who was opposed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Part of the reason I was opposed was because I considered, and still consider, Iran a much greater threat to the security of the world and to the stability of the Middle East than Iraq ever was. In my newly published e-book The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran From Getting Nukes?, I make arguments that I believe are honest, fair and compelling. I recognize some advantages in the deal, but strongly believe that the disadvantages considerably outweigh them and that the risks of failure are considerable. My assessment is shared by a considerable number of other academics, policy experts and other liberal Democrats who support President Obama's domestic policies, who admire Secretary Kerry for his determination, and who do not see evil intentions in the deal.
The President would be well advised to stop attacking his critics and to start answering their hard questions with specific and credible answers. Questions that need answering include the following:
1. Even after the expiration of the nuclear agreement, will American policy remain that Iran will never under any circumstances be allowed to develop nuclear weapons? Or is it now our policy that Iran will be free to do whatever it wants to do once the deal expires?
2. After the major constraints contained in the deal end, or were the deal to collapse at any point, how long would it take Iran to produce a deliverable nuclear bomb?
3. Would the United States allow Iran to begin production of a nuclear arsenal when the major constraints of the deal end?
4. Does the deal reflect a reversal in policy from President Obama's pre-reelection promise that "My policy is not containment; my policy is to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon"?
5. If not, will President Obama now announce that it is still the policy of the United States that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon?
6. How exactly will the inspections regime work? Precisely how much time will the Iranians have between a request for inspection and the inspection itself? What precisely will they be permitted to do during this hiatus? And why do they need so much time if they don't plan to cheat?
7. What will President Obama do if Iran is caught cheating on this deal during his administration?
8. Precisely when will which sanctions be lifted under the agreement? Do provisions that prevent the P5+1 from imposing new sanctions apply even if Iran is found to be in violation of its commitments under the agreement? When exactly will sanctions prohibiting the sale of weapons, and particularly missile technology, be lifted?
If and when these and other important questions about the deal are answered — directly, candidly, and unambiguously — Congress will be in a better position to answer the fundamental questions now before it: would rejecting this deeply flawed deal produce more dangerous results than not rejecting it? If so, what can we now do to assure that Iran will not acquire a nuclear arsenal? The answers to those questions may profoundly affect the future of the world.
So the President should spend more time on substance and less on personal attacks.
2a)
U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the Iran Nuclear deal.
This critical period during which Congress is mulling over the nuclear deal made by U.S. negotiators and their P5+1 partners with Iran has turned into a hotly contested debate between those committed to preventing the deal from being approved and those who are are desperate to ensure that it will.
Yesterday, Aug. 4, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke to thousands of Americans and explained why he believes the deal is a bad one. It boiled down to "Keep or Cheat." However Iran decides to act under this agreement, it will attain nuclear threshold status.
Today President Barack Obama gave a midday televised speech from American University in Washington, D.C.. During the speech he ridiculed those who criticize the deal, and explained why, according to him, the choice is either the deal or war.
Obama sought to compare the current situation in which Iran is seen by many as threatening the U.S. and its closest allies, and perhaps the world, to the time in which the Soviet Union, also a supporter of terrorist proxies, was considered the global danger.
This comparison is useful because the tensions and stakes were similar, and the danger was handled through diplomacy, rather than a resort to war.
Of course, diplomacy is not a generic concept, and its success depends greatly on the diplomats involved and the deals they are able to strike.
This American administration and its negotiating team are not the teams who handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, nor have they woven treaties like the SALT and START Treaties. In fact, one clear red flagging difference is that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is not a treaty, or at least is not being called one, with all the consequences that entails.
The President agrees with many of his critics about one factor: the importance of the issue. He described the deal and the foreign policy debate surrounding it as "one of the most consequential" the United States government has engaged in, in years.
Unfortunately, unlike Netanyahu's speech, which was entirely respectful of President Obama, this one was smug, threatening, nasty and insulting, especially regarding Netanyahu, but also towards any other critics of the deal.
In refusing to take the high road, it may be that Obama lost the opportunity to win over those who were wavering. Or, and perhaps more likely, the threats he raised, including the specter of disaster that will befall the United States should the deal be rejected, may be sufficient to capture those who are susceptible to such tactics.
Time will tell.
In the hour-long speech, the President reiterated what he and the other proponents of the deal have been touting since the JCPOA was signed two weeks ago. This is the best possible deal, snap-back of sanctions will be available if Iran cheats, the inspections regime covers all contingencies (but while admitting the Iranians will have 24 days before inspectors can visit contested sites, Obama promised "we will be watching it continuously until inspectors get in.")
A careful review of the speech, however, reveals several significant inconsistencies.
SANCTIONS NOT ENOUGH, BUT IF THEY CHEAT, WE'LL SNAP BACK SANCTIONS
The President spent a great deal of time deriding the idea that sanctions would be enough to deter Iran from driving towards its nuclear weapons goal, and ridiculing the idea of America going it alone on sanctions should Congress reject the deal. He pledged that should Iran cheat, "we can catch them, and we will."
He then said, "If Iran violates the agreement over the next decade, all of the sanctions can snap back into place. We won't need the support of the other members of the U.N. Security Council, America can trigger snap back on our own." So what happened to the idea that America can't go it alone? Or that sanctions are sufficient?
What was new in the speech was the threats to the U.S. economy, should Congress vote down the deal.
What was not new were the implicit suggestions that the powerful Jewish lobby, and/or the Israeli government is seeking to undermine the deal because they really prefer war, or because they simply do not understand the region like Obama and his experts do.
In fact, he singled out Israel as the only nation which has not expressed support for the deal. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations were probably surprised to hear that line.
IRAN'S 'PEACEFUL' NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
It may also have been surprising to some to hear Obama talk about Iran's peaceful nuclear program.
In a portion of the speech that seemed to address voters in Iran, rather than in Iowa or Illinois, the President castigated those who think that anything we do will "force Iran to completely dismantle all vestiges of its nuclear infrastructure, even aspects that are consistent with peaceful programs. That is oftentimes, what the critics are calling a better deal."
Forgive those who thought the whole idea of having discussions with Iran about its nuclear program was to, as the President and his supporters had been saying, get Iran to dismantle all of its centrifuges and remove all enriched uranium from the country.
Here is what he is saying now about those earlier goals: " Neither the Iranian government, or the Iranian opposition, or the Iranian people would agree to what they would view as a total surrender of their sovereignty."
MOCKING NETANYAHU
But guess who is making such demands? Well, just the day before in his speech Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded his audience that a better deal than the JCPOA would be one with tougher sanctions, and that the world should not be abandoning the only significant leverage over Iran.
What did Obama say about that?
First Obama quoted his critics who said "we should get a better deal. That is repeated over and over again. It's a bad deal -- we need a better deal." The audience tittered in response to the mocking tone.
"One that relies on vague promises of toughness and, more recently, the argument that we can apply a broader and infinite set of sanctions to squeeze the Iranian regime harder." That is exactly what Netanyahu said. He said Iran needs this deal, and suggested that they would come back to the table if this one was rejected and the rest of the nations pushed harder.
And this is where it got quite ugly.
After clearly referring to Netanyahu as the one calling for tougher sanctions, Obama then described the proponents of that position as being "either ignorant of Iranian society, or they are not being straight with the American people." That's right. President Obama is saying Netanyahu and the entire Israeli government, and the vast majority of Israelis are ignorant or are trying to pull a fast one over on the American people. That's ugly.
There may have been titters earlier, but the sound must have been muted during the real punch line. That is when the President talked about the Iranian government's need to respond to its citizens desires and that it will surely use the billions of dollars in sanctions relief for "funding pensions and salaries to paying for crumbling infrastructure."
In yet another surprise argument - delivered with a straight face - the President mocked the notion that Iran is trying to become a hegemon in the Middle East, let alone having designs on world domination.
IRAN WILL BE JUST A MINOR LOCAL BULLY
Sounding as if he were discussing a western European, secular country, Obama told Americans that "contrary to the alarmists who claim Iran is on the brink of taking over the Middle East, or even the world, Iran will remain a regional power with its own set of challenges."
But isn't that really the primary concern, that Iran is seeking hegemony over the Middle East: dominion over the Sunni Arab nations and over Israel. And once that were to happen, it would have a devastating impact on the rest of the world as well.
Not to mention the issue of Iran's desire for, and the JCPOA granting it the right to attain in just eight years, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. One doesn't need to have ICBMs to bully enemies in your own back yard. Hello California!
IT'S MY DEAL OR WAR
So, after dispensing with all the criticism directed against the deal, Obama once again doubled down on his primary threat. It is either this deal, or it is war. And, need the President remind his listeners, war is ugly, it is expensive, it guarantees human suffering and it may not even achieve what this deal is intended to achieve.
He threatened that if the deal is rejected by Congress, the United States will be isolated and our economy would suffer serious consequences. Putting aside, apparently, the fact that when the U.S. had sanctions against Iran, we allowed carve outs for China and Russia (and other favored trading partners). But today the President threatened that "we'd have to cut off countries like China from the American financial system," and that could result in economic catastrophe.
A point the President delivered with great force was that were Congress to kill the deal, "we will lose more than just constraints on Iran's nuclear deal or the sanctions we have painstakingly build. We will have lost something more precious: America's credibility as a leader of diplomacy. America's credibility is the anchor of the international system."
But whose fault is that?
The last time we checked the U.S. Constitution, the President is given the right to negotiate treaties but they can only become binding if the Senate consents to their ratification. So for the most solemn and important international agreements - which this one, all agree, surely is - the Founders built into the Constitution precisely the disjunction that President Obama is kvetching about between presidential negotiation and Congressional approval. And by the way, the United States is far from alone in distinguishing between executive negotiation and legislative consent to ratification.
ONLY THE HARDLINERS HATE AMERICA (THAT'S WHO WE ARE TRUSTING TO ENFORCE THIS DEAL)
Some in the audience might have been wondering to themselves, but how can we trust the Iranians at least cut back on their acts and support of terrorism and their constant incitement and provocations?
To that segment, the President also had an answer.
No questions were allowed after the speech, or some cheeky reporter might have mentioned that it is the Ayatollah himself who is shouting Death to America, it is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who are shouting Death to America. It is the hardliners who are running the Iranian government, and they are the ones who will be entrusted to enforce the deal the President wants Congress to approve. So who is it that is ignorant of Iranian society?
2a)
Obama Offers His ‘Deal or War’
U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the Iran Nuclear deal.
Yesterday, Aug. 4, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke to thousands of Americans and explained why he believes the deal is a bad one. It boiled down to "Keep or Cheat." However Iran decides to act under this agreement, it will attain nuclear threshold status.
Today President Barack Obama gave a midday televised speech from American University in Washington, D.C.. During the speech he ridiculed those who criticize the deal, and explained why, according to him, the choice is either the deal or war.
Obama sought to compare the current situation in which Iran is seen by many as threatening the U.S. and its closest allies, and perhaps the world, to the time in which the Soviet Union, also a supporter of terrorist proxies, was considered the global danger.
This comparison is useful because the tensions and stakes were similar, and the danger was handled through diplomacy, rather than a resort to war.
Of course, diplomacy is not a generic concept, and its success depends greatly on the diplomats involved and the deals they are able to strike.
This American administration and its negotiating team are not the teams who handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, nor have they woven treaties like the SALT and START Treaties. In fact, one clear red flagging difference is that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is not a treaty, or at least is not being called one, with all the consequences that entails.
The President agrees with many of his critics about one factor: the importance of the issue. He described the deal and the foreign policy debate surrounding it as "one of the most consequential" the United States government has engaged in, in years.
Unfortunately, unlike Netanyahu's speech, which was entirely respectful of President Obama, this one was smug, threatening, nasty and insulting, especially regarding Netanyahu, but also towards any other critics of the deal.
In refusing to take the high road, it may be that Obama lost the opportunity to win over those who were wavering. Or, and perhaps more likely, the threats he raised, including the specter of disaster that will befall the United States should the deal be rejected, may be sufficient to capture those who are susceptible to such tactics.
Time will tell.
In the hour-long speech, the President reiterated what he and the other proponents of the deal have been touting since the JCPOA was signed two weeks ago. This is the best possible deal, snap-back of sanctions will be available if Iran cheats, the inspections regime covers all contingencies (but while admitting the Iranians will have 24 days before inspectors can visit contested sites, Obama promised "we will be watching it continuously until inspectors get in.")
A careful review of the speech, however, reveals several significant inconsistencies.
SANCTIONS NOT ENOUGH, BUT IF THEY CHEAT, WE'LL SNAP BACK SANCTIONS
The President spent a great deal of time deriding the idea that sanctions would be enough to deter Iran from driving towards its nuclear weapons goal, and ridiculing the idea of America going it alone on sanctions should Congress reject the deal. He pledged that should Iran cheat, "we can catch them, and we will."
He then said, "If Iran violates the agreement over the next decade, all of the sanctions can snap back into place. We won't need the support of the other members of the U.N. Security Council, America can trigger snap back on our own." So what happened to the idea that America can't go it alone? Or that sanctions are sufficient?
What was new in the speech was the threats to the U.S. economy, should Congress vote down the deal.
What was not new were the implicit suggestions that the powerful Jewish lobby, and/or the Israeli government is seeking to undermine the deal because they really prefer war, or because they simply do not understand the region like Obama and his experts do.
In fact, he singled out Israel as the only nation which has not expressed support for the deal. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations were probably surprised to hear that line.
IRAN'S 'PEACEFUL' NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
It may also have been surprising to some to hear Obama talk about Iran's peaceful nuclear program.
In a portion of the speech that seemed to address voters in Iran, rather than in Iowa or Illinois, the President castigated those who think that anything we do will "force Iran to completely dismantle all vestiges of its nuclear infrastructure, even aspects that are consistent with peaceful programs. That is oftentimes, what the critics are calling a better deal."
Forgive those who thought the whole idea of having discussions with Iran about its nuclear program was to, as the President and his supporters had been saying, get Iran to dismantle all of its centrifuges and remove all enriched uranium from the country.
Here is what he is saying now about those earlier goals: " Neither the Iranian government, or the Iranian opposition, or the Iranian people would agree to what they would view as a total surrender of their sovereignty."
MOCKING NETANYAHU
But guess who is making such demands? Well, just the day before in his speech Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded his audience that a better deal than the JCPOA would be one with tougher sanctions, and that the world should not be abandoning the only significant leverage over Iran.
What did Obama say about that?
First Obama quoted his critics who said "we should get a better deal. That is repeated over and over again. It's a bad deal -- we need a better deal." The audience tittered in response to the mocking tone.
"One that relies on vague promises of toughness and, more recently, the argument that we can apply a broader and infinite set of sanctions to squeeze the Iranian regime harder." That is exactly what Netanyahu said. He said Iran needs this deal, and suggested that they would come back to the table if this one was rejected and the rest of the nations pushed harder.
And this is where it got quite ugly.
After clearly referring to Netanyahu as the one calling for tougher sanctions, Obama then described the proponents of that position as being "either ignorant of Iranian society, or they are not being straight with the American people." That's right. President Obama is saying Netanyahu and the entire Israeli government, and the vast majority of Israelis are ignorant or are trying to pull a fast one over on the American people. That's ugly.
There may have been titters earlier, but the sound must have been muted during the real punch line. That is when the President talked about the Iranian government's need to respond to its citizens desires and that it will surely use the billions of dollars in sanctions relief for "funding pensions and salaries to paying for crumbling infrastructure."
In yet another surprise argument - delivered with a straight face - the President mocked the notion that Iran is trying to become a hegemon in the Middle East, let alone having designs on world domination.
IRAN WILL BE JUST A MINOR LOCAL BULLY
Sounding as if he were discussing a western European, secular country, Obama told Americans that "contrary to the alarmists who claim Iran is on the brink of taking over the Middle East, or even the world, Iran will remain a regional power with its own set of challenges."
But isn't that really the primary concern, that Iran is seeking hegemony over the Middle East: dominion over the Sunni Arab nations and over Israel. And once that were to happen, it would have a devastating impact on the rest of the world as well.
Not to mention the issue of Iran's desire for, and the JCPOA granting it the right to attain in just eight years, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. One doesn't need to have ICBMs to bully enemies in your own back yard. Hello California!
IT'S MY DEAL OR WAR
So, after dispensing with all the criticism directed against the deal, Obama once again doubled down on his primary threat. It is either this deal, or it is war. And, need the President remind his listeners, war is ugly, it is expensive, it guarantees human suffering and it may not even achieve what this deal is intended to achieve.
He threatened that if the deal is rejected by Congress, the United States will be isolated and our economy would suffer serious consequences. Putting aside, apparently, the fact that when the U.S. had sanctions against Iran, we allowed carve outs for China and Russia (and other favored trading partners). But today the President threatened that "we'd have to cut off countries like China from the American financial system," and that could result in economic catastrophe.
A point the President delivered with great force was that were Congress to kill the deal, "we will lose more than just constraints on Iran's nuclear deal or the sanctions we have painstakingly build. We will have lost something more precious: America's credibility as a leader of diplomacy. America's credibility is the anchor of the international system."
But whose fault is that?
The last time we checked the U.S. Constitution, the President is given the right to negotiate treaties but they can only become binding if the Senate consents to their ratification. So for the most solemn and important international agreements - which this one, all agree, surely is - the Founders built into the Constitution precisely the disjunction that President Obama is kvetching about between presidential negotiation and Congressional approval. And by the way, the United States is far from alone in distinguishing between executive negotiation and legislative consent to ratification.
ONLY THE HARDLINERS HATE AMERICA (THAT'S WHO WE ARE TRUSTING TO ENFORCE THIS DEAL)
Some in the audience might have been wondering to themselves, but how can we trust the Iranians at least cut back on their acts and support of terrorism and their constant incitement and provocations?
To that segment, the President also had an answer.
Just because Iranian hardliners chant 'Death to America' does not mean that that's what all Iranians believe. In fact, it's those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It's those hardliners chanting 'Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican Caucus.
No questions were allowed after the speech, or some cheeky reporter might have mentioned that it is the Ayatollah himself who is shouting Death to America, it is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who are shouting Death to America. It is the hardliners who are running the Iranian government, and they are the ones who will be entrusted to enforce the deal the President wants Congress to approve. So who is it that is ignorant of Iranian society?
About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools.
2b)
Since the signing of the deal last month, the president hasn’t hesitated about throwing some sharp elbows in the direction of the pro-Israel community. He has spoken openly about standing up to the power of lobbyists and big money in a way that was an unmistakable shot fired over the bow of AIPAC and an echo of anti-Semitic tropes. An earlier generation of American Jews responded to similar talk from President George H.W. Bush with revulsion but as a liberal Democrat, Obama gets cut slack from the organized Jewish world that no Republican would get.
In his meeting with the Jewish groups (those in attendance included some of the president’s sycophantic supporters from J Street and the National Jewish Democratic Council), Obama tempered some of this rhetoric but didn’t entirely walk back his charges that seemed to be dog whistles to Democrats about not letting moneyed Jews interfere with the measure that he considers to be integral to his foreign policy legacy.
The claim that critics are distorting the terms of the deal is patently disingenuous. The president has been offering deceptive descriptions of the deal throughout this debate. But the most important point is that by agreeing to something that leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in place, allows it to continue research, provides inadequate inspections and will expire in a decade, the president hasn’t met his own goal of ensuring that it won’t get a bomb. Just as important, contrary to the president’s warnings, the alternative to the deal isn’t war but the sort of tough-minded diplomacy that he chose to discard when he entered negotiations with Iran.
Though in his speech today at the American University in Washington, D.C., he represented his Iran diplomacy as merely another version of the tough tactics that won the Cold War against the Soviet Union; that is utterly untrue. Ronald Reagan didn’t win the Cold War by appeasing Communism but by confronting it and convincing Moscow it could never overcome the West. What Obama has done is a repeat of the failed détente tactics pursued by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. They based their policy on the notion that the Soviet Union would never fall and must be accommodated. Obama and Kerry feel that way about Iran but then compound the mistake. They actually think it doesn’t mean what it says about seeking Israel’s destruction and regional hegemony and that it is can be transformed into a partner for the United States.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s prediction that instead of a rejection of the deal bringing on war, its adoption will make conflict more certain seems a more sensible evaluation of the situation. Iran has given us many proofs of its seriousness about backing terror and its evil intentions toward Israel. But for Obama’s Iran deal advocacy, the main foe seems to be a pro-Israel community that isn’t prepared to bow to liberal partisanship and affirm that a naked emperor is wearing clothes. Though the odds remain in the president’s favor, as the announcements from AJC and various Democrats coming out against the deal show, muscling American Jews and even members of his own party isn’t working as well as he might like.
2c)
2b)
President Obama isn’t sitting back and simply letting critics of his Iran deal have their way. Yesterday, he summoned the leaders of 20 Jewish groups to the White House for what he described as “blunt” talk aimed principally at intimidating AIPAC into backing down on its all-out push against the nuclear pact. While conceding that pro-Israel activists had the right to campaign against the deal, he claimed they were distorting the truth about its content but doubled down on is charge that opponents were seeking a war. But rather than merely repeat his favorite talking point about deal critics producing recycled arguments in favor of the Iraq War, he asserted that the war he thinks will result from a defeat of the deal will result in “missiles raining down on Tel Aviv” rather than more bloodshed for Americans. But missing from his heavy-handed pressure tactics is a more honest explanation for why he is so determined to push through an agreement that fails to meet the standards that he originally set for the talks. For that we have to turn to Secretary of State John Kerry who reveals in a new interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldbergthat he doesn’t think Iran is serious about wiping Israel off the map and thinks the entire discussion is a waste of time. That rather lazy justification for détente with the Islamist regime should motivate Jewish groups to redouble their efforts to fight the president’s policy.
A good sign that the Jewish establishment isn’t being intimidated came today with the announcement that the liberal-leaning American Jewish Committee is joining the ranks of those opposed to the Iran deal. Coming as it does the day after the Obama meeting, the AJC’s move is a sign to wavering members of Congress that even organizations whose members are basically sympathetic to the president aren’t buying his arguments.
Since the signing of the deal last month, the president hasn’t hesitated about throwing some sharp elbows in the direction of the pro-Israel community. He has spoken openly about standing up to the power of lobbyists and big money in a way that was an unmistakable shot fired over the bow of AIPAC and an echo of anti-Semitic tropes. An earlier generation of American Jews responded to similar talk from President George H.W. Bush with revulsion but as a liberal Democrat, Obama gets cut slack from the organized Jewish world that no Republican would get.
In his meeting with the Jewish groups (those in attendance included some of the president’s sycophantic supporters from J Street and the National Jewish Democratic Council), Obama tempered some of this rhetoric but didn’t entirely walk back his charges that seemed to be dog whistles to Democrats about not letting moneyed Jews interfere with the measure that he considers to be integral to his foreign policy legacy.
But his effort to transform this argument from one between those concerned about the threat from Iran and those in favor of diplomatic engagement with the Islamist regime into a Jewish civil war is particularly insidious. Instead of owning up to his own demonization of deal critics as warmongers, with the help of his supporters in the room he attempted to change the discussion. He claims that opponents of the deal are dividing American Jewry and undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship. The warning is clear: back my deal against the complaints of Israel’s government or see the alliance you’ve worked to build start to unravel. The upshot of the discussion was that despite claiming to have a thick skin when it comes to criticism (perhaps the biggest lie he has told during his entire presidency), Obama takes opposition to his plans on Iran as a personal affront and he will stop at nothing to delegitimize their efforts.
The claim that critics are distorting the terms of the deal is patently disingenuous. The president has been offering deceptive descriptions of the deal throughout this debate. But the most important point is that by agreeing to something that leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in place, allows it to continue research, provides inadequate inspections and will expire in a decade, the president hasn’t met his own goal of ensuring that it won’t get a bomb. Just as important, contrary to the president’s warnings, the alternative to the deal isn’t war but the sort of tough-minded diplomacy that he chose to discard when he entered negotiations with Iran.
How then to explain the administration’s decision to discard the enormous political and economic leverage it had over Iran in 2013 and begin making the series of far reaching concessions that led to the agreement? The answer comes from Kerry who not only dismisses Iran’s ideological obsession with destroying Israel as not serious but also thinks the fact that it will continue to fund Hezbollah and Hamas (something that the $100 billion in unfrozen assets it is getting in the deal as well as the profits from the business boom that will follow the pact’s ratification as American and European companies flock to Tehran to make nice with the ayatollahs) as no big deal.
Though in his speech today at the American University in Washington, D.C., he represented his Iran diplomacy as merely another version of the tough tactics that won the Cold War against the Soviet Union; that is utterly untrue. Ronald Reagan didn’t win the Cold War by appeasing Communism but by confronting it and convincing Moscow it could never overcome the West. What Obama has done is a repeat of the failed détente tactics pursued by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. They based their policy on the notion that the Soviet Union would never fall and must be accommodated. Obama and Kerry feel that way about Iran but then compound the mistake. They actually think it doesn’t mean what it says about seeking Israel’s destruction and regional hegemony and that it is can be transformed into a partner for the United States.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s prediction that instead of a rejection of the deal bringing on war, its adoption will make conflict more certain seems a more sensible evaluation of the situation. Iran has given us many proofs of its seriousness about backing terror and its evil intentions toward Israel. But for Obama’s Iran deal advocacy, the main foe seems to be a pro-Israel community that isn’t prepared to bow to liberal partisanship and affirm that a naked emperor is wearing clothes. Though the odds remain in the president’s favor, as the announcements from AJC and various Democrats coming out against the deal show, muscling American Jews and even members of his own party isn’t working as well as he might like.
2c)
Cash for the Revolutionary Guards
The nuclear deal is a financial windfall for Iran’s military wing.
President Obama’s Iran deal has been losing support in the polls and on Capitol Hill, and so on Wednesday he tried to reason with his critics. “It’s those hardliners [in Iran] chanting ‘death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal,” he said in a speech at American University. “They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus.”
So Republicans in Congress equal Revolutionary Guards in Tehran. Nice. Name-calling and immoral equivalence are always the best way to win over skeptics.
In truth, Mr. Obama isn’t trying to persuade anyone. He’s trying to keep enough partisan Democratic support across the country so he can hold one-third of the House and Senate. That’s all he needs to implement his deal. This explains his other rhetorical tactic Wednesday, which was to equate opposition to his deal with a vote for war in Iraq in 2003 and a lust for war generally. He’s essentially banking on the Senate’s Elizabeth Warren wing to save him from what is building into a bipartisan majority repudiation of the deal.
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This growing opposition flows from the accord itself, which looks worse the closer people inspect it. Take the deal’s financial windfall for Iran’s terrorist and military activities, which even Mr. Obama conceded Wednesday would benefit. The inflow from sanctions relief could approach $150 billion within 16 months. The President says most of the money will go to improve Iran’s economy, but this misjudges the regime’s priorities and how its economy works.
Consider the Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which is the regime’s military and ideological spine and controls an estimated 20% of the Iranian economy. This includes perhaps half of all government-owned companies, such as construction firm Khatam Al-Anbia, which is involved in building everything from city metros to oil pipelines; the Telecommunication Company of Iran, where an IRGC-controlled company has a 51% stake; and thousands of smaller front companies.
“To do business in Iran, foreign companies need an Iranian partner, which for large-scale projects often means firms controlled by the IRGC,” Reuters’s Pariza Hafezi and Louis Charbonneau reported in July. That means the Revolutionary Guards will benefit from the one-time windfall when Iranian oil profits now held in escrow are released, and going forward as foreign companies race to get into the Iran market.
How will they spend the money? In April, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave the order that “all organizations, including the Ministry of Defense, the military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, should increase their military and defense preparedness and increase their combative and mental capabilities on a daily basis. This should be taken as an official order.” President Hassan Rouhani has followed orders by increasing the defense budget by 32.5% over last year.
It’s true that Iran’s military spending remains small by U.S. standards—officially about $17 billion this year. But Ayatollah Khamenei has already vowed that Iran will continue to supply its regional allies.
And how exactly is a group like Hezbollah worse off if its principal patron is better able to supply arms and money? That’s especially so since the deal also lifts the current U.N. embargo on the sale of conventional arms to Iran in five years, while Russia is already flouting the embargo by selling Tehran S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
Then there is the list of Iranian entities on which sanctions are to be lifted. That starts with the IRGC, including its air force and missile command. Sanctions are also lifted on the Qods (Jerusalem) Force, which currently props up the Assad regime in Syria and supplied Shiite militias in Iraq with the IEDs that killed hundreds of American GIs. As recently as 2011 the Qods Force was implicated in an attempt to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. by blowing up a restaurant in Washington, D.C.
Ahmad Vahidi, the former Iranian defense minister wanted by Interpol for his role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, is also being taken off the sanctions list. So is Tidewater Middle East Co., an IRGC-owned port operator sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2011 because of its involvement in arms smuggling.
And if containing Iran’s regional intimidation is a U.S. priority, why remove sanctions from Iran’s Cruise Missile Industry Group? In 2006 Hezbollah punched a hole in an Israeli ship stationed off Lebanon using an Iranian-supplied cruise missile based on a Chinese design. Iran could repeat this against American ships in the Persian Gulf.
All of this is strange if the goal of the deal is strictly to contain Iran’s nuclear program, as Mr. Obama says it is. The details of the nuclear deal show that it also provides legal relief, and new financial resources and opportunities, for the instruments of Iran’s regional aggression. The deal sets Iran on the path to getting a nuclear weapon and in the meantime it gives Iran the means to create far more trouble in the Middle East. No wonder it’s losing public support.
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The Obama administration recently made changes to the Oath of Allegiance to the United States in a manner very conducive to Sharia, or Islamic law.
The words translated here as “guard” and “precaution” are derived from the Arabic word taqu, from the trilateral root w-q-y -- the same root that gives us the word taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine that permits Muslims to deceive non-Muslims whenever under their authority.
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Obama Administration Modifies U.S. Oath of Allegiance to Accommodate Muslims
The Obama administration recently made changes to the Oath of Allegiance to the United States in a manner very conducive to Sharia, or Islamic law.
On July 21, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced some “modifications” to the Oath of Allegiance that immigrants must take before becoming naturalized.
The original oath required incoming citizens to declare that they will “bear arms on behalf of the United States” and “perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States” when required by the law.
Now the USCIS says, “A candidate [to U.S. citizenship] may be eligible to exclude these two clauses based on religious training and belief or a conscientious objection.”
The new changes further add that new candidates “May be eligible for [additional?] modifications based on religious training and belief, or conscientious objection arising from a deeply held moral or ethical code.”
These changes serve incoming Islamic supremacists especially well. For, while Islamic law allows Muslims to feign loyalty to non-Muslim “infidel” authorities, it bans Muslims from living up to the pretense by actually fighting or killing fellow Muslims on behalf of a non-Muslim entity, such as the United States.
The perfectly fitting story of Nidal Hassan -- the U.S. army major and “observant Muslim who prayed daily” but then turned murderer -- comes to mind and is illustrative.
A pious Muslim, Hasan seemed a “regular American,” even if he was leading a double life -- American Army major and psychiatrist by day, financial supporter of jihadi groups and associate of terrorists by night. However, when time came for this American soldier to “bear arms on behalf of the United States” -- to quote the original Oath of Allegiance -- against fellow Muslims, things got ugly: he went on a shooting spree in Fort Hood, killing thirteen Americans, including one pregnant woman in 2009.
Much of Hasan’s behavior is grounded in the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity. According to this essential teaching, Muslims must always be loyal to Islam and fellow Muslims while having enmity for all non-Islamic things and persons.
However, whenever Muslims find themselves under the authority of non-Islamic institutions and persons, they are permitted to feign loyalty -- even to the point of cursing Islam and pretending to have abandoned it -- with one caveat: Muslims must never take up arms on behalf of “infidels” against fellow Muslims. In other words, their loyalty to non-Muslims must be skin deep.
Many are the verses in the Koran that support this divisive doctrine (3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 9:23, and 58:22; the last simply states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims -- “even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin”).
Most germane is Koran 3:28:
“Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: and whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah -- unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”
The words translated here as “guard” and “precaution” are derived from the Arabic word taqu, from the trilateral root w-q-y -- the same root that gives us the word taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine that permits Muslims to deceive non-Muslims whenever under their authority.
Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), author of one of the most authoritative commentaries on the Koran, explains taqiyya in the context of verse 3:28 as follows: “Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.” As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who said, “Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.”[1]
Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of another standard commentary on the Koran, interprets verse 3:28 as follows:
If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers -- except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.[2]
And therein lies the limit of taqiyya: when the deceit, the charade begins to endanger the lives of fellow Muslims -- who, as we have seen, deserve first loyalty -- it is forbidden. As al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri puts it in his treatise on Loyalty and Enmity, Muslims may pretend to be friendly and loyal to non-Muslims, so long as they do “not undertake any initiative to support them [non-Muslims], commit sin, or enable [them] through any deed or killing or fighting against Muslims” (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 75).
Thus the idea that Nidal Hasan might be deployed to a Muslim country (Iraq or Afghanistan) was his “worst nightmare.” When he realized that he was about to be deployed, he became “very upset and angry.” The thought that he might injure or kill Muslims “weighed heavily on him.” He also counseled a fellow Muslim not to join the U.S. Army, since “Muslims shouldn’t kill Muslims.”
Hassan is not the only Muslim to expose his disloyalty when pushed into fighting fellow Muslims on behalf of the United States.
In 2010, Naser Abdo, another Muslim soldier who joined the U.S. Army, demanded to be discharged on the claim that he was a “conscientious objector whose devotion to Islam has suffered since he took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies.” The Army agreed, but while processing him, officials found child pornography on his government-issued computer and recommended that he be court-martialed. Abdo went AWOL and later tried to carry out a terrorist attack on a restaurant with the use of weapons of mass destruction.
And in April 2005, another Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait: “He launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq.”
In short, the first loyalty of any “American Muslim” who follows the Koran is to fellow Muslims, regardless of their nationality -- and not to American “infidels,” even if they be their longtime neighbors whom they daily smiled to (see here for examples). Hence why American Muslim Tarik Shah, who was arrested for terrorist-related charges, once boasted: “I could be joking and smiling [with non-Muslims] and then cutting their throats in the next second” -- reminiscent of the aforementioned quote by Muhammad’s companion.
Now, in direct compliance with Islamic law, the Obama administration has made it so that no Muslim living in America need ever worry about having to defend her -- including against fellow Muslims or jihadis.
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[1] 'Imad ad-Din Isma'il Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Karim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiya, 2001), vol. 1, p. 350, author's translation.
[2] Abu Ja'far Muhammad at-Tabari, Jami' al-Bayan 'an ta'wil ayi'l-Qur'an al-Ma'ruf: Tafsir at-Tabari (Beirut: Dar Ihya' at-Turath al-'Arabi, 2001), vol. 3, p. 267, author's translation.
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