Should Trump be re-elected, as I suspect he will, the benefits will not flow unless the Republicans recapture The House and hold the Senate. Then you will see what good can be accomplished because Trump knows he will have only four more years to make his mark and overcome his being impeached. Petulant Pelosi relishes the fact that she believes she has stained Trump forever when, in fact, it is she who will bear the ultimate burden for her own rapacious stupidity.
"Petulant" may think she has saved the Union but history will record what a political fool she truly was and she will be the one to actually wind up wearing the indelible stain.
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Our solid Senator speaks out! (See 1 below.)
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Obama Passed the Buck. Trump Refused to Play.
The Iran deal was never meant to stop Iran from building a bomb—it was supposed to delay it until disaster happened on someone else’s watch
By Lee Smith
In the wake of the targeted killing of Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani, an interesting fight has broken out—after Donald Trump failed to brief them in advance of the strike, Democrats began fulsomely criticizing the president. This led Republican lawmakers to accuse their counterparts across the aisle of pro-terrorist sympathies. Maybe Republicans are still sore that Barack Obama compared them to Iranian hardliners like Soleimani for denouncing his signature foreign policy initiative, the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Or maybe it’s something else.
Because the fact is that the Democrats are not pro-terrorist. They’re simply intent on protecting the historic agreement that legalized the nuclear weapons program of a terror state.
Democratic leadership is angry it wasn’t briefed before the operation, as were some Republican lawmakers critical of the scant information in the White House intelligence briefing on the attack. But there is reason to believe senior Democrats would have leaked it to the press, as they’ve done repeatedly over the last three years to prosecute their anti-Trump campaign. In particular, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and his staff have used CNN as a platform to push the discredited Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Why would Democrats endanger U.S. national security by leaking highly classified plans of a major operation against a terror leader? Because Soleimani was the centerpiece of the nuclear deal.
And:
'Light Them On Fire': Bernie Sanders Organizer Wants Political ViolenceField organizer also favors Soviet-style gulags for 'reeducation' Read and Share 
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Will Iran undertake a further terrorist act and confront/challenge Trump? (See 2 below.)
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My former partner at Courts & Co., Dick Harris, was a hunting partner of the brother to Iran's King Pahlavi and helped the family transfer the family jewels to The U.S. Trust Company in New York, now a subsidiary of Bankamerica. Dick was a Marlboro Man. An art collector extraordinaire, a gallery owner in Santa Fe (Jameson Gallery), host of the annual Cowboy of America barbecue at his ranch in Pegosa Springs, Colorado, a groomsman at my wedding and an internationally known big game hunter. At the time he killed the largest Kodiak Bear in Alaska.
Lamentably, he was shot and killed by his wife after a family argument. Sad indeed. (See 3 below.)
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Only Democrats and The French have a problem with the assassination of Soleimani? Killing Bin Laden was OK. Nothing Trump does will ever be fund acceptable among the Trump haters. They are pathological/psychotic.(See 4 below.)
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My former partner at Courts & Co., Dick Harris, was a hunting partner of the brother to Iran's King Pahlavi and helped the family transfer the family jewels to The U.S. Trust Company in New York, now a subsidiary of Bankamerica. Dick was a Marlboro Man. An art collector extraordinaire, a gallery owner in Santa Fe (Jameson Gallery), host of the annual Cowboy of America barbecue at his ranch in Pegosa Springs, Colorado, a groomsman at my wedding and an internationally known big game hunter. At the time he killed the largest Kodiak Bear in Alaska.
Lamentably, he was shot and killed by his wife after a family argument. Sad indeed. (See 3 below.)
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Only Democrats and The French have a problem with the assassination of Soleimani? Killing Bin Laden was OK. Nothing Trump does will ever be fund acceptable among the Trump haters. They are pathological/psychotic.(See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)
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2) Photo-Ops Notwithstanding, Iran Faces the US Alone
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,407, January 15, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Iran is now assessing whether it should retaliate further against the US for the targeting of Qassem Soleimani, and if so, how. Its relationships with Russia and Turkey might look warm, but they are troubled. Neither is likely to leap to Tehran’s side in its clash with the US. Israel should exploit Iran’s fissures with Russia and Turkey to its advantage.
The era of superpower confrontation hardly elicits nostalgia. The Cold War did, however, possess one redeeming quality: clarity. It was relatively easy to identify friends and form alliances to cement those relationships. This was clearly the case in the Middle East: Syria, Iraq, Nasser’s Egypt, and Algeria were clearly on the Soviet side; Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Morocco were on the Western side.
In today’s Middle East, that clarity has given way to murk.
Consider the numerous summits between Vladimir Putin, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to broker truces in Syria. They all feature plenty of smiles and photos of handshakes.
And there is some substance to that warmth. Turkey, after all, purchased the Russian S-400 air-defense system in defiance of Washington. Trump, long regarded as a friend of Erdoğan’s, retaliated by scuttling the sale of F-35s to Turkey—a wise precaution, as Washington cannot possibly sell planes designed to avoid the S-400 to a country that may well turn around and use its access to those planes to help the Russians improve their ability to down it.
Russia presumably enjoys a warm relationship with Iran as well, at least on the nuclear front. It embraced the nuclear agreement of 2015 and staunchly and consistently denounced economic sanctions against Iran in both 2012, when they were originally imposed, and in 2017, when they were reapplied.
The same can be said of Turkish-Iranian relations. Ankara is often blamed for being a commercial and financial conduit that enables Tehran to ease the bite of the US-led sanctions. Istanbul Airport is Iran’s primary gateway to Europe.
But the actions of these three countries in the wars on the ground in the Middle East tell a different story.
In Syria, Turkey is basically waging a proxy war against Syria and its Russian ally. Russian sorties are at the forefront of the campaign against the last Sunni rebel stronghold in Idlib, most of whom are armed and financed by the Turks.
There is nothing new about this proxy war. It began with the massive Russian air assault in September 2015 on these same Turkey-backed rebels on the eastern and southern outskirts of Damascus—an intervention many military experts believe saved the Syrian regime from collapse.
There is a similar, more recent Turkish-Russian proxy war going on in Libya. Russia is backing General Khalifa Haftar’s assault on Tripoli on behalf of the Tobruk government in the east against the UN-sanctioned government in Tripoli in western Libya, which, according to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, all of whom support Haftar, is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey, along with Qatar, backs the government in Tripoli—so much so that Erdoğan asked for and received permission from his parliament to send Turkish troops to stop Haftar’s advance.
There is even a strong technical side to the conflict between Russia and Turkey in Libya. The Russians provided Haftar with bomb-laden drones, which are of critical importance as Haftar’s forces increasingly penetrate the dense, built-up areas of Tripoli. The drones help Haftar identify and kill pro-government forces. Ankara responded by providing Turkish drones to the government in Tripoli.
No such proxy war exists on Syrian soil between Iran and Russia. In fact, at the height of the civil war, considerable coordination existed between the two. Russia “brokered” a truce with the rebels around Damascus that allowed them to withdraw to Idlib. Three years later, the Russians are helping Syria, Hezbollah, and other Iranian-backed Shiite militias to finish them off. The rebel withdrawal (including their families) required safe passage through Hezbollah-controlled areas. The withdrawal was conducted by bus and was accompanied by Russian military police. It went off without a hitch.
But cooperation between Moscow and Tehran has given way to considerable bitterness as Russia has effectively given a green light to Israel to destroy Iran’s military and industrial build-up in Syria, which is designed to subject Israel to the threat of an array of precision-guided missiles. Israel claims that it conducted over 200 attacks in Syria against Iran and its proxies in 2018 alone. The major aim is to hit the infrastructure, not kill Iranian personnel, but the latter often happens nevertheless. Moscow’s tolerance for these Israeli strikes does not endear it to Tehran.
This divergence reflects their different views on what Syria should be. Russia wants to see a strong Syrian state—basically a restoration of Syria to the status quo ante—so Syria can reliably host a Russian military and naval base on the Mediterranean. Iran, by contrast, wants to turn the Syrian state into a “Lebanon” in which, like Hezbollah in the land of the cedars, pro-Iranian Shiite militias are strong and the state is weak.
As for Turkish-Iranian relations, the third side in the triangular relationship, one need only read the invective in the pro-Iranian media outlets of al-Manar, the official Hezbollah media site, and al-Mayadin. Turkey is vilified—in terms similar to those used about Israel—for its support for Sunni fundamentalists who kill Hezbollah fighters on Syrian territory. Turkey also controls swaths of Iraqi territory inhabited by Sunnis, presumably to protect them from the wrath of Iran-backed Shiite militias.
Murky relations among allies regarding the Middle East are hardly restricted to the Russian-Turkish-Iranian triad.
The US-European alliance, one of the most powerful and resilient since WWII, has always been characterized by tensions over the Middle East, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under Trump, these tensions reached a new height with the decision by Britain, Germany, and France to create a financial system between the Islamic Republic and Europe to ease the pain of US sanctions.
Nor does the warming of relations between Israel and the Sunni Arab states prevent them from taking the lead in decisions denouncing Israel’s purported misdeeds against the Palestinians or condemning states that show any desire to open a representative office in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. But at least there are no proxy wars between them.
However murky and at times violent the relationship between “allies” on both sides of the divide, the lessons are disadvantageous for Iran and promising for Israel.
For Iran, they mean it will be on its own to face the consequences if it decides to act against the US. For Israel, the divisions between Iran and its “allies” can be exploited to keep the country safe in a dangerous neighborhood.
Prof. Hillel Frisch is a professor of political studies and Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
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3)
"For 40 years, the regime has shown that its agenda is not Iran and the Iranian people, it's survival at the expense of oppressing people and repressing them to the point of killing," he added.
3)
Former Iranian Crown Prince: We are beginning to see end of the regime
By OMRI NAHMIAS
WASHINGTON – The "beginning of the end" of the Iranian regime has started, former Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi said Wednesday in a conversation at the Hudson Institute in Washington with senior fellow Mike Doran.
Pahlavi stated that the recent protests in Iran are different than previous demonstrations.
"People smell the opportunity for the first time in 40 years," he added. "This time is very different from 2009, even very different from 1997. The people have had it. Today's generation of young Iranians cannot take it anymore. They want to have an opportunity for a better future. They want to be on the path of modernity and freedom. The only thing that stands between them and the free world is this regime."
Pahlavi said that it's time for Ayatollah Khamenei to step down and to allow a peaceful transition with a minimal number of casualties.
"To the forces that are employing repression as a tool, all I can say is that there are not enough people they can kill to maintain this regime in power. They better stand down and join with their brethren," he highlighted.
"This regime cannot be reformed and must be removed," he continued.
"It is long past time for you to hear their voices," he told the audience at the Hudson Institute and emphasized that there is no point to try and negotiate with the Islamic Republic.
"In offering the regime negotiations without preconditions, you neglect the people's demand for unconditional support. In fact, you betray them by accommodating their oppressors. International attention and solidarity are vital to any movement seeking to overthrow a totalitarian regime," said Pahlavi.
He called on Western nations not to take an approach of appeasement with Iran. "Just as the regime has shown an undeniable pattern of consistency in its behavior, so have Western democracies in their behavior towards the regime," he pointed out.
"For much of these 40 years, the leaders of the free world have sought to engage this regime both in trade and in diplomacy. Along the way, there have been limited episodes of political pressure, almost always led by the United States, but there have also been episodes of outright appeasement also led by the United States. All such efforts have focused on changing the regime's behavior," he noted. "All have failed. It has now been time to recognize that this is not a normal regime and that it will not change its behavior."
Pahlavi stated that the recent protests in Iran are different than previous demonstrations.
"People smell the opportunity for the first time in 40 years," he added. "This time is very different from 2009, even very different from 1997. The people have had it. Today's generation of young Iranians cannot take it anymore. They want to have an opportunity for a better future. They want to be on the path of modernity and freedom. The only thing that stands between them and the free world is this regime."
Pahlavi said that it's time for Ayatollah Khamenei to step down and to allow a peaceful transition with a minimal number of casualties.
"To the forces that are employing repression as a tool, all I can say is that there are not enough people they can kill to maintain this regime in power. They better stand down and join with their brethren," he highlighted.
"This regime cannot be reformed and must be removed," he continued.
"It is long past time for you to hear their voices," he told the audience at the Hudson Institute and emphasized that there is no point to try and negotiate with the Islamic Republic.
"In offering the regime negotiations without preconditions, you neglect the people's demand for unconditional support. In fact, you betray them by accommodating their oppressors. International attention and solidarity are vital to any movement seeking to overthrow a totalitarian regime," said Pahlavi.
He called on Western nations not to take an approach of appeasement with Iran. "Just as the regime has shown an undeniable pattern of consistency in its behavior, so have Western democracies in their behavior towards the regime," he pointed out.
"For much of these 40 years, the leaders of the free world have sought to engage this regime both in trade and in diplomacy. Along the way, there have been limited episodes of political pressure, almost always led by the United States, but there have also been episodes of outright appeasement also led by the United States. All such efforts have focused on changing the regime's behavior," he noted. "All have failed. It has now been time to recognize that this is not a normal regime and that it will not change its behavior."
"For 40 years, the regime has shown that its agenda is not Iran and the Iranian people, it's survival at the expense of oppressing people and repressing them to the point of killing," he added.
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4)Taking Out Soleimeini Should Never Have Been a Question-----------T
JNS.org – Apparently, the most unlearned lesson from 9/11 is that when the head of a terror network tries to blow up an iconic American skyscraper in 1993, then succeeds in bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, and then again with a Navy destroyer in 2000 — all of which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Americans — it is the job of the US commander in chief to find the person responsible for these acts and have him killed.
Failing to do so leads directly to September 11, 2001 — a day like no other, but also an atrocity that could have been avoided had the United States taken Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda more seriously. After all, bin Laden had demonstrated that he knew how to deal a blow to the United States through increasingly more devastating acts of terror.
What part of that lesson did so many Democratic members of Congress, numerous political pundits, and an assortment of news organizations fail to understand when it came to the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani? The commander of Iran’s Quds Force was neither a foreign dignitary nor a military general operating under the laws of war. Killing him was not a violation of some time-honored protocol. Nor was it a startling international incident. With bin Laden and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dead, Soleimani was next in line on the “most wanted” terrorist list, and he got what he deserved.
No time should be wasted second-guessing this decision. America’s national conscience should be clear.
Far too much blood and treasure had been lost under Soleimani’s direction. Through his proxy militias, hundreds of Americans have been killed in Iraq. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would never have been able to prevail in his country’s civil war without Soleimani’s tactical support. The staggering death toll of more than 500,000 and a refugee crisis in Europe were a direct outgrowth of Soleimani’s handiwork. Hezbollah in Lebanon would have been without its formidable arsenal of precision-guided missiles, and it would not be operating as a state within a state. The Houthis in Yemen would have been disarmed long ago had it not been for Soleimani and Iran’s promiscuous mischief-making in the region.
And thousands of Iranian protesters in the Green Movement in 2009, as well as the dissenting voices being squelched and jailed right now, might have actually toppled the ayatollahs had Soleimani not been instrumental in Iran’s civil defense.
Is there a more appropriate candidate for a targeted killing? With such a murderous Middle Eastern resume and appetite for American blood, evidence of an “imminent threat” before launching such an attack shouldn’t even be necessary. What more did this guy have to do to merit an early demise? The drone strike may have come as a surprise to some members of Congress, but Soleimani surely knew that in his line of work, life expectancy is low, and death by natural causes is rare.
Still, many are asking, didn’t Donald Trump need Congressional approval to authorize such an operation?
Well, he certainly would never have received it with the zero-sum rituals on Capitol Hill. But the 2001 joint military authorization to fight terrorism empowered President Barack Obama to continue the war on terror with 563 drone strikes, which killed thousands of terrorists and hundreds of civilians, including the 2011 airstrike against Muslim cleric Anwar al-Alwaki, an American citizen who inspired the terrorism at Fort Hood in 2009 and the Boston Marathon in 2013.
What Congressional authorization did Obama obtain, and where was the American outrage over those killings? Moreover, the killing of Soleimani isn’t going to ignite a war with Iran. That’s because we’re already at war with Iran, and have been ever since the Iranian Revolution took 52 Americans hostage in 1979. Hostilities throughout the ensuing decades have varied, mostly through proxies and diplomatic skirmishes, but we have never had a friendly day with Iran since the fall of its last Shah — notwithstanding Obama’s obsequious efforts to ingratiate Tehran, culminating in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the $1.8 billion payout.
Those conciliatory gestures didn’t succeed in modifying Iran’s behavior. Indeed, it had quite the opposite effect, emboldening its ballistic-missile testing and far-flung terror apparatus — and did nothing to deter its nuclear ambitions. The removal of Soleimani from Iran’s ongoing cold war with America, which has, as of late, gotten hotter under his direction, might actually shock the Iranian system into either a change in its diplomatic endeavors or regime change itself.
Regardless of how one feels about Trump, he continues to be the wild card on the international stage. And playing without a full deck has, at times, been to his advantage. In a world dominated by cynical politicians who overpromise and under-deliver, imagine a head of state who can actually draw a red line and not erase it when it gets crossed.
Last month, the US embassy in Baghdad was stormed, and in a separate incident, an American civilian was killed by Iranian proxies. Now Soleimani is dead, and Iran’s response — missiles that caused structural and not human damage to two Iraqi air bases where Americans were stationed notwithstanding — was cautiously tepid, and for good reason.
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor, and Distinguished University Professor at Touro College, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He can be reached via his website.
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