And:
Volume 16, Issue 13
“We have to win this war. The survival of Israel; the future of Israel, the. In my opinion, the future of the Middle East and beyond, depends on this victory. This victory is within reach. It is within reach because of the incredible courage of our people and our soldiers. It is really something to behold….That courage is magnificent. I have visited not only the families of fallen soldiers, but I have visited wounded soldiers who have lost their limbs, and they insist on coming back to their units with artificial limbs. I was in Officer Training School. Cadets who had been fighting there. There were 10 wounded soldiers among them, one with prosthetics. They want to go back in. This is an amazing affirmation of the life force within the Jewish people; the same force that brought about the re-establishment of the Jewish state after the horrors that we suffered, including in the Holocaust. It is that same spirit that animates the vast majority of the Jewish people, the army, the reservists. They want victory. Because they understand that victory is essential for survival.”
— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, March 18, 2024
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Schumer, another "gum shoe" spineless weasel of a politician.
Elliot is a courageous friend. We could use more like him.
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Chuck Schumer, the Highest-Ranking Shoemaker Ever
The Senate majority leader’s name doesn’t mean what he thinks it does
BY ELLIOTT ABRAMS
Sen. Chuck Schumer’s speech attacking Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and demanding new elections in Israel has caused quite a stir.
My last name is Schumer, which derives from the Hebrew word shomer, or “guardian.” Of course, my first responsibility is to America and New York. But as the first Jewish majority leader of the United States Senate, and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America ever, I also feel very keenly my responsibility as shomer Yisroel—a guardian of the People of Israel … [T]his is the position in which I find myself now—at a time of great difficulty for the State of Israel, for the Jewish people, and for non-Jewish friends of Israel. So I feel an immense obligation to speak and act.
The Schumer/shomer/guardian bit is one Sen. Schumer has used for years. A good example is back in 2015, when he told an audience “You know, my name comes from the word shomer: guardian, watcher.”
Nice story, but it is—to say the least—unproven. Oxford Reference gives this explanation: “North German (Schümer): nickname from Middle Low German schumer ‘good-for-nothing’, ‘vagabond’. ...” The iGENEA website says, “The last name Schumer is of Jewish-German origin. It is derived from the Middle High German term ‘schuoch wurhte’, which translates to ‘shoemaker’. Therefore, like many surnames that date back to the Middle Ages, Schumer is an occupational surname, representing the profession of the family’s original bearer. So, someone with the name Schumer might have had ancestors who were shoemakers.” House of Names also says Schumer means “cobbler.” Better a cobbler than good-for-nothing, I suppose.
But Schumer makes another assertion about himself that’s more provably wrong—and more important. Every news story refers to Schumer in just the way he seems to prefer: “the highest-ranking elected Jewish politician in American history.” That was the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. CNN was more circumspect, calling him “the highest-ranking Jewish American in the US Government.” NBC was over the top, calling him “the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S. ever” (words they took directly from Schumer’s speech). Every story seems to have some version of this “fact.”
But is it a fact? What is the “rank” of the Senate majority leader? One good way of judging is to look at the line of presidential succession. It goes to the vice president, then the speaker of the House, then the president pro tempore of the Senate, and finally to the Cabinet—starting with the secretary of state. Why isn’t the majority leader in that line of succession at all? Because the posts of speaker of the House and Senate president pro tempore originate in Article II of the Constitution. Majority or minority leader is a party post, not a federal government post.
Another way of judging rank is to look at what’s called “The Order of Precedence of the United States of America.” The State Department describes it this way: “The U.S. Order of Precedence is an advisory document maintained by the Ceremonials Division of the Office of the Chief of Protocol ... For purposes of protocol, the U.S. Order of Precedence establishes the order and ranking of the United States leadership for official events at home and abroad …” It starts with the president and vice president, then a state governor when in his home state, then the speaker of the House and the chief justice, then former presidents and vice presidents, the secretary of state, the president of the U.N. General Assembly and U.N. secretary general, foreign ambassadors, then associate justices of the Supreme Court and retired justices, followed by the Cabinet, then the president pro tempore of the Senate, and finally the Senate majority and minority leaders and whips and then the same for the House.
If we give any credence to the rankings of the official list, the “The Order of Precedence of the United States of America,” there are plenty of Jews who have held higher rank than the Senate majority leader—many Cabinet members, for example, and Supreme Court justices.
But they were not elected to their posts (though they may have been elected to previous posts, like Abe Ribicoff or Dan Glickman). So it seems fair to say that according to the Order of Precedence, Schumer is not the highest-ranking Jew ever to serve in the U.S. government, nor the highest ranking today—nor, thinking of Kissinger, is Schumer the most powerful ever. But he is Jewish, elected, and powerful. Does the bit about rank and history matter?
It seems to matter to Schumer, and it seems related to his defense of his attack on the government of Israel. That is, when he made the attack he spoke as a Jew. As The New York Times described him in a long interview, “he insists it was his deep Jewish faith—and the moral imperative he feels to stand up for Jews and for Israel—that led him to speak out against Mr. Netanyahu.” “This is so part of my core, my soul, my neshama,” he told the Times.
What’s the point of all this—of Schumer’s reliance on his being “the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America ever” and having the very name that means “guardian” of the Jews? These are Schumer’s repeated attempts to say he does not speak merely as a politician but as a historic figure of special rank and responsibility. We would all be better off if he knocked off the rigmarole and said his piece as a highly successful New York politician and the Democratic Leader in the Senate. Even the adulatory New York Times acknowledged that “it is hard to think of Mr. Schumer, the relentless party operator…as someone who ever puts politics aside.” There is no shame in that; Franklin D. Roosevelt would fit that bill, too, as would Mr. Schumer’s predecessors as Democratic leaders and majority leaders Lyndon Johnson, George Mitchell, and Harry Reid.
So let’s hear what New York’s senior senator has to say. But let’s drop the phony “shomer” bit and the claim that his words have special weight because of his religion. Is there any New Yorker, or any American Jew, who would not have paid more attention and given more weight to the words about Jews and Israel of Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan of New York, or Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington state? God knows who their ancestors were and what their names meant in the Middle Ages, but they were true shomrim or guardians of Israel.
What Schumer needs to learn is that persuasiveness does not come from etymology or rank—whether true, false, or inflated. If Schumer’s role as Democratic leader has any relevance, it is to raise the suspicion that he is helping the White House cover its left flank by criticizing Israel. As to his religion and his name, they should be irrelevant to his role in the Senate—and they are certainly no defense of his interference in the internal politics of a democratic ally.
Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition.
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Biden Abandons Israel at the U.N.
By Spencer Brown
The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution on Monday morning calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel — America's greatest ally in the Middle East — and Hamas — a gang of barbaric bloodthirsty terrorists backed by Iran and responsible for the slaughter of more Jews in any single day since the Holocaust.
It's not news that the United Nations is a cesspool of moral rot that has made a hobby out of putting antisemitism into practice on the world stage. What is notable in Monday's vote, however, is that the United States abstained from the vote — the only UNSC member to do so — rather than casting a veto and killing the measure.
The move marks a shift in the Biden administration's U.N. strategy (a generous term for its bumbling about) and shows another attempt from the White House to put distance between Joe Biden and Jerusalem. In short, it's a cowardly abandonment of an ally.
What's more, as Guy rightly noted, thinking that Hamas will listen to the demands of the U.N. to release the hostages it holds is inexplicable — and Biden's abandonment is just meant to put pressure on Israel's government.
In addition, because Hamas terrorists won't release the hostages because the U.N. told them to, the United Nations is demanding that Israel surrender without getting its hostages back.
While the resolution demanded a ceasefire for the remainder of Ramadan, calling for Israel to lay down its arms as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists continue their efforts to kill innocent Israelis is insane. Would the U.S. have tolerated a ceasefire resolution after 9/11? Would it have made sense for world leaders to unite in demanding the U.S. stop firing on Japanese kamikazes attacking American ships following the attack on Pearl Harbor? Of course not.
Just hours before the U.N. held its vote from which the United States cowered, terrorists in the Gaza Strip launched another round of rockets at Ashdod on Israel's Mediterranean coast south of Tel Aviv. It seems like the Biden administration is willing to leave Israel out to dry as IDF troops prepare to make a push on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza — where Israeli officials have now said innocent hostages are being held in torment by their terrorist captors.
As a result of the United States abstention on the resolution, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed through on his warning before the vote and canceled plans for a delegation from his government to visit the White House for meetings with the Biden administration.
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The 171st Day of Israel’s War Against Hamas
By Sherwin Pomerantz
The United Nations Security Council earlier today passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza for the month of Ramadan, breaking a five-month impasse during which the United States vetoed several calls for ending the war. The resolution passed with 14 votes in favor. The United States abstained, allowing the resolution to pass.
Israel immediately criticized the United States for allowing the resolution to pass. Prime Minister Netanyahu called the move “a retreat from the consistent American position since the beginning of the war,” and said the U.S. abstention “harms the war effort as well as the effort to liberate the hostages.”
In response, Netanyahu said he would not send an Israeli delegation to Washington to hold high-level talks with U.S. officials on a planned operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — a public rebuke to President Biden, who had asked for the meetings.
While Security Council resolutions are legally binding and carry significant political and legal weight, the Council does not have the means to enforce them. The Council can take punitive measures, such as sanctions against violators, but even those actions can run into obstacles if a veto-holding member opposes them.
The resolution adopted on Monday demands the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages but it does not make its demands for a cease-fire conditional on hostage release — one of Israel’s stated objections to the measure.
Israel’s ambassador the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, accused the Council of being biased against Israel because it had taken no action on helping secure hostages held captive in Gaza. He said all Council members should have voted “against this shameful resolution.”
On Day 171 of the war in Gaza, here are the numbers Israel is dealing with.
134 hostages still held
· 595 IDF soldiers killed since October 7
· 251 IDF soldiers killed in ground operations (which exclude October 7 itself)
· 595 IDF soldiers killed since October 7
· 251 IDF soldiers killed in ground operations (which exclude October 7 itself)
. 3098 soldiers wounded since October 7
· 1489 soldiers wounded in combat (which excludes October 7 itself
I have not reported numbers for some time but as we approach a full six months since the start of the war it seemed appropriate to call attention to these.
On the ground operations in Gaza City and Khan Yunis continue as does the cleaning out of terrorists in Gaza;s Shifa Hospital. While Israel continues to say that there is no victory without going into Rafah, there is no timetable for that action.
Regarding the hostage issue, Israel is waiting for a response from Hamas to the most recent cease fire/hostage release scenario. It is not clear at this time what that response will be nor how it will be structured.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant departed for Washington on Sunday, at the invitation of his American counterpart Lloyd Austin. Gallant is scheduled to meet with Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and additional senior officials
“The parties will discuss developments in the war against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, efforts undertaken to return the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, humanitarian efforts and measures required to ensure regional stability,” the minister’s office said in a statement. “Gallant will also raise the importance of maintaining and further deepening the important cooperation between the defense establishments of both countries, as well as topics related to force build-up and maintaining the qualitative military edge of the State of Israel,” it added.
Gallant’s trip comes on the backdrop of disagreements between Jerusalem and Washington over the prosecution of the next stage of the war against Hamas.
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Blinken during a meeting in Tel Aviv that the Jewish state cannot defeat Hamas without destroying its battalions in Rafah. “I told him that I hope we would do this with U.S. support but, if necessary, we will do it alone,” Netanyahu said.
Hezbollah fired some 50 rockets at the Galilee before dawn on Sunday, after the Israeli Air Force struck a terrorist site deep inside Lebanon. The rocket barrage was one of the biggest since Hezbollah initiated a low-intensity conflict against the Jewish state in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. Israeli air defenses intercepted several of the rockets and the rest hit open areas, the IDF said. There were no reports of injuries or damages. In response, IAF craft struck a series of sites in Southern Lebanon from which some of the projectiles were fired.
Let us hope that all of the efforts being made to bring the remaining hostages home, to ensure that our troops return home safe and sound to their families and to find a longer term solution to the problems we face in this corner of the world will bear fruit. It would be a welcome relief.
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As I have been saying:
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As I have been saying:
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As Israel fights on 2 fronts, it might be asleep at the wheel on Iran
Mark Dubowitz, the head of the FDD think tank warns that Israel's decision-makers must not drop the ball on the most important thing, even as they deal with the crises on the northern and southern borders.
By Yoav Limor
This week, Mark Dubowitz visited Israel. His name may not mean much to the general Israeli public, but he is well-known among decision-makers. Dubowitz heads the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a research institute established after 9/11 to defend the US and the Western world against terrorist organizations, and later also against Iran.
Dubowitz is an expert on the region and a professed lover of Israel. He is considered influential in Washington and is very close to leaders and key figures in the Middle East – especially in Saudi Arabia. He has published several articles in Israel Hayom, mainly on the Iranian issue. The institute he heads employs dozens of researchers, including Israelis: Former Israeli Air Force chief Amir Eshel and former National Security Advisers Jacob Nagel and Eyal Hulata are just examples of the intellect and experience accumulated at the institute.
The last time we met was in August. I wanted to consult with him regarding Saudi Arabia, ahead of my visit there. He wanted to hear from me about the internal turbulence in Israel. When we met this week, he reminded me of a sentence I said to him: For things to get better in Israel, they must first get much worse. The problem is that no one guarantees that after it gets worse, it will actually get better.
Dubowitz wanted to know where we stand now on the scale between good and bad. He knew the answer himself: On that horrific Saturday on Oct. 7, things got much worse. Now Israel needs to decide whether it aspires for things to get much better, or if it continues its downward spiral – from bad to terrible.
I asked him what our situation looked like from his vantage point. He said it's bad. I wondered if it was because of Gaza, Lebanon, or the strained relations between Jerusalem and Washington.
He replied that it's all of it together, but there's something that worries him more than all of these. I wondered what could be worse, and he answered: Iran. The next few minutes of our conversation, devoted to Tehran, made me realize that as we were all focused on Gaza (and Lebanon), we could once again be asleep at the wheel.
Dubowitz says that since Oct. 7, Iran has been using asymmetrical methods – the terrorist organizations operating on its behalf and with its funding – to allow it a quiet and safe space to advance the development of its unconventional weapon, the nuclear bomb. I asked him to explain. Everyone is preoccupied with terrorism, he said. You, the Israelis, are fighting in Gaza and Lebanon and a bit in Syria, and you have no time to deal with anything else. The US is busy with the Houthis and militias in Iraq. And meanwhile, the Iranians are doing as they please.
Two examples. The first is the underground enrichment facility that Iran is building in Natanz. Dubowitz says that all data indicate that this facility will be completed by the end of the year. It is being built at a depth of 100 meters (330 ft), meaning it would be deep enough to withstand Israeli and most likely American bombs as well. The conclusion: There are nine months before Iran enters a new era of immunity.
The second example is Iran's nuclear weapons group. The former IDF chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, revealed in an interview in this paper last year that Iran has secretly resumed this activity, aimed at turning enriched material into an operational weapon.
He spoke then of low-intensity activity, but recently there have been increasing signs that Iran is accelerating the activity, and even seeking to acquire components needed to complete a nuclear bomb.
Dubowitz estimates that Iran is not interested in breaking out to a bomb at this time. It does have enough enriched material for several bombs, but it has chosen to advance laterally. The idea is to accumulate more enriched uranium (currently at 60% purity, in complete violation of the nuclear deal) and enough knowledge, so that from the moment a decision is made to break to a bomb, the process will be quick and massive. Iran, he believes, does not want just a single bomb: It wants to establish itself as a leading player.
This will take time. The conventional wisdom is that Iran would still need 18-24 months. For those who want to stop Iran, there is much less time. In a few more months, it will reach a point where it will be significantly immune from attacks. It will already have enough knowledge and capabilities to complete the bomb, and even if attacked, it will be able to quickly restore what it will have lost.
Dubowitz is among those who believe that on this issue, Israel is alone. The Americans will provide support, but will not attack themselves – certainly not in an election year. Iran knows this and therefore is moving forward. To be on the safe side, it is keeping the Americans busy with terrorism: For an incumbent president, casualties on the eve of elections are an electoral disaster. Joe Biden wants quiet, as would Donald Trump if he were in power now. The last thing a US president needs now is a regional or global war.
Tehran's order of priorities
Four immediate thoughts arise from Dubowitz's words, followed by a disturbing headline. The first issue is Iran's impressive, diabolical strategy, which pins Israel down to the here-and-now of terrorism so that it is not preoccupied with what it has defined over the past three decades as the number one threat to its existence.
In the complex chess game that Iran and Israel are playing, Tehran currently has the upper hand, and this is very bad news – much worse than what is happening in Gaza (and Lebanon).
The second issue is professional. Those who are supposed to deal with this matter are (in descending order) the Mossad, the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, and the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The problem is that their heads are preoccupied with the war. Mossad Director David Barnea is fully invested in the negotiations for the release of the captives; IDF Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon Haliva is focused on intelligence for the war; and Moshe Edri, the head of the AEC, has taken upon himself the establishment and management of the Tekuma Administration for the rehabilitation of the Gaza border communities. Even if each of them is a superman, a mega-mission like the Iranian nuclear program requires full attention and focus.
The third issue is Hezbollah. Almost all experts believe that the organization is not interested in an all-out war with Israel. There are quite a few reasons for this – such as the destruction in Gaza and the fear of similar damage to Lebanon – but the main one is that Iran, which built and funded Hezbollah and is largely involved in its management, is not interested in this at the moment. With all due respect to the Palestinian struggle in Gaza and the sympathies it has toward Hamas' war, the Iranians have a more important thing to worry about: The nuclear program. Hezbollah is meant to deter Israel from attacking Iran or to respond if Israel decides to attack. And if so, perhaps if a war is about to be forced upon us in Lebanon, it would be better to have it start with an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, knowing that the outcome on the northern front will be the same.
The fourth issue is a derivative of the third. In order to fight in Lebanon, Israel needs international legitimacy. The world is currently not siding with us, and will not allow Israel to devastate another country in the region. For this to be possible, close coordination with Washington is required, to provide the IDF with an international umbrella and also ammunition and spare parts, and above all broad backing in case the war ignites additional fronts.
The chances that Biden will want this on the eve of the elections is virtually zero; on the other hand, he has vowed that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, and he also knows that the Iranian bomb is not intended for Israel alone: In an Iranian paraphrase of Leonard Cohen's song – first we'll take Tel Aviv, and then Manhattan.
In addition to these things, I learned something very disturbing from Dubowitz. Before the war, there was talk of a possible American-Saudi-Israeli grand bargain. The Saudis were supposed to receive a significant upgrade to their security capabilities, as well as the ability to enrich uranium on their soil, which would put them one step (or decision) away from military nuclear capability. The Americans were supposed to get money and solidify their foothold in Saudi Arabia for fear that it would drift toward China. Israel was supposed to get normalization with Saudi Arabia, as well as multi-billion dollar contracts for its defense and civilian industries. This was a real dilemma for Israel, which had not yet been resolved: On the one hand, creating a strong regional alliance against Iran and a significant boost to the Israeli economy; on the other hand, de facto consent to an Arab nuclear program a stone's throw away. All the signs then indicated that Netanyahu supported this deal, despite its heavy price.
October 7 disrupted things. Saudi Arabia still wants the deal, but unlike the past, it can no longer ignore the Palestinian issue. The American officials have come and gone in recent months, making it clear that the deal is still on the table but will also require addressing the issue of Gaza as part of it. They even had a proposal: to make Saudi Arabia (and other Gulf states) a key player in the day after – mainly in funding reconstruction. This element also came with a stick: demanding that whoever runs Gaza would be moderate Palestinian elements, a code name for the Palestinian Authority, or elements from within it.
Israel has so far refused. The reasons are well-known and have been exhausted in the news: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wary of his Coalition partners. Israel is paying a daily price for this vis-à-vis Washington, and an even higher price in other countries. Canada's announcement of halting arms sales to Israel is the latest in a string of ominous signs. Although Canada is not a particularly important supplier of weapons to Israel, this is how it begins: Canada (and earlier Britain, and a court in the Netherlands); there will be attempts to block Israeli arms exports, and eventually, it could even reach Washington.
This is not Israel's only loss. What Dubowitz told me is that in the meantime, the Americans and the Saudis are advancing their "security agreement" between them. In other words, Israel is not only losing the Saudi potential (which was supposed to bring with it the entire or most of the Muslim world), it is also losing the opportunity to influence the components of the deal: the advanced American weapons to be sold to Saudi Arabia in large quantities, and the possibility that it will be given de facto admission into the nuclear club.
These things are known and familiar in Jerusalem. It is worth distilling them again: On the table is an Iranian nuclear program and the possibility of a Saudi nuclear program that could be part of a deal with Israel or without it, potentially setting up a real axis of good to counter the axis of evil in the region. Any level-headed person would agree such a development is crucial in the terrorist reality we have had to face over the past several months. And what is Israel doing? Returning to October 6, under the influence of extremist elements in the government.
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Uzi Rubin on Iran's Missiles and Iran's Ambitions
by Marilyn Stern
Middle East Forum Webinar
Uzi Rubin, senior researcher at both the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) and the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), spoke to a March 11 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
The Islamic regime advances its goal of bringing the Middle East under its sphere of influence through it missile force. "The Iranians managed to build themselves into a world-class, world-level missile country from zero capability during the [time of the Shah]" to full capability today. It circumvented international sanctions and Western trade restrictions to build its power.
Two of the regime's military forces work in parallel to this end: the "legacy" Iranian Armed Forces (Artesh); and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), set up by the ayatollahs and known to Iranians colloquially as the Sepah (Corps). Both have navies, air, and ground forces. However, the IRGC's responsibilities include the ideological Basij militias, internal and border security, the ballistic missile force, missile research and development, the space program, cyber security, and "exporting the revolution."
The regime's Supreme Leader prioritized precision missile power after Saddam Hussein's missile offensive in the Iran-Iraq War convinced the mullahs that conventional missiles can determine a war's outcome. By investing in training human resources and pursuing military technology rather than the more costly procurement of combat aircraft, the regime leverages the "industrial-military complex" to conserve capital.
The regime claims it has two self-imposed limitations: its missiles are non-nuclear, and their range does not exceed 2000 kilometers (1,243 miles). The range limitation communicates a political statement to the U.S. and to Iran's oil customers in Central and Western Europe that they are not the targets. On the other hand, the regime's avowed enemies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are within this 2000-kilometer range.
Furthering the regime's missile capabilities are a quarter million annual graduates of the dozen or so Iranian technological universities. These freshly-minted engineers and technicians "enrich the human resources pool" of an Iranian population close to 100 million. Approximately a quarter of the students study abroad, many in the U.S., with more than 60 percent enrolled in technology and computer science programs. Most return to Iran.
The regime tasks the IRGC's Quds Force with "support [for] the revolution by missiles." The brigade is under the command of Ismail Ghaani, the brigadier general who replaced Qassem Soleimani after a U.S. air strike killed him in 2020. With an operational budget of approximately $2.5 billion, Ghaani also has a 24/7 direct line to the Supreme Leader. Iran bases its massive stockpile, launchable via integrated firing chambers, in a huge tunnel system of "underground missile cities." Tehran recently unveiled its locally-produced anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile system. Parades showcasing missiles project power to the populace and intimidate Iran's adversaries and enemies.
The cost of transferring missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the regime's Middle East proxies is in addition to Ghaani's generous budget. In Syria, proxies include Assad's Syrian Armed Forces, Syrian militias, and pro-Iran Syrian militias; in Lebanon, Hezbollah; in Gaza, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad; in Iraq, pro-Iranian Shi'ite militias; and in Yemen, the Ansar Allah, a.k.a. Houthis.
Iran intends to surround Israel with a "ring of fire" that also threatens Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. To counter this, Israel must "develop more resources from our offensive capability to defensive capability against" Iranian missiles. Overall, the regime's strategy allows Tehran to order attacks by its proxies while maintaining plausible deniability.
Furthering the regime's missile capabilities are a quarter million annual graduates of the dozen or so Iranian technological universities.
Iran's two-phased method for transferring weaponry requires that it first smuggle all the "rockets, missiles and UAVs" to any new proxy waiting to be activated. This method is not foolproof, since shipments can be interdicted. Phase two involves smuggling the machinery and "customized" missile design to a proxy. Proxies send their members to Iran to be trained to assist the "proxy's own military industry," achieved by the production of ordnance and UAVs via "local cells."
For systems too complex to manufacture locally, Tehran "transfer[s] a complete system" as part of its "Chameleon Scheme." Thus, in order "to hide the Iranian origin," Tehran changes the color and name of the same missile, long-range rocket, or UAV exported from Iran to each separate proxy. The Chameleon system works with the ballistic missiles and UAVs the regime supplies to Yemen that the Houthis use to attack Saudi Arabia and Israel. Despite Iran's denial, the U.S. government confirmed that Iran provides precision "suicide" UAVs used by Russia to attack Ukraine.
Iran's space program – Tehran's "unsung hero" overlooked by the media – has two parallel programs. The first, the Iranian space agency, or the "Iranian NASA," while purportedly a civilian program, is run by a government agency. The second, the IRGC's military Aerospace Forces, uses several types of "space launchers." In 2009, Iran succeeded in orbiting its first satellite.
In January 2024, the IRGC launched its latest satellite using the solid-fueled Qaem 100 space launcher. Designed to instantly launch "from some hideout" similar to ballistic missile launches, the satellite launched by the Qaem 100 can be replaced with a warhead, increasing its range to 4,000 kilometers (about 2,500 miles). Should Moscow win the war against Ukraine, the "UAVs and missile that Iran supplied to Russia" will be located "on the border of Poland and Romania."
Should Moscow win the war against Ukraine, the "UAVs and missile that Iran supplied to Russia" will be located "on the border of Poland and Romania."
Regarding its potential to threaten the U.S. with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), Iran is careful to say it is not developing ICBMs, which require a range of more than 5,500 kilometers (about 3,400 miles) and are designed primarily to deliver nuclear weapons. However, North Korea is a "precedent." Although Pyongyang did not have long-range rockets, once its regime obtained the technology, it developed the capability and to become a "direct threat" to the U.S.
In 2014, Majid Mousavi, then-deputy commander of the IRGC's of the National Guard and Space Force, revealed that the missile program's "real purpose" was to gain technological advances and "circumvent the self-limitation [of] 2,000 kilometers [footnote 363]." This "is the seed" of long-range missile/ICBM capability. The Iranian regime has achieved that goal with its North Korean-supplied missile, the Khoramshahr, which is highly precise. Trading weight for range, Tehran can "lighten the warhead" to reach 4,000 kilometers. Iran's status of missile power has become "irrevocable." For now, Iran does not pose a direct threat to the U.S., but in the future, the Iranian regime "is building the capability to become a threat if and when they want to."
Marilyn Stern is communications coordinator at the Middle East Forum.
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader. Oklahoma setting the pace.
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader. Oklahoma setting the pace.
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Oklahoma is the only state where neither Obama, nor Biden, won 1 county in the last election. While everyone was focused on Arizona, Georgia, and Texas passing new laws to help with election integrity, Oklahoma has been busy too! Oklahoma has passed a law, HB1804, to “incarcerate all illegal immigrants and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen”. All the illegals literally scattered! This was against the advice of the Federal Government and the ACLU. They said "it would be a mistake". Well, guess what? Oklahoma did it anyway and HB1804 passed.
Recently, Oklahoma passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegals to the Oklahoma database for criminal investigative purposes. Nancy Pelosi said SB1102 was unconstitutional. Well, guess what? Oklahoma did it anyway. Few realize that several weeks ago, Oklahoma passed another law declaring Oklahoma a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Now, they join Texas, Montana, and Utah as the only states (so far) to do so. More States are now likely to follow, like Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Carolina's, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi and Florida.
Save your money, folks, it appears the South is about to rise again!
HJR 1003. Your federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma passed another law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. That’s a setback for criminals, and The Liberals didn't like it, BUT… Oklahoma did it anyway.
Just this month, Oklahoma also voted and passed a law that ALL drivers' license exams will be printed in English, and only English, and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is, that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma, you must read and write English. Really simple, folks. By the way, the Liberals don't like any of this either. Oklahoma is doing it anyway.
And guess what? The people I'm sending this to will send it on. Well, at least the ones who love and believe in freedom. For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.
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