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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Abraham Katsman</title>
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		<title>Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago? Yes!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/abraham-katsman/are-you-better-off-today-than-you-were-four-years-ago-yes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=are-you-better-off-today-than-you-were-four-years-ago-yes</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/abraham-katsman/are-you-better-off-today-than-you-were-four-years-ago-yes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2012 04:25:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Abraham Katsman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmadinejad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA Director James Clapper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hezbollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Putin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=138402</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For many, Obama’s term has brought tremendous success. Here's the horrifying list of suspects.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Ahmadinejad.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-138406" title="Ahmadinejad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Ahmadinejad.jpg" alt="" width="368" height="239" /></a>Ever since Ronald Reagan<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loBe0WXtts8" target="_blank"> posed the simple but clarifying query</a> to voters — &#8220;Are you better off than you were four years ago?&#8221; — Presidential challengers have dusted off the question, hoping to use it as successfully as Reagan did.  With President Barack Obama presiding over a stagnant economy, high unemployment and accelerating deficits, Gov. Mitt Romney doubtless expects this question to resonate with voters.</p>
<p>Yet, the answer is<strong> </strong>not uniformly negative.  For many, Obama’s term has brought tremendous success.  Following are just some of the big winners who would answer the are-you-better-off-today question with a resounding “Yes!”</p>
<p><strong>The Iranian Regime</strong>: Within months of his inauguration, Obama was presented with a gift&#8211;a popular uprising against America’s nuclearizing nemesis, Iran.  Given an assortment of options for helping topple the axis-of-evil’s charter member, he chose to do…nothing.  Instead, he reiterated his support for “engagement,” throwing a lifeline to the most dangerous regime on the planet even as they butchered their own people, prompting public protests chanting, “Obama, are you with us or against us?”</p>
<p>Iranian nukes?  Since April, 2009, this administration has boasted of “crippling sanctions” against Iran.  Three years later, Iran is still no cripple: CIA Director James Clapper gave Senate testimony that, &#8220;The sanctions as imposed so far have not caused [Iran] to change their behavior or their policy.&#8221;  Perhaps that is the result of Obama neutering the sanctions by liberally issuing waivers and delaying implementation.  Meanwhile, Iran crosses one red line after another in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.</p>
<p>During Obama’s term, the Iranian regime has gone from wobbly to secure.  The administration remains preoccupied with ensuring no <em>Israeli</em> attack, though Iran has stockpiled enriched uranium sufficient for several bombs and proceeds methodically towards weaponization.</p>
<p>The mullahs understand who deserves credit for their improved standing.<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Hezbollah.</strong>  Iran’s wholly owned terror subsidiary was severely weakened by its 2006 war with Israel. Today, however, it is stronger and better armed than ever, and may soon gain access to Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.  Meanwhile, while the Obama Middle East team obsesses about where Jews are building homes in Jerusalem, Hezbollah not only has gained de facto control of Lebanon, but has set up shop in 24 countries, including much of Central and South America.</p>
<p><strong>The Muslim Brotherhood</strong>.  What a run they’ve had.  This Islamist Nazi-influenced group has advanced from troublesome subversives vaguely known to most Americans to become the dominant political force in the Middle East—all in Obama’s short tenure.</p>
<p>In Egypt, the Obama administration boosted the Brotherhood by abandoning longtime President Hosni Mubarak, naively hoping Jeffersonian democracy might follow.  Mubarak was no saint, but he was a credible counterbalance to Islamist forces, and he upheld the Camp David peace with Israel.</p>
<p>Now the Brotherhood runs the most populous Arab nation, having collected 50% of the votes in last month’s election.  (Their <em>Seriously</em>-Muslim Brotherhood Salafist allies won another 25%.)   Brotherhood factions now control Egypt, Tunisia and Gaza, and are deeply involved in Jordan, the Syrian uprising and Arab uprisings throughout the region.</p>
<p>The Egyptians have imprisoned American pro-democracy workers, and, with their affiliate Salafists, have killed dozens of Christians, wounded hundreds of others, and caused 150,000 to flee.  They’ve burned churches, and abducted Christian girls to be forced into domestic and sexual servitude.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Downfall on Mideast Policy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/abraham-katsman/on-mideast-policy-secularism-is-obamas-downfall/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=on-mideast-policy-secularism-is-obamas-downfall</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/abraham-katsman/on-mideast-policy-secularism-is-obamas-downfall/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 May 2011 04:05:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Abraham Katsman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=93070</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the president fails to grasp the conflict's true nature.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/obama_and_israel.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-93328" title="obama_and_israel" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/obama_and_israel.gif" alt="" width="375" height="336" /></a></p>
<p>Ignored in the hoopla over the latest Israeli and Palestinian political developments is a little-noted anniversary:  It has been three years since President Bush’s May 15, 2008 address to Israel’s Knesset.  Bush spoke in remarkably religious and biblical terms, describing Israel’s creation as not just a new country, but “the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David—a homeland for the chosen people: Eretz Yisrael.”  Bush added, “Our friendship runs deeper than any treaty.  It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul.”</p>
<p>The contrast in the respective religious flavors of the Bush and Obama administrations helps illuminate their differing approaches to Mideast issues.  Moreover, it may highlight a serious misassessment of regional political realities by President Obama in continuing to lean on Israel for peace-process concessions.</p>
<p>Bush’s speech reflected his openness about his deep religious faith.  His White House was famous for its strongly Judeo-Christian approach to foreign policy, saturated with concepts of good and evil, natural law, and the God-given nature of human rights, liberty and democracy.  Bush and his team understood what it meant for people to be religious, and to live by the commands of their faith.</p>
<p>Obama, however, is of a more secularized and progressive world.  His team won’t speak of Israel in biblical terms or of God’s promise to the Jewish people, but only in post-Holocaust terms.  His urbane, liberal, intellectual circles are embarrassed by God-talk. Such sophisticates might be God-conscious for a few hours of religious service on a weekend or holiday, but God is largely kept confined to houses of worship.  God is banished from any enlightened intellectual or international political discussion.</p>
<p>Such secularism, however, may cloud geopolitical vision.  The Mideast is flammably <em>not </em>secular, filled with people who live and breathe their incompatible respective understandings of God’s word.  Projecting our Western, tolerant worldview onto others, we underestimate the degree to which religion can motivate shocking actions, beliefs and political orientations, especially among radicalized populations: incomprehensibly evil as it may be to us, suicide-bombing is an act of supreme religious devotion.</p>
<p>Does the Obama administration truly appreciate the significance of dealing with religious populations?  Obama’s infamous campaign statement that “bitter” working-class voters “cling to guns or religion…as a way to explain their frustrations” suggests incomprehension and condescension toward the religious.  His refusal to recognize the Islamist nature of domestic terror attacks such as the Fort Hood shootings or blindness to the Islamist elements in this “Arab Spring” shows similar tendencies.</p>
<p>Famed scholar of Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis, once noted that the West thinks in terms of nations subdivided by religions; the Islamic world thinks of itself as a religion subdivided into nations.  Islam is the basis of both identity and loyalty, and has little tradition of separation between religion and state.</p>
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