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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; hagel</title>
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		<title>Bye Bye Hagel &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/bye-bye-hagel-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bye-bye-hagel-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2014 05:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246586</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the Secretary of Defense couldn't survive under a Radical-in-Chief. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/hagel.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246587" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/hagel-450x281.jpg" alt="hagel" width="282" height="176" /></a><strong>[</strong><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to <em>The Glazov Gang</em> and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.]</strong></a></p>
<p>This week’s <em>Glazov Gang</em> was joined by <strong>Ernie White</strong>, a Civil Rights Activist, <strong>Morgan Brittany</strong>, a Conservative TV and Movie Star, and <strong>Mell Flynn</strong>, the President of Hollywood Congress of Republicans.</p>
<p>The Gang gathered to discuss <em><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/did-obama-just-fire-his-secretary-of-defense-for-being-a-republican/">Bye Bye Hagel</a>, </em>analyzing why the Secretary of Defense couldn&#8217;t survive under a Radical-in-Chief <strong>(starts at the 23:40 mark)</strong>. The guests also focused on <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/11/islamic-supremacist-groups-connect-their-jihad-to-ferguson-riots">Ferguson and Islamic Holy War Against America</a>, <em>Obama and the Ferguson Lynch Mob</em>, <em>The Mullahs Inch toward the Bomb</em>, and much, much more.</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t miss it!</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/WNgXnMy7snM" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Jamie Glazov</strong> discuss his battle on Hannity against the Unholy Alliance:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QsDu8Os3PlA" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>To watch previous <em>Glazov Gang</em> episodes, </strong><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><strong>Click Here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jamie.glazov"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> Jamie Glazov’s </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jamie.glazov"><strong>Fan Page</strong></a><strong> on Facebook.</strong></p>
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		<title>Hagel Takes the Fall</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-takes-the-fall</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:55:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama makes the Defense Secretary the scapegoat for his foreign policy failures.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245969" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992-450x337.jpg" alt="gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992" width="339" height="254" /></a>Chuck Hagel is out at the Department of Defense, and one administration official <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">explained</span></a> that it was because “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus” – apparently one that doesn’t shed such a bright light upon the smoking ruin that is Barack Obama’s foreign policy.</p>
<p>Hagel may have sealed his fate last week, when Charlie Rose asked him in an interview about the decline of the U.S. military. “I am worried about it,” Hagel responded with unexpected candor, “I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution” – as <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/24/hagel-unchained-departing-defense-secretary-fire-parting-shots-in-interview-last-week/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Bryan Preston of PJ Media has noted</span></a>, he perhaps pointedly left Obama and Joe Biden off this list of concerned officials.</p>
<p>Yet who is the single individual most responsible for the decline of the military? Hagel must have known the answer to that question when he added: “The main responsibility of any leader is to prepare your institution for the future. If you don’t do that, you’ve failed. I don’t care how good you are, how smart you are, any part of your job. If you don’t prepare your institution, you’ve failed.”</p>
<p>Did Obama take that as a reference to his steep defense cuts at a time when the world is on fire? Or did he object to <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120388/chuck-hagel-retires-despite-gop-attacks-he-became-israels-friend"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Hagel’s surprisingly cordial relations with Israeli officials</span></a>?</p>
<p>We may never know what the true story is. It may be that Obama chose Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, to be the one to take the blame for his spectacular misjudgment of the Islamic State, which he <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/07/barack-obama/what-obama-said-about-islamic-state-jv-team/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">famously dismissed</span></a> in January 2014 as a “JV team.”</p>
<p>Did Chuck Hagel whisper that notorious analogy in Obama’s ear?</p>
<p>Or maybe Hagel is walking the plank for Obama’s insistence upon referring to jihad terrorists in Syria as “vetted moderates.” “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/obamas-vetted-moderate-free-syrian-army-collaborating-with-islamic-state"><span style="color: #0433ff;">said Obama</span></a> in September 2014. What was he working with them for? To get them to fight the Islamic State. Yet long before that, in July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters <a href="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2013/08/christians-massacred-by-free-syrian-army-terrorists-rebels/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh</span></a> and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area.</p>
<p>This was not an isolated incident. <a href="http://www.worthynews.com/12470-free-syrian-army-massacre-christian-village"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Worthy News reported</span></a> that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.&#8221;</p>
<p>Then in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/09/07/Syrians-Rebels-Kerry-Called-Moderate-Post-Videos-Of-Their-Attack-On-Christian-Town"><span style="color: #0433ff;">FSA took to the Internet</span></a> to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/us-air-strikes-syra-driving-anti-assad-groups-support-isis"><span style="color: #0433ff;">now the U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State are reportedly being used by FSA fighters as a pretext</span></a> to join the Islamic State. If this is true, they were never going to fight the Islamic State, and were never “vetted moderates.” Obama’s whole Syria strategy is based on fantasy.</p>
<p>Is that Hagel’s fault?</p>
<p>It is November 2014. It is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for Obama at this late date to blame George W. Bush for his foreign policy disasters. Another scapegoat had to be found. Hagel, with his unexpectedly warm relations with Israel (in sharp contrast to the chill between Israeli officials and Barack Obama and John Kerry) and concern over the gutting of the military as the jihad rages more violently than ever and the JV team controls a land expanse larger than Great Britain, was the logical stand-in. He is even a Republican!</p>
<p>And so he will be gone from the Department of Defense, as soon as Obama peers at his gaggle of sycophants and chooses one of them for a big promotion. Likely gone with Hagel will be any remaining obstacle to an increasing chill with Israel, and any murmur of dissent from Obama’s mad plan of demolishing the military while simultaneously expecting it to hold back the Islamic State, Ebola, and a host of other threats.</p>
<p>Times are tough when Chuck Hagel looks like a voice of reasoned pro-American foreign policy. And times are indeed very tough, and about to get a great deal tougher.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
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		<title>Hagel Ouster Won&#8217;t Solve the Obama Foreign Policy Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/hagel-ouster-wont-solve-the-obama-foreign-policy-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-ouster-wont-solve-the-obama-foreign-policy-crisis</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:45:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic Terrorism]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245965</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The real problem remains in the White House. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/458110428-1024x682.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245966" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/458110428-1024x682-412x350.jpg" alt="458110428-1024x682" width="338" height="287" /></a>Secretary of Defense Charles Hagel has resigned his position under pressure from the Obama White House. According to one senior administration official, “He wasn’t up to the job.” Of course, if competence were the standard, President Obama himself should resign.</p>
<p>Hagel is being made the fall guy for Obama’s own national security failures, including not forcefully addressing the ISIS threat at a more opportune time to destroy ISIS. After all, it was Obama who derided the jihadist militants earlier this year as being akin to a junior varsity team.</p>
<p>Obama had precipitously pulled all American troops out of Iraq in 2011, against the advice of his military advisers, which helped create a vacuum filled by ISIS. Then he watched and did nothing while ISIS racked up victory after victory in Iraq during the last year, ignoring warnings from Iraqi government officials, U.S. intelligence and U.S. military leaders. Hagel added his own warning, declaring that ISIS represented an “imminent threat to every interest we have.”</p>
<p>Finally, in response to mounting criticism from home and abroad that he was showing no leadership while multiple global crises were exploding around him, President Obama first ordered air attacks on ISIS positions in Iraq while telegraphing to the enemy what he would not do. Then he expanded the air attacks to parts of Syria, while gradually increasing the number of U.S. troops he was willing to send back to Iraq, ostensibly to play a non-combat role.</p>
<p>Incredibly, senior administration officials are reported by the <i>New York Times</i> to have claimed, as justification for the pressure on Hagel to resign, that Hagel lacked the skills to deal with the ISIS threat. It was Obama – not Hagel – who had so recklessly minimized the ISIS threat in Iraq when it could have been dealt with more readily. And it was Obama – not Hagel – who admitted he had no strategy to deal with the ISIS threat in Syria. Hagel had his eyes open and saw the ISIS threat more clearly. Obama looked away as long as he could. But Hagel takes the fall.</p>
<p>President Obama chose Hagel for the Pentagon chief post in the first place to serve as the nominal Republican in his cabinet. Hagel also shared Obama’s skepticism about the Iraq War. Hagel’s combination of actual war experience as a Vietnam veteran and his cautiousness in committing American troops to vaguely defined missions suited Obama’s own inclinations. After having experienced the strongly opinionated Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, who went on to criticize the president in his memoir, Obama appears to have wanted someone he thought would focus more on internal management of the Pentagon than embroiling himself in national security policy debates.</p>
<p>Opposition to Hagel’s nomination among his former colleagues in the Senate and among some analysts stemmed in part from the remarks he has made about the Iraq War over the years and his evident anti-Israel bias. Questions were also raised about his overall fitness for the job. Hagel did himself no favors in that regard with his widely criticized poor performance during his Senate confirmation hearings. Nevertheless, Hagel was eventually confirmed as defense secretary by the Senate in a 58-41 vote.</p>
<p>During his relatively brief tenure, Hagel served as Obama’s manager of a diminishing U.S. military footprint. Hagel oversaw the draw-down of troops in Afghanistan that Obama had ordered, and began the process of looking for ways to trim the Pentagon’s budget.</p>
<p>However, on matters of national security and crafting responses to emerging threats such as ISIS, Hagel never made it into the inner circle of decision-makers in the Obama administration. He is reported to have remained mum during cabinet meetings, as he concluded that his advice was not being taken seriously by those who had the president’s ear. Hagel is said to have provided his advice to Obama in one-on-one phone calls, but he was still relegated to the outer periphery of influence on Obama’s final decisions.</p>
<p>While Hagel came across during his Senate confirmation hearings and in some public appearances since he became defense secretary as tentative and unsure of himself, he is no shrinking violet. He has at times expressed the kind of sharp-edged skepticism about the direction that the current president is taking the country’s military and national security that he displayed as a senator regarding former President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War.</p>
<p>For example, Hagel wrote a memo to National Security Adviser Susan Rice last month raising concerns about the administration’s Syria strategy, particularly how to best deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad while simultaneously fighting ISIS in Syria.</p>
<p>Rice is at the heart of Obama’s inner circle and does not take kindly to disagreements with her patron’s policies. “I guess I could be a testosterone-driven, territorial kind of personality in this role,” Rice was quoted by the <i>New York Times</i> last month as having said. “My view on this is that it’s an asset to have a partner down the hall.”</p>
<p>Hagel did not have that kind of access to the president. He had also been losing patience with what he regarded as interference on his own turf by an inexperienced White House national security team.</p>
<p>Said Senator John McCain, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: “I know that Chuck was frustrated with aspects of the Administration’s national security policy and decision-making process. His predecessors have spoken about the excessive micro-management they faced from the White House and how that made it more difficult to do their jobs successfully. Chuck’s situation was no different.”</p>
<p>During an interview with Charlie Rose last week, Chuck Hagel’s frustration seemed to have boiled over. Hagel expressed concern about the military’s declining capability under President Obama’s watch.  “I am worried about it, I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution,” Hagel said, referring to the Pentagon. Then, in a not-too-subtle slap at the dithering that Obama brings to decision-making when a quick response from a capable and confident leader is required instead, Hagel added that “the main responsibility of any leader is to prepare your institution for the future. If you don’t do that, you’ve failed. I don’t care how good you are, how smart you are, any part of your job. If you don’t prepare your institution, you’ve failed.”</p>
<p>President Obama has displayed a thin skin time and time again. Truly believing that he is always the smartest person in the room, Obama wants yes-people around him. Hagel, for all his faults, did not fit that mold.</p>
<p>During a White House ceremony Monday at which Hagel’s resignation was officially announced, Obama said he and the defense secretary had determined it was an “appropriate time for him to complete his service.” Obama’s praise for Hagel as an “exemplary defense secretary” rings no truer than all of Obama’s other statements on a variety of topics. Hagel served as Obama’s scapegoat. Sadly, this president’s national security failures will continue.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>U.S. Fostering Closer Iran-Saudi Ties</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/u-s-fostering-closer-iran-saudi-ties/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-s-fostering-closer-iran-saudi-ties</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Jun 2014 04:25:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran-Saudi]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233497</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An American president now serves as an agent for the Mullahs.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/iu.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-233499" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/iu.jpg" alt="iu" width="259" height="194" /></a>According to <em>Arab News,</em> (June 2, 2014) a high official in the Obama administration is “<a href="http://www.arabnews.com/category/main-category/middle-east">encouraging</a> Riyadh and Tehran to end their dispute.” This was quoted in Kuwait’s Al-Rai Arabic daily in an interview with an unnamed U.S. diplomat. Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah ended his visit to Tehran.</p>
<p>Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh in a quest to establish a détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Hagel got his cue from earlier remarks made by Iran’s President Rouhani, suggesting that Iran would like to improve its ties with Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>It seems that the Obama administration is now serving as an agent for Iran. The Islamic Republic that has encouraged street demonstrations calling for “death to America,” is the same regime that has been working hard to remove U.S. influence in the region. Iran is an oppressive and radical Islamic state backing the Assad regime in Syria which murdered over 200,000 of its own people, and used chemical agents to poison thousands of innocent civilians. The Obama administration has hitherto not been able to stop the Tehran regime from producing advanced centrifuges. Iran has continued its quest for nuclear weapons, despite its ongoing nuclear talks with the P5+1 (U.S. China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany).</p>
<p>Saudi-Iranian reconciliation talks are scheduled to take place in the middle of June, and the Obama administration hopes for a new era in the relationship between the two Gulf powers. The Saudis are less than thrilled about the impending talks. Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi political analyst, is skeptical about the talks, pointing out that “Iran has occupied Syria,” and is backing the Assad regime. He added that, the “Iranians want to drag us into an extended dialogue and <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/news/580721">divert attention</a> from the core issue of Syria.”</p>
<p>Iran’s mouthpiece, <em>Press TV</em> reported (April 27, 2014) that Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal will be removed from his post in a second phase of changes in the ruling family’s key positions. It also revealed that on April 15, 2014, Saudi King Abdullah has replaced Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi intelligence chief with Youssef al-Idrisi. <em>Press TV</em> added that Bandar, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is known to have had close ties with former U.S. President George W. Bush, and that he was an advocate of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.</p>
<p>The Iranian interpretation that is apparently stemming from <em>Press TV</em> is that President Obama, in seeking to reverse his predecessor’s (G.W. Bush) foreign policy, has persuaded the Saudis to get rid of the anti-Iranian elements among the Kingdom’s leadership. Apparently, this has resulted in the removal of Prince Bandar, and the impending retirement of Saud al-Faisal.</p>
<p>It was Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal who, in a December, 2009 interview with the New York Times said, “Iran should <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/world/middleeast/17faisal.html?_r=0">never</a> be allowed to have nuclear weapons.” He also added that he was suspicious of Iran’s claims to be pursuing a peaceful nuclear program.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of fomenting unrest among the Shia majority in Bahrain, its close neighbor, and the Shia minority in its own Eastern Province. In addition, the Saudis have charged the Islamic Republic of Iran of plotting to assassinate its ambassador in Washington in 2011.</p>
<p>Iran’s efforts to cozy up to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia in particular, are aimed at isolating Israel and preventing what has been rumored to be a secret Israeli-Saudi understanding that would enable Israel to use Saudi airspace in an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Thus, in the meeting between Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah, the former sounded “conciliatory.” According to Iranian state TV, which quoted Khamenei as saying that regional security “depends on good relations among all countries in the region, and that differences between them will only <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=318196741&amp;ft=1&amp;f=">benefit</a> their common enemies,” appears to be a veiled reference to Israel and the U.S.</p>
<p>In entering negotiations and signing the interim nuclear agreement with the P5+1, Iran has neutralized the U.S. and its allies from using the military option against it. This one-sided détente between the U.S. and Iran has apparently convinced the Saudis to change course. Pressured by its so-called ally, the U.S., to improve relations with Iran, Riyadh has realized that it is time to play along with Washington. <em>MSNBC</em> headlined it (May 15, 2014) “<a href="http://nsnbc.me/2014/05/15/saudi-bid-iran-admission-defeat/">Admission of defeat</a>.” In sending an invitation to his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal welcomed him to come to Riyadh “anytime he chooses.” Explaining the Saudis reversal regarding Iran, Al Faisal said “Iran is a neighbor, we have relations with them, and we will <a href="http://nsnbc.me/2014/05/15/saudi-bid-iran-admission-defeat/">negotiate</a> with them.”</p>
<p>U.S. President Obama has articulated a revised approach to the Middle East. The U.S. will no longer seek to isolate Iran but will instead attempt to “get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion” to foster a “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all">new equilibrium</a>” between Iran and Saudi Arabia that will be marked by “competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.”</p>
<p>Secretary of State, John Kerry may not have realized it when he put “all the eggs in the Israeli-Palestinian peace basket,” that no bilateral relationship in the Middle East is more consequential for the region’s future and U.S. interests than the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran. These two regional powers are on opposite sides on virtually every single issue, both vying for power and influence in the Persian Gulf, the Levant (in Syria, Iran supports the Assad regime and Hezbollah while the Saudis support the Sunni rebels in Syria and the anti-Hezbollah forces in Lebanon), the Palestinian territories (the Saudis support Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah, and the Two-State solution, while the Iranians back Hamas and reject the Two-State solution), and Iraq (Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is an Iranian ally, while the Saudis support the Sunni rebels). They are also in competition within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In addition to these conflicting interests, there are the ethnic (Arab versus Persian) and sectarian (Sunni Saudi Arabia versus Shiite Iran) differences.</p>
<p>There are also two other factors. Iran and Saudi Arabia have radically different forms of government and advance divergent visions for Middle Eastern order. They also have a major disagreement on the American presence in the region. The Saudis have been allied with the U.S. and seek its presence in the region. The Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other hand, wishes to expel the U.S. from the region.</p>
<p>It is for this reason alone that the Obama administration’s attempt to foster a détente with Iran and bring the Saudis and the Iranians closer is confounding if not disturbing. In legitimizing Iran, the Obama administration is either naïve in its belief that it can change the nature of the Iranian regime, or miscalculating in its attempt to create a “new equilibrium.” Iran will continue to support Hezbollah and Hamas’ terror against Israel, and deny Israel’s right to exist. The Tehran regime is also likely to come up short on the nuclear deal with the U.S. and its allies. These are the issues that the U.S. Congress, if not the Obama administration, will eventually find difficult in normalizing relations with Iran. It would also impede on President Obama’s efforts to affect a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Regardless of the Obama administration’s goodwill toward Iran, the Islamic Republic is unlikely to fall in love with the “Great Satan.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
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		<title>Santa Claus and the Israel Lobby</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/santa-claus-and-the-israel-lobby/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=santa-claus-and-the-israel-lobby</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2014 04:50:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aipac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel lobby]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226259</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[AIPAC isn’t pro-Israel, it’s pro-AIPAC]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AIPAC-620x350.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226260 alignleft" alt="AIPAC-620x350" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AIPAC-620x350-450x254.jpg" width="315" height="178" /></a>Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, the Israel Lobby is a myth. AIPAC, like jolly bearded men sitting in shopping malls, exists. And like the men with fake beards and pillows under their red coats, it goes through the motions. Its activists lobby, its events attract politicians and the one thing that it and its enemies agree on is its vast sphere of political influence that, like Santa, is absolutely everywhere.</span></p>
<p>If you believe AIPAC, it’s an incredibly effective organization. If you believe its enemies, AIPAC runs America and parts of Canada. It’s not an accusation that AIPAC denies too hard. Mall Santas don’t deny that they have flying reindeer waiting for them on the roof. AIPAC is a fat man in a rented red suit and fake beard trying to pretend that it can do anything. But AIPAC would have better luck making reindeer fly than countering the dominant power of the anti-Israel left and the Saudi lobby in Washington D.C.</p>
<p>And that’s because it doesn’t even try.</p>
<p>When the Democratic Party’s platform deleted the usual mention of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, removed a call to boycott Hamas and opposition to the “Right of Return” vocal protests came from Jewish organizations.</p>
<p>AIPAC was not one of them.</p>
<p>DNC aides claimed that AIPAC had reviewed and approved the new party platform, a claim that it denied. AIPAC’s submission contained a reference to Jerusalem, but the organization, often wrongly described as “hard-line” or “right-wing” by the media, made no objection to its omission.</p>
<p>Obama had already rejected two of these points, one overtly and one covertly, with the third yet to come up, making them little more than the fake beard they had been all along. AIPAC, which was being the DNC’s bipartisan fake beard for pro-Israel voters, did not waste time talking about them.</p>
<p>Once the outrage bubbled over, AIPAC, true to form, took credit for restoring Jerusalem. It did not do it to protect Israel. It did it to protect itself.</p>
<p>AIPAC isn’t a pro-Israel lobby. It’s a pro-AIPAC lobby.</p>
<p>If AIPAC didn’t exist, Israel’s enemies would have had to invent it. Its existence gives them a powerful “Israel Lobby” to tilt against. Photos and videos of prominent politicians at AIPAC conferences feed the myth of an organization whose influence reaches into the highest levels of government.</p>
<p>But AIPAC’s influence comes from its lack of influence. When influential politicians are naturally pro-Israel, AIPAC takes credit for it in its donation envelopes. And when they aren’t, AIPAC shuts up.</p>
<p>Under Obama, AIPAC has shut up. It sat out the nomination fight over Chuck Hagel. The former Nebraska senator with ties to the Iran lobby had said, “The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.” If anything, Obama had intimidated AIPAC. Not that AIPAC has ever been hard to intimidate.</p>
<p>AIPAC not only backed down from Obama and Hagel, it even backed down from criticizing J Street’s Congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, over her opposition to sanctions on Iran. It supported Congressman Bill Pascrell over a pro-Israel GOP candidate.</p>
<p>If AIPAC can’t take on Schultz and Pascrell, is there any influential Democratic politician it can take on?</p>
<p>AIPAC backed away from a showdown with Obama over Iran sanctions. Instead after pressure from the White House it pulled out all the stops to lobby in favor of Obama’s strikes against Syria. Some asked whether it had now become the pro-Syrian lobby. AIPAC had avoided the Iraq War, but at a phone call allowed itself to be used to push for Syrian military strikes that would have benefited Israel’s enemies.</p>
<p>It was not the first time AIPAC had lobbied for Israel’s enemies. AIPAC had brought the Palestinian Authority’s people to Capitol Hill and still lobbies against any cuts in foreign aid to the front group for the PLO.</p>
<p>AIPAC’s opposition to Rand Paul’s bill cutting off aid to the PA/PLO after its unity agreement with Hamas wasn’t anything new. AIPAC <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1010/AIPAC_differs_with_Cantor_on_Israel_aid.html">had also opposed Eric Cantor’s</a> proposal in 2010 to separate Israel aid from the rest of the foreign aid budget which would have made it easier to achieve reductions in foreign aid.</p>
<p>AIPAC endorsed the 2007 Ackerman-Boustany letter which called Abbas a “peace partner” and urged more aid to the Palestinian Authority. By signing on, AIPAC was joining the ranks of left-wing Anti-Israel groups such as Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and the Arab American Institute.</p>
<p>Around the same time <a href="http://carolineglick.com/aipacs_mystifying_behavior/">AIPAC neutered a series</a> of divestment initiatives in companies that do business with Iran and Sudan. It was one of many instances in which AIPAC interfered with a pro-Israel initiative.</p>
<p>Why does AIPAC do these things? Its primary mission is to protect its influence. It’s not, as its critics accuse, an arm of Israel in the United States. Instead it’s a Beltway institution whose agenda is driven by insider contacts and favor trading. Like many other Washington lobbies, its commitment to its political networks is far more important than the agenda that it claims to represent.</p>
<p>AIPAC engages in outreach, not to convince politicians to support Israel, but to convince them to support it. It works to solicit any statement of support for Israel as a validation of its existence.</p>
<p>AIPAC is bipartisan. It is bi-everything. It’s for Israel and for the Palestinian Authority. It’s for supporters of Israel and critics of Israel. If you’re a politician who isn’t openly calling for Israel’s destruction, you can stop by AIPAC’s rubber chicken dinners and deliver a speech written by one of your Jewish staffers.</p>
<p>Everyone comes to AIPAC’s conferences for some cheap applause and a line on their election flyer. Attendees leave believing in the illusion of their own influence, but the influence is a photo op and a few hours of a politician’s time. AIPAC doesn’t ask anything too difficult of the politicians who show up and avoids taking any positions that might embarrass them.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the actual support for Israel, more among Republicans than Democrats, has to do with the Jewish State’s popularity in the United States and its ties to the defense industry. That support rarely moves beyond the tangled defense industry relationships which account for the large foreign aid figures.</p>
<p>AIPAC’s contribution is the production of meaningless letters and resolutions. These policy statements, like the support for Jerusalem, never actually become policy. Instead they provide political cover for politicians like John Kerry who talk pro-Israel and act anti-Israel.</p>
<p>These are the fake beards of the politicians who play Santa to AIPAC while AIPAC plays Santa to American Jews. None of it is real, but it is deeply comforting. AIPAC keeps many American Jews from having to grow up and when reality intrudes, as it did when the Democratic Party tossed Jerusalem, it convinces the Democratic Party or the Republican Party to help it lull them back to sleep.</p>
<p>AIPAC’s influence comes from its relationships, but it avoids fights so as not to endanger those relationships. It would rather have a meaningless letter signed by most of the Senate than back a controversial bill that might make a genuine difference.</p>
<p>Like so much of Washington, AIPAC is an establishment. It’s another of the many institutions in the bubble of the nation’s capital that stopped representing the people and began representing themselves.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Why Bring Down Ya’alon?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/why-bring-down-yaalon/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-bring-down-yaalon</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Mar 2014 04:40:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[defense minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Moshe Yaalon]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration's attack on the Israeli Defense Minister. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/yaalon-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221996" alt="yaalon-2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/yaalon-2-450x310.jpg" width="315" height="217" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Our-World-Why-bring-down-Yaalon-346356">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p>If this is a coincidence, it is an extraordinary one. Twice in less than two months, remarks that Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon made in closed forums about key issues on Israel’s national security agenda were leaked to the media. In both cases, the media used the leaked remarks to foment a crisis in relations between Israel and the Obama administration.</p>
<p>In both cases, the Obama administration has used the opportunities created by the Israeli media to bash Ya’alon and pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to fire him.</p>
<p>In January, <em>Yediot Aharonot </em>leaked Ya’alon’s private remarks about US Secretary of State John Kerry’s irrational focus on the mordant peace process between Israel and the Palestinians at a time when there is both relative peace in Israel, and Israel’s neighbors are undergoing political upheavals and civil war. Together with the other two musketeers of Israel’s far-left media – <em>Haaretz</em> and Channel 2,<em>Yediot</em> used the story to provoke a fight between the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration. Acting on cue, the White House and State Department demanded that Ya’alon apologize for remarks that were made in private. Ya’alon sufficed with a terse statement that he was sorry if anyone took offense from his private remarks.</p>
<p>And now, two months later, Ya’alon’s remarks have been leaked again.</p>
<p>Last week Ya’alon spoke at a forum at Tel Aviv University that was closed to the media. There he bemoaned the Obama administration’s abandonment of the US’s traditional role as the world’s policeman and considered its significance for Israel. With regard to Iran’s nuclear program, Ya’alon said that the time had come for Israel to recognize that the US has not met its expectations and taken the lead to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. As a consequence, “We [Israelis] have to look out for ourselves.”</p>
<p><em>Haaretz</em> published Ya’alon’s leaked remarks and then, with its partners, <em>Yediot</em> and Channel 2, set about fomenting a crisis in relations with the US. As it did in January, last week the Obama administration jumped at the opportunity. State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki stopped just short of demanding Ya’alon’s resignation.</p>
<p>What is going on here? Obama and Kerry say far worse things about Israel’s leaders as a matter of course than Ya’alon said about either of them. And nothing Ya’alon said was wrong. Nothing that he said was unique. Similar statements are being heard from spurned US allies around the region and the world. Not only were Ya’alon’s statements reasonable, the vast majority of Israelis share his sentiments both on the untrustworthiness of US security guarantees and on the absence of prospects for peace with the PLO.</p>
<p>So why leak his remarks and present them as unforgivable faux pas?</p>
<p>The first reason is that the media have been working for seven years to intimidate Israel’s policymakers into not noticing that the US will do nothing to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And they can’t intimidate Ya’alon.</p>
<p>The US effectively abandoned the option of using military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons at the end of 2007 with the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate. The 2007 NIE falsely reported Iran had abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons in 2003. After the report was released, then president George W. Bush had no political capacity to attack Iran.</p>
<p>The remote chance that the US would attack Iran’s nuclear installations at some future date was taken off the table completely with Obama’s inauguration in 2009. From the outset Obama made clear through word and deed that his goal was to appease the mullahs, not confront them.</p>
<p>The fact that Israel continued to cling to the empty claim that the US would act to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons for seven years after the 2007 NIE is testament to both the media’s power to intimidate and to its corruption. The media is supposed to facilitate the free flow of information. But they blocked it by stifling discussion of the credibility of US leadership in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. And they attacked as reckless every leader that indicated a willingness to act independently against Iran.</p>
<p>Ya’alon apparently is not afraid of the media. He knows he can credibly demonstrate to the public that Israel can and must secure its own interests, regardless of the US position. Since they cannot get him to toe their line, the media triumvirate has apparently decided to undermine the public’s trust in him by presenting him as a reckless amateur.</p>
<p>Here the issue of the leak is critical to understand. In holding the off-record briefings, Ya’alon did nothing wrong.</p>
<p>Indeed, he behaved as a leader ought to. When the leader in an open society is considering a significant shift in national policies, it is reasonable for him to share his thinking with policy elites, whether in academia or the media, to prepare the ground and gauge their responses. Doing so in private enables leaders to consider major shifts away from the spotlight.</p>
<p>It was the leakers, not Ya’alon, who behaved recklessly and unprofessionally.</p>
<p>He spoke off the record to prevent a diplomatic embarrassment for himself and the country. They leaked his remarks in order to embarrass him and initiate a diplomatic crisis.</p>
<p>Luckily – and ironically – their plan backfired. To discredit Ya’alon the media inadvertently enabled Ya’alon, one of the most trusted men in Israel, to initiate discussion about the Palestinians and the Iranians that they have blocked for years – and to do it on his terms.</p>
<p>And now it is too late to stop the conversation.</p>
<p>The media chose to focus the campaign against Ya’alon on his purported irresponsibility and loose lips because they cannot argue with him on substance.</p>
<p>His claim that there is no chance that Palestinians will agree to a peace deal with Israel is self-evident.</p>
<p>His assertion that Israel cannot trust Obama to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power is undeniable.</p>
<p>And this is why the media chooses to create artificial crises with the US over Ya’alon’s private remarks and why the Obama administration so enthusiastically cooperates with Channel 2, <em>Yediot</em> and <em>Haaretz.</em></p>
<p>Both understand that the only hope they have of coercing the government and the public to maintain faith with their failed and dangerous policies regarding the PLO and Iran is by threatening that Israel will pay a price for abandoning them. And the price they quote is the durability of the US-Israel alliance.</p>
<p>To date, the public hasn’t been moved by their antics. Polls taken after the first leak in January revealed that Ya’alon is the most popular minister in the government.</p>
<p>And while it is important to be concerned when the media colludes with a hostile US administration to bring down the defense minister, it is also important not to get too carried away.</p>
<p>Israelis know that they can trust Ya’alon more than either Obama or the media. And they agree with him. With these assets in hand, it is hard to see how Ya’alon can lose this fight.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The Only World Leader Who Fears American Power Is Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/the-only-world-leader-who-fears-american-power-is-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-only-world-leader-who-fears-american-power-is-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[American power]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flexibility]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220084</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The meaning of American "flexibility" according to Vladimir Putin. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Putin-Obama1AP.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220101" alt="Putin-Obama1AP" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Putin-Obama1AP-450x328.jpg" width="315" height="230" /></a>President Obama was caught by a live microphone in March 2012 telling President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia he would have “more flexibility” on Russian issues after the election. He continued, “this is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” Who could have imagined that Obama’s “flexibility” meant America being spanked all over the world, twisting, turning and as flexible as a piñata getting hit every which way spinning with no direction? That is foreign policy in the Obama era.</span></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.newsmax.com/RonnTorossian/Putin-Obama-Ukraine-Yanukovych/2014/02/24/id/554414">Putin continues to outmaneuver Obama in the area of foreign policy</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> &#8212; including sheltering spy Edward Snowden, protecting Syria, and ensuring Iran will not give up their nuclear capabilities. America continues to be weaker in the world.  </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Did flexibility mean getting run over when Obama </i><i>told Russia he would have more flexibility? </i></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Today, only Obama, Kerry and Hagel are surprised that Russian parliament unanimously granted Putin permission to use the country&#8217;s military in Ukraine. Already, Russians have taken over two Ukrainian airports, and the Associated Press reported a convoy of nine Russian armored personnel carriers and a truck on a road between Sevastopol and the regional capital, Simferopol. This is consistent with Putin’s aggression. It is not surprising that Russia granted shelter to Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yanukovych and is protecting him.</span></p>
<p>The Obama Administration and their friends in the media mocked the Romney campaign for referring to Russia as “our number one geopolitical foe.” A <i>New York Times</i> editorial in March 2013 said Romney’s assertions regarding Russia represented either “a shocking lack of knowledge about international affairs or just craven politics.”  Obama mocked Romney saying in a debate, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” Would he dare to say that now, or is Russia’s handling of the Ukraine situation the way allies treat one another?</p>
<p>Obama has shown how flexible he is time and time again.  Putin has repeatedly capitalized upon Obama’s political weakness. As Putin wrote in his September 2013 New York Times op-ed, he described an “alarming” pattern of intervening in the internal conflicts of foreign countries.  It appears to be more of the same now with the Ukraine, and comes at the expense of American pride and honor –because Obama is weak.</p>
<p>As Republican Senator James Inhofe said some months ago, “Putin was lecturing to the United States, and I could hear [Ronald] Reagan turning over in his grave as this was going on.” Over the last few days, gunmen wearing unmarked camouflage uniforms erected a sign reading “Crimea is Russia” in the provincial capital and Ukraine’s interim prime minister declared the Black Sea territory “has been and will be a part of Ukraine.”</p>
<p>With this news, what is next? Will Obama issue a memorandum that there is now a “super-duper” red line which Putin better not cross? Will he threaten detention and double probation for Putin the bully? It’s laughable that Obama proclaims there is a “new line” that Russia must not &#8220;step over&#8221; unless it wants consequences. Surely, one doesn’t expect that the cagey KBG veteran Putin is trembling from the smallest American military in many years, led by a President who is incapable of keeping his word.</p>
<p><i>Obama is the only world leader who fears American power today.</i></p>
<p>Who can forget Bengahzi, or the “red lines” Obama drew for Syria? Surely, Putin veteran is drinking vodka and playing chess and laughing at Obama’s threats.</p>
<p>Obama has recently spoken of &#8220;resetting&#8221; our relationship with Russia. Does that mean that the American people should start learning Russian?</p>
<p>Obama promised a new America, and we got it.  <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/america-weaker-in-the-eyes-of-the-world/">There has never been a time when American has been less respected by the world</a>.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Gutting the Army</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/gutting-the-army/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gutting-the-army</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/gutting-the-army/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Feb 2014 05:55:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[army]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cut]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=219643</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration's warped priorities. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/0224-chuck-hagel-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-219644" alt="0224-chuck-hagel-2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/0224-chuck-hagel-2.jpg" width="233" height="207" /></a>On Monday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/24/hagel-proposed-budget-will-reportedly-shrink-army-to-pre-wwii-numbers/">recommended</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> reducing size of the U.S. Army to its lowest level since before the nation&#8217;s entry into WWII. &#8220;We must now adapt, innovate, and make difficult decisions to ensure that our military remains ready and capable &#8212; maintaining its technological edge over all potential adversaries,&#8221; Hagel said during a Pentagon news conference. Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, illuminated the administration&#8217;s dubious priorities. President Obama and Hagel are trying to “solve our financial problems on the backs of our military — and that can’t be done,” he explained.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The reductions are stark. The Army had already been tasked with reducing troop numbers from a wartime high of 570,000 to 490,000. Hagel proposes bringing that number down to the either 450,000 or 440,000. He defended those cuts, claiming they will allow more money to be spent on &#8220;technological superiority,&#8221; &#8220;cyber resources,&#8221; and Special Operations forces. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Retired Gen. Jack Keane </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://freebeacon.com/general-keane-proposed-budget-cuts-into-bone-of-army/">contended</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the reductions would “cut into the bone and the capabilities of the Army,” even as he ridiculed the thinking behind them. &#8220;The assumption that’s being made in the Pentagon, and it’s almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious, is they don’t believe the United States will involve itself in a ground war of any consequence again,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;The fact of the matter is those assumptions have been made after World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War, and every single time they have been proven wrong. Here we are making that same assumption again. The Army is taking a much more severe cut, and the numbers of the Army are going down to pre-World War II numbers, which, on the surface of it, is irresponsible. Anybody looking at that knows it is far too much.&#8221; </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Actually, they don’t. The Pentagon, which has long believed that America should be capable of fighting two ground wars simultaneously, as we did in Asia and Europe during WWII, and Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, has seemingly abandoned that idea. According to the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">New York Times</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, more recent budget and strategy documents reveal that the military must be prepared to win one conflict decisively, and fight a holding operation with a second adversary until a sufficient number of forces could be redeployed to win conflict number two. “Our analysis showed that this [reduced] force would be capable of decisively defeating aggression in one major combat theater…while also defending the homeland and supporting air and naval forces engaged in another theater against an adversary,” Hagel contended.</span></p>
<p>Given America&#8217;s recent track record, one might be forgiven for wondering what constitutes winning <i>period</i>, much less winning decisively. President Obama and his fellow Democrats have made it clear that troop withdrawal &#8211; on a timetable and virtually irrespective of conditions on the ground &#8212; was their top priority in Iraq, and will be their top priority in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the president&#8217;s <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203554104577003931424188806">indifference</a> towards negotiating a status of forces agreement, and his determination to leave behind an insufficient number of troops to protect the gains we made in that nation, turned victory into defeat. It is a process being repeated in Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/01/karzai-no-security-deal-without-peace-talks-20141259122260833.html">rejected</a> a security pact with America unless the Taliban are included in the process, and where Obama once again <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-examines-afghanistan-option-that-would-leave-3000-troops-in-kabul/2014/02/23/a0870034-9b32-11e3-ad71-e03637a299c0_story.html">wants</a> to leave behind a far smaller contingency of troops than his military advisors recommend to maintain our gains there.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Even if we had an administration committed to winning wars, it appears they are willing to sacrifice greater numbers of Americans to do so. Officials who saw an early draft of Hagel&#8217;s announcement admit that carrying out two large-scale military operations at the same time would make success more elusive, and engender higher numbers of casualties. Just as importantly, they conceded a smaller military might give rise to increased adventurism by our adversaries. Hagel seemingly concurred. “As a consequence of large budget cuts, our future force will assume additional risk in certain areas,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Those budget cuts include </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/pentagon-set-slash-military-pre-world-war-ii-levels-n37086">far more</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> than a reduction in troops. The U-2 spy place would be abandoned in favor of drones that operate more cheaply. The A-10 “warthogs,” an entire class of Air Force attack jets capable of effective attacks against tanks, is also facing the chopping block and will be replaced by F-35s. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Navy would purchase two destroyers and two attack submarines per year, even as 11 cruisers would be decommissioned until they were modernized. Training helicopters would be retired, and the National Guard would give its more weaponized Apache helicopters to the Army in exchange for Black Hawks, better suited for disaster response and other peacetime activities. Drone growth would be diminished from an around-the-clock force of 65 Reaper and Predator aircraft to 55 in total. The Pentagon will also ask for another round Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) in 2017.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On the personnel side, a one percent raise in pay would be enacted, but it would be offset by changing healthcare benefits, making personnel pay for some of their housing costs and cutting a billion dollars from commissary subsidies that allow for discounted goods for military families. General and flag officers would be subjected to a one-year pay freeze.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hagel warned that making these cuts is a better alternative than enduring even deeper ones imposed by sequestration. Sequestration cuts would necessitate retiring an aircraft carrier, decommissioning six more cruisers, eliminating the KC-10 tanker fleet, slowing down the buying of destroyers, cutting flying hours, and dropping troop levels still further to 420,000. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contended that number of troops would undermine the military&#8217;s ability to deploy for combat. &#8220;I&#8217;m telling you &#8212; 420 (sic) is too low,&#8221; he declared.</span></p>
<p>Sequestration itself is a farce. It reflects Congress&#8217;s seemingly permanent inability to forestall the nation&#8217;s headlong rush towards insolvency, even as it completely preserves the ever-increasing outlays required by the primary drivers of that insolvency. The nation&#8217;s spending is <a href="http://nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/">divided</a> into three main categories: interest on the debt, discretionary spending and mandatory spending. As projected for 2014, America will spend approximately $3.8 trillion for the entire budget. Servicing our national debt will consume six percent of that total. Discretionary spending will eat up another 30 percent, with the military consuming 57 percent of that discretionary slice. Mandatory spending accounts for 64 percent of our annual budget, the lion&#8217;s share of which goes to entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Unemployment and Labor programs, as well as Medicare and other Health programs.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The amount of discretionary spending is determined by annual appropriations. Mandatory spending, on the other hand, is determined by eligibility. Thus it is far easier to make cuts to the military, such as Hagel is proposing, because Congress can merely trim the budget. Changing mandatory spending requires changing eligibility criteria, such as age for Social Security or income level for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).</span></p>
<p>It is no accident that proposed cuts in mandatory spending are often referred to as dealing with &#8220;third rail&#8221; issues, in that they inevitably engender massive, and possibly career-ending resistance from a dependency-addicted nation. Such resistance is aided and abetted by a Democratic Party that derives much of its power from promoting and maintaining that dependency. In short, when cuts become inevitable, the military is vulnerable, while entitlement programs remain virtually sacrosanct.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Thus, when House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) contends that military preparedness is &#8220;being sacrificed &#8230; on the altar of entitlements,&#8221; he is spot on.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Moreover, there is an appalling lack of consistency among Democrats who </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2014/01/08/obama-extending-unemployment-benefits-creates-jobs-n1773077">insist</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that entitlement programs and unemployment insurance create millions of jobs, even as they remain utterly sanguine about military budget cuts that will adversely affect millions of non-military Americans whose communities </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/proposed-military-cuts-loom-over-tucson-air-force-base-n37521">depend</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on Defense Department expenditures and activities.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Pentagon press secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said that Hagel had consulted with military service chiefs on how to go about finding the proper balance between the nation&#8217;s defense and budget requirements. &#8220;He has worked hard with the services to ensure that we continue to stand for the defense of our national interests &#8212; that whatever budget priorities we establish, we do so in keeping with our defense strategy and with a strong commitment to the men and women in uniform and to their families,&#8221; Kirby said. &#8220;But he has also said that we have to face the realities of our time. We must be pragmatic. We can&#8217;t escape tough choices,&#8221; he added.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But as noted above, the Obama administration and Democrats </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">are</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> escaping the tough choices. The Constitution </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/01/why-provide-for-the-common-defense">requires</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the federal government to </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">provide</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> for the common defense and </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">promote</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the general welfare of the nation. Democrats and Obama have it exactly backwards. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That is not to say that some cuts to the military aren&#8217;t warranted. Yet for a nation awash in red ink, one that still faces serious and unforeseen threats from Islamist terror, an increasingly aggressive China, and Russia&#8217;s Vladimir Putin, who may yet play a hand in Ukraine, a serious discussion of national priorities is in order. One that puts everything on the table for the simplest of reasons: absent national security, everything else is irrelevant. There will be no victorious enemy willing to provide Americans with anything remotely resembling the massive and overly generous safety net we take largely for granted. And hope and change are not viable substitutes for military strength, preparedness and deterrence.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>American Jewish Groups Dropped Ball on the Iran Deal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/sammy-levine/american-jewish-groups-dropped-ball-on-the-iran-deal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=american-jewish-groups-dropped-ball-on-the-iran-deal</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/sammy-levine/american-jewish-groups-dropped-ball-on-the-iran-deal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Dec 2013 05:05:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sammy Levine]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212335</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Purported pro-Israel groups are failing to do their job. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/131105175019-parsi-iran-talks-sitting-at-table-story-top.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-212337" alt="131105175019-parsi-iran-talks-sitting-at-table-story-top" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/131105175019-parsi-iran-talks-sitting-at-table-story-top-413x350.jpg" width="289" height="245" /></a>When I visited Israel in the summer of 2012 and the American Presidential campaign was in full swing, my group met with an anonymous source who told us that the highest levels of the Netanyahu government, possibly including the Prime Minister himself, considered an Obama victory to be “a nightmarish scenario” for the Jewish State. Now, that nightmare has become a reality.</span></b></p>
<p>The P5 + 1 reached an interim agreement last week with the Iranian government, whose leader Khameini <a href="https://remote.zoa.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=55e1e89dfad3490dbe1a453ab79265e3&amp;URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.jpost.com%2fIranian-Threat%2fNews%2fKhamenei-Israeli-regime-is-doomed-to-failure-annihilation-332403">recently said</a>, “Zionist officials cannot be called humans, they are like animals, some of them&#8230;the Israeli regime is doomed to failure and annihilation.” This deal will not dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and will only slow down its race to the bomb by a couple months, according to most estimates, as the Mullah’s will maintain their capability to enrich uranium. In return, the Iranians are getting major sanctions relief in the form of at least $13 billion now available to them. The tough sanctions regime, which took decades of tough diplomacy to build up, will now be shattered.</p>
<p>The Mullah’s in Iran are rejoicing. Iranian <a href="https://remote.zoa.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=55e1e89dfad3490dbe1a453ab79265e3&amp;URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.memri.org%2freport%2fen%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f7588.htm">President Rouhani</a> has proclaimed: &#8220;The results of these talks is that the 5+1&#8230;have officially recognized Iran&#8217;s nuclear rights&#8230; the right to enrich [uranium] on Iranian soil is the right of the Iranian nation, and everyone can interpret it as they wish&#8230; The text states explicitly that Iran will continue to enrich [uranium], and for this reason I say to the Iranian nation that the uranium enrichment activity in Iran will continue as in the past&#8230; In this six-month agreement, our [uranium enrichment] facilities at Natanz, Fordo, the Arak [plutonium reactor], [the uranium conversion facility at] Isfahan, and Bandar Abbas [i.e. the Bushehr reactor] will continue their activity.&#8221; <a href="https://remote.zoa.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=55e1e89dfad3490dbe1a453ab79265e3&amp;URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.memri.org%2freport%2fen%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f0%2f7588.htm">Supreme Leader Khameini added</a>, &#8220;The absolute achievements of this initial agreement are official recognition of Iran&#8217;s nuclear rights, and preservation of the nuclear achievements of the sons of this nation.&#8221; It has just come to light that Iran is planning to construct a second nuclear reactor in the province of Bushehr.</p>
<p>Former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton calls this deal an “abject surrender” for the United States. Wall Street Journal writer <a href="https://remote.zoa.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=55e1e89dfad3490dbe1a453ab79265e3&amp;URL=http%3a%2f%2fonline.wsj.com%2fnews%2farticles%2fSB10001424052702303281504579219931479934854">Bret Stephens</a> calls it, “Worse Than Munich.” Prime Minister Netanyahu calls it “an historic mistake&#8230;this agreement has made the world a much more dangerous place.” Naftali Bennett, Chairman of the Jewish Home Party in Israel warns, “If a nuclear suitcase blows up five years from now in New York or Madrid, it will be because of the deal signed this morning.” Even Israeli left-leaning Tzipi Livni said, “This is a terrible deal that will threaten not only us [Israel], but the entire world.” At ZOA, we believe this deal is our eras “Munich” and Obama and Kerry the new “Chamberlain.”</p>
<p>It is important to note that an Iranian nuclear weapon is not just a threat to Israel, but to the United States and the rest of the world. U.S. intelligence states Iran will have ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) that can reach our homeland by 2015. Furthermore, Iran already has operational missile sites in Venezuela, virtually in the United State’s backyard.</p>
<p>For those of us who are politically sober and realistic, we saw this day coming, the capitulation of America to Iran. The Obama administration has proven time and again that it is not serious about preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. As ZOA National President <a href="https://remote.zoa.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=55e1e89dfad3490dbe1a453ab79265e3&amp;URL=http%3a%2f%2fzoa.org%2f2013%2f11%2f10219587-zoa-obamas-5-year-record-indicates-hes-not-serious-about-stopping-iranian-nuclear-weapons%2f">Mortot Klein stated</a>: “President Obama has not laid down any red lines beyond which the U.S. will not permit Iran to advance in its quest for nuclear weapons. This open-ended policy suggests that there is in fact no point at which President Obama would act militarily to stop Iran developing a weapon. Such suspicions can only be compounded by President Obama’s recent failure to act militarily on a red line that he actually did lay down, that is, the use of chemical or biological weapons by Syria against its own people.”</p>
<p>There are many Jewish and pro-Israel groups who are expressing dismay at the Iranian nuclear deal, but frankly, they are a little late to the party. The ZOA has been warning about this administration’s weakness for years.</p>
<p>Where were the myriad Jewish and pro-Israel organizations when the President chose notorious Israel hater and proponent of containing Iran, Chuck Hagel, to be Secretary of Defense? After all, Hagel’s selection, and subsequent confirmation by the Senate, and the Jewish communities general apathy, laid the groundwork for America’s appeasement of the Mullahs in Iran last week. The overwhelming silence of the Jewish community at the Hagel pick gave tacit approval to his anti-Israel, pro-containment views on Iran, which gave the administration an opening to pursue the disastrous deal reached last week.</p>
<p>Secretary of State John Kerry still maintains that there is &#8220;no daylight&#8221; between the United States and Israel. Who is he kidding?</p>
<p>In light of last week&#8217;s news, American Jews should ask themselves if the Jewish and pro-Israel groups they belong to are truly serving their interests.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>How Israel Makes the World a Safer Place</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ari-lieberman/how-israel-makes-the-world-a-safer-place/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-israel-makes-the-world-a-safer-place</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2013 04:14:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209740</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What even Defense Secretary Hagel was forced to admit. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Israeli-Fighter-Jet.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209741" alt="Israeli-Fighter-Jet" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Israeli-Fighter-Jet.png" width="230" height="170" /></a>On June 7, 1981 Israel provided the world with a lesson on how to deal with international pariahs. Its fighter jets, F-15s and F-16s, swooped over Iraqi airspace and with extreme precision using conventional iron bombs, destroyed a heavily defended Iraqi nuclear facility near Baghdad. At the time, many commentators, media outlets and politicians condemned Israel for its “aggression.” Over time however, many of those very same commentators came to recognize precocity of Israel’s Osirak operation and it is now well accepted that Israel’s preventive use of force then, thwarted a greater conflagration.</p>
<p>In 2007, Israeli intelligence officials approached the United States with incontrovertible proof that Bashar Assad, with the assistance of North Korea and Iran, was in the final stages of completing an atom bomb facility modeled after a North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor. The United States, already embroiled in two unpopular Middle-Eastern wars vacillated, unsure on how to proceed.</p>
<p>Israel, a nation that sits within the belly of the beast, did not possess the luxury of waiting, contemplating or “assessing” and acted resolutely. On September 6, 2007, Israeli warplanes attacked and destroyed Syria’s Al Kibar nuclear complex turning the WMD plant into an expensive heap of scrap metal.</p>
<p>Twice, Israel was faced with the prospect of pariah nations acquiring nuclear weapons and twice Israel acted decisively. Had Israel acted with restraint, an overused phrase that has grown threadbare over the years, the Gulf wars would have undoubtedly taken different trajectories and half of Syria would have been rendered uninhabitable for one-thousand years.</p>
<p>The world is now faced with its toughest challenge, confronting a brutal, non-rational theocracy with an apocalyptic vision and a taste for nuclear weapons.  One nation above all others has remained a steadfast, stubborn obstacle to Iran’s genocidal quest. Israel has been engaged in a full scale covert war against Iran in an attempt to slow down its ambitions. Mysterious explosions at sensitive facilities, cyber weapons in the form of sophisticated computer viruses and assassination of key Iranian nuclear experts have had their intended cumulative effect.</p>
<p>But beyond the cloak and dagger operations is a far more effective weapon in making the Iranians cry uncle; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s credible threat of military force. For all their bravado and bluster, the mullahs of the Islamic Republic are quite cognizant of Israel’s military capabilities and are paying heed. In rare praise for Netanyahu, the Washington Post ran an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/as-nuclear-talks-stall-iran-still-limits-its-uranium-stockpile/2013/04/08/a7c3aa18-a06b-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html" target="_blank">editorial</a> in April that gave Israel’s intrepid prime minister due credit for his role in preventing the mullahs from passing the breakout point.</p>
<p>The Washington Post’s editorial was recently validated by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who, in a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/israel-pushed-iran-to-the-table-says-hagel.html" target="_blank">revealing interview</a> with Jeffrey Goldberg, noted that Israel’s threats to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, among other factors, played a major role in bringing the Iranians to the negotiating table.</p>
<p>It has recently become fashionable among various elitist and radical leftist quarters to criticize the Jewish State on everything ranging from its counter-insurgency operations to its development of barren land in Judea &amp; Samaria. But those radicals should take heed that the world would be a much more volatile place without Israel acting as the point man against Islamic fundamentalism and WMD proliferation. Rather than unwarranted and relentless criticism, a simple “thank you” would suffice.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Attack on Families of Fallen Soldiers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obamas-attack-on-families-of-fallen-soldiers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-attack-on-families-of-fallen-soldiers</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2013 04:50:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=207012</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Patriotic generosity disrupts the president's disturbing abuse of our troops. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/article-2451252-18A3403D00000578-988_634x395.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207013" alt="article-2451252-18A3403D00000578-988_634x395" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/article-2451252-18A3403D00000578-988_634x395-450x324.jpg" width="315" height="227" /></a>The Obama administration&#8217;s despicable attempts to make the government shutdown as painful as possible for Americans has finally hit bottom. Until a charitable foundation <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/09/hagel-accepts-private-offer-to-pay-families-of-kia-says-hes-offended-outraged-at-congress/">stepped</a> in to fill the gap, the Department of Defense (DoD) was more than willing to deny death benefits to the families of fallen soldiers. The Pentagon claimed that a law <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pentagon-foundation-pay-death-benefits-20521172">passed</a> just prior to the government shutdown allowing the military to be paid did not cover the benefits. In truth, an Obama administration, whose hallmark is selective law enforcement, has relied on the flimsiest of technicalities to inflict unnecessary pain on families already shattered by the deaths of their sons and daughters.</p>
<p>Just before the government shutdown began, Congress <a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/obama-signs-law-to-pay-servicemembers-during-shutdown-1.244356">passed</a> the “Pay Our Military” act, allowing servicemen to continue receiving paychecks on time during the shutdown. It was passed unanimously in the House, approved without dissent in the Senate, and signed by the president. The bill ostensibly provided “such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to members of the Armed Forces” on active duty, as well as “essential” civilian personnel and contractors.</p>
<p>So what happened? A 2011 Pentagon report sent to Congress titled <a href="http://thehill.com/images/stories/news/2013/10_october/10/dodpay.pdf">&#8220;Pays and Allowances Summary&#8221;</a> lists a $100,000 &#8220;Death gratuity&#8221; originally put there in 1908. On the other hand, the <a href="http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2014/fy2014_m1.pdf">2014 Pentagon Personnel Budget</a> lists the death gratuity under the heading “other military personnel costs,” not “pay and allowances.” Defense Department attorneys and budget officials contend that the &#8220;Pay Our Military Act&#8221; only authorized pay and allowances, not other military personnel costs. “Given the wording of the ‘Pay Our Military Act,’ DOD is only allowed to spend money on ‘pay and allowances,’ and the death gratuity does not fall under that section of the budget,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “If that’s not what Congress intended, they should not have used the phrase ‘pay and allowances’ in the bill.”</p>
<p>On the basis of that technicality, death benefits were denied to the families of dead soldiers.</p>
<p>Yet there are a number of other factors in play here. Several members of Congress from both parties were <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/lawmakers-say-military-pay-bill-should-have-covered-kia-payments-frozen-by-hagel/">shocked</a> by the DoD&#8217;s interpretation of the law. So much so, a bipartisan group of seven Senators, including Roy Blunt (R-MO), Chris Coons (D-DE), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), John Boozman (R-AK), Tom Carper (D-DE) and Jerry Moran (R-KA) sent a <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57606695/government-shutdown-hitting-veterans-military-families-hard/">letter</a> to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calling for the death benefits to be restored. &#8220;Any delay in providing families with this essential benefit is absolutely unacceptable,&#8221; it said.</p>
<p>Moreover, the idea that the DoD would favor the 2014 Pentagon Personnel Budget interpretation of death benefit eligibility over the 2011 Pays and Allowances Summary apparently rests on another technical reality, namely that the federal government&#8217;s <i>fiscal</i> year begins on Oct. 1, 2013 and runs to Sept. 30, 2014. That the government shutdown has effectively suspended the beginning of FY2014, at least with respect to some of its obligations, would seem to provide the DoD with some wiggle room&#8211;wiggle room made even more palatable when one factors in the reaction of Congress, which thought it had left the death benefits intact. Instead, the DoD chose to embrace an uncompromisingly rigid interpretation of the law.</p>
<p>Perhaps the DoD had some &#8220;help.&#8221; House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) believes the Department of Justice and Eric Holder were involved as well. “The Pentagon isn’t totally autonomous. They have to deal with the Justice Department. I think the Justice Department attorneys were interpreting it differently. I think [they are] probably the ones that muddied this up,” McKeon <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1310/09/cnr.08.html">told </a>CNN.</p>
<p>There is little doubt that this administration is more than willing to &#8220;muddy&#8221; up the law to advance its agenda. One need only to remember that the president completely <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-23/opinion/ct-edit-war-20110523_1_libya-war-war-powers-act-moammar-gadhafi">ignored</a> the War Powers Act of 1973 to prosecute the war in Libya, unilaterally <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-14/opinions/41408610_1_affordable-care-act-president-obama-employer-mandate">defied</a> the healthcare law as written to delay the employer mandate for a year, and has done everything he can to <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/23/new-obama-policy-warns-agents-not-detain-illegal-i/?page=all">circumvent</a> immigration law.</p>
<p>Furthermore, a host of administration officials have been involved in stonewalling investigations of the the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, Benghazi, the IRS&#8217;s targeting of conservative Americans, and the DOJ&#8217;s wiretapping of journalists. Thus, the idea that this president and his administration have suddenly discovered a newfound respect for the precise letter of the law &#8212; as a means of inflicting further pain on the families of fallen heroes, no less &#8212; is utterly contemptible.</p>
<p>That contempt is revealed by the sequence of events in this sordid drama. After public outrage reached a crescendo, the House of Representatives <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/oct/09/house-vote-death-benefits-military/">agreed</a> to restore the death benefit in a 425-0 vote on Wednesday. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451641/Chuck-Hagel-ceremony-soldiers-death-benefits-shutdown.html#ixzz2hLL65tiA">announced</a> that the president was &#8220;disturbed&#8221; when he found out about the suspension of benefits. &#8220;The commander in chief, when he found out that this was not addressed, he directed that a solution be found, and we expect one today,&#8221; Carney said.</p>
<p>That solution involved a non-government entity. Later in the day, Hagel announced he had reached an <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/09/hagel-accepts-private-offer-to-pay-families-of-kia-says-hes-offended-outraged-at-congress/">agreement</a> with the Fisher House Foundation. Fisher House, an organization that provides flights and accommodations to families who want to see their relatives in VA hospitals or other military medical facilities, offered to restore the benefits.</p>
<p>While accepting the generous donation (one that Fisher House initially made with no expectation of being reimbursed) Hagel couldn&#8217;t resist injecting politics into the event, attempting to insulate himself from criticism in the process. “I am offended, outraged, and embarrassed that the government shutdown had prevented the Department of Defense from fulfilling this most sacred responsibility in a timely manner,” he said. “In the days before the shutdown, we warned Congress and the American people that DoD would not have the legal authority to make these payments during a lapse in appropriations. In the days after the shutdown, Departmental lawyers and budget officials pursued every tool and option at our disposal in an effort to provide these benefits. Even under the Pay Our Military Act, we found that we lacked the necessary authority to make payments to the families directly.”</p>
<p>On Thursday, despite Majority Leader Harry Reid&#8217;s contention that the issue was now moot, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pentagon-foundation-pay-death-benefits-20521172">pushed</a> for passage of a similar resolution in the Senate. Cornyn wanted to make sure that the DoD and Fisher House would get bogged down figuring out their work-around. The Senate approved the measure by a voice vote.</p>
<p>Thus, all that remained for the issue to be put to rest was President Obama&#8217;s signature. Initially, Carney refused to say whether or not the present would sign the legislation. Later on, he revealed that Obama has no intention of signing the bill. &#8220;We don&#8217;t need legislation,&#8221; Carney <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/jay-carney-says-we-dont-need-legislation-to-pay-military-death-benefits/article/2537106">contended.</a> &#8220;The president directed that this be resolved and it has been. What is preposterous is this notion that we should, piecemeal, fix all the consequences caused by shutdown.&#8221;</p>
<p>What is even more preposterous is a president more than willing to use dead soldiers and their families as political pawns. Remarkably, no one in the media has apparently bothered to ask an essential question: what is the extent of Obama&#8217;s powers as Commander-in-Chief? Why couldn&#8217;t the same president who rewrote the healthcare bill via executive order use that same power to order the DoD to pay death benefits? Why didn&#8217;t he even make the <i>attempt </i>to do so?</p>
<p>The answer is obvious: the progressive agenda must be served, no matter what the cost. Toward that end, WWII veterans in their 70s and 80s must be prevented from accessing an open-air memorial erected in their honor, even as illegal immigration activists are <a href="http://therightscoop.com/kelly-file-immigration-rally-allowed-on-the-national-mall-while-vets-cant-get-into-wwii-memorial/">welcomed</a> at the same National Mall. American patriots fighting for their survival in Benghazi can be abandoned, and their deaths are blamed on a video, so that the fiction of the Arab Spring can be maintained. The American public can be frightened enough to believe the only fiscal choices the nation has are giving the administration a unlimited amount of borrowed money to spend, or enduring default and ruination. Our healthcare system must be transformed into a government fiefdom run by bureaucrats and monitored by the IRS. The Republican Party must not be the voice of spirited opposition, but the epitome of everything the American people should hold in contempt.</p>
<p>And because that agenda is so “noble,” it can be imposed by any means necessary.</p>
<p>Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale let the ideological cat out of the bag when Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) criticized him yesterday at a House Armed Services hearing regarding the denial of benefits. When Coffman insisted that the Hale&#8217;s objective was to &#8220;inflict as much harm as you possibly could in your own department,&#8221; while the DoD &#8220;took it upon itself to disregard the will of American people and violate the law,” Hale became indignant. “I resent your remarks,” Hale told Coffman. “I acted on the advice of attorneys and our best reading of a loosely worded law, and we did our best. It was not a political judgment.”</p>
<p>The best reading of a loosely worded law would have provided grieving mothers and fathers a measure of comfort when they were tasked with burying their sons and daughters. If this administration ever had anything resembling a moral compass, it no longer exists. Whether he knows it or not, Barack Obama owes the entire nation an apology for an atrocious debacle. One that could have been very easily avoided. That it wasn&#8217;t speaks volumes.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Finally, after enduring <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/10/senate-approves-bill-to-pay-military-death-benefits/" target="_blank">withering criticism</a> from Sen. Cornyn, who noted that his failure to sign the bill represented a &#8220;dereliction of duty by our commander in chief,&#8221; Obama signed the bill late Thursday.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Liberal Hypocrisy in Iraq and Syria</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/liberal-wmd-hypocrisy-in-iraq-and-syria/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=liberal-wmd-hypocrisy-in-iraq-and-syria</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Aug 2013 04:51:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama, Kerry and Hagel were against war over WMDs before they were for it.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/jk1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-202091" alt="US-CANADA-DIPLOMACY-KERRY" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/jk1-450x293.jpg" width="360" height="234" /></a>In a response with clear echoes to the beginnings of the Iraq War, Obama has refused Syria’s offer to open its chemical weapons sites to United Nations inspectors as coming too late to be credible.</p>
<p>For the worst half of a decade, liberals were either urging us to give the UN inspectors more time in Iraq or demanding to know “Where are the WMDs?” once the war had begun.</p>
<p>The common consensus was Syria; a fellow Baathist regime that also served as the pipeline for the majority of suicide bombers aimed at American soldiers. But that answer was met with ridicule and contempt from the questioners.</p>
<p>Liberals had found their killer talking point and they were not about to let it go. Not until now.</p>
<p>A decade after the beginning of the Iraq War, Obama is tiptoeing into Syria. The pretext for his unilateral assault on Syria, that has no credible chance of receiving United Nations Security Council approval, will be the protection of civilians against the WMDs that didn’t exist.</p>
<p>Ten years ago, James Clapper, now the Director of National Intelligence, said he was “unquestionably sure” that Saddam’s WMDs had been moved out of Iraq. Top Iraqi generals stated that the WMDs had gone to Syria. But all that fell on deaf ears.</p>
<p>Democratic political opportunism transformed the existence of Iraqi WMDs, once a universally accepted fact brutally testified to by the Halabja massacre of thousands of Kurds, into an absurd lie. Now as Halabja is being recreated in Syria, suddenly a unilateral war for WMDs has become the liberal platform.</p>
<p>In 2002, a minor Chicago politician with a funny name achieved an undeserved level of prominence with a speech declaring we should not attack Iraq because &#8220;Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States&#8221;, &#8220;the Iraqi economy is in shambles&#8221; and &#8220;the Iraqi military (is) a fraction of its former strength&#8221; and advised that instead Saddam &#8220;be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.&#8221;</p>
<p>When that minor politician came to power, suddenly the dustbin of history that was good enough for Saddam, wasn’t good enough for Gaddafi or for Assad.</p>
<p>As Obama prepares to add a second unilateral regime change war to his Nobel Peace Prize trophy shelf, joining him for their very first war together as cabinet members will be two other prominent doves.</p>
<p>John Kerry’s senate career began with a bang when he traveled to Nicaragua to obstruct President Reagan’s policy of arming the anti-Communist Contra rebels. Now Secretary of State John Kerry is taking part in arming the Free Syrian Army rebel allies of Al Qaeda and pawns of the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>In his Sandinista days, Senator Kerry had said that America should not subvert its values “by funding terrorism to overthrow governments of other countries”. Since then John Kerry has changed his mind. It turns out that he was only against funding terrorists to overthrow the governments of other countries before he was for it.</p>
<p>Sitting in as Secretary of Defense is Chuck Hagel, who got his job because of his opposition to the Iraq War and attacks on Bush over WMDs, who will now be overseeing a new war over Syrian WMDs.</p>
<p>Three anti-war doves will be leading a war that represents everything that they claimed to stand against.</p>
<p>NBC reported that Obama officials were worried that the legacy of the debate over Iraqi WMDs would harm their efforts to get the United Nations Security Council on board with a Syrian intervention. But the legacy is the cynicism of prominent Democrats like Biden, Pelosi, Gore and Reid who turned their backs on the WMD consensus and clawed their way to power by undermining a war that they had supported.</p>
<p>Democrats destroyed the credibility of American foreign policy under Bush. Now they expect that time and poor memories will have already washed away everything that they did. And if that fails, then even more cynically they are preparing to blame Bush yet again, this time for the refusal of Russia and China to sign off on their Muslim Brotherhood regime change plan for Syria. But Russia and China would no more sign off on an invasion of Syria than on an invasion of Iraq.</p>
<p>Obama’s people are relearning what the Bush team learned, that diplomacy will not shift the United Nations Security Council, but instead of blaming the guilty parties, they are perpetuating the same destructive cycle that got them into this mess.</p>
<p>A decade ago, the Democrats decided to turn around and make the Iraq War into a partisan issue for political gain. Their actions severely damaged the credibility of American foreign policy. Now they are setting course for Syrian airspace, confident that the Republicans are too patriotic to do to them what they did to the previous administration.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Assad has WMDs and that he used them in the Syrian Civil War. But poll after poll shows that the American public is opposed to any attack on Syria and that the international community is mostly unenthusiastic about the prospect of another intervention.</p>
<p>Obama, Kerry and Hagel’s Syrian War is haunted by their destruction of the Iraq War and as Assad deploys his Weapons of Mass Destruction, the question that the doves twittering about soft power in Washington don’t have the courage to ask is how many of those weapons that will either kill civilians or fall into the hands of terrorists came from Saddam Hussein’s secret storehouses in Iraq.</p>
<p>Democrats vociferously opposed any plan to stop the flow of terrorists from Syria into Iraq. Now they are about to fight Assad anyway in support of their own twisted Muslim Brotherhood version of regime change.</p>
<p>The anti-war party has become the war party and in a supreme irony, its cause for a new war is the familiar one of stopping a Baath Party regime from using weapons of mass destruction against civilians.</p>
<p>Everything old is new again and every hypocrisy rises again to become policy. In New Hampshire, Howard Dean is reportedly sniffing around his presidential prospects and in Washington, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel and Barack Obama will begin a war that they were against… before they were for it.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>The Death of the U.S.-Egypt Alliance</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/the-death-of-the-u-s-egypt-alliance/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-death-of-the-u-s-egypt-alliance</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Aug 2013 04:41:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mubarak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Revolution]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Obama destroyed relations with one of the Mideast's most strategically important countries.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Egypt-protesters-carry-an-010.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-200142" alt="Egypt protesters carry anti-Obama posters" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Egypt-protesters-carry-an-010.jpg" width="260" height="191" /></a>President Obama’s misguided attempt to bend Egyptian political affairs in the Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s favor is unravelling the carefully nurtured military and economic alliance between the United States and Egypt, which has served for decades to stabilize that vital part of the Middle East.</span></b></p>
<p>First, after throwing former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak under the bus, the Obama administration did everything it could to portray the Muslim Brotherhood as a worthy organization committed to democratic principles of governance. The United States was seen by many secular Egyptians, including those who spearheaded the original revolution that led to Mubarak’s overthrow, as helping to unfairly tip the scales in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidates.</p>
<p>A year later, millions of Egyptians filled the streets demanding an end to the Islamic theocracy that Mubarak’s elected Islamist successor, Mohamed Morsi, tried to impose on the country. U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson stirred up hostility against the United States when she said the protesters should stop wasting their time with street demonstrations and allow the Muslim Brotherhood-backed government to continue to govern. “Some say that street action will produce better results than elections,” she said. “To be honest, my government and I are deeply skeptical.”</p>
<p>After the Egyptian military heeded the wishes of the people and ended Morsi’s authoritarian rule, the Obama administration has continued to meddle by advocating for the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood while at the same time hedging its bets. It has so far avoided using the word “coup” to describe the military’s action, in order to forestall the automatic triggering of a statutory requirement to cut off non-humanitarian aid when a military coup overthrows a democratically elected government. Secretary of State John Kerry even went so far as to say earlier this month that Egypt’s army was “restoring democracy.” He added that “The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people. The military did not take over, to the best of our judgment — so far.”</p>
<p>Such mixed signals have ended up alienating both the Muslim Brotherhood and its opponents, but the Muslim Brotherhood need not worry. President Obama’s heart is with them.</p>
<p>In fact, Obama has reportedly agreed to meet with Muslim Brotherhood representatives at the White House. According to the <a href="http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/exclusive-obama-agrees-meeting-brotherhood-sources-say">Egypt Independent,</a> “Obama would reportedly meet with Brotherhood officials to ‘hear their opinion’ on developments in Egypt, in the presence of Turkish diplomats.”</p>
<p>On July 30<sup>th</sup>, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel set the stage when he phoned Egypt’s defense minister and leader of Mohamed Morsi’s removal from power, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and urged him to bring the Muslim Brotherhood back into the government. According to an <a href="http://www.debka.com/article/23166/">exclusive report in the DEBKA File</a>, al-Sisi told Hagel that “it was up to the Muslim Brotherhood to subscribe to his roadmap for the caretaker administration which is ruling the country until elections are held. He then floored the US defense secretary by announcing he was launching a lightning campaign for his own run for the presidency in an early election.”</p>
<p>General al-Sisi expressed his exasperation with the United States a few days later in <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-03/world/41021583_1_obama-administration-military-coup-muslim-brotherhood">an interview with the Washington Post</a>.  “You left the Egyptians. You turned your back on the Egyptians, and they won’t forget that,” said al-Sisi. “Now you want to continue turning your backs on Egyptians?”</p>
<p>General al-Sisi has a different vision for Egypt’s political future than does the Obama administration. He is trying to build a more unified Egypt based on a nationalist platform, not a religious one. Only after the large sit-ins of Morsi supporters are brought to an end, one way or the other, will the defense minister consider offering the Muslim Brotherhood an opportunity to engage in a limited amount of political activity on a relatively short leash. Understandably, al-Sisi does not trust the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly after Morsi looked the other way while he was president and allowed militants in the Sinai Peninsula to gather for attacks on Egyptian security personnel without any serious consequence. Having failed to successfully subvert the Egyptian political system from within after Morsi and his Islamist colleagues won their elections, because millions of Egyptians caught on to their deception and demanded their ouster, the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/muslim-brotherhood-revives-its-jihadist-roots/">Muslim Brotherhood is now helping to coordinate the jihadist operations in Sinai</a> for the purpose of launching counterattacks.</p>
<p>The Obama administration would prefer that al-Sisi and the military he commands move to the sidelines and allow the Muslim Brotherhood to re-assume a central political role. The administration sees this as the best course to avoid another military dictatorship and a violent backlash that could deteriorate into a full-blown civil war, despite the Muslim Brotherhood’s own duplicitous track record.</p>
<p>Adding further insult to injury, the RINO Bobbsey twins, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, visited Cairo last week and delivered an ultimatum to Egypt’s interim government leaders. According to a <a href="http://www.nysun.com/foreign/americas-alliance-with-egypt-is-on-verge/88366/">report by Youssef Ibrahim appearing in The New York Sun</a> on August 8<sup>th</sup>, the message the senators delivered was either to release Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders from detention and to bring Muslim Brotherhood representatives into the new government, or face a cut-off of all U.S. military and financial aid to Egypt. The White House denies that the senators were acting directly on behalf of President Obama, but it is unlikely they would have been so blunt without the president’s blessing.</p>
<p>The response of Egypt’s current President Mansour and his prime minister, Hazem Biblawi, was swift and contemptuous of the two senators. They described Senators McCain and Graham as “delusional” and “liars.” Egypt’s chief newspaper, Al Ahram, said the senators engaged in “foolish statements that are unacceptable.”</p>
<p>The Egyptian cabinet sent out a tweet calling Senator McCain “a persona non grata” for insulting Egypt’s sovereignty.</p>
<p>There is only so much leverage that the Obama administration can get out of a threat to cut off aid to Egypt. If the threat is not acted upon, it will only make the United States look even weaker. If it is carried out, we will be pushing Egypt into the arms of Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Arab States of the Persian Gulf to fill the gap.</p>
<p>Moreover, in continuing to advocate for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration is legitimizing a jihadist organization that spawned al Qaeda and Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood may put on the sheep’s clothing of faux moderation for tactical reasons when it can fool its opposition by doing so, but its ultimate objective is the same as al Qaeda’s &#8211; an Islamic caliphate governed by sharia law.</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s Supreme Guide and overall leader, Mohamed Badie, made his jihadist group’s agenda clear in a sermon he delivered in December 2011, as the Muslim Brotherhood was building up its political power following the toppling of the Mubarak regime. He said that the Muslim Brotherhood’s mission would start with the creation of a sound government and end with the establishment of an Islamic caliphate according to the plan laid out by the organization’s Egyptian founder, Hassan al-Banna, in 1928.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4650.htm">sermon Mohamed Badie delivered a little over a year earlier in September 2010</a> (as transcribed by The Middle East Media Research Institute), he made clear the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology of Islamic supremacy and resistance against the infidels, principally Israel and the United States:</p>
<blockquote><p>According to the Islamic shari&#8217;a that Allah [has bequeathed] to mankind, the status of the Muslims, compared to that of the infidel nations that arrogantly [disdain] his shari&#8217;a, is measured in a kind of scale, in which, when one side is in a state of superiority, the other is in a state of inferiority&#8230;Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny… The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is the true face of the jihadist group that President Obama is shilling for. His wrong-headed policy of accommodating the Muslim Brotherhood will only serve to help Badie’s game plan come to pass and further de-stabilize the Middle East.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Time to Confront Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/time-to-confront-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=time-to-confront-obama</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/time-to-confront-obama/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:51:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chemical weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorists]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=187297</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This week's events show Israel cannot afford to wait. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/obama-press-reut-670.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-187299" alt="obama-press-reut-670" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/obama-press-reut-670-450x319.jpg" width="270" height="191" /></a>Originally </i><a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=311131"><i>published</i></a><i> in The Jerusalem Post. </i></p>
<p>The time has come for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to confront US President Barack Obama.</p>
<p>A short summary of events from the past three days: On Tuesday morning, the head of the IDF&#8217;s Military Intelligence Analysis Division Brig. Gen. Itay Brun revealed that the Syrian government has already used &#8220;lethal chemical weapons,&#8221; against Syrian civilians and opposition forces. Brun described footage of people visibly suffering the impact of chemical agents, apparently sarin gas.</p>
<p>Hours later, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Netanyahu had told him on the telephone that &#8220;he was not in a position to confirm&#8221; Brun&#8217;s statement.</p>
<p>It is hard to imagine the US was taken by surprise by Brun&#8217;s statement. Just the day before, Brun briefed visiting US Defense secretary Chuck Hagel on Syria. It is not possible he failed to mention the same information.</p>
<p>And of course it isn&#8217;t just the IDF saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad is using chemical weapons. The British and the French are also saying this.</p>
<p>But as a European source told Ma&#8217;ariv, the Americans don&#8217;t want to know the facts. The facts will make them do something about Syria&#8217;s chemical weapons. And they don&#8217;t want to do anything about Syria&#8217;s chemical weapons.</p>
<p>So they force Netanyahu to disown his own intelligence.</p>
<p>Thursday afternoon, in a speech in Abu Dhabi, Hagel confirmed, &#8220;with some degree of varying confidence,&#8221; that Syria used chemical weapons, at least on a &#8220;small scale.&#8221;</p>
<p>What the administration means by &#8220;some degree of varying confidence,&#8221; is of course, unknowable with any degree of varying confidence.</p>
<p>Then there is Iran.</p>
<p>Also on Tuesday, the former head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, said that Iran has already crossed the red line Israel set last year. It has already stockpiled 170 kg. of medium-enriched uranium, and can quickly produce the other 80 kg. necessary to reach the 250 kg. threshold Netanyahu said will mark Iran&#8217;s achievement of breakout capability where it can build a nuclear arsenal whenever it wants.</p>
<p>Yadlin made a half-hearted effort Wednesday to walk back his pronouncements. But his basic message remained the same: The die has been cast.</p>
<p>Due to American pressure on Israel not to act, and due to the White House&#8217;s rejection of clearcut reports about Iran&#8217;s stockpile of enriched uranium, Iran has crossed the threshold. Iran will be a nuclear power unless its uranium enrichment installations and other nuclear sites are destroyed or crippled. Now.</p>
<p>True, the Americans set a different red line for Iran than Israel. They say they will not allow Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb. But to believe that the US has the capacity and the will to prevent Iran from climbing the top rung on the nuclear ladder is to believe in the tooth fairy &#8211; (see, for instance, North Korea).</p>
<p>Iran has threatened to use it nuclear arsenal to destroy Israel. Have we now placed our survival in the hands of Tinkerbell? And yet, rather than acknowledge what Iran has done, Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Moshe Ya&#8217;alon carry on with the tired act of talking about the need for a credible military option but saying that there is still time for sanctions and other non-military means to block Iran&#8217;s quest for the bomb.</p>
<p>Perhaps our leaders are repeating these lies because they want to present a unified US-Israel front to the world. But the effect is just the opposite.</p>
<p>What their statements really demonstrate is that Israel has been brought to its knees by its superpower patron that has implemented a policy that has enabled Iran to become a nuclear power.</p>
<p>Indeed, the US has allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold while requiring Israel to pretend the course the US has followed is a responsible one.</p>
<p>The announcement that the US has agreed to sell Israel advanced weapons specifically geared towards attacking Iran should also be seen in this light. Israel reportedly spent a year negotiating this deal. But immediately after its details were published, the US started backing away from its supposed commitment to supply them. The US will not provide Israel with bunker-buster bombs.</p>
<p>It will not provide Israel with the bombers necessary to use the bombs Israel isn&#8217;t getting. And anyway, by the time Israel gets the items the US is selling &#8211; like mid-air refuelers &#8211; it will be too late.</p>
<p>When, after overthrowing Saddam Hussein&#8217;s regime in Iraq, the US failed to find chemical weapons in the country, then-president George W. Bush&#8217;s Democratic opponents accused Bush of having politicized intelligence to justify his decision to topple Saddam. In truth, there is no evidence that Bush purposely distorted intelligence reports. Israel&#8217;s intelligence agencies, and perhaps French ones, were the only allied intelligence arms that had concluded Saddam&#8217;s chemical weapons &#8211; to the extent he had them &#8211; did not represent a threat.</p>
<p>The fact that Bush preferred US and British intelligence estimates over Israeli ones doesn&#8217;t mean that he politicized intelligence.</p>
<p>In contrast, what Obama and his advisers are doing represents the worst case of politicizing intelligence since Stalin arrested his senior security brass rather than heed their warnings of the coming German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.</p>
<p>Never in US history has there been a greater misuse and abuse of US intelligence agencies than there is today, under the Obama administration.</p>
<p>Take the Boston Marathon bombings. Each day more and more reports come out about the information US agencies had &#8211; for years &#8211; regarding the threat posed by the Boston Marathon bombers.</p>
<p>But how could the FBI have possibly acted on those threats? Obama has outlawed all discussion or study of jihad, Islamism, radical Islam and the Koran by US federal government agencies. The only law enforcement agency that monitors Islamic websites is the New York Police Department.</p>
<p>And its chief Ray Kelly has bravely maintained his policy despite massive pressure from the media and the political class to end his surveillance operations.</p>
<p>Everywhere else, from the Boston Police Department to the FBI and CIA, US officials are barred from discussing the threat posed by jihadists or even acknowledging they exist. People were impressed that Obama referred to the terrorist attack in Boston as a terrorist attack, because according to the administration-dictated federal lexicon, use of the word terrorism is forbidden, particularly when the act in question was perpetrated by Muslims.</p>
<p>Then there are the Palestinians. On Thursday, it was reported that in the midst of everything happening in the Middle East, Obama is planning to host a peace conference in Washington in June to reinstate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>The terms of reference for the conference are reportedly the 2002 Arab League &#8220;peace plan.&#8221;</p>
<p>Among other things, that plan requires Israel to accept millions of hostile foreign-born Arabs to whatever rump state it retains following a &#8220;peace&#8221; agreement with the PLO. In exchange for Israel agreeing to destroy itself, the Arab peace plan says the Arabs will agree to have &#8220;regular&#8221; relations with Israel. (&#8220;Regular&#8221; by the way, is a term devoid of meaning.) During his visit here last week, Kerry announced that the new US policy towards the Palestinians is to pour billions of dollars into the Palestinian economy. Among other things, the administration is going to convince US companies like Coca-Cola to open huge plants in Judea and Samaria.</p>
<p>Sounds fine. But as usual, there is a catch. The administration wants US firms to build their factories in Area C, the area of Judea and Samaria over which, in accordance with the agreements they signed with Israel, the Palestinians agreed Israel should hold sole control.</p>
<p>In essence, the policy Kerry announced is simply an American version of the EU&#8217;s policy of seeking to force Israel to give up control over Area C.</p>
<p>Area C, of course, is where all the Israeli communities are, and almost no Palestinians live.</p>
<p>Those Israeli communities and the 350,000 Jews who live in them are the strongest assertion of Israeli sovereign rights to Judea and Samaria. So the EU &#8211; and now the Americans &#8211; are doing everything they can to force Israel to destroy them. The campaign to coerce Israel into surrendering its sole control over Area C is a central component of that plan.</p>
<p>It cannot be said often enough: The administration&#8217;s focus on the Palestinian conflict with Israel in the midst of the violent disintegration of the Arab state system and the rise of jihadist forces throughout the region, coupled with Iran&#8217;s steady emergence as a regional power, is only understandable in the framework of a psychiatric &#8211; rather than policy &#8211; analysis.</p>
<p>For the past five years, perhaps Netanyahu&#8217;s greatest achievement in office has been his adroit avoidance of confrontations with Obama. With no one other than the US willing to stand with Israel in public, it is an important national interest for Jerusalem not to have any confrontations with Washington if they can possibly be avoided.</p>
<p>This attempt to avoid confrontations is what made Netanyahu agree to Obama&#8217;s anti-Jewish demand to deny Jews their property rights in Judea and Samaria in 2010. This is undoubtedly what stood behind Netanyahu&#8217;s decision to apologize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan during Obama&#8217;s visit to Israel last month. That apology constituted a moral abandonment of the IDF naval commandos who Netanyahu&#8217;s government sent &#8211; virtually unarmed &#8211; to face Turkish terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida and Hamas aboard the Mavi Marmara terror ship.</p>
<p>To a degree, all of Netanyahu&#8217;s seemingly unjustifiable actions can be justified when weighed against the need to avoid a confrontation with America.</p>
<p>But by now, after five years, with Iran having passed Israel&#8217;s red line, and with chemical weapons already in play in Syria, the jig is up.</p>
<p>Obama does not have Israel&#8217;s back.</p>
<p>Contrary to the constant, grinding rhetorical prattle of American and Israeli politicos, Obama will not lift a finger to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. He will not lift a finger to prevent chemical weapons from being transferred to the likes of al-Qaida and Hezbollah, and their colleagues in Syria, or used by the Syrian regime.</p>
<p>From Benghazi to Boston, from Tehran to Damascus, Obama&#8217;s policy is to not fight forces of jihad, whether they are individuals, organizations or states. And his obsession with Palestinian statehood shows that he would rather coerce Israel to make concessions to Palestinian Jew-haters and terrorists than devote his time and energy into preventing Iran from becoming the jihadist North Korea or from keeping sarin, VX and mustard gas out of the hands of Iran&#8217;s terrorist underlings and their Sunni competitors.</p>
<p>No, Israel doesn&#8217;t want a confrontation with Washington. But we don&#8217;t have any choice anymore.</p>
<p>The time has come to take matters into our own hands on Syria and Iran. In Syria, either Israel takes care of the chemical weapons, or if we can&#8217;t, Netanyahu must go before the cameras and tell the world everything we know about Syria&#8217;s chemical weapons and pointedly demand world &#8211; that is US &#8211; action to secure them.</p>
<p>As for Iran, either Israel must launch an attack without delay, or if we can&#8217;t, then Netanyahu has to publicly state that the time for diplomacy is over. Either Iran is attacked or it gets the bomb.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Texas School Kids Forced to Wear Burqa &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/threteaning-woodward-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=threteaning-woodward-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2013 04:00:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Glazov Gang]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[burqas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=179693</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The troubling Sharia education in Texas' public school system. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/threteaning-woodward-on-the-glazov-gang/burqa_edited-1/" rel="attachment wp-att-180553"><img class=" wp-image-180553 alignleft" title="burqa_edited-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/burqa_edited-1-382x350.jpg" alt="" width="267" height="245" /></a>On this week&#8217;s Glazov Gang, Morgan Brittany, Ann-Marie Murrell and Dwight Schultz gathered to discuss <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/texas-high-school-tells-teenage-girls-to-wear-burqas/"><em>Texas School Kids Forced to Wear Burqa</em></a>. The discussion occurred in<strong> Part I</strong> and focused on the troubling Sharia education in Texas&#8217; public school system. The dialogue followed an analysis of <em>Threatening Woodward</em>, which dealt with the thought crime of a journalist in the Obama-era. <strong>Part II</strong> highlighted Hagel heading to the Pentagon, MSNBC<em> </em>hiring Axelrod and Gibbs, the upcoming CPAC 2013, and much, much more.  To watch both parts of the two part series, see below:</p>
<p><strong>Part I:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VDfJ_s3oWqw" frameborder="0" width="425" height="325"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Part II:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xKcI-7bHkQc" frameborder="0" width="425" height="325"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Chuck Hagel&#8217;s Plan for U.S. Forces in &#8216;Palestine&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/chuck-hagels-plan-for-u-s-forces-in-palestine/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=chuck-hagels-plan-for-u-s-forces-in-palestine</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2013 04:52:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=179036</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Secretary of Defense nominee proposed forced two-state solution and troop occupation. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/chuck-hagels-plan-for-u-s-forces-in-palestine/chuck-hagel-e1361561112940/" rel="attachment wp-att-179040"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-179040" title="Chuck-Hagel-e1361561112940" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Chuck-Hagel-e1361561112940-450x312.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="187" /></a>On the eve of a Senate vote to confirm Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, <a href="http://www.fmep.org/analysis/analysis/A-Last-Chance-for-a-Two-State-Israel-Palestine-Agreement.pdf">a 2009 report co-authored by Hagel</a> has surfaced titled &#8220;A Last Chance For A Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement.&#8221; It called for Israel to make &#8220;the hard compromises and painful concessions for peace&#8221; without asking anything comparable from the Palestinian side. Indeed, the report warned against &#8220;the Jewish-American and Christian Zionist groups that feel comfortable amplifying the positions of Israeli politicians hostile to hard compromise and painful concession.&#8221;</p>
<p>One of Hagel&#8217;s principal co-signatories on the report was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had advised Obama on foreign policy during his first presidential campaign. Brzezinski has been openly hostile to Israel, accusing it of &#8220;brutal repression&#8221; and colonialism among other things &#8211; i.e., the Palestinian party line.</p>
<p>Hagel was obviously not interested in teaming up with an objective analyst, as reflected in the report. Its tone was set when it questioned the historic &#8220;intimacy of the American-Israeli relationship,&#8221; which it said is presenting &#8220;policy and security challenges for the U.S. in the Middle East and beyond.&#8221;</p>
<p>The principal painful concession recommended in the report was a two-state solution that would result in Israel having to retreat largely behind the indefensible pre-June1967 lines, with minor land swaps.  President Obama&#8217;s own proposal for a two-state solution mirrored this recommendation.</p>
<p>The report also endorsed a Jerusalem divided into two national capitals &#8220;with Jewish neighborhoods falling under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian sovereignty.&#8221; The reality on the ground, however, is that there is no such strict separation of populations all over Jerusalem. Rather there are some mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods. Many Jerusalem-area Arabs also would not want to give up so easily the benefits of living under Israeli sovereignty, such as superior health care, social security and better access to jobs.</p>
<p>Christian holy places would be administered by Palestine, a dubious proposition considering the experience in Palestinian-administered Bethlehem where Christians were a majority in 1990 and constitute only 15% of the population today. Christians there found the same type of conditions that Christians in Egypt, Iraq, Libya and other Muslim-controlled countries and regions have encountered &#8211; beatings, Palestinian occupation of churches, discrimination and other forms of intimidation. The one safe haven for Christians in the Middle East turns out to be Israel, where the Christian population has grown nearly five-fold since Israel gained its independence in 1948.</p>
<p>The report envisions a non-militarized Palestinian state for at least a transitional period, which has about as much chance of succeeding as the failed plan for disarming Hezbollah and other militias in Lebanon.</p>
<p>Who would enforce an imposed two state solution according to the recommendations signed off by Hagel? A &#8220;U.S.-led multinational force&#8221; which would be &#8220;under a UN mandate&#8221; and &#8220;feature American leadership of a NATO force supplemented by Jordanians, Egyptians and Israelis.&#8221; Jerusalem would have &#8220;a special security and administrative regime of its own.&#8221;</p>
<p>A NATO researcher estimated that about 60,000 US/NATO troops and about 160 billion dollars over 10 years would be required to carry out this UN mandate.</p>
<p>Moreover, our troops would be sitting ducks for the kind of terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of American soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. And if the report&#8217;s recommendation to include Jordanian and Egyptian soldiers in the U.S.-led multi-national force is followed, there is a risk of jihadists committing acts of terrorism from the inside as we have seen all too often in Afghanistan.  The last thing we need to do is engage in another long nation-building exercise that Islamists will propagandize as a Western crusader occupation and use to recruit more foot soldiers for jihad.</p>
<p>In providing a thumb-nail revisionist history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by way of background, the report highlighted the &#8220;considerable and ongoing Palestinian suffering&#8221; that accompanied &#8220;the creation and sustaining of a democratic Jewish State in the wake of the Holocaust.&#8221; This buys into the Palestinian victimhood narrative that they were innocents forced to pay a heavy price for a European event in which they had no part.  The truth is that the Palestinian leadership and its Arab neighbors threw away the chance for an independent Palestinian state which they could have had for the last sixty-four years. Moreover, the Palestinians under the leadership of such men as Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini collaborated with Nazi Germany. They ended up on the losing side, but still could have had their own state, living side by side in peaceful co-existence with Israel, if it weren&#8217;t for their determination to destroy the Jewish state from its inception.</p>
<p>Hamas maintains the same rejectionist stance today, but the report bearing Hagel&#8217;s name recommended U.S. engagement with the jihadist terrorist organization:</p>
<blockquote><p>In brief, shift the U.S. objective from ousting Hamas to modifying its behavior, offer it inducements that will enable its more moderate elements to prevail, and cease discouraging third parties from engaging with Hamas in ways that might help clarify the movement’s views and test its behavior.</p></blockquote>
<p>The idea that there are any &#8220;moderate elements&#8221; in Hamas is an oxymoron. Hamas is dedicated to the complete destruction of the Jewish state. This has not changed since the enactment of Hamas&#8217;s founding charter, which remains in effect.</p>
<p>Last December, for example, Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal stated:</p>
<p>”We are not giving up any inch of Palestine. It will remain Islamic and Arab for us and nobody else. Jihad and armed resistance is the only way. We cannot recognize Israel’s legitimacy. From the sea to the river, from north to south, we will not give up any part of Palestine — it is our country, our right and our homeland.”</p>
<p>So much for engaging Hamas on the contours of a two-state solution.</p>
<p>In 2011, Hamas&#8217;s former minister of &#8220;culture,&#8221; Atallah Abu Al-Subh, called Jews &#8220;the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the earth.&#8221;</p>
<p>Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense will be in a position to push the disastrous recommendations of the report he co-authored. It would not take much to convince Obama that they are worth trying, particularly if the UN puts its stamp of approval on the plan and it is conducted under the UN&#8217;s auspices. Any Senator foolish enough to confirm Chuck Hagel, given his demonstrated incompetence, will also have to explain to U.S. soldiers put in harm&#8217;s way if the recommendations endorsed by Hagel move forward.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Hagel: Israel An Apartheid State</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/hagel-israel-an-apartheid-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-israel-an-apartheid-state</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2013 04:57:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[apartheid]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama's choice for his defense secretary makes more sense as the appeasement dream team takes shape. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/hagel-israel-an-apartheid-state/hagel-5/" rel="attachment wp-att-178374"><img class=" wp-image-178374 alignleft" title="Hagel-5" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Hagel-5-450x281.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="197" /></a>President Obama&#8217;s would-be defense secretary claimed in a speech that Israel is a treaty-breaking rogue nation that is in the process of becoming an apartheid state.</p>
<p>The comments from top Pentagon nominee Chuck Hagel came two years ago during a question and answer session following a speech the former U.S. senator made at Rutgers School of Law. With his suspicious ties to theocratic Iran, Hagel is part of President Obama’s Islamist-appeasement dream team, alongside CIA director nominee John Brennan, and John Kerry, the pathologically anti-American Secretary of State.</p>
<p>Then-student Kenneth Wagner, a pro-Israel activist, recently <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://freebeacon.com/report-hagel-said-israel-headed-toward-apartheid-netanyahu-a-radical/">told</a></span> Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon about an email he sent during the April 9, 2010 event to a contact at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).</p>
<p>Recalling the content of the electronic missive, Wagner said Hagel:</p>
<blockquote><p>“basically said that Israel has violated every UN resolution since 1967, that Israel has violated its agreements &#8230; [and] was risking becoming an apartheid state if it didn’t allow the Palestinians to form a state. He said that the settlements were getting close to the point where a contiguous Palestinian state would be impossible.”</p></blockquote>
<p>“He said that he [thought] that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu was a radical and that even [former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi] Livni, who was hard nosed thought he was too radical and so wouldn’t join in a coalition [government] with him. … He said that [terrorist group] Hamas has to be brought in to any peace negotiation,” Wagner wrote.</p>
<p>Comparing Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, or to Nazi Germany in some of the more absurd analogies, is a common tactic Israel&#8217;s enemies use in an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state. Leftists committed to Israel&#8217;s destruction have long argued that Israel is an inherently racist country that mistreats Palestinians and Arabs. A United Nations General Assembly resolution in effect from 1975 to 1991 held that &#8220;Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hagel, a Republican who represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 1997 to 2009, is not known for holding back. He previously landed in hot water when he claimed “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people&#8221; on Capitol Hill. The comment came back to haunt him during a congressional confirmation hearing last week when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) repeatedly demanded to know who had allegedly been intimidated by Israel&#8217;s supporters.</p>
<p>Obama chose Hagel because the two see eye-to-eye on defense matters. Hagel is a man Obama believes he can count on to dismantle the Pentagon that his pal Bill Ayers bombed decades ago.</p>
<p>The Center for Security Policy says Hagel has &#8220;a highly troubling record on critical matters of national security which we believe should disqualify him from serving as Secretary of Defense.&#8221; The group cites Hagel&#8217;s support for U.S. nuclear disarmament and &#8220;his assertion after passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which already cut defense spending by $487 billion over ten years, that the Department of Defense is &#8216;bloated&#8217; and needs to be &#8216;paired down.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>The Center also opposes Hagel because of his &#8220;demonstrated hostility&#8221; to Israel and &#8220;his failure to appreciate the threat posed by Iran.&#8221;</p>
<p>These dangerous shortcomings are job requirements in the Obama administration.</p>
<p>Obama chose Hagel, a lightning rod among his fellow Republicans, precisely because he has long been hostile to Israel. Comparing that country to the formerly racially segregated South Africa is just Hagel&#8217;s latest criticism of America&#8217;s closest ally in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Echoing extremists and conspiracy theorists who have long claimed that the U.S. government is controlled by a shadowy Jewish cabal, in a 2007 speech at Rutgers then-Senator Hagel claimed the U.S. Department of State was an &#8220;adjunct&#8221; of the Israeli government.</p>
<p>When questioned by the Washington Free Beacon, political consultant and Hagel supporter George Ajjan, who attended the speech, stood by his recollection of what Hagel said.</p>
<p>“I’m a conscientious person,” Ajjan said. “When I was blogging at that time, I did my best to record things accurately … there’s no way that I would pick a phrase like ‘adjunct of the Israeli foreign ministry.’ That’s a pretty odd combination of words to use. I wouldn’t have just pulled those out of thin air.”</p>
<p>Hagel himself has disavowed the comments attributed to him and has said he does not remember making them. One of the individuals who arranged the 2007 event, Hooshang Amirahmadi, who is now seeking election as president of Iran, said Ajjan’s report on the speech is “complete nonsense.” He told the Washington Free Beacon that some of his “very good Jewish colleagues who are very pro-Israel” did not seem to be offended during the speech.</p>
<p>Amirahmadi, director of the Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies, has reportedly accepted money from the Alavi Foundation, a charity that federal law enforcement officials say is a front group for the Iranian regime. Amirahmadi also runs the American Iranian Council, which has honored Hagel in the past.</p>
<p>Last week the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 14 to 11 to send Hagel&#8217;s nomination to the full Senate chamber where Republicans have been successfully preventing its consideration.</p>
<p>The blocking of the nomination has caused apoplexy and psychiatric maladies on the Left. For example, the preening phony centrist pundit John Avlon is <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/15/the-republicans-ugly-and-shameful-chuck-hagel-filibuster.html">outraged</a></span> that Republicans are favoring principle over political expediency by daring to oppose Obama&#8217;s radical nominees:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Senate Republicans have doubled down on obstructionism with their shameful filibuster of secretary-of-defense nominee Chuck Hagel. Add to this fresh insult the hold Sen. Rand Paul put on Obama’s nominee to be CIA director, John Brennan, and it looks like Republicans are backing a cynical political strategy that could compromise national security while proliferating hyperpartisanship even further in the future.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Of course Avlon has it exactly wrong. In a rare fit of political courage, Republicans are blocking Obama nominees precisely because they pose a threat to U.S. national security. Randomly selected deputies at the Pentagon and the CIA would likely do a better job defending America than Obama&#8217;s radical picks. Despite Avlon&#8217;s all-too-predictable whining, in this case all the cynicism is on Obama&#8217;s side.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Republicans already appear to be losing their will to fight, and seem ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even though some Democratic senators, citing Hagel&#8217;s abysmal confirmation hearing testimony in which he appeared confused, even ignorant of current U.S. policy, have asked Obama to <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://freebeacon.com/woodward-dems-have-asked-wh-to-pull-hagel/">withdraw</a></span> the nomination, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Graham reportedly now favor allowing Hagel to have an up-or-down vote in the Senate.</p>
<p>But McCain and Graham could still change their minds.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Hagel Derailed &#8212;&#8211; For Now</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/hagel-derailed-for-now/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-derailed-for-now</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:58:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama's dangerous foreign policy agenda suffers a setback.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/hagel-derailed-for-now/hagel-small-file/" rel="attachment wp-att-177749"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177749" title="Hagel small file" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Hagel-small-file-691x1024.jpg" alt="" width="296" height="439" /></a><strong>Editor’s note: The graphic on the left is created by our IllustWriter <a href="http://fawstin.blogspot.com/">Bosch Fawstin</a>. Visit his site <a href="http://fawstin.blogspot.com/">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Defying a furious White House and Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans successfully <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/14/republicans-filibuster-hagel-confirmation-as-benghazi-battle-intensifies/">filibustered</a> Chuck Hagel&#8217;s nomination for Secretary of Defense. The tally was 58-40, with one “present” vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) switched his vote from “yes” to “no,” a procedural move that allows him to revisit Hagel&#8217;s nomination after the Senate recess. The move was historic, in that a Cabinet Secretary has never been successfully filibustered before. Republicans claimed they will allow an up-or-down vote on Hagel only after they get more information about the debacle in Benghazi. For the moment, Obama&#8217;s dangerous foreign policy agenda, personified by the Hagel nomination, has been slowed. But it will not be for long.</p>
<p>Republicans also want <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/army/283279-senate-gop-blocks-hagel-nomination-in-vote">more information</a> from Hagel himself. They blame Democrats for attempting to rush the vote, and the White House for failing to provide more information regarding compensation Hagel received for speeches he has made. Earlier this week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/mccarthyite-accusation-radical.html">argued</a> that such records were necessary because Hagel may have given speeches, or received compensation, from &#8220;radical or extreme groups.&#8221; This allegation enraged Hagel supporters, who characterized it as &#8220;McCarthyite,&#8221; but Cruz didn&#8217;t back down. &#8220;We saw with this nomination something truly extraordinary, which is the government of Iran formally and publicly praising the nomination of a Defense Secretary,&#8221; said Cruz on Tuesday. &#8220;I would suggest to you that to my knowledge that is unprecedented, to see a foreign nation like Iran publicly celebrating a nomination.&#8221;</p>
<p>As usual, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was far more conciliatory. “I think it’s appropriate to wait until we come back,” he said, referring to the fact that the Senate will be on break until February 25. “I think there’s plenty of time to have any further questions answered and I intend to vote for cloture then…He’d certainly get mine and a number of others.”</p>
<p>Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid employed his familiar over-the-top rhetoric, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57569419/reid-warns-against-delaying-hagels-confirmation/">claiming</a> the nation would be without a Secretary of Defense should Hagel&#8217;s nomination be delayed. &#8220;Republicans have been telling our troops, you can have a leader later,&#8221; Reid huffed, even as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made it clear he would stay on until Hagel is confirmed. Reid further noted that Hagel has &#8220;answered exhaustive questions about his record.&#8221;</p>
<p>Not quite. On Tuesday, it was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/12/hagel-omitted-two-speeches-on-middle-east-from-senate-disclosure-forms/">learned</a> that Hagel did not include to Senate investigators two speeches he made regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. His supporters in the Senate and the administration claimed those speeches were &#8220;informal,&#8221; and thus it was not required that he turn them over to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In fairness, one of those <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/02/hagels-adc-speech-long-sought-by-rightwing-blogs-157059.html">speeches</a>, given before the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) on June 13, 2008, was hardly the &#8220;smoking gun&#8221; many on the right was hoping it would be. Yet it contained one disquieting element that dovetails quite nicely with a president who <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/a_teachable_moment_for_barack.html">believes</a> that American exceptionalism isn&#8217;t particularly exceptional and that Islamic jihad is a jingoistic fantasy. According to Hagel, &#8220;there&#8217;s not one religion, not one region of the world… that represents the most valued and real human dimensions more than any other…I don&#8217;t find any one religion where people love their children more than the other religions, or whether they want peace more than other religions…I&#8217;ve never found that difference, whether you&#8217;re Jewish, Muslim Buddhist, Christian.&#8221;</p>
<p>Perhaps Chuck has missed the copious amount of information that reveals the culture of hate <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian_incitement/Hamas%20Mickey%20Mouse%20teaches%20children%20to%20hate%20and%20kill%2010-May-2007">embraced</a> by Palestinians, including a TV character named Farfur, a Mickey Mouse look-alike &#8220;martyred&#8221; in the show&#8217;s last episode, after being beaten to death by a Jew. Maybe he’s never heard about Palestinian children being <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/12/19/palestinians-training-kids-to-be-suicide-bombers">trained</a> as suicide bombers. The content of the second speech, given at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies on September 22, 2008, remains unavailable.</p>
<p>Hagel should be grateful the Senate Armed Services Committee only required &#8220;formal speeches&#8221; from 2008 onward. The Washington Free Beacon reveals an eye-witness <a href="http://freebeacon.com/report-hagel-said-state-department-controlled-by-israel/">account</a> of a speech given by Hagel in 2007 at Rutgers University in New Jersey, while he was still a senator with presidential aspirations.  <a href="http://www.ajjan.com/2007/03/hagel-in-nj-0-delegates-down-78-to-go.html">According</a> to Republican political consultant George Ajjan, a Hagel supporter, the Defense Secretary nominee contended that the State Department was controlled by Israel, saying it had &#8220;become adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister&#8217;s office[.]&#8221; Ajjan also noted that Hagel &#8220;spoke enthusiastically about the talks on Iraqi stability that will be attended by all the stakeholders, including Iran, Syria, and the US sitting around the same table.&#8221;</p>
<p>Later yesterday, a <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/heres-is-the-prepared-text-of-chuck-hagels-speech-to-rutgers">prepared text</a> of Hagel&#8217;s remarks from that day was released. Astoundingly, Hagel doubled down on his fairly tale view of Iran, noting their supposed cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan:</p>
<blockquote><p>Iran has cooperated with the United States on Afghanistan to help the Afghans establish a new government after the Taliban was ousted. Iran continues to invest heavily in the reconstruction of western Afghanistan.</p>
<p>On Afghanistan, the United States and Iran found common interests&#8211;defeating the Taliban and Islamic radicals, stabilizing Afghanistan, stopping the opium production and the flow of opium coming into Iran. From these common interests emerged common actions working toward a common purpose. It was in the interests of Iran to work with the U.S. in Afghanistan. It was not a matter of helping America or strengthening America&#8217;s presence in Central Asia. It was a clear-eyed and self-serving action for Iran.</p></blockquote>
<p>Furthermore, Hagel advocated &#8220;offering to re-open a consulate in Tehran&#8230;not formal diplomatic relations&#8230;but a Consulate&#8230;to help encourage and facilitate people-to-people exchange.” Much like the excerpt from 2008 above, such notions speak to the utter inaccuracy of Hagel&#8217;s predictions, and a bizarrely out-of-touch worldview.</p>
<p>That worldview is further illuminated by Hagel’s relationship with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank he chairs. A report released Tuesday <a href="http://freebeacon.com/the-atlantic-councils-sanctions-busting-backers/">reveals</a> that several foreign corporations funding the Atlantic Council have either attempted to violate, or have violated, American and European sanctions against Iran. One of those sponsors, Italian oil company Eni, was even &#8220;proud&#8221; of its cooperation with the fanatical regime. Another, Deutsche Bank, is being investigated by the U.S. for sanction violations. Hagel is a Deutsche Bank board member.</p>
<p>Since 2010, Hagel has also <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Chuck-Hagel-s-Chevron-tie-not-criticized-4197225.php">been</a> on the board of the Chevron Corporation. That year the company <a href="http://www.chevron.com/chevron/pressreleases/article/09202010_chevronacquiresdeepwaterexplorationlease.news">signed</a> a Joint Operation Agreement with Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı (TPAO), Turkey’s state oil company, for a Black Sea exploration license. More than ten percent of the Atlantic Council&#8217;s sponsors are linked to Turkish energy entities and companies invested in the Turkish energy sector. They buy as much as 90 percent of Iran&#8217;s natural gas exports. Turkey is also facilitating Iran&#8217;s evasion of sanctions by allowing Tehran to convert oil revenues into gold, which, unlike Turkish currency, can be transported back to Iran. “Turkey is allowing Iran to access means to use the revenues from oil for whatever purposes Iran seeks,” said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Turks so far have not been willing to do the things you’d expect them to do to squeeze Iran.”</p>
<p>Although Hagel now claims to support sanctions, provided they are multilateral, both he and the Atlantic Council have been critical of them in the past. And it is yet unclear whether Hagel was aware of the sanction-busting efforts of his corporate sponsors &#8212; which is why yesterday&#8217;s vote delaying his nomination makes sense. “We really need more information, more disclosure, before we can know if Sen. Hagel did something wrong here,” said a congressional aide who has worked on Iranian sanction issues. “The obvious question for Sen. Hagel would be what did you know, when did you know it, and what did you do about it after you found out.”</p>
<p>That goes double for the other reason Republicans delayed this nomination, namely Benghazi. The administration has provided some information, noting that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contacted Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf on Obama&#8217;s behalf the day of the attack, and that Obama spoke to him on the September 12.</p>
<p>Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been the most vociferous Republican with regard to <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/14/gop-senators-delay-hagel-vote-over-benghazi/">demanding</a> answers. “There seems to not be much interest to hold this president accountable for a national security breakdown that led to the first ambassador being killed in the line of duty in over 30 years,” Graham said. “No, the debate on Chuck Hagel is not over. It has not been serious. We don’t have the information we need. And I’m going to fight the idea of jamming somebody through until we get answers about what the president did personally when it came to the Benghazi debacle.”</p>
<p>Graham further contended that Obama only spoke to the Libyan government &#8220;after everybody was dead,&#8221; suggesting that it was possible the president might have made a difference if he hadn&#8217;t, as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta <a href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0213/ahlert020813.php3">testified,</a> left the entire operation up to him and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. Democrats and an utterly corrupt mainstream media have ignored the reality that Barack Obama not only showed no further concern at any point during the eight hours of fighting that cost four American their lives, but attended a fund-raiser in Las Vegas the following day.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Republicans&#8217; newfound character may be a temporary aberration. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) was one of a number of Republican Senators who suggested that a cloture vote might not even be necessary after the recess. He even believed the White House would provide the requested information. “I think the legitimate information that’s been asked for will come,” Corker said. “Some people may have asked for things that are over the top&#8211;I don’t know that, by the way&#8211;but I think the legitimate requests will be answered.”</p>
<p>One is left to imagine what constitutes over-the-top with regard to a thoroughly inept nominee for Secretary of Defense, and massive disinformation campaign surrounding the deaths of four Americans in Libya. Harry Reid has <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/harry-reid-blasts-gop-over-chuck-hagel-block-87659.html">scheduled</a> another vote for February 26, during which he and his fellow Democrats expect Hagel to be confirmed.</p>
<p>For the next eleven days, Democrats and their media allies will whine about Republican obstructionism. Republicans need to spend their time reminding Americans of Hagel’s utter lack of qualifications, as well as the mockery that the self-described &#8220;most transparent administration in history&#8221; has become. The families of four dead Americans, along with countless other Americans who put their lives on the line for this nation, deserve nothing less.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Hagel, Obama and the Israeli Elections</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/caroline-glick/hagel-obama-and-the-israeli-elections/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-obama-and-the-israeli-elections</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Dec 2012 04:54:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[defense secretary]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If Obama backs down on Hagel's elevation to Defense Secretary, we have learned an important lesson.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/caroline-glick/hagel-obama-and-the-israeli-elections/hagel-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-171118"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-171118" title="hagel" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/hagel1.jpg" alt="" width="259" height="320" /></a>The National Journal recently reported that Obama is reconsidering his decision to appoint Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense. As I wrote in my previous post, there is no chance that Obama will appoint a supporter of a strong Israel to any senior foreign policy post because he wouldn&#8217;t appoint someone who doesn&#8217;t share his basic animosity towards Israel. But in Hagel, he chose someone even more outspoken in his animus towards the Jewish state than Obama.</p>
<p>Hagel&#8217;s looming appointment provoked angry responses from many leading Jewish voices in the US. Whether this opposition made a difference in driving Obama to reconsider his choice is unclear. Plenty of other influential groups &#8211; including senators, members of the military and lobbyists for homosexual rights &#8211; expressed their discomfort and opposition to the prospect of having Hagel serve as Defense Secretary. Still it is notable that Hagel&#8217;s possible appointment sparked an outcry among prominent American Jews and that this outcry had some unknown impact on Obama&#8217;s possible decision to cancel Hagel&#8217;s appointment.</p>
<p>If Obama indeed scuttles Hagel&#8217;s elevation to Defense Secretary, it shows that it is possible to fight Obama on foreign policy even in his second term, and <a href="http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2012/12/hagel-obama-and-the-israeli-el.php#">win</a>, at least sometimes. This is important information for Republicans, American Jews, and the Israeli government.</p>
<p>Obama will have multiple, massive domestic challenges to contend with in his second term. If he wishes to focus on advancing his domestic agenda, he may well punt on foreign affairs.</p>
<p>The US President&#8217;s inbox is always overflowing. One of the hardest things for a president to do is take control over his own agenda.</p>
<p>Just consider the issue of gun control. Certainly, as a liberal Democrat, Obama is for it. But Obama has never made the issue of restricting gun ownership  a priority during his presidency. Now in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, he is suddenly spending a lot of time on the issue and going into a head to head battle with the National Rifle Association.</p>
<p>Maybe Obama will win this battle. Maybe he&#8217;ll lose it. But he will be focusing on it a lot in the coming weeks. Again, this is not an issue that was ever central to his agenda. But due to an unforeseen event, it has become an issue that he is now forced to spend time on.</p>
<p>There are of course, many more foreseeable issues Obama will have to devote his presidential time, energy and capital to. The biggest among them is Obamacare. Budgetary and tax woes are not far behind. With only 24 hours in the day, Obama will not be able to focus on Israel or foreign policy on a daily basis. And in order to make time for other things, which are more important to him, or more immediately pressing, Obama may be willing to back down.</p>
<p>As I was working on my book this morning, I came across an <a href="http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2005/12/the-likuds-strategy.php">article</a> I wrote before the 2006 elections in Israel. In it, I argued that the reason the Sharon government had such good relations with the US was because it bowed to every US demand, no matter how antithetical it was to Israel&#8217;s national interests. At that time, I mentioned Sharon&#8217;s decision to set aside his concerns and bow to US pressure to permit Hamas to participate in the Palestinian Authority&#8217;s legislative elections in January 2006.</p>
<p>For bending to Washington&#8217;s will, Israel got plaudits from Rice and Bush. But we also got Hamas in charge, an even more radicalized Fatah racing to prove its own terror bona fides to measure up to Hamas, and increased international isolation for Israel as nation after nation began softening to the idea of Hamas being a legitimate organization.</p>
<p>In retrospect, it would certainly have been better for Israel &#8211; and for America &#8211; if Sharon had stood up to Rice and simply refused to permit Hamas to participate in the elections. It would have been better to have had a public fight with Washington and kept Hamas out of power than maintain warm relations with the Bush administration while empowering a terror group that openly seeks the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.</p>
<p>This brings us to Obama, his apparent decision to stand down on Hagel,  US relations with Israel in Obama&#8217;s second term in office, and finally to how the Israeli election campaign plays into all of these things.</p>
<p>Here in Israel, the Left&#8217;s basic diplomatic attack on Netanyahu involves accusing him of having wrecked  Israel&#8217;s relations with the US by standing up to Obama. But whereas by not standing up to Bush and Rice, Israel got Hamas in power and missiles on Jerusalem, by standing up to Obama, Israel is still in control of Judea and Samaria and the two-state delusion has been increasingly discredited in Israel, and to a lesser degree in the US.</p>
<p>Moreover on Iran, Israel has coaxed a reluctant US administration into passing serious sanctions against Iran, and while the economic pressure hasn&#8217;t made any dent in Iran&#8217;s nuclear weapons program, Israeli pressure has made it harder for Obama to simply accept Iranian nuclear weapons. Vocally expressing Israeli concerns has certainly helped Republicans maintain pressure on Obama to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and publicly support a potential Israeli strike against Iran&#8217;s nuclear installations.</p>
<p>It is understandable that Netanyahu is keeping mum on his diplomatic achievements. He can&#8217;t risk even worse relations with Obama by mentioning his success in keeping the US President at bay in his quest to diminish Israel&#8217;s strategic options.</p>
<p>What makes less sense is his decision to adopt the Left&#8217;s talking points against the Right in his assault on the Jewish Home Party and its leader Naftali Bennett.</p>
<p>Last Thursday Bennett was conned by television personality Nissim Mishal into discussing what his  personal response as a soldier would be to the completely hypothetical issue of IDF expulsions of Jews in Judea and Samaria. The issue is artificial is because no one is proposing a mass expulsions of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria today. The Palestinians are uninterested in negotiating with Israel. Netanyahu is uninterested in surrendering land. And the Left, which would like to cut and run, has no chance of winning next month&#8217;s elections.</p>
<p>So Mishal manipulated Bennett into an irrelevant policy discussion in order to embarrass him.  Bennett said that he would personally object to fulfilling an order to expel Jews from their homes, and if necessary, bear the personal consequences.</p>
<p>Netanyahu himself is quite familiar with Nissim Mishal&#8217;s manipulations of political theater to embarrass candidates on the Right. In 1999, during a televised candidates&#8217; debate when Netanyahu ran for reelection as Prime Minister, Mishal repeatedly interjected himself into the debate to support rival candidate Yitzhak Mordechai&#8217;s character attacks on Netanyahu.</p>
<p>Mordechai, who would be convicted of serial sexual harassment two years later, accused Netanyahu of lacking honesty, integrity and decency, saying &#8220;you know your best friends don&#8217;t believe you.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mishal then chimed in, asking Netanyahu if he had any friends.</p>
<p>Bennett and the Jewish Home party are potentially Likud&#8217;s largest coalition partner. Rather than leave Bennett alone, Likud has opened an all-out war against him, castigating him as an extremist.</p>
<p>I certainly understand the impulse to attack. Bennett is cannibalizing Likud voters. And recently, he opened an ill-advised, counterproductive attack on Likud and Netanyahu. But by attacking one another, Bennett and Netanyahu are discrediting their own positions.</p>
<p>Does Netanyahu really want to argue that it is extremist to oppose the forcible expulsion of Jews from land Netanyahu himself argues Israel needs to defend itself from external invasion?</p>
<p>Does Bennett really want to argue that the prime ministerial candidate he favors, and in whose government he hopes to sit is too weak to be trusted to lead Israel?</p>
<p>Israel faces massive challenges in the coming years. The apparent scuttling of Hagel&#8217;s appointment is a hopeful sign that if we keep our heads about us, we can prevent Obama from taking steps that are truly antithetical to Israel&#8217;s survival.</p>
<p>But we must understand, the reason Hagel&#8217;s appointment was apparently abandoned is because the opposition to his appointment was strong, coherent, and unified. Israel needs a strong, coherent government to meet the challenges it will face in the next four years, including working with a hostile Obama administration. We won&#8217;t get one if the leaders of the nationalist camp are using the Left to weaken and discredit one another.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Islamic Republic and Stephen Walt &#8212; Giddy Over Prospect of Chuck Hagel Nomination</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ari-lieberman/islam-republic-and-stephen-walt-giddy-over-prospect-of-chuck-hagel-nomination/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam-republic-and-stephen-walt-giddy-over-prospect-of-chuck-hagel-nomination</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:46:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170424</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The former Senator's supporters should give cause for alarm.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ari-lieberman/islam-republic-and-stephen-walt-giddy-over-prospect-of-chuck-hagel-nomination/hagel/" rel="attachment wp-att-170481"><img class=" wp-image-170481 alignleft" title="hagel" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/hagel-450x301.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="211" /></a>On December 18, Press TV, Iran’s official government propaganda outlet <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/18/278706/israeli-squads-tied-to-newtown-carnage/">featured</a> a miscreant who attempted to tie the Sandy Hook massacre to “Jewish owned Hollywood” and “Israeli hit squads.” This type of “journalism” is quite the norm for Press TV. It routinely features outrageous programming that aims to denigrate “enemies of the state,” with special emphasis on Jews and Israel.</p>
<p>It therefore comes as no surprise that Press TV was downright giddy when <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/16/278358/antiisraeli-in-obama-pentagon-chief-list/">reporting</a> about the prospect of Chuck Hagel becoming one of the most powerful men in the White House. The article featured Hagel’s lengthy anti-Israel record and this presumably sits well with Iran’s fascist Mullah theocrats.</p>
<p>The Talkbacks were even more enlightening with each one vying for more “likes” by stoking the flames of hate. One stood out as particularly revealing. A Talkbacker going by the username of “12 imami” (wonder what that could possibly mean) commented, “SLOWLY BUT SURELY&#8230;.. INSHALLAH!” All in caps, of course.</p>
<p>It scares me when the President’s top Pentagon pick gets raves from Iranians. Iran’s enthusiastic nod of approval likely stems from Hagel’s failure to sign off on bipartisan letters naming Hezbollah and the IRGC terrorist groups. It also stems from his lackadaisical attitude toward Iran’s nuclear arms ambitions as well as his association with an assortment of past anti-Israel actions and rhetoric.</p>
<p>Of course Iran wasn’t the only happy camper on the block. Stephen Walt, co-author of &#8220;The Israel Lobby,&#8221; a <a href="http://standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/WM_Booklet.pdf">thoroughly discredited work of fiction</a>, came out full-court press in favor of Hagel. When it comes to Israel-bashing, Walt rates among the top contenders. His co-authored screed features veiled anti-Semitism and its list of endorsers include bottom feeders such as former KKK leader David Duke and Holocaust denier, Mark Weber</p>
<p>In his <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3129795.Stephen_Walt/blog">blog</a>, Walt cites payback against Prime Minister Netanyahu as a reason to appoint Hagel. That revenge would figure prominently in Walt’s reasoning speaks volumes about what kind of hateful and unsavory character Walt truly is. Walt despises Israel for reasons best known, and what better way to get back at Israel than to appoint as defense chief a former senator who, among all senators, arguably maintained the most viscerally hostile attitude toward Israel.</p>
<p>But Hagel’s hostility did not stop with Israel. It was directed against Jews as well. According to AJC Executive Director David Harris, In 1999 Hagel was the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2012/12/19/more-trouble-for-hagel/">only senator</a> who refused to sign a letter to then Russian President Boris Yeltsin urging action against rising anti-Semitism in that country. That action personifies Hagel but Walt shamefully doesn’t even bother to address it. Who cares about xenophobia? So long as it’s only directed against those troublesome, pesky Jews.</p>
<p>They say you can judge a man by his friends. By logical extension, you can also judge him by his supporters and judging by that standard, Hagel is radioactive.</p>
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