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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; mullahs</title>
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		<title>A Victory For the Ruling Clerics</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/a-victory-for-the-ruling-clerics/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-victory-for-the-ruling-clerics</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2014 05:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clerics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mullahs]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246718</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[More time to secure the bomb. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Irans-supreme-leader-Ayat-007.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246719" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Irans-supreme-leader-Ayat-007.jpg" alt="Irans-supreme-leader-Ayat-007" width="259" height="211" /></a>While the Obama administration formerly stated that extending the nuclear talks is out of equation, nevertheless, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry raised the option of an extension a day before the November 24th deadline. Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, definitely welcomed the idea.</p>
<p>After over a year of negotiations, which have traveled across the globe from Vienna, to Oman, and to New York, the negotiators (the Islamic Republic and the P5+1: China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) planned to <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/11/23/Iran-reaching-nuke-deal-on-Nov-24-impossible-.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">extend</span></a> the nuclear talks for another seven months in order to finalize the preliminary deal reached last year in Geneva. Accordingly, the nuclear negotiations will continue through the end of June.</p>
<p>The obscure objectives are to achieve a “headline” agreement by March 1st and seal the complete technical details of the <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/11/23/Iran-reaching-nuke-deal-on-Nov-24-impossible-.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">headline </span></a>agreement by July 1st. Details and nuances of the nuclear talks, with regards to agreements and gaps, have yet to be released, but some diplomats stated the repeatedly-heard phrase that “<a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/11/23/Iran-reaching-nuke-deal-on-Nov-24-impossible-.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">progress</span></a> has been made.&#8221;</p>
<p>The nuclear extension definitely lacks any clear key terms upon which prospective nuclear talks would be anchored or that give any idea how a final nuclear deal could be reached.</p>
<p>But what is clear is that the Islamic Republic, particularly the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have gained considerable amount of geopolitical, geostrategic and economic advantages from this offer by the Obama administration. The Supreme Leader’s strategies to buy time, regain full recovery in the economy, pursue his regional hegemonic and ideological ambitions,  and reinitiate his government’s nuclear program have been fulfilled.</p>
<p>Based on the extension offered by the Obama administration, the Islamic Republic will continue receiving <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/11/23/Iran-reaching-nuke-deal-on-Nov-24-impossible-.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">$700<b> </b></span></a>million per month in frozen assets during the extended seven month period. Secondly, Iran will further consolidate its economy through increased sales in oil, particularly to Asian countries, heighten business deals with some Western companies, regain the value of its currency, and enjoy the removed sanctions on some of its industries. As a result, Iran will attempt to address the economic challenges which were threatening the hold on power of the ruling politicians.</p>
<p>From the economic perspective, the $700 million in sanctions relief will boost Iran’s economy as it is an equivalence of approximately 350,000 more oil barrels a day, based on the current market price.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic exports roughly one <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/11/iran-oil-economy-falling-prices-crude-exports-market-reacts.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">million</span></a> barrels of crude oil in a day. The sanctions relief would be equivalent to a 30 percent increase in oil sale.  In the next few months, Tehran will attempt to push for additional sanctions relief as well as ratchet up its economic deals, such export of gas and other goods, to some European and Eastern countries including France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and China.</p>
<p>Some European countries&#8217; exports to Iran have already ratcheted up due to the prospects of the nuclear negotiations. Tehran Times, the Islamic Republic’s state newspaper, stated that Germany was Iran’s leading trade <a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/Analysis-Its-business-as-usual-as-some-of-Israels-friends-in-Europe-increase-trade-with-Iran-374622"><span style="color: #0433ff;">partner</span></a> “The European country (Germany) exported €207 million of goods to Iran in June 2014, an 88 percent rise compared to June 2013.” Nevertheless, Tehran needs the complete lifting of economic sanctions in order to gain the optimal potentials of its economy and gain full recovery.</p>
<p>Third, the extension of the nuclear negotiations will ensure to the Iranian leaders that the international community, specifically the West, will not make efforts in further isolating Iran and pressuring it economically or politically.</p>
<p>In addition, the extension of nuclear talks offered to the Islamic Republic is not going to alter Iran’s stand on its nuclear program. Iran will continue holding the position that their demands for the following issues to be met: maintaining a specific number (tens of thousands of) fast-spinning centrifuge machines, Tehran should have the capacity to produce nuclear fuel in the future, and maintain specific level of enriching uranium. In the next few months, the Islamic Republic is not going to give up its capacity to produce plutonium which can be utilized for weapons at its heavy water reactor in the city of Arak. Iran is less likely to provide more evidence proving that it did not carry out secret tests on the development of atomic weapons in Parchin or other military complexes. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency recently pointed out that the Islamic Republic continues to deny the IAEA access to sensitive military site which are suspected to be used for nuclear activities.</p>
<p>Finally, the Islamic Republic’s antagonistic stance towards the United States and the West will remain the same as well. This week, while Khamenei officially granted his blessing to Rouhani to continue with the game of nuclear negotiations, he also called the West “<span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Khamenei-Arrogant-world-powers-failed-to-bring-Iran-to-its-knees-382776">arrogant</a>.</span>” Earlier, he published a &#8220;9-step plan&#8221; to eliminate Israel. After the extension of the nuclear talks, President Rouhani <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2848810/Iran-wont-brought-knees-nuclear-issue-Khamenei.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">pointed out</span></a> on state television that &#8220;I promise the Iranian nation that those centrifuges will never stop working.&#8221; The extension not only will not alter the Islamic Republic’s position on its nuclear program, but will give the ruling clerics the opportunity to be further empowered, making them more determined to pursue their regional hegemonic ambitions.</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>Two Lethal Threats to America &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/two-lethal-threats-to-america-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=two-lethal-threats-to-america-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 04:00:04 +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=242445</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A sobering look at two ominous dangers on the horizon. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/lf.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242447" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/lf.jpg" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="258" height="194" /></a><strong>[<a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf">Subscribe</a> to <em>The Glazov Gang</em> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang">LIKE</a> it on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang">Facebook.]</a></strong></p>
<p>This week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em> was joined by Conservative Entrepreneur <strong>Monty Morton</strong>, who came on the show to warn us about <strong>Two Lethal Threats to America:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DuMR7-ddCMQ" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t miss this week&#8217;s second episode with<strong> Ako Eyong</strong>, a journalist from Cameroon, West Africa, where he became a political dissident and was eventually exiled for critiquing the government. He is the author of the new novel, <a class="profileLink" href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Vision-of-the-Blind-King/388021917887014" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=388021917887014">The Vision of the Blind King</a>.</p>
<p>Ako came on the show to discuss &#8220;A Cameroon Dissident’s Love Affair With America,&#8221; discussing his appreciation of living in the U.S., his new novel, the vital importance for a nation not to abandon God, the conflict between love and fear, and much, much more:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/p1PidB3U2jA" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><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>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Iran Declares War on Hollywood</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-tapson/iran-declares-war-on-hollywood/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-declares-war-on-hollywood</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 04:45:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Mullahs seek a PR makeover.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/argo-still.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-188720" alt="argo-still" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/argo-still-448x350.jpg" width="269" height="210" /></a>In <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/14/world/meast/iran-argo-response">response</a> to last year’s Oscar-winning film <i>Argo</i>, based on the real-life rescue of a handful of American citizens during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Tehran <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/13/world/meast/iran-argo-response">plans</a> to sue Hollywood filmmakers who participate in the production of such “anti-Iran” propaganda films.</p>
<p>In the movie, in which director Ben Affleck also plays the lead role, Iranian officials are shown being outwitted by an elaborate CIA plan to camouflage the U.S. diplomats fleeing the country as part of a team scouting locations for an outlandish science-fiction film.</p>
<p>Iranian authorities have labeled <i>Argo</i> a propaganda attack against their nation and humanity. The country’s state-run broadcaster Press TV complains that the film is “a far cry from a balanced narration” and is “replete with historical inaccuracies and distortions.” The film was banned from the general public – not that this accomplished anything, since an estimated “several hundred thousand copies” have been sold by DVD bootleggers who <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/outlawed-argo-dvds-are-selling-by-the-thousands-in-iran-2013-2#ixzz2S8NvZF7Z">say</a> it’s their biggest seller in years. As an additional measure, Iranian officials <a href="http://www.heavy.com/news/2013/03/iran-to-sue-argo-affleck-top-10-facts-you-need-to-know/">held</a> a private screening of <i>Argo</i> as part of a conference called “The Hoax of Hollywood” and called it a “violation of international cultural norms,” whatever those are.</p>
<p>Press TV detailed its objections to the film in an online article: “The Iranophobic American movie attempts to describe Iranians as overemotional, irrational, insane, and diabolical while at the same time, the CIA agents are represented as heroically patriotic.” At the risk of speaking for Ben Affleck, I would respond that the movie does not depict all Iranians this way, only the murderous Islamic fundamentalists who took over the country, and who already do a great job living up to the description “irrational and diabolical.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Press TV reports that offended Iranian officials have talked to an “internationally-renowned” French lawyer about filing a lawsuit. “I will defend Iran against the films like <i>Argo</i>, which are produced in Hollywood to distort the country’s image,” said attorney Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. In a curious, Hollywood-worthy twist, Coutant-Peyre just happens to be the wife of mega-terrorist Carlos the Jackal, currently imprisoned in France where he <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/10/carlos-the-jackal-carlos-the-jihadi/">converted to Islam</a>.</p>
<p>Is <i>Argo</i> faithful to every historical detail? Of course not (its deviations from reality have been <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/18/the_true_spy_story_behind_argo">documented</a> here) – no historical dramatization on film is unfailingly accurate, nor can it be, otherwise it would be a documentary (and even documentaries bear the points of view of their filmmakers, who are necessarily selective about the facts they include). Movies need to tell stories, and they tell them in ways that meet certain structural requirements of good storytelling. But of course the Iranian authorities are not interested in what Press TV called “a balanced narration” anyway; they want to sanitize their reputation with their <i>own</i> inaccuracies and distortions.</p>
<p>And it looks like they intend to do just that. To counter <i>Argo</i>, Iran plans to fund a movie entitled <i>The General Staff</i>, about twenty American hostages who were handed over to the United States by Iranian revolutionaries (Iranian screenwriter Farhad Tohidi has also <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/238723/irans-bizarre-plan-to-remake-argo">announced</a> plans for a TV series, <i>The Broken Paw</i>, about the seizure of the U.S. Embassy). “This film,” said <i>The General Staff</i>’s director Ataollah Salmanian, “which will be a big production, should be an appropriate response to the ahistoric film <i>Argo</i>.” He said he hoped to secure funding from the Art Bureau wing of the propagandists at the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization.</p>
<p><i>The General Staff</i>, which will begin shooting next year, will be based on eyewitness accounts, Salmanian said. Press TV cited him as saying that his film would depict “the historical event, unlike the American version which lacks a proper view of the story.” And by “proper,” of course, he means Iran-centric. Kenneth Taylor, the Canadian ambassador portrayed in the film, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/world/middleeast/as-academy-snubs-affleck-for-argo-iran-plans-own-movie.html">told <i>The New York Times</i></a>, “It will be amusing to see what they take issue with.”</p>
<p>Affleck too <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jan/14/ben-affleck-argo">responded</a> to Iran’s plans:</p>
<blockquote><p>You have to understand, this is a sort of Stalinist regime in this place that is extremely repressive. It&#8217;s governing a nation full of millions of wonderful, amazing people, so to be part of this movie <i>Argo</i> that seems to have kids up and paying attention – so this Stalinist regime feels the need to sort of push back somehow, I think is a tremendous badge of honor.</p></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: left;">It is, and good for him for not sucking up to the Iranian regime like some other Hollywood luminaries have. Four years ago an unofficial delegation from Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hs08h0N-fFTlnRAblLSMrXwXLnPg">set out to visit Iran</a> as part of a “cultural exchange” that might soothe tensions between our countries. Iranian cultural advisor Javad Shamaghdari <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2b0b8bd405048e19f36fa896834ca058.9b1&amp;show_article=1">laid out</a> for the Hollywood representatives exactly what Iran wanted out of the meeting: “If Hollywood wants to <i>correct its behavior</i> towards Iranian people and Islamic culture then they have to <i>officially apologize</i>,” he said.</p>
<p>D. Parvaz, an Iranian journalist for Al Jazeera, recently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/d-parvaz/why-iran-wants-hollywood-_b_3018416.html">wrote</a> a defense of Iran’s sensitivity to <i>Argo</i> (and to other less-than-flattering portrayals of Iran as in films like <i>300</i> and <i>Not Without My Daughter</i>) for the reliably pro-Islamic <i>Huffington Post</i>, in which she expressed her and her countrymen’s weariness at the treatment of her “fatherland” in the media: “It’s all <i>nuclear this, human rights that</i>” she complained. [Emphasis in original]</p>
<p>Yes, how terribly unfair that the media dwell on Iran’s stated intention to wipe Israel from the map or to bring the Great Satan America to its knees with the nuclear weapons it is acquiring in the face of international condemnation. How biased of the media to shine a light on the fact that Iran publicly hangs teenage gays from cranes, stones adulterers to death, rapes and tortures female protesters, and publicly assaults women for wearing western jeans and hairstyles.</p>
<p>If Parvaz wants her fatherland to quit producing such public relations <i>faux pas</i>, perhaps she could speak to the regime there about reining in their medieval insanity and hatred. Perhaps she could recommend to the mullahs that they disband their terrorist minions in Hezbollah, stop exporting IEDs, and enter the 21<sup>st</sup> century. That will go a long way toward rehabilitating Iran’s image problem.</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>Iran to Sue &#8216;Argo&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/iran-to-sue-argo/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-to-sue-argo</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:38:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=182129</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mullah movie madness. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/iran-to-sue-argo/image_015/" rel="attachment wp-att-182199"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-182199" title="image_015" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/image_015-450x340.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="204" /></a>When <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/argo-and-the-continuing-iranian-crisis/"><em>Argo</em></a> hit screens last fall the Iranian regime did not react like those protesting the Muhammad video, but they surely didn’t give it five stars. When <em>Argo</em> won the Academy Award for best picture of 2012, Iran’s Fars News <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-25/world/37275941_1_iranian-media-anti-iran-mehr-news">denounced it as an “anti-Iran” film “produced by the Zionist company Warner Bros.”</a> Iran didn’t like it that Michelle Obama made the presentation and didn’t care for Ben Affleck’s speech about Iranians living in “terrible circumstances.” Now Iran is escalating the conflict.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/12/5255091/reports-iran-mulls-suing-hollywood.html">Iran plans to sue Hollywood over <em>Argo</em></a> because of the film’s “unrealistic portrayal” of the Iranian nation. Their chosen lawyer is Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who also represented Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal. Coutant-Peyre told reporters, “We will be able to block distributors of the movie, force them to apologize and challenge them to confess that the movie is nothing but a sheer lie.” That’s something of a stretch because <em>Argo</em> goes the second mile on the back story.</p>
<p>In documentary-style footage and commentary, <em>Argo</em> notes that Iran is part of a great Persian legacy, that duly elected Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the oil business, and that in 1953 the USA and Britain engineered a coup and installed the Shah, portrayed as an evil man who tortures the people.</p>
<p>As the film notes, the Shah did fall ill and leave Iran in 1979, and president Jimmy Carter brought him to the United States. Then Iranian militants invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran. All that is true, but<em> Argo</em>, though rich in detail, fails to capture the full ferocity. The Ayatollah Khomeini doesn’t get much screen time with his “Great Satan” charges, but viewers do understand that Iran was a dangerous place for Americans.</p>
<p>It was also true that six American embassy staffers got out by passing themselves off as Canadians making a movie. That did happen, but <em>Argo</em> does not convey the full extent of Canadian support. For example, it does not mention Prime Minister Joe Clark, who readily signed on to the exfiltration. Without Clark, there would have been no “Canadian Caper,” as it was called at the time. Iran only released the hostages when Ronald Reagan took over the presidency, but the movie does not show Reagan.</p>
<p><em>Argo</em> shows an Iranian official warning that “Canada will pay,” but now the Iranian regime plans to sue not Canada but Hollywood, a place not exactly short on unrealistic portrayals. As Richard Grenier noted in <em>The Marrakesh One-Two</em>, Arab countries are not much like <em>Casablanca</em> with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. As for sheer lies, consider <em>Mission to Moscow</em>, from Warner Brothers.</p>
<p>The 1943 movie was so indulgent of Stalin that it got dubbed “Submission to Moscow,” the first Soviet production to appear from a mayor American studio. The film supports Stalin’s charges that Zinoviev, Kamenev, and all the old Bolsheviks he executed were fascist agents. The Nazi-Soviet pact is not mentioned and the film justifies Stalin’s invasion of Finland. But the Finns and Poles did not sue Hollywood.</p>
<p>Disney made <em>Night Crossing</em>, based on an actual case of East Germans fleeing the Communist regime in a homemade hot-air balloon. The Honecker regime did not sue Disney. In <em>Marathon Man</em>, a U.S. government agent is in league with a Nazi war criminal, and one gets the feeling that octogenarian Nazis wield huge influence in the United States. But the U.S. government did not sue the filmmakers.</p>
<p>In virtually all Oliver Stone’s movies the USA is a villain, certainly so in his <em>Untold History of the United States</em>. <em>Argo</em> was a welcome change from that trend, but Iran plans to sue Hollywood, and that may be a good thing.</p>
<p>The lawsuit is unlikely to succeed but does confirm the intolerance of the Iranian regime that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls a “clear and present danger,” and which is now pursuing nuclear weapons. Charges that the movie is a “sheer lie” may prompt more people to see <em>Argo</em>, about as faithful a representation of what happened in Iran in 1979 as one could expect from the American commercial cinema.</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>Mullahs, Doublespeak and Videotape</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/mullahs-doublespeak-and-videotape/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mullahs-doublespeak-and-videotape</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2012 04:03:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Watch a Mullah's liberal face to the West -- and his real face at home. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/mullahs-doublespeak-and-videotape/mull/" rel="attachment wp-att-170716"><img class="size-full wp-image-170716 alignleft" title="mull" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mull.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="195" /></a>Watch a Mullah&#8217;s liberal face to the West &#8212; and his real face at home:</p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/V6F2W_m2PXo" frameborder="0" width="400" height="300"></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>Obama’s Courting of the Mullahs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/obamas-courting-of-the-mullahs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-courting-of-the-mullahs</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:50:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[New revelations about the president's failed outreach to the fanatical Iranian regime. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/obamas-courting-of-the-mullahs/20120614_large_mullahs/" rel="attachment wp-att-163247"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-163247" title="20120614_LARGE_Mullahs" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/20120614_LARGE_Mullahs.gif" alt="" width="315" height="228" /></a>It turns out that soon after taking office, President Obama tried to make friends—totally—with the mullahs’ regime in Iran.</p>
<p>The aim was to start with the opening of interest sections in Washington and Tehran, then progress to “full diplomatic ties, including U.S. and Iranian embassies and ambassadors in each other’s capitals, security cooperation…, [and] direct flights between the U.S. and Iran….” All this amity, it was presumed, would get Iran to give up its nuclear program.</p>
<p>So, at least, reports the Israeli daily <em>Maariv</em> (Hebrew original <a href="http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/411/797.html?hp=1&amp;cat=666">here</a>; English report in <em>The Times of Israel </em><a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-offered-to-reestablish-ties-with-iran-paper-reports/">here</a>), basing itself on “two Western diplomats very close to the administration.”</p>
<p><em>Maariv</em> says that, beginning in summer 2009, there were at least two U.S.-Iranian diplomatic meetings in this context. The second was between Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Geneva in October 2009, on the sidelines of nuclear talks between Tehran and the P5+1 countries.</p>
<p>But Tehran, as they say, wasn’t into it. An Israeli source told <em>Maariv</em> that the regime “opposed any sign of normalization with the U.S., and refused to grant a ‘prize’ to the Americans.”</p>
<p>On Obama’s part, all this would have been in the spirit of his <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032000398.html">holiday video greeting</a> to Iran in March 2009—and, more generally, his wooing of the Islamic world and apologizing for America’s supposed sins, most notably in his June 2009 <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09">Cairo speech</a>.</p>
<p>In the mullahs’ case, Obama’s belief that he could talk them into friendship is particularly striking. U.S.-Iranian relations took something of a hit when the newly installed Ayatollah Khomeini regime seized 52 American diplomats as hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, holding them for 444 days. Last week the <em>Wall Street Journal’</em>s Bret Stephens <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203630604578072452443447568.html">listed</a> some additional “American victims of Iranian aggression” since that time:</p>
<blockquote><p>The 17 Americans killed in April 1983 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad Organization, later known as Hezbollah. The 241 U.S. servicemen killed by Islamic Jihad at the Marine barracks in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983. Master Chief Robert Dean Stethem, beaten to death in June 1985 by a Hezbollah terrorist in Beirut aboard TWA flight 847. William Francis Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, tortured to death by Hezbollah that same month. Marine Col. William Higgins, taken hostage in 1988 while serving with U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and hanged by Hezbollah sometime later. The 19 U.S. Air Force personnel killed in June 1996 in the Khobar Towers bombing, for which several members of Saudi Hezbollah were indicted in U.S. federal court.</p>
<p>And then there are the thousands of U.S. troops killed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most lethal IEDs were manufactured in Iran for the purpose of killing Americans.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama’s belief that America was at fault in having wronged and angered Iran must have been very strong to regard this record as something that could have been overcome between friends—to the extent that he was familiar with it.</p>
<p>The trouble is that, three years later, there are signs that Obama is still unable to grasp the fact that the Iranian regime is implacably hostile to America. It was last March, just as Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Washington warning that Iran was closing in on the bomb, that Obama chose to renew diplomatic talks with Iran—talks that, as acknowledged by all, have been an empty sham that has merely bought Tehran time just as Israel had warned.</p>
<p>True, meanwhile Obama—under heavy pressure from Congress—has finally, along with other Western countries, imposed sanctions on Iran that are taking a real toll. Just two weeks ago, though, a report by the Congressional Research Service <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS20871.pdf">acknowledged</a> a “consensus” that these have in no way slowed Iran’s march toward nukes.</p>
<p>And it was just last week that the <em>New York Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/iran-said-ready-to-talk-to-us-about-nuclear-program.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=1&amp;">reported</a> that the U.S. and Iran had agreed to still more nuclear talks after November 6. The White House denied the specifics of the report—but, incorrigibly convinced of Tehran’s potential amicability, said it remained ready, as ever, to meet with the mullahs and hash out the differences.</p>
<p>In other words, there are worrisome indications that, when it comes to Iran’s Islamist regime, the U.S. chief executive remains dangerously delusive.</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>Morsi Visits the Mullahs</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2012 04:45:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The first visit to the Islamic Republic by an Egyptian president since 1979.
 ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mohamad-morsi-548x308.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-141766" title="mohamad-morsi-548x308" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mohamad-morsi-548x308.gif" alt="" width="375" height="239" /></a>Egypt’s new president Mohamed Morsi is in Tehran this week for the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Since taking office on June 30, Morsi has had a busy itinerary. He visited Saudi Arabia last month, is due in China next week, and on September 23 will be in Washington on President Obama’s invitation.</p>
<p>Morsi also found time, one day before taking office, to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577497053026356034.html">vow</a> to secure the release of “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian currently serving a life sentence at a North Carolina facility for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.</p>
<p>Within Iran, Morsi is encountering some interesting landmarks. Israeli commentator Smadar Peri <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4273425,00.html">points out</a> that on Sunday his convoy passed through Tehran’s Islambouli Square—named after Khalid Islambouli, who assassinated one of Morsi’s predecessors as Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, in October 1981. Islambouli was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which some sources identify as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood—that is, Morsi’s organization.</p>
<p>There has, indeed, been bad blood between Egypt and Iran since those days. Relations were broken off in 1980, a year after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shiite revolutionaries took power in Iran. It didn’t help matters when Iran hailed Islambouli (executed in Egypt in 1982) as a martyr. Morsi’s visit to Iran this week is the first by an Egyptian president since 1979.</p>
<p>It’s also <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iran-official-egypt-s-morsi-to-visit-bushehr-nuclear-plant-on-sidelines-of-tehran-summit-1.460788">reported</a> that Morsi will be among NAM heads of state to be hosted this week at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. This at a time when Iran is racing ahead in its nuclear weapons program, denying the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear sites, and <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/The+Iranian+Threat/Holocaust+denial/Iranian_statements_Aug_2012.htm">intensifying</a> its genocidal rhetoric against Israel and vows to destroy it.</p>
<p>Does all this indicate a rapprochement between Shiite-Islamist Iran and Sunni, newly Islamist Egypt? Another Israeli analyst, Dore Gold, a former ambassador to the UN, <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2460">notes</a> that there are serious obstacles to such a reconciliation.</p>
<p>They include particularly the fact that in Syria, Iran is helping Bashar Assad’s Shiite-offshoot Alawite regime fight largely Sunni rebels—including a presence on the ground of Iranian Revolutionary Guards actively killing Sunnis. The Sunnis, for their part, are backed by the Sunni Arab countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Seemingly, then, Egypt and Iran are on opposite sides of the bitter, bloody sectarian conflicts now being waged in Syria and elsewhere in the region, which have both Persian vs. Arab and Shiite vs. Sunni dimensions.</p>
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		<title>Rick Santorum: An American Ayatollah?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/rick-santorum-an-american-ayatollah/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rick-santorum-an-american-ayatollah</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2012 04:45:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Smearing a social conservative and whitewashing the mullahs.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/010311-politics-rick-santorum.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-125233" title="010311-politics-rick-santorum" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/010311-politics-rick-santorum.gif" alt="" width="375" height="246" /></a>It’s the latest Leftist talking point: Rick Santorum is a bit dangerous, a bit unhinged, deeply religious and dangerously fanatical, not to be trusted with the governance of our pluralistic republic, and certainly not with guardianship of the First Amendment protection of the freedom of religion. The prominent Leftist Muslim writer Reza Aslan has recently become a foremost exponent of these claims, although they did not by any means originate with him.</p>
<p>Leftist journalists and Islamic supremacist spokesmen always march in lockstep, using the same talking points, as <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/12/europes-muslims-get-to-be.html">I’ve pointed out previously</a> in connection with <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/12/last-call-on-action-alert-high-school-students-forced-to-listen-to-islamic-supremacist-reza-aslan.html">Islamic supremacist</a> <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/the-incredible-reza-aslan-automated-insult-generator.html">boy</a> Reza Aslan’s frequent recycling of tired and discredited<a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picture-12.gif"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-125451" title="Picture-12" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picture-12.gif" alt="" width="300" height="388" /></a> Leftist/Islamic supremacist agitprop. Aslan is so abjectly intellectually bereft that he has apparently never had an idea of his own, but only repeats whatever his masters have determined to be the political line of the day, and can do nothing but hurl <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/the-incredible-reza-aslan-automated-insult-generator.html">adolescent abuse</a> at those who dare point out his unsavory allegiances and shoddy, dishonest reasoning. Aslan <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/reza-aslan-equates-republican-party-with-sharia-all-other-anti-woman-anti-human-rights-forms-of-tota.html">routinely lies about the positions of his opponents</a> &#8212; apparently the real points they make are beyond his meager intellectual abilities to answer, so he has to resort to setting up straw men, and does so regularly.</p>
<p>Aslan’s latest straw man, and parroting of a Leftist talking point, comes in a piece so cutesy and self-conscious that the reader is almost embarrassed for him: “Grand Ayatollah or Grand Old Party?,” in <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/29/grand_ayatollah_or_grand_old_party?page=0,0">Foreign Policy</a>. It’s an exercise in moral equivalence, equating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. The piece appeared on February 29, one day after &#8212; what a coincidence! &#8212; the Cagle cartoon above, which equates Santorum with Taliban suicide bombers. I am not saying Aslan cribbed from Cagle; what is more likely is that they’re both repeating a Leftist line that originated with neither of them.</p>
<p>Anyway, Aslan’s whole piece is summed up in its subtitle: “Who said it: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum?” The bulk of the rest is a series of quotes, with the reader invited to guess which man said each, although only the most blinkered Leftist would fail to identify correctly the source of each one. Writes Aslan &#8212; and one can picture him mugging furiously for the cameras &#8212; “One is a religious fanatic railing against secularism, the role of women in the workplace, and the evils of higher education, as he seeks to impose his draconian moral values upon the state. The other is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”</p>
<p>Yes, yes, Santorum is the American Khamenei, the American Taliban. No doubt he wants to mow down his own people who dare to dissent from his policies, blow up girls’ schools, throw acid in the faces of women who get out of line, make people wearing Western dress drink from latrine water, imprison and torture rivals and those who disagree with him, amputate the hands of thieves, murder apostates, stone adulterers &#8212; you name it. Of course, Leftists probably really do believe that Santorum wants to do those things, and are attacking him on that basis, even though it doesn’t seem to bother them all that much when the mullahs or the Taliban actually do them.</p>
<p>Behind this witless equivalence, there is a more sinister agenda. Aslan is a Board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), about which the Iranian human rights activist Manda Zand Ervin <a href="http://www.hudson-ny.org/2701/grover-norquist-iran">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Iranian American community widely believes NIAC&#8230;to be a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2009/11/trita-parsi-lobbyist-for-iran/30133/">Washington lobby group</a> for the Khomeinist regime leadership. NIAC has long advocated unconditional negotiations with Tehran, and the total abandonment of all economic sanctions and military options against the Iranian regime. NIAC’s advocacy appears as a deftly veiled refusal to support the Iranian democracy activists and the Iranian freedom movement. This is not only un-American but contradicts all conservative ideals. The founder of NIAC, Trita Parsi is an unpopular figure within the Iranian-American community, as can be seen from his high disapproval ratings in a <a href="http://www.newmediajournal.us/pdf_files/irandoost_niac.pdf">July 2011 poll</a> of over 1800 Iranian Americans taken by the Pro-Democracy Movement of Iran. <a href="http://www.iranian-americans.com/2009/11/1543.html">Senator Jon Kyl </a>has called for an investigation into Trita Parsi and his work. Last month, on November 5, Parsi stated that criticism of Iran should be <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/11/trita-parsi-iran/">“punishable</a>.”</p></blockquote>
<p>So by equating Santorum with Khamenei, Aslan is not only smearing Santorum, but whitewashing the murderous mullahs, equating their bloody record with American social conservatism. In other words, Aslan is not just stupid; he’s evil.</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>Israel Alone Against the Islamic Republic</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-meir-levi/israel-alone-against-the-islamic-republic/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-alone-against-the-islamic-republic</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-meir-levi/israel-alone-against-the-islamic-republic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Meir-Levi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mullahs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strike]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stuxnet]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=122035</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But an alternate scenario might be on the horizon. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/israeli.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-122075" title="israeli" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/israeli.gif" alt="" width="375" height="255" /></a></p>
<p>In dealing with the threat of a nuclear Iran, Obama has not merely kicked the proverbial can down the proverbial road; he has actually aided and abetted Iran in its quest for military nuclear capabilities.</p>
<p>Such a grim assessment of <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11204">Obama’s Iran policy is unavoidable in light of</a> his inaction against Iran for its capture of the RQ-170 stealth drone in December of last year; his silence over Iran’s initiation of 20% uranium enrichment at the underground Fordo facility near Qom; his reluctance to send U.S. aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz;  his hesitation in approving immediate sanctions on Iran&#8217;s central bank and energy sector; his silence as <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/24/the-venezuelan-missile-crisis/">Hugo Chavez allies with Iran</a> to develop terrorist and missile bases in Venezuela; <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/01/pandering-to-the-persians/">his secret attempt to influence Congress to soften US sanctions; and his secret letter of appeasement to Iran</a>.   These inactions are incomprehensible and unforgivable because they have allowed Iran to reach the threshold of becoming a nuclear threat to the entire world.</p>
<p>What can now be done?  All the options are bad. Sanctions have slowed Iran’s progress but not stopped it.  Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would certainly inflict crippling pain and would set back Iran’s WMD quest by a year or so; but this course of action brings with it risks of regional upheaval and war, global economic disruption, and Iran-sponsored terror attacks on US and Israeli targets anywhere in the world.  On the other hand, not stopping Iran from bringing the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust has obvious consequences of an even more dire and perilous nature.</p>
<p>How can any country, any national or international leader, dissolve this Gordian knot of similarly evil alternatives?  Israel may have the answer, without an airstrike.</p>
<p>Since 2005 various parts of the Iranian nuclear project have been hit by a series of disasters, which Iran blames on the West, and especially Israel.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>In April 2006, two transformers blew up and 50 centrifuges were ruined during Iran’s first attempt to enrich uranium at Natantz. A spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Energy Council stated that the raw materials had been “tampered with.”</p>
<p>Between January 2006 and July 2007, three airplanes belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards crashed under mysterious circumstances. Some reports said the planes had simply “stopped working.”</p>
<p>“Stopped working” was also the Iranian explanation for two lethal computer viruses that penetrated the nuclear project’s computer system in 2007, knocking out a large number of centrifuges.</p>
<p>In January 2007, several insulation units in the connecting fixtures of the centrifuges, which were purchased on the black market from suppliers in Eastern Europe,<strong> </strong>turned out to be flawed and unusable<strong>. </strong>Iran concluded that some of these suppliers were actually straw companies that were set up by Iran’s enemies to outfit the Iranian nuclear effort with faulty parts.</p>
<p>In January 2007, Dr. Ardeshir Husseinpour, a 44-year-old nuclear scientist, died under mysterious circumstances<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeshir_Hosseinpour">. The official announcement said he died in a “work accident,” but Iranian intelligence blames Israel.</a></p>
<p>Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was killed in January 2010, when a booby-trapped motorcycle parked nearby exploded as he was getting into his car. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/01/who-murdered-prof-ali-mohammadi.html">Some analysts</a> harbor the suspicion that Mohammadi was killed by Iranian agents because of his support for the Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, but Iran blames Israel.</p>
<p>In June 2010, reports surfaced that the computer system operating the uranium enrichment site of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-war-against-iran-s-nuclear-program-has-already-begun-1.399138">Natanz had been infected with a new and more powerful cyber-weapon,</a> a deadly virus known as “Stuxnet.”  A highly sophisticated, incredibly invasive, but surgically refined virus, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet">Stuxnet infected 59% of Iran’s computers</a> but targeted only those using the Siemens SCADA software used by Iranian nuclear facilities.  Contrary to Iranian denials, analysts confirmed <a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2010/December/Stuxnet-Worm-Delays-Irans-Nuclear-Program-/">that this cyber-attack delayed Iran’s WMD progress by at least several years</a> and <a href="http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-17-2011/february/stuxnet-targeting-irans-nuclear-programme/mobile-edition/">forced 984 centrifuges off-line.</a></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Surrender in Iraq</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/rick-moran/obamas-surrender-in-iraq-1-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-surrender-in-iraq-1-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/rick-moran/obamas-surrender-in-iraq-1-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:25:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Moran]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[defeat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mullahs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[surrender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troop Withdrawal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=110056</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president disregards the hard-fought gains of our military and the private pleas of Iraqi leaders.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/obama441.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-110057" title="obama44" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/obama441.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="271" /></a></p>
<p>You&#8217;ve got to hand it to President Obama. To be able to look the camera <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/obamas-iraq-speech-video_n_170565.html">square in the eye </a>and declare that retreat from Iraq is victory, failure is success, and emboldening an implacable enemy is in our national interest, is a feat worthy of a snake oil salesman.</p>
<p>What the president is selling, however, is a far more potent and deadly poison: the nonsensical belief that the vital interests of America should be subsumed to the nebulous doctrine that Iraq &#8212; and by extension the rest of the Middle East &#8212; will be a better, more secure place without American troops. This, despite ample evidence that the influence of Iran will be unchecked in what is still a nascent democracy, struggling with divisions and factions that leave it particularly vulnerable to the machinations of the mullahs in Tehran.</p>
<p>In short, the president thought it more important to keep a campaign promise than protect the hard-fought gains of our military, ignoring facts on the ground and even the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-leaders-want-us-trainers-reject-immunity-195323886.html">private pleas </a>from Iraqi leaders in the process.</p>
<p>Now those hollow words and sentiments spoken by the president at a <a href="http://www.startribune.com/politics/132318443.html">snap news conference </a>called last Friday are going to be put to the test by history. And one needn&#8217;t be an expert to envision how, in going against the <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/key_general_labels_obamas_iraq_pullout_absolute_disaster.html">advice of his generals</a> on the ground (something he railed against President Bush for doing during the 2008 presidential campaign) to maintain a strong US military presence in Iraq, the president&#8217;s blunder will lead to an unmitigated disaster to US strategic interests in the region.</p>
<p>Unnecessarily, the president has elevated Iranian prestige to <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/206456.html">new heights,</a> cheering Tehran&#8217;s allies in Syria and Turkey who see any retreat by America in the Middle East as a boon to their hegemonic designs. And while Saudi Arabian ambivalence toward the Shia majority government in Iraq is <a href="http://sundaytimes.lk/110731/Timestwo/int14.html">hard to miss</a>, the Saudis nevertheless fear Iranian designs on their oil fields, and the large Shia minority that inhabits that area of the kingdom. Other Sunni-majority Gulf states look with <a href="http://sundaytimes.lk/110731/Timestwo/int14.html">equal trepidation</a> on an emboldened Iran. The retreat of American troops from Iraq is as much a disaster for them &#8212; even if they would never admit it publicly &#8212; as it is for the Iraqi people.</p>
<p>An independent Iraq <a href="http://blog.american.com/2011/10/obama-abandons-iraq/">will not survive</a> the president&#8217;s perfidy &#8212; a betrayal of those who fought, those who died, and those who worked so long to build a civil society shattered by war and sectarian conflict. It is breathtaking in its totality. With one stroke, the administration has assured an enemy who will almost certainly possess nuclear weapons in the near future, a base from which its terrorist proxies will be able to operate. The Iraqi government, which already has demonstrated it can&#8217;t &#8212; or won&#8217;t &#8212; <a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131733517/Cables-Shed-Light-On-Iran-s-Influence-In-Iraq">resist Iranian interference </a>in its internal affairs, will now achieve full satellite status; an appendage of Iranian policy no more independent than a Medieval vassal state.</p>
<p>The question that we should be asking is how serious was the president in his negotiations with Baghdad to keep a sizable force to train the Iraqi army, and help protect the country from being overwhelmed by the Iranians? According to Josh Rogin at <em>Foreign Policy&#8217;s</em> <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/blog/11505">Cable blog,</a> a deal was to be had on the touchy subject of immunity for our soldiers from the capriciousness of the Iraqi justice system, but the administration bungled the negotiations. Rogin quotes Marisa Cochrane Sullivan, managing director at the Institute for the Study of War, as saying, &#8220;From the beginning, the talks unfolded in a way where they [were] largely driven by domestic political concerns, both in Washington and Baghdad. Both sides let politics drive the process, rather than security concerns,&#8221; she said.</p>
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