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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; normalize</title>
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		<title>The Islamic Republic Is Not Cuba</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-republic-is-not-cuba/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-islamic-republic-is-not-cuba</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Dec 2014 05:40:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diplomatic]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=248371</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the Mullahs really think of Obama's surrender to Castro. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/39.si_.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248372" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/39.si_-450x253.jpg" alt="39.si" width="329" height="185" /></a>The diplomatic deal between the Obama administration and Raul Castro&#8217;s government and the transformation of the relationship between Cuba and Washington have made some scholars, politicians and policy analysts excited with respect to utilizing the same method in the case of another longstanding foe, the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Some have been calling for applying a Cuban-style deal &#8212; back-channel diplomacy and the lifting of the embargo and economic sanctions &#8212; to Iran in order to restore full diplomatic ties with the ruling clerics.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, this point of view totally ignores the complexity of the Iranian government and the nature of its ideological, political and institutional underpinnings. In other words, an analogy between Cuba and the Islamic Republic falls apart when the reality is examined.</p>
<p>First of all, Iran poses a much stronger geopolitical threat to the US (and its allies) than Cuba does.  The Islamic Republic has been a major player in scuttling US foreign policy objectives and opposing its allies (including Israel) in the Middle East. Cuba, unlike the Islamic Republic, did not repeatedly call for elimination and annihilation of the State of Israel.  In addition, the Iranian government is supporting and is behind the creation of several crucial militia proxies in the region which have led to further destabilization and conflict in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Secondly, a deal with the US would likely be viewed as a zero-sum game for the Iranian leaders. Iran’s ruling clerics would not be likely to accept any compromises on their top foreign policy priorities, such as: Keeping President Bashar al Assad in power; withdrawing its financial, advisory, intelligence, and military support to the Iraqi and Syrian governments; and assisting formidable proxies such as Hezbollah and Shiite militia groups in Iraq and Yemen.</p>
<p>In addition, in the Cuban case, there did not exist any international consensus on the embargo or economic sanctions against the Cuban government. For example, many European countries were doing business with the Cuban government. On the other hand, in the case of the Islamic Republic, the four rounds of economic sanctions on the Iranian government resulted in the approval of the five members of the UN Security Council, including Russian and China. Unlike Cuba, many regional and global powers are dubious about Iran’s nuclear and regional hegemonic ambitions.</p>
<p>More fundamentally, unlike Castro, Khamenei has shown no real interest and willingness in fully normalizing diplomatic ties with the United States. For example, the Obama administration received no positive response from Khamenei through President Obama’s recent letter or through back-channel diplomacy. In addition, there is no official public debate among Iranian politicians, across various spectrums of Iran’s political system, to even allow the opening of a US embassy in Tehran.  The Islamic Republic’s domestic opposition to normalizing ties with the US is much higher in comparison to the Cuban case.  Although the Obama administration has taken some back-channel steps to negotiate with the Islamic Republic, Iran’s Supreme Leader has not responded with signs of willingness to normalize relationships, and he has been clear in not trusting the “Great Satan.”</p>
<p>The signal that Iranian leaders received from the Cuban deal is not what the Western mainstream media depicts: That Iran is optimistic about normalizing ties with the US. The message that Tehran received was that the Islamic Republic has to persist in its policies as well as ideology, and that economic sanctions will ultimately fail. As foreign ministry spokeswoman <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/iran-hails-us-cuba-thaw-proof-sanctions-dont-193418574.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Marzieh Akfham</span></a> articulated, &#8220;The defense by the Cuban government and people of their revolutionary ideals over the past 50 years shows that policies of isolation and sanctions imposed by the major powers against the wishes of independent nations are ineffective.&#8221;</p>
<p>The fundamentals of the Islamic Republic are centered on opposition to the United States, which Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, established. The Supreme Leader derives power and legitimacy from this stance. If the Iranian government changed this fundamental organizing principle, it would not be able to yield power from its loyalists, hard-line constituents, and define itself as the “Islamic” Republic of Iran.</p>
<p>Finally, it is crucial to point out that many young and middle class Iranian people would like to see the normalization of relationship with the United States. Some have expressed their hope through twitter and other social media outlets. However, there is a significant gap between what ordinary Iranian citizens desire to happen, and what the ruling clerics hope to ideologically and geopolitically achieve.</p>
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		<title>Obama’s White Whale</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/kenneth-r-timmerman/obamas-white-whale/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-white-whale</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:46:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth R. Timmerman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=248064</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After Cuba, could embracing Iran be next?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/rouhani-ayatollah-khomeini.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248067" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/rouhani-ayatollah-khomeini.jpg" alt="rouhani-ayatollah-khomeini" width="305" height="234" /></a>President Obama is not one to be rebuffed.</p>
<p>As he showed when the Castro brothers rejected repeated entreaties to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba, Obama can display exceptional determination, even imagination, in finding a path to surrender.</p>
<p>When the Castros wouldn’t accept his entreaties, Obama turned to the Vatican to offer the candy.</p>
<p>The Castros have no intention of loosening their grip on Cuban society, or of opening the Internet to free speech, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-ogrady-who-benefits-if-the-embargo-is-lifted-1419205562"><span style="color: #0433ff;">as Obama has claimed</span></a>. But they will take U.S. taxpayer subsidies from the Ex-Im Bank to finance purchases from fellow-Communist China. How’s that for a good deal!</p>
<p>And so, Iran. Obama has now written to Supreme Terrorist – sorry, Supreme Leader &#8211; Ayatollah Khamenei four times since taking office in 2009. And each time, Khamenei has responded with insults and rejection.</p>
<p>The most recent offer was in October 2014, when Obama reportedly offered a whole plate-full of goodies – extensive relief from U.S. economic and financial sanctions, and perhaps much more – in exchange for the Ayatollah accepting Obama’s capitulation on the nuclear agreement.</p>
<p>But that wasn’t good enough for Khamenei, who immediately denounced the United States as a <a href="https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/532514135020695552"><span style="color: #0433ff;">“nuclear criminal”</span></a> &#8211; and on Twitter, no less!</p>
<p>Now we are told that Iran is “cooperating” with the United States in the fight against ISIS, most recently by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/.../iran-airstrikes-hit-islamic-state-in-iraq.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">bombing ISIS targets inside Iraq</span></a>.</p>
<p>But Iranian sources in Europe with access to current regime intelligence told me last week that Iran has provided 30 percent of the weapons ISIS has been using in its offensives in Syria and Iraq, mainly from Chinese sources.</p>
<p>Surprise? Not really. Despite what some “experts” in Islam will tell you about how Shiite Iran is irrevocably opposed to Koran-citing, Sunna-invoking, Sharia-inflicting ISIS, the two have a common cause: the triumph of Islam throughout the world.</p>
<p>Iran’s Islamic regime is also Koran-citing, Sunna-invoking, and Sharia-inflicting. They stone to death female rape-victims for “adultery” and make child-brides of young girls, imitating the example of the Prophet of Islam. They just disagree with ISIS – as they do with Turkish president Erdogan, and the al-Saud family – about who should be leading the Islamic caliphate.</p>
<p>Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin disagreed about whose army should march first into Berlin. Roosevelt caved. Stalin won. A fifty-year Cold War ensued.</p>
<p>Shiite Iran has a long and well-documented history of supporting Sunni terrorist groups. They <a href="http://www.iran911case.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">helped al-Qaeda recruit, train, and elude U.S. surveillance</span></a> before the 9/11 plot, and they have sheltered senior al-Qaeda operatives ever since.</p>
<p>They continue to publicly support Sunni jihadi groups including the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Hamas in Gaza.</p>
<p style="color: #202020;"><span style="color: #000000;">In 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1261.aspx"><span style="color: #0433ff;">exposed Iran</span></a> for sheltering al Qaeda’s top financiers. Earlier this year, <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2613.aspx"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Treasury identified yet another top al Qaeda financial operative,</span></a> </span>Abdul Mohsen Abdullah Ibrahim al-Sharikh, whom Iran nurtured and protected until he moved to Syria and joined the al-Qaida affiliated Nusra front, “later becoming one of its top strategists.”</p>
<p>So don’t be surprised to see that the Islamic Republic of Iran has provided weapons to the Islamic State (of Iraq and Syria). After all, on most days ISIS uses those weapons to slaughter America’s “allies,” the weak-kneed, slightly less Islamified opposition to Iran’s ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.</p>
<p>It’s an old trick of totalitarians everywhere. Light a fire on your enemy’s doorstep, then offer to help him put it out. The Soviets used it repeatedly.</p>
<p>Now the Pentagon wants to provide yet more goodies to Iran. Under the misguided leadership of outgoing SecDef Chuck Hagel, DoD has asked the U.S. Treasury Department to <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/pentagon-sought-sanctions-exemptions-for-iranian-investment-in-afghanistan-20141104-01797"><span style="color: #0433ff;">remove sanctions so U.S. companies can help Iran</span></a> with multi-billion dollar development projects in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Let me spell that out. The Pentagon has identified “worthy” projects in Afghanistan and turned them over to the Iranians, and is now “inviting” U.S. companies to provide financial and technical assistance so the Iranians can make it rich.</p>
<p>There is more than just stupidity at work here.</p>
<p>Listen to “progressive” Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, <a href="https://docs.zoho.com/writer/ropen.do?rid=b6wwvf87260bd94514057851fd5200ffab291#bookmark=http://video.foxnews.com/v/3951118421001/van-hollen-alan-gross-exchange-a-good-deal-for-us/?"><span style="color: #0433ff;">speaking to Foxnews</span></a> after “bringing back” U.S. hostage Alan Gross from Cuba. (Remember, Alan Gross was jailed five years ago for helping Havana Jews get access to the Internet.)</p>
<p>Cuba’s human rights abuses and its lack of freedom “have resulted from 54 years of failed U.S. policies,” Van Hollen said without even blushing.</p>
<p>For Obama and his acolytes, America is the problem. We have “caused” the world’s problems with our sanctimonious nonsense about God-given freedoms. Any self-respecting Socialist would naturally react to men and women who fear God and love life by banning God and substituting a government that robs citizens of their freedom.</p>
<p>And so, Obama’s mission as president is to make America as small as possible so we can’t continue to spread freedom and the values underpinning it around the world. We are going to stop causing harm by vacating the premises and allowing <i>real</i> bad guys to take over.</p>
<p>Former Brookings Institution scholar Michael Doran calls Obama’s obsession with making bad deals with rogue states his “white whale.”</p>
<p>“The president is dreaming of an historical accommodation with Iran. The pursuit of that accommodation is the great white whale of Obama’s Middle East strategy, and capturing it is all that matters; everything else is insignificant by comparison,” <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2014/08/13-doran-obama-middle-east-policy-danger-to-allies"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Doran wrote earlier this year.</span></a> “The goal looms so large as to influence every other facet of American policy.&#8221;</p>
<p>The ship of state is taking on water in Iraq? Let’s make a deal with Iran and hand it over to them. Afghanistan can’t stay afloat? Not to worry, Obama’s Iranian allies will come to the rescue.</p>
<p>There is only one thing Iran’s leaders can do to prevent Obama from rushing to conclude a deal with them that will allow them to develop a militarily-useful nuclear arsenal, impose their hegemony over the Persian Gulf, swallow up Lebanon and install their genocidal legions on the borders of Israel: they can just say no.</p>
<p>So far, that’s just what Khamenei has been doing. He has swallowed all the goodies Obama has offered without even saying thank-you. And Obama’s response has been to offer more.</p>
<p>Don’t think for an instant that cooler heads will prevail. They won’t. This president is determined to take America down, and he is pursuing that goal with all the single-minded intensity that Captain Ahab displayed in his chase for the white whale.</p>
<p>Will someone please wrench the harpoon out of his hands?</p>
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		<title>Obama’s Bailout for Communist Dictators</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-bailout-for-communist-dictators/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-bailout-for-communist-dictators</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2014 05:44:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Alan Gross]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why Americans will suffer for Obama’s dirty deal with Castro.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Getty_121013_ObamaCastro.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247703" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Getty_121013_ObamaCastro-416x350.jpg" alt="Mandela memorial service (30)" width="289" height="243" /></a>The Soviet Union did not have to fall. If Carter had won a second term and Mondale had succeeded him, the Communist dictatorship might have received the outside help it needed to survive.</p>
<p>And we would still be living under the shadow of the Cold War.</p>
<p>Carter couldn’t save the Soviet Union, but he did <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2011/04/02/jimmy_carter_charms_the_castro_brothers_in_havana/page/full"><span style="color: #0433ff;">his best to save Castro</span></a>, visiting Fidel and Raul in Cuba where the second worst president in American history described his meeting with Castro as a greeting among “old friends”.</p>
<p>Raul Castro called Carter “the best of all U.S. presidents.”</p>
<p>Obama’s dirty deal with Raul will make the worst president in American history, Castro’s new best friend.</p>
<p>Carter couldn’t save Castro, but Obama did. This was not a prisoner exchange. This was a Communist bailout.</p>
<p>Obama boasted that he would increase the flow of money to Cuba from businesses, from bank accounts and from trade. When he said, “We’re significantly increasing the amount of money that can be sent to Cuba”, that was his real mission statement.</p>
<p>The Castro regime is on its last legs. Its sponsors in Moscow and Caracas are going bankrupt due to failing energy prices. The last hope of the Butcher of Havana was a bailout from Washington D.C.</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what Obama gave him.</p>
<p>Obama has protected the Castros from regime change as if Communist dictators are an endangered species.</p>
<p>From the beginning, Obama put his foreign policy at the disposal of Havana when he backed Honduran leftist thug Manuel Zelaya’s attempt to shred its Constitution over the protests of the country’s Congress and Supreme Court. And its military, which refused to obey his illegal orders.</p>
<p>Obama’s support for an elected dictator in Honduras should have warned Americans that their newly elected leader viewed men like Zelaya favorably and constitutions and the separation of powers between the branches of government unfavorably. It also showcased his agenda for Latin America.</p>
<p>His embrace of Raul Castro brings that agenda out into the open even if he still insists in wrapping it in dishonest claims about “freedom” and “openness” while bailing out a Communist dictatorship.</p>
<p>Obama began his Castro speech with a lie, declaring, “The United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.”</p>
<p>The Cuban people have no relationship with the United States because they have no free elections and no say in how they are governed. The only Cubans who have a relationship with the United States fled here on rafts.</p>
<p>Obama did not make his dirty deal with the Cuban people. He made it in a marathon phone call with the Cuban dictator.</p>
<p>When Obama claims that his deal with Raul Castro represents a new relationship with the people of Cuba, he is endorsing a Communist dictatorship as the legitimate representative of the Cuban people.</p>
<p>This is a retroactive endorsement of the Castro regime and its entire history of mass murder and political terror. Obama is not trying to “open up” Cuba as he claimed. He likes Cuba just the way it is; Communist and closed.</p>
<p>Obama did not consult the Cuban people, just as he did not consult the American people. He disregarded the embargo, Congress, the Constitution and the freedom of the Cuban people.</p>
<p>His dictatorial disregard of the embargo, which can only be eliminated by Congress, in order to support a dictatorship, is a disturbing reminder that the road he is walking down leads to a miserable tyranny.</p>
<p>Cuban-American senators from both parties have been unanimous in condemning the move. These senators are the closest thing to Cuban elected officials. But Obama disregarded Senator Menendez, a man of his own party, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>Instead Obama chose to stand with Raul Castro and his Communist dictatorship.</p>
<p>Obama tried to whitewash his crime by exploiting Alan Gross, a USAID contractor who was imprisoned and abused by the Castro regime, as if the release of an American hostage justified helping the men holding him hostage stay in power. And the media, which was reprinting Castro’s propaganda claiming that Gross’ imprisonment was justified, is busy now pretending that it cares about his release.</p>
<p>He had similarly tried to whitewash his Taliban amnesty by using Bergdahl and his parents as cover. If a deal is struck with Iran, the release of Robert Levinson, Saeed Abedini or Amir Hekmati will almost certainly be used to divert attention from the fact that their own government has collaborated with the thugs and terrorists who took them hostage.</p>
<p>Even though Obama criticized European countries for paying financial ransoms to ISIS, his own ransom paid to the Castros is worth countless billions. And the blood money pouring out of American banks into the Castro regime will encourage other dictatorships to take Americans hostage as leverage for obtaining concessions from the United States. Americans abroad will suffer for Obama’s dirty deal.</p>
<p>No European country recognized ISIS in exchange for the release of hostages. Only Obama was willing to go that far with Cuba, not only opening diplomatic and economic relations, but promising to remove the Communist dictatorship from the list of state sponsors of terror despite the fact that the last State Department review found that Cuba continued to support the leftist narco-terrorists of FARC.</p>
<p>FARC had taken its own American hostages who were starved and beaten, tortured and abused.</p>
<p>Now Obama has <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cuba-demands-removal-from-list-of-state-sponsors-of-terrorism/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">given in to the demand of a state</span></a> sponsor of terror to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for releasing a hostage.</p>
<p>Obama has sent a message to Iran that the best way to secure a deal is by wrapping it in an American hostage. He has told ISIS that we do negotiate with terrorists. And he has once again demonstrated that his vaunted “smart power” is nothing more than appeasement wrapped in excuses and lies.</p>
<p>But Obama did not act to help Alan Gross. He did not even act because he genuinely thought that diplomatic relations would open up Cuba. In his speech, Obama used the claim commonly put forward by Castro apologists that the very fact that the Castros were still in power proved that sanctions had failed. Yet the lack of sanctions against Cuba by the rest of the world certainly did not usher in the new spirit of openness that Obama is promising. Rewarding dictators with cash never frees a nation.</p>
<p>This was not about saving Alan Gross. It was about saving Raul Castro.</p>
<p>Obama and Castro are both weakened leaders of the left. Like the Castros, Obama has lost international influence and his own people have turned on him. The only thing he has left is unilateral rule.</p>
<p>If Obama saw something of his own hopes and aspirations to engage in a populist transformation of the United States in Manuel Zelaya or Hugo Chavez, his horizons have narrowed down to those of Raul Castro. His ability to remake the world has vanished and the American people are revolting against his collectivization efforts. They want open health care markets, free speech and honest government.</p>
<p>Obama can no longer remake the Middle East, he certainly can’t bring the Soviet Union back from the dead, but he could still bail out Raul Castro and maintain Communist rule in Cuba.</p>
<p>No matter how often Obama claims to be “on the right side of history”, the Castros are a living reminder that to be on the left is to be on the wrong side of history.</p>
<p>Obama did not want to see the “Berlin Wall” fall in Havana on his watch. After watching his own grip on the United States collapse, he did not want to see the left fail again.</p>
<p>We can never know how history might have been different if Carter had gotten a second term or if Mondale had replaced Reagan. But Obama’s deal with Castro reminds us that the end of the USSR was not inevitable. It happened because we stood up against the tyrants in the Kremlin and their useful idiots in the White House.</p>
<p>A good man like Reagan could make a difference by bringing down the USSR. A bad man like Obama can make a difference by keeping Cuba Communist.</p>
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